I was searching for different open source projects (Sandy 3d, Papervision, Away3d) then came across http://alternativaplatform.com/en/ which really impressed me but it’s not open source(check out the demos). 3D in flash or java is definitely the future of the web (particularly with gaming).
The 3d in flash now seems as advanced as standalone applications that used directx or opengl 10 yrs ago.
I noticed an blender has an export to flash option, not sure what that does, will have to try it later.
I heard that adobe were considering giving flash a fully hardware accelerated 3D engine like the various other platforms that are out there now. Would be neat, but I dunno if they’ll do it. Wish there was a better way for people to embed 3D on the web. I want to include an actual 3D model on my website that would allow people to see my stuff in an interactive way. Right now the only method I’ve found that works for me is the 3Dvia plugin, since they handle the conversion and let you embed their player on your site.
I honestly can’t figure out why no one has thought of making a simple 3D viewer in flash. Just something that will load a model and let people spin it. Making a gif file at a decent res will kill my bandwidth and just sit there spinning, and most of the other solutions out there require plugins. Wish someone would just create a simple model viewer. Hell, I’d pay money for one if it was relatively easy to customize with an xml file or something.
Adobe will never integrate hardware-enable 3d solutions into flash - they already own an application which can do that. It’s called Director. If you can afford the outlay (i think the new version is around $900) it does pretty much exactly what you want - provides (at the beginner level) plenty of pre-packed behaviours which enable things like panning, rotating, zooming etc.
There are quite a few online, multi-player games running just using the Shockwave engine, which i’m told is available as a plugin on 60% of computers worldwide.