Let’s get started!

Prerequisite:

You will need to download following software to be able to realize this tutorial:

1. Blender 2.5 (http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/)
2. Unity 3D 3.5 (will also work on 3.4.2) (http://unity3d.com/unity/download/)
3. Autodesk FBX Converter (http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=10775855)

Good knowledge of UV Unwrap and modeling with Blender, but don’t panic you will be able to download the final textured files.

Step 1: Open Blender and build a simple 3D model

This won’t be the house of your dream, but just a simple grungy 3D house.

As you will see our house is composed by two objects: the roof (I’ve simplified it) and the building part that will contain windows and a door.

Select the object (let’s say the roof) and go into Edit Mode and UV Unwrap to get the single unwrapped texture. Depending on your model, you will need to put some seams in order to get a nice unwrap. Save the unwrapped parts as a picture and edit it in your favorite painting program like Photoshop.

You will have these two textures:

Texture 1: a door, a wall and two windows

Texture 2: the roof (very simplified!)

After a few minutes of modeling and texturing, our nice house is finished. To polish your textures you can apply a small blur on it and put some shadows in order to give more volume. This trick is used in almost every 3D game you’ve played.

Note: For the purpose of this tutorial I have built a house with two textures. Why? To show one option you shouldn’t miss when exporting out of Blender.

House model in Blender

Step 2: Export preparation

So now we have finished modeling our house. In order to simplify the export and the import into Unity 3D, I always remove the Lamp and the Camera from the Blender scene.

Notice the removed lamp and camera

Now go into Object Mode and select (Shift + Right Mouse Button) the roof and the building part. You have now selected each object of the scene thus forming the house.

All objects (geometries) are selected (roof and building)

Step 3: Blender export with the FBX format

I use to export my Blender under the FBX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBX) format because it’s one of the input formats of Unity 3D along with 3DS and other ones. By the way FBX can also be used by the Microsoft XNA SDK (a framework for building XBox and Windows games) or even with the newest Adobe Flash Molehill frameworks (http://www.mixamo.com/adobe-molehill). If you are interested check this webpage: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/aa937791, so you can import your 3D monster, house or whatever you’ve modeled with Blender directly into your game conception environment. Nice isn’t it?

Let’s continue: check that your have correctly selected all objects of your house. Go to File -> Export -> Autodesk FBX

Autodesk FBX export option in Blender

A window will open and there are some parameters to check and uncheck. Here is how your Blender export panel should look like:

FBX export settings in Blender 2.5

Give a name to your file (house.fbx) and press on Export. Voilà now you have your house in FBX format.

Step 4: Autodesk FBX Converter

Now you will ask yourself: hey why do we need to reconvert our house.fbx in *.fbx format again with the Autodesk FBX Converter? Good question! The problem is if you are going to import it into Unity3D you won’t get any texture on your house and it will look grey and not very nice, because Unity won’t be able to know where your texture files are saved and will not automatically import them…

Oh… no texture in Unity 3D Don't panic there's a solution!

What we are going to do with the Autodesk FBX Converter is to embed the media. To make it short we are packaging all our textures and our 3D model into one file. The advantage is also that you can send a colleague or a friend a single FBX file containing all the textures and the 3D model without having to worry about the texture’s paths, because they are directly embedded into the *.fbx file.

The technical background is the following one: if you open your house.fbx with a text editor you will see following lines that show the relative path to the textures.

Short extract of the content of a FBX file

Now open the Autodesk FBX Converter and drag’n’drop your house.fbx in the left side. You will see on the right side (Destination File) that there are some options. Check “Embed Media” and “FBX Save Mode” Binary. Press “Convert” and voilà you will get a brand new *.fbx and if you check the size of the converted file, it’s bigger. In fact you have embedded all the textures within this new *.fbx.

Settings in Autodesk FBX Converter with the options Embed media and Save Mode as Binary selected

Step 5: Importing into Unity

Now it’s a piece of cake: open Unity and create a new scene and project (you can import some other packages and assets later, like a Terrain or a Skybox later) and of course drag’n’drop your new house.fbx into the project panel. During the import you will see a small gauge with the name of the embedded media being imported (it’s a good sign that your texture will be correctly imported into the project).

