On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 2:48 PM, Hertenstein, David < hertenstei...@idea365.onmicrosoft.com> wrote:
> With Adobe obviously focusing on improving the runtime for the gaming > stuff, that in theory should be good for Flex if the new features can be > utilized by class updates in the framework right? I'm pretty knowledgeable > and familiar with Actionscript as it has matured over the years, but not as > much with the inner workings of the Flex source, but from my understanding > hopefully I'm on the right track there. > > With Flex being focused primarily on data driven apps, as opposed to > custom applications (games) would it be possible to create some new Flex > components that utilize Stage3D? I know there are some simple controls that > have been built using starling, feathers UI, but I imagine the same > technique used there could be applied to Flex components. Also maybe there > could be some Flex components related more to the 3D context itself. My > understanding is that the display list which is the normal 2D graphic > pipeline sits on top of an underlying 3D context that is initialized but > maybe Flex could be useful in adding some interoperability between the two. > So possibly a set of components that renders out to the 3D stage as opposed > to the display list. That might be a little too abstract of a description > but it would be great if there were not only components to create stage3D > contexts in a Flex application (I think that you are supposed to be able to > have multiple contexts in a single application), but also to be able to > pass in something to a context via a flex component. So the component would > initialize the context and make sure it's visible and size it etc, but then > you could nest things in the component in order to control the innards of > the context itself. > > Just a few thoughts, but these are the kinds of things that I imagine in > terms of Flex maybe being able to utilize new features from the runtime as > they come out, besides the cross compiling work. > > David, you are indeed on the right track. This is effectively the approach I am experimenting with, currently. Although, Stage3D is all a bit new to me and it is taking a while for me to get accustomed to working with those APIs. One thing I realized was that to have any chance of success, we need to re-write a lot of existing Flex code or start from scratch with this approach. Luckily, Alex has started working on his new ASJS framework - essentially re-imagining the Flex framework. I hope to follow him and see how much I can abstract the display list rendering out and use Stage3D instead. If you are subscribed to d...@flex.apache.org, please look out for more emails about this approach in the future. Unfortunately, with the Installer, Mustella CI, OneClickMustella etc. related work, I dont have a lot of bandwidth currently, but I hope to make some time soon. If you are interested, you could come join the fun! Thanks, Om
