What do you think about Sandy ?
November 29th, 2005 by Kiroukou :: en :: RSS 2.0Since we released the first version of Sandy, we have really few feedbacks … Is there a major reason for that, or is it just normal for open source projects ? At the beginning, I was afraid to have too many feedbacks and I wanted a private BETA, but Niko convinced me to make a public release, and we released a public ALPHA to get as much feedbacks as possible. I’ve to say he was right So I would like you to know that if this project sounds interesting, please say it We worked hard on this first version to provide a good engine different of all others available on the web. Should I think that we are far from something interesting?
I know that a lot of developers want to launch their own 3D engine. I can’t do anything to change that even if it’s a waste of time. It would be smart to help us to get the best engine ever. I hope that other people try Sandy, and report the problems they have.
I can imagine few reasons for that :
- https and the warning error is frightening you?
- You have some difficulties to download the source?
- Provided examples aren’t enough to begin with Sandy?
- The documentation is horrible, and you can’t have the information you want?
- The API is too strange and you don’t understand how it works?
- You don’t know where/how to make a feedback?
If you can leave a comment explaining in which category you are, encountered problems etc. it would be really cool Thomas
I’m really excited by what you are doing and I will definitely be following this project. What I’ve seen so far looks really good and runs well. I’ll have to have a play with the alpha myself. Keep up the good work!
The only criticism is my English is better than my French, so it can be a bit difficult trying to read some of the material on the site. More english would be good
Je répond en FR.
-, j’ai d’ailleurs déjà posté quelques questions dans les commentaires de ce blog.
Je suis Sandy – du verbe suivre
Ce que je peux t’en dire. Le projet est tres intéressant et complexe. Faut avoir le temps de matter les sources et eventuellement de faire des petites expérimentations avec.
– L’erreur https c’est un peu genant , mais bon, faut pas exagerer.
– Un truc qui etait bien avec le gamepackage de AM, c’était que tu avais un zip du dernier package disponible et facilement telechargeable. Si vous aviez un lien direct sur la partie gauche du blog, ce serait super pratique.
– L’autre tuc, par exemple, pour le cube mappé avec la webcam. Tu mets le code, mais si tu mettais le zip tout pret, ce serait beaucoup plus facile. On a tout de suite le reflexe de download, deziper et compiler. Enfin je pense.
Je ne sais pas si tu as fait un peu de pub sur les grosses liste, genre osflash et figleaf. Mais ça ça te ramenerait bcp de monde je pense.
Hi! Great work guys! I’m not only interested, but I check the site every day to see if there are any updates. I’m sorry I havn’t given any feedback before. I know how hard it is working on a speculative project. So, here’s my feedback.
– I did have problems downloading the source, but I’m very persistant, and eventually got it.
– There wasn’t much documentation, but at this stage, I don’t think you need more. After a few hours messing around with it, I was able to figure things out.
– The API isn’t strange at all. In fact, I’ve already extended it with a custom Primitive3D, Skin, and Face.
– For some reason, I assumed you’d be getting barraged with feedback.:P
ADVICE
1) keep plugging away. Attention will increase once someone has developed something with your engine. Which they will. I know I will.
2) Add camera movement! It’s basicly the only thing I’m waiting for.:P As we speak, I’m messing up the source badly trying to do it myself.
3) When adding features, remember flash’s limitations. It’s never going to compete with C++ engines. For example, favour optimizations for movieclip billboards with a single tranform point that corrisponds to the movieclip’s center point. It should be able to handle randering alot of these before taking a serious performance hit (especially if they are just moved around and scaled instead of recreated as movieclips every render). Also think more about primitives that utilize flash’s drawTo and fill functions instead of thinking about bmp skins. In some cases, transforming curve points is cheaper than building tons of tri3D objects. You also may want to reconsider enforcing World3D as a singleton. For example, if someone has a fairly flat terrain layer, they may only want to re-render it when the camera moves, or when an object moves behind a hill. Or, maybe all terrain features are billboards anyway, and the terrain is flat like a RISK style boardgame – so really, it could be a seperate 3D world that always sits behind.
Anyway… some stuff for you to think about.
HTTPS is boring when accessing the RSS feed… You always have to confirm that you want to access it, and it freezes the Feed Aggregator you’re using (at least Thunderbird).
However, I still aggregate it !
Wow cool some comments
10x guys there are some good information here !
Mark > Ok for the french on the website
Anyway the site will change soon I think to have something more appropriate, and everything in english 
John > I answer in english
Good idea for the last zip downadabler via the blog! I will add it in the next website. About the zip for the webcam texturing you’ve right too, but since it’s present in the tests folder of the source zip I thought it wasn’t usefull :S
Jim > Really good comment
You’ve pointed some important things such as working with movieclips ! I have the same point of view and last week I was asking [Niko] and thecaptain (others sandy developpers) what they thought about that. The major thing is how to integrate it correctly in our engine (since we don’t render it in the same way, and Z-sorting getting more complex). I have some ideas, but I need to test it !
