Papervision 3D, Local Connections and YouTube’s api create an exciting off the ground experience.
Client: Sandisk
Designed by the LoomisGroup
link: www.youtube.com/sandisk
The idea was to create a 3D like cloud that would allow the user to play in an infinite depth, panning and swirling through and endless collection of video thumbnails. This collection comes from the open YouTube api, and pulls specific lists created by Sandisk. Within the 3D environment, users have several option in navigation…from traditional drop down, to the creative card deck at middle stage. Utilizing GTween, I was able to leverage some very smooth animations and transitions. Papervision offered the 3D effect of the clouds, and good ol’ trigonometry gave me the the math to make things swing and move.
One thing that amazes me about Flash is how complex it can be to do somethings that are seemingly so simple. Papervision 3D utilizes bitmap redraws to achieve its smoother rendering of skewed/scaled images. YouTube/Google, will not allow a bitmap reproduction and the FlashPlayer security will not allow it. Unfortunately, it remains my little secret how I achieved that “fair play” solution . This project was full of the unexpected details that created very interesting out of the box solutions. Because Papervision 3D was the the main player in the development of the cloud, immediately it was apparent that we would need to utilize Flash’s Local Connection class to “talk” with the Actionscript2 player provided by YouTube…and visa versa. The solution would need callbacks to be translated and passed back and forth.
