Flash glossary: 3D Rotation tool
Adobe Flash Professional allows you to create 3D effects by moving and rotating movie clips in 3D space on the Stage. Flash represents 3D space by including a z axis in the properties of each movie clip instance. You add 3D perspective effects to movie clip instances by rotating them around their x or y axis using the 3D Rotation tool. Once you have applied 3D rotation effects to a movie clip, Flash considers it a 3D movie clip and a colored axes indicator appears on top of the movie clip whenever it is selected.
To give the impression of an object that is at an angle to the viewer, rotate the movie clip around its z axis with the 3D Rotation tool. By using this tool in combination with the 3D translation tool, you can create realistic perspective effects.
Both the 3D Translation and 3D Rotation tools allow you to manipulate objects in global or local 3D space:
- Global 3D space is the Stage space. Global transforms and translations are relative to the Stage.
- Local 3D space is the movie clip space. Local transforms and translations are relative to the movie clip space. For example, if you have a movie clip containing several nested movie clips, local 3D transforms of the nested movie clips are relative to the drawing area inside the container movie clip.
The default mode of the 3D Translation and Rotation tools is global. To use them in local mode, click the Global toggle button in the Options section of the Tools panel.
To use the 3D capabilities of Flash, you must set the publish settings of your FLA file to Flash Player 10 and ActionScript 3. Only movie clip instances can be rotated or translated along the z axis.
To learn more about working with the 3D Rotation tool, see the article titled Exploring the new 3D features in Flash.
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