Li : Dev Actionscript Development Blog

Away3D VectorText

The last few days I've been working together with the Away3D team on a feature that will allow the engine to render vector shapes in 3D space in a completely different way. Instead of subdividing an object into faces or triangles and then apply perspective deformations to them using bitmap fill methods, this method uses vector instructions such as lineTo or curveTo and applies 3D transformations to them. The result is vector shape primitives whose resolution is independent on size.

This is particularly useful for 3D text. By extracting glyf vector data from a TrueTypeFont (.ttf) file, the engine can show fonts very sharply at all time (click on the image to see it working). The usage is very simple. As a preview I would say that it's going to be something like this:

var text:TextField3D = new TextField3D("Hello Vectors!", "assets/arial.ttf");

scene.addChild(text);

This will be a very enjoyable feature for Away3D!! Expect to see it in an upcoming revision =)