Flash Player 11 Incubator Demos
At RMC Consulting, we love games. I’ve been playing games for 30 years and coding them for 15. As a Flash enthusiast I’m incredibly excited (and intimidated) with Flash Player’s latest improvements. The bar has been raised. Again.
Adobe Labs has released Flash Player 11 (Codename Incubator) as a pre-release. Those who are interested can start coding with it too. If you (more)-simply want to checkout some of the features that are coming in the next version of the Flash Player you can try out some early, yet impressive demos from the community
NOTE: You must download Incubator to run these great demos. (Or you can watch some Youtube.com videos of the same stuff).
So far adobe is championing 3 new features of the Player. A quick explanation of each and a list of all the demos I could find are below.
1) Molehill – 3D APIs for Flash Player and AIR
What is it?: Molehill 3D APIs for Flash Player and AIR. A new set of low-level, GPU-accelerated 3D APIs that enable advanced 3D experiences across devices through the Adobe Flash Platform run-times.
Why Care: : These API’s expose RIDICULOUSLY high-quality 3D rendering happening on the HARDWARE of your machine instead of software-rendering. This means quality, 3D that competes well with other 3D plugins such as Unity3D (Fantastic Tool BTW).
2-Cents: Its called “Molehill” because it will not expose easy-to use functionality for the mass-development audience. Instead it will release VERY low level API’s in the Flash Player. API’s which dedicated 3rd party teams such as PaperVision, Alternativa, and others will use to create a “Mountain” (functional tools) from this “Molehill” (low level API’s useless to most of us). If you are expert enough to dig in, great, go for it! I will wait for those great teams to update their easy(er) to use API’s for me. Alternativa is looking particularly promising.
COMPLETE GAMES
- Zombie Tycoon – Wow!
2D DEMOS (USING GPU)
- A-Amazing! 6000 Sprites!
- Group of Blue Characters – With GPU (Flash 11 style) and Without GPU (Flash 10 style)
This is my favorite demo (as a 2D game designer, that is).
3D DEMOS
- Alternativa Platform Demos – Including Max Racer!
- Away3D “Realistic Head” – Very Impressive!
- Away3D “Metal Head”
- Away3D “Spinning Head”
- Sofie3D Demo
- Away3D “Water” Demo
- Away3D – “Cartoon Shaded Ducks”
- Full Away3D Links – Thanks Away3D!
- Monster List of Even More Demos I
- Monster List of Even More Demos II – Thanks TheFlashBlog!
Editorials & Thoughts
- How Fast Is Molehill? – Great article.
How-To – Develop TODAY with Flash Player 11
2)Cubic Bezier Curves
What is it?: Using the cubicCurveTo drawing API, developers can easily create cubic Beziers without requiring custom ActionScript code.
Why Care: I have no idea.
2-Cents: This new feature is probably important to someone. I am not that person.
DEMOS
- None
Got More Demos?
Please post a comment with any other cool links!
