Welcome to Papervision2.com, This is the very first tutorial which will walk you through getting the tools required, and the source code for Papervision 2.0a.
Getting an IDE
There are various intergrated development enviroments available. The most widely used IDE for developing Papervision is Adobe Flex 2. You can get a 30-day free trial of Flex, or you can buy it. The downside of this is that it’s expensive.
There is a free alternative if you are running windows. The kind people over at FlashDevelop have created a completley free IDE which coupled with the Flex 2 SDK, can be used as a completley free alternative to Adobe Flex. I’ll walk through the steps to install FlashDevelop below.
Downloading FlashDevelop and the Flex SDK
The first thing you need to do is download the Flex SDK from the Adobe website.
You can download it using this direct link:
Flex 2 SDK (38.1 Mb)
You now need to download a build of FlashDevelop from their website.
I will be using version 3.0.0 Beta5 in my tutorials, but it shouldn’t matter which version you choose.
You can download the version that I have using this direct link:
FlashDevelop 3.0.0 Beta5 (3.43Mb)
Installing FlashDevelop
Note: This installation requires the Java Runtime Environment version 1.6. If you don’t have this, download it here:
http://filehippo.com/download_java_runtime/
Firstly, double click on the FlashDevelop installer. You should see the setup screen:
Click Next, read and agree with the License agreement, then you will be presented with this page:
I ticked the box to allow me to run multiple instances of the application, this is completley up to you.
Click Next, then Install.
FlashDevelop is now installed on your system. You still need to set it up with the Flex SDK to be able to use it to develop Papervision 3d.
Installing the Flex SDK
Firstly, you need to extract the files from the Flex SDK zip file that you downloaded.
I extracted all of the files to “C:\FlexSDK\” but you can extract them where you like.
Run FlashDevelop. From the menu at the very top of the application, click on Tools, then from the pull-down menu, Select “Program Settings“. You will now have the FlashDevelop settings window on your screen.
In the left hand list, click on “AS3Context“
In the right hand pane, you will see a list of settings. Find the “Flex SDK Location” setting and click into the box to the right.
A button will appear on the right with three dots in it. Click on the three dots and select the folder which you extracted the Flex SDK files into. Make sure that you select the folder which contains the subfolders “asdoc, bin, frameworks” etc.
Click Ok in the folder selection box, then Close in the Settings dialog.
If you are running Mac OSX, you might want to try out working with TextMate and fcsh.
http://noahlittle.wordpress.com/2007/09/09/flex-and-actionscript-3-with-textmate-and-fcsh/
Thanks David!
Looks like it will be a great help to those who are on Macs :)
-Luke
You need to install Microsoft.NET 2.0 runtime before installing FlashDevelop.
Lets say i dont want to use FLEX SDK and i have flash cs3 , and i want to make complex flash sites and just implement papervision3d components like interactive 3d thumbnails , can you explain how can i use fashDevelop and flash cs3 instead of flex sdk
hi: even though I am using flex 3, these tutorials have been very helpful. small differences, but it still works.
I am trying to figure out the workflow between setting up my projects using an AS3 compiler and then using Flash CS3; In looking at the AS3 mouse3d example, i could go this route, but i really like the structure you have started here by using a PaperBase.as then modifing an application page..
can you advise how i might do the as3 coding in one ide then use flash for another. i am going to post this on the list as well.
again, thanks for the help.
umm.. very easy.. seems, i just need to set my class path in the publish settings or drop the PaperBase.as and .as into the project folder and declare the document class as my and all works fine.. infact better.
can u plz tell me how can i do these things using flash cs3, i’m a newcomer to this and it’ll b very helpful
do i need to install this flex sdk in order to do these tutorials and /or make use of this paperbase class in my as3/papervision? help! noob here,, and thanx.
Also, i am completely clueless as to how to set up my files, including dae.files which do i put where in order for flash cs3/papervision to be able to find/use them eficiently? thanx again
Hi everyone,
first of all: great tutorials! i got everything run perfectly on my work-machine. lovely! lovely! but at home i got some problems installing the flex sdk. i have installed flashdevelop 3 beta 7 and downloaded the sdk from your link. the as3-properties-link is set to c:\FlexSDK but i couldn’t start a new as3-project :( it is not available in the list :( as2-projects aren’t visible too. why? any ideas? (i got flash8 installed, not flash cs3)
ciao,
websta
Hey. What is the different between Papervision 2 and Papervision3D?
thanks, david,
this page is very useful for me :)
I have Flex 3 Builder. I’ll presume all things the same for the Flex 2 IDE described above. Is there anyone else working in Flex 3? Any modifications or suggestions?
is there any copyright issue if I used this technology for commercial?
Come on with the flex IDE! The geeks have destroyed flash enough. I mean I spend all this money on the flash IDE and you guys make something that only work in Flex. Man site after site its like this. Can you guys get it together. Why would anyone want to have flash then buy flex or as your great alternative…download flashDev on flex sdk. What ever happen to ease of use? Thanks guy!
Just wanted to second Joe’s sentiments completely. I was psyched to find this site until I saw the requirements to abandon Flash. Sorry, there’s been enough change to the platform over the last couple of years.
You don’t have to abandon flash. All of these projects works well with flash with just some simple tweaks. If you have one that you really want to see and have it compiled directly in flash I will be more than happy to create that and post it. :)
The reason for using FlashDevelop is that it just happen to have compilers that are light years ahead of the Flash IDE. Also it’s free.
Charlie
Charlie, please do show us how to set up a Flash / Papervision eg.
There is some magic packaging involved to get it up. To put a Papervision animation within a MovieClip? What does the following mean as a class anomation?
[SWF ( width = '640', height = '480', backgroundColor = '#ffffff',
frameRate = '31' ) ]
Incidentally, I’ve never *really* understood the difference between Flash and Flex (beyond the obvious different markets). Two editors and two runtime libraries and object models that are incompatiblle but both happen to run on the binary .swf?
Anthony
The latest version of FlashDevelop can be found here:
http://www.flashdevelop.org/community/viewforum.php?f=11
As of 2009-08-07 the latest build is “3.0.2 RTM”
The latest Flex SDK is 3.3
http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/flexdownloads/
Why would you not include information on setting the classpaths in this document? The info you have here is pretty basic. That being said, this did help be get started. Thanks!