Book review: Away 3D Cookbook (Packt Publishing)

I’ve read some book of Away3D and I miss a thing after read all of those books, The Cookbook. Why cookbook is so important? Because the approach is problem-solution, sometime we don’t want to read per part of a book just to look for our solution, we need immediate solution and that’s where cookbook is important. The only downside of cookbook is you need some knowledge of the topic a.k.a. not for very beginner. When I read Away 3D Cookbook, I just think this is not just a cookbook; this is a Complete Guide of Away3D.

Some of my proof that this is a Complete Guide:

• Many writer of 3D book think that you are able to operate 3D Modeling/Maker software, so they just write ‘save the model as…’ in 3DsMax, ‘export it’ from Blender, etc. But in this book, the writer also writes the basic steps to do it in 3D Modeling/Maker software with a screenshot (and this is what we need, screenshot).
• This book have specific sections and guide that you won’t get from basic/beginner book and that sections are :
• Prefab 3D
• Away3D Lite
• Using physics library with Away3D

• Do you want to create FPS game from Flash? Learn how to make and move FPS camera and make the controller here. Or maybe you want to create third-person view game? Learn how to use Spring Camera for the view in here.
• Begin to learn about Molehill API.

The Molehill API section is just about, ‘Molehill’, yeah ^_^. If you want a book about Away3D version 4, you need to wait for it (I think that it will be released after Adobe create final version of Flash Player 11). But the Molehill section in this book is very worth to read, if you learn about ‘raw’ Molehill, you also learn the concept of ‘raw’ 3D (OpenGL/DirectX) programming. And who knows if you already mastered it, maybe the Away3D team will offer you a position to involve more on Away3D v4 development.

So, if you want to learn more about Away3D, I suggest you to buy beginner book (or essential book) and this Away3D cookbook .