The most powerful feature of the 3DBox is the "advanced live preview". It allows you to see the final picture of the 3D component directly in the Flash editor. Let's see how useful it is.
1. Start a new Flash MX movie. Save it as 'simple.fla'.
2. Copy the file called '3D BoxLive.swf', that was included with your download, and paste it in the same folder where you just saved 'simple.fla' . This file is necessary for the advanced live preview to work in Flash MX 2004. You do not need to upload the '3D BoxLive.swf' file when you publish your site. It is used for the design process only.
3. Change the FPS to 30 for smoother 3D motion (advisable for all movies in this tutorial).
4. Create a new MovieClip. Give it a name and linkage name 's1' as shown below.
5. Add any content into the 's1'
movieclip. Let's take a vector shape from the basic tutorial but add a static
text field on top of it.
6. In the same way that you created the 's1' movieclip, create another 5 movieclips with linkage names: 's2', 's3', 's4', 's5', 's6', and change the digit in their static text fields respectively (from '2' to '6'). This way we will have six different sides from which we'll create the box.
7. Go back to your main timeline and drag an instance of the 3DBox component from the Components Panel and drop it onto the stage.
8. You should now compile your movie (create an swf file). You can do this simply by testing your movie inside of Flash (Ctrl-Enter on Windows or Alt-Enter on Mac). This should be done after adding the 3DBox component to your movie but before you enter the movieclip names in the content field of the 3DBox properties. This is necessary in order to share the library objects for the live preview.
9. Click in the 'content' text field and enter the 6 movieclip linkage names separated by commas:
Troubleshooting: if you don't see the box on the stage:
a. If you see only an empty
dashed lined rectangle:
Check the path to the swf file (page 3 of the 3D Box properties).
Try to recompile your movie and then press "Get last compiled swf file name".
b. You see no
dashed line at all - the file "3D BoxLive.swf" is
lost. Copy the "3D BoxLive.swf" into the same folder as 'simple.fla'.
If everything is correct you should see something like this:
Test your movie again to check that the final movie looks the same.
Try drag and spin the box with your
mouse to check that the 3D engine is working correctly.
Note: You can change the dimensions of the component preview area by using the Free Transform Tool, however this does not change the dimensions of the 3D object itself. To change the dimensions of the 3D object, use the 'scale' property in the 3DBox properties panel.