We would like to proudly introduce another new version of Esquimo. The new 1.3 version is based on Molehill and at last, supports GPU acceleration. Molehill API was introduced with the Flash Player 11 which is required to play SWFs created with Esquimo 1.3. GPU rendering allows to raise the bar in terms of performance. Thanks of that Esquimo is capable of displaying way more complex scenes, high quality textures including alpha channel and more realistic lighting.

We also added a few new features:

• - cartoon shader
• - dynamic lights ( up to 6 ), work with textured objects too
• - smooth shading mode
• - blending modes for transparent objects: normal and add
• - PNG alpha channel support
• - points as another layer for surface

Give it a try, download the demo version.

Next version of Esquimo will fully support Stage 3D flash funcionality (GPU usage). Mentioned release we will add few improvements in Surface section. One of new things is "cartoon" shader. Each separate object may have assigned different shader so you can display object with different surface style within one scene. Cartoon shader works well both with high and low poly objects though has a limit - it applies to one side surface only.

Watch a movie with test of beta version of the shader. You can also check the realtime playing SWF in Molehill Zone.

The tutorial shows the overall process of building the webpage that displays 3d model of joystick. The model can be rotating on the webpage with drag&drop method thanks of using "Presentation" camera added in version 1.2 of Esquimo. The joystick also reacts when mouse is over one of its controllers - example of using Esquimo built-in events and API. Finally all the parts are assembled in one simple HTML page.

Enjoy the lecture !

There is a chance to have Esquimo 3D for free. Follow FlashMove in Twitter before 8th August. FlashMove is a forum/blog about flash and just celebrate its 9th anniversary. You can also win iPad2 in the anniversary contest. Check www.flashmove.com for more info.

We have been preparing another release of Esquimo simultaneously develop its Molehill version. There is no public release yet, but you can check some of the examples.

For those who haven't heard yet - Molehill is new technology that Adobe implements in new Flash Player version (numbered from 11) which is cabale of using power of GPU for rendering 3D scenes. That's in short. You can read more on Adobe Labs website.

We are in a test phase with new FP11 and want to establish what we can afford with new 3d API and adjust parameters limits, add some more advanced objects maybe. Though until Flash player 11 will be released we will more focus on expanding general functionality of Esquimo. We currently work over new extended events system. 

We have just finished work over a few useful features and several minor improvement so we have decided to release a new version of our main product. What is new in version 1.1:

• geometry import including textures. Currently Esquimo recognises 3DS, LWO and STL formats
• grouping - you can join a bundle of selected objects into a group which might be manipulated and animated as a single object. Members of the group can be animated individually
• reference bitmap in extrude editor - makes easier to draw a contour for Linear/Radial extrude objects
• PNG format support
• several UI improvements - object's name change after double click, dragging view when space bar is held down and some other small things that allow you to create you animation faster

Check out our online manual for more details about new features.

If you already purchased Esquimo you can upgrade to version 1.1 for free.

We have launched Tutorials section with 2 new tutorials. The first one is about making simple looped 3d animation and embedding it in the web page so that some HTML element will be partialy covering it. The second one shows step by step how to make 3d interactive map based on reference image. It says among others about geometry creation using Linear extrude - Esquimo bulit in object and shows sample usage of Esquimo events.

Enjoy reading !

After 2,5 years of work we finished the first version of software, which hopefully will constitute another step in application of 3D graphics on websites. Currently, webmasters who want to decorate their websites by 3D graphics are forced to use the video animation, often increasing page load time pretty much. Those, who are familiar with ActionScript in higher than primary level may be tempted to use the 3D frameworks. They are quite powerful, but the time of creation process will be incomparably higher than in the case of usage of editor with a graphical user interface.

We wanted to create a product that would bypass these inconveniences. In Esquimo, the simple animation can be created in a few minutes. The product is a SWF file played by flash player of Adobe company in a minimum version of 10. The output file contains its own graphics engine, and calculates the graphics in real time. Thanks to that, the SWF files often take up no more than 40 kB.

Esquimo is the product of a development. We have plenty of ideas for new features and we intend to realize them gradually. Of course, between successive major version the registered users will upgrade further versions for free. For now, we invite you to play with a test version of Esquimo