I’ve some maths problems to solve before doing the implementation, but I’m sure that it will available soon 
About the camera movements, I’m thinking on it
I’m very interessted by your primitives
I hope to add more in the next release, maybe I can add yours.
Quentin > Do you know that the blog is available at this adress : dev.media-box.net/sandy/ ? without the https ? maybe this can solve your problem
Thanks again for your comments, you should never hesitate to post anymore
Thomas
Keep going guys, I’m working on producing a public sofware and I will need a 3D motor for flash, I’m not a programmer so I’m verry interested with your developpement. I think that you have a demo version alpha but
I’m unable to download it. You give me and adress for the examples that was cool, but is it possible to see the demo?
Hi Hec, sorry I did not see you request :s
you can find them here : lesitekilestbien.free.fr/…
But also on the svn on the trac website : dev.media-box.net/sandy/t…
I recommend to use the svn, it’s more simple to use. But the system will become easier soon, certainly for 2006
i did gave some feedback
i was planing to use sandy to build some kind of 3d interface, but since clicking on primitives isnt yet possible, all i can do is to anxiously wait for this feature.
thank you for your hard work.
regards
Yes right Cornel, I remember your post on OSFlash
The possibility to click on objects will come in the next release ! It’s a feature we forgot to think on, a huge mistake
As you might have understand, Sandy’s developpers don’t have much time right now to continue the project. But before January you’ll have an at least 0.2 release, a forum in english and a website.
And I have a lot of ideas for the 0.2 just waiting time to being coded
And remember to tell us wich kind of problems or missing feature you have with sandy.
Thomas
Hi,
I just downloaded Sandy a few days ago. It was a little bit intimidating at first, since it’s by far the most object-oriented Flash code I’ve ever seen. I’m quickly getting used to it, though. The comments are helpful, and the code is clean and well-organized and documented. I find Sandy to be very impressive in its set of features, which are comparable to those in Shockwave 3D. I will be excited to watch the development of Sandy. I would like to use Sandy for a realtime 3D Flash game. I have a need to be able to directly manipulate vertexes. For instance, I would like to be able to return the instance name and the location of the vertex on one primitive, and to snap the vertex of another primitive to together to the vertex of the first primitive. I.e., by attaching the vertexes of two primitives, it would allow me to form a kind of hinge. I would code in some collision detection. I have not yet been able to figure out an easy way to do this, but I just started looking through the class library. Would you recommend looking at how the NTestParseur example works? I just looked at this example in the middle of tying this message, and I think it might possibly give me enough information to figure out what I need to know.
Once I downloaded the examples, some of them would not run because they could not find the classes to import. I copied and pasted the mb folder inside of the tests folder, and then this problem cleared up. When I run simple_rotation_textured.swf, nothing happens. All I see is a blank movie screen. Some movies run fine from the swf version, but not when trying to test the fla file. Flash will lock up sometimes when I try to test the fla file. My processor will go ujp to 100%. I’m using Windows XP on a 1.99 GHz PC with 1 GB of RAM. There are also a few swf movies that will not let me run them. They give me the error message "cannot open a protected movie".
This probably sounds very negative, but I have been able to run a lot of examples, and they have been very impressive compared to everything else that I have seen in Flash 3D. The more you try to do, the more risks you take, the more things can and will go wrong. That’s to be expected. It’s all free, so I’m not complaining. I like the sunflower skin on one of the examples. That was cool
I just downloaded the examples again, in case my zip file got corrupted as I downloaded it the first time or in case I altered any of the files by trying to open them in Flash MX 2004 the first time I tried them. Using the freshly downloaded examples, I’m able to run simple_rotation_textured.swf. I still get the message "cannot open a protected movie" when trying to run test5.swf, test6.swf, test7.swf, test8.swf and test9.swf. Test8.swf was a little different. I got some messages in the output window before I got the error message. The first message in the output window said, "The class or interface ‘mx.event.EventDispatcher’ could not be loaded."
Never mind about my question on how to get at vertexes. I see now that primitive classes have an aPoints array of vertexes.
Hi Jennifer
The public property seems quite dangerous, but in the same time gives an easy access to make some really good effects
Well you’ve found the good solution for having access to vertex
About you problems with tests files, it’s becauses .fla files are Flash8 fla ! So you can’t open them with Flash MX 2004. It’s our fault, I I will consider this for the next release
Otherwise you must have the flash8 player to see swf with texture things ! Other examples can be exported in Flash6 or 7, but not when you want to texture with a Bitmap.
I hope you’ll have some fun with our library (thanks for your nice comments btw). With the 0.2 which is coming, you will be really happy I hope
Hi, I have downloaded Flash 8 and have been using it to try to test the fla files. I am able to run the fla file for simple_rotation_textured. I just tried to test the one for test4.fla, and I let it run longer this time. I finally got the error message "not enough memory available". Maybe the problem is that I need more RAM on my PC. Now I have an excuse to upgrade it
Can’t wait to see release of 0.2 
I’m sure gonna try this sandy-thing and will let you know about how did I feel. It looks great though