I am currently in the R&D phase of a large project, we need to have 3D and 2D layers interspersed amongst each other.
I was hoping to use Away3D 4 for the 3D and was wondering if anyone had any insight into getting Starling and Away3D to use the same Stage3D instance.
I have not tried it, but I don't think it will be possible if they use the same Stage3D instance. But in theory those instances should be layered on top of each other, don't they? Then we'd just need to make the Starling stage transparent. (You can easily try that out by modifying the call to 'clear' in Starling.as.)
It seems that stage3d transparent property is removed in the final release of the flash player 11... Thus you cannot blend one stage3d with away3d with one stage3d with starling.
I made a quick test and was able to see starling sample on top of away3d sample with correct blending by:
- Ensuring away3d is called before starling by initializing away3d first
- Removing all calls to Context3d.present() in away3d
- Removing mSupport.clear(mStage.color, 1.0) in Starling render function
This ensures that away3d rendering is still there when you start Starling rendering.
It works but I am not sure of the impact of this hack on away3d...
That sounds perfectly fine. In fact, that's the way to do it. I don't think there would be any problems. They're just triangles and textures. I am going to be working on this shortly and will post update.
http://blog.flash-core.com/?p=899
And nope there are few more steps laurent forgot, for example last frame shader storing etc. which Away3D implements to minimize rebinding and therefore will render incorrectly if not disabled.
I have seen the above example and am very interested in implementing something similar. Unfortunately my skill level is not as high as others and I'm not sure how to do so.
Is there anyone willing to share how to integrate Starling or Genome2D with Away3D? Or, is someone able to detail how to approach this using a high level/simple explanation?
Thank you!
Based on the few things I've found others saying I was able to get Starling on top of Away3D, with mobile support. It is modifying the cores so hopefully it's integrated at some point.
1. Create Away3D View3d first and addChild.
2. Make sure the View3D has a background. Not sure why this is neccesary.
var bkgBitmapTexture:BitmapTexture = new BitmapTexture(bkgBitmapData);
view.background = bkgBitmapTexture;
3. Create Starling with the same context as Away3D.
mStarling = new Starling(Game, stage, viewPortRectangle, stage.stage3Ds[0]);
4. Modify starling/core/Starling.as and comment out "RenderSupport.clear(mStage.color, 1.0);" in render().
5. Modify away3d/containers/View3D.as and comment out "_stage3DProxy._context3D.present();" in render().
6. Modify away3d/core/render/RendererBase.as and comment out "if (_swapBackBuffer && !target) _context.present();" in executeRender();
I'm not sure where to find the "last frame shader storing" referred to by sHTiF. Does anybody know where that is?
afrosquared its in the Stage3DProxy class in setProgram method, just mark this line:
if (_activeProgram3D == program3D) return;
What it does is assumes that last shader used was one binded by Away3D which is not true since you execute Starling shaders on top of it. Maybe thats why you needed the background for View3D as it obviously switches shaders and would solve the rebinding for you instead 
Thanks sHTiF. That did the trick. No longer needs the view.background.
Just a note if you mark it up it will always rebind not only at frame start. So a more complex solution would be preferred, something like setting _activeProgram3D to null at the start of each frame instead but for a quick fix this is enough.
Awesome, thank you both afrosquared and sHTiF for being willing to share! Is it safer to override the setProgram method instead of altering the SDK? Or is the only possible way to alter the code?
@afrosquared when you say use the same context, does that mean the instance of Stage3D?
Sorry...I just read the line below it - never mind!
It looks like the workaround I used is creating depth problems in Away3D. It's almost like the z-order is reversed. When I add 2 planes, one behind the other, and move the camera around, it puts the plane that should be in back on top and vice-versa.
I noticed the post at http://away3d.com/forum/viewthread/1131/. That might be a better forum for a "depth" workaround.
Found the depth problem. You also need to set Starling to use enableDepthAndStencil to true. Change /starling/core/Starling.as, updateViewPort(), line to...
mContext.configureBackBuffer(mViewPort.width, mViewPort.height, mAntiAliasing, true);
Big thanks afrosquared!
I've got a post going with code on the Away3D forums. I've just modified it to include your fix. For anyone interested, the post is here:
http://away3d.com/forum/viewthread/2410/
I can get the code to compile, and have actually added a button in Starling since then, but the button isn't visible. So I've still got a long way to go I think - but I'm closer thanks to your help.
ok, i did these steps:
1. Create Away3D View3d first and addChild.
2. Make sure the View3D has a background. Not sure why this is neccesary.
var bkgBitmapTexture:BitmapTexture = new BitmapTexture(bkgBitmapData);
view.background = bkgBitmapTexture;
3. Create Starling with the same context as Away3D.
mStarling = new Starling(Game, stage, viewPortRectangle, stage.stage3Ds[0]);
4. Modify starling/core/Starling.as and comment out "RenderSupport.clear(mStage.color, 1.0);" in render().
5. Modify away3d/containers/View3D.as and comment out "_stage3DProxy._context3D.present();" in render().
6. Modify away3d/core/render/RendererBase.as and comment out "if (_swapBackBuffer && !target) _context.present();" in executeRender();
and...
if (_activeProgram3D == program3D) return;
and i got starling + stage3D, with starling at the top and transparent PNG's support for each one (away & starling).
Thanks for this info.
Thanks for the info too.. I've applied these changes
to a fork on github if anyone wants them :
https://github.com/jamieowen/Starling-Framework
https://github.com/jamieowen/away3d-core-fp11
This all seems to work OK... being pretty new to this... is there a way to get away3D to sit in front of starling?
See Daniel's comment in this topic:
http://forum.starling-framework.org/topic/starling-away3d-within-the-same-ios-air-application
There is now a more officially supported way of getting Starling to share a context with another stage3D library like Away3D if you use the very latest sources and use the 'shared context' mode. Daniel mentions he will be documenting this soon.
You must log in to post.
