STEP 01 building the object: THE CPU

Before we can animate anything in Flash, we need an object. The creation of 3D objects can be incredibly involved and complex. It's a challenging discipline and certainly beyond the capacity of this book. To keep things easy and get you up and running, I chose to show a simplified version of our CPU (used in an ad for a popular computer chip maker) and to quickly detail how it could be created in Dimensions.

The simplest way to begin is to think of the object as being made of basic, volumetric shapes ”referred to as primitives ”such as cubes, cylinders , cones, and spheres. With Dimension's Cube tool, we quickly created our object using four rectangular boxes as shown in figure 05:02.

Figure 05:02.

The object at this point is displayed in the axiometric view. This displays an object from the front, side, and top without perspective. Creating an object in a non-perspective view ensures that when perspective is enabled, the object will look correct in all views. Most modelers give you separate modes for the axiometric and perspective views. Dimensions, somewhat confusingly, puts them together in a single control: the Lens option in the Show Camera dialog, found under Window in the main menu. When Lens is set to 0, the object is in the axiometric view. Increasing the value of Lens puts the object into perspective.