Hurray, now you have your fully textured house imported into Unity. Nice isn’t it? We are almost finished: select the House object and in the Inspector panel under “Animations” select “Don’t import” and click on “Apply”.

Inspector showing the imported FBX in Unity 3D

Now you can drag’n’drop your House prefab into the scene:

Our house in Unity 3D. Notice that our texture files were directly converted into materials and correctly imported.

Step 6: Unleash your creativity with Unity 3D

At this point you have now successfully imported your Blender generated and created house into Unity 3D with all the correct textures. It’s time for some tweaking: we are going to add a Lamp (or better said a sun) a Terrain and of course a nice Skybox. Here is my final result (with some shadows and a tree. Use the Arrow Keys and your mouse to move into the scene):

Click here to see the full 3D scene

Final house in Unity 3D with skybox and tree. Click on the picture to load the 3D scene with Unity 3D webplayer

Download the tutorial’s files

Liked this tutorial? Here are the important files (house.fbx, house.blend and the two textures) in a zip file:

Download the files for this tutorial

Overview

Here is the solution in form of an architecture picture. To simplify: we will trick the Flash Player by calling a .bat file placed in a directory named fscommand. This .bat will then call an .exe that will catch the window handle (over C#) of your Flash Player and then resize the Flash Player window. Tricky, isn’t it? It’s the only way to realize this and here is the step to step tutorial.

Step 1: fscommand

One command that is available in Flash Player to communicate with the operating system is fscommand. With fscommand you can start any .bat (not exe) placed in a directory named fscommand. So now we can write following AS3 code:

function resizeFlashPlayer(aHeight:int,aWidth:int):void
{
trace("Now resizing to: " + aHeight + " // " + aWidth);
var executeCommand:String = "resize_"+ aHeight + "x" + aWidth + ".bat";
fscommand("exec", executeCommand);
}

But why using a concatenated string to build the path to .bat ?

Content of the /fscommand directory

The problem with fscommand is that you cannot pass a variable to .bat. It also means that you will need to generate a .bat for each screen resolution. But come on, it’s not a major issue Here is the swf we are going to build to test the whole workflow. You can download the whole project at the end of this post.

Screenshot of the Flash Player with our SWF test file

Step 2: Setting the .bat file

The .bat will help us to launch an exe. Why using a .bat and not directly the exe? fscommand doesn’t allow to directly launch the exe, so we are using a .bat as what can be called a proxy. Here is the content of the .bat file (named rezise_800x600.bat):

@echo off
start /b ResizeFlashPlayer.exe 800 600

Step 3: Creating the ResizeFlashPlayer.exe with C#

Here comes the trickiest part. In order to be able to control the Flash player we are going to use C# and the SetWindowPos function to resize our window. In order to find the Flash Player we are going to crawl over the processes of Windows and catch every window title name. When we have found the window with the name “Adobe Flash Player 10” we have found the currently running Flash Player instance. Once found we can then use a pointer on it and apply the SetWindowPos function that will allow to set the width (cx) and height (cy) of the window.
In order to have some more flexibility, I’ve choosen to pack it as a ConsoleApplication and to use two arguments (remember that we are calling ResizeFlashPlayer.exe over a .bat).

namespace ConsoleApplication
{
 class Program
 {
[DllImport("user32.dll", EntryPoint = "SetWindowPos")]
public static extern IntPtr SetWindowPos(IntPtr hWnd, int hWndInsertAfter, int x, int Y, int cx, int cy, int wFlags);

static void Main(string[] args)
{
   Process[] processes = Process.GetProcesses();
   foreach (Process p in processes)
   {
   if (p.MainWindowTitle.IndexOf("Adobe Flash Player 10") != -1)
   {
     IntPtr pFoundWindow = p.MainWindowHandle;
     Debug.WriteLine("Flash Player was found");

     if (1 < args.Length)
     {

     if (args[0] != null && args[1] != null)
         SetWindowPos(p.MainWindowHandle, 0, 0, 0, Int16.Parse(args[0].ToString()), Int16.Parse(args[1]), 0);
      }
     }
    }
   }
  }
}

Step 4: Publish and build with the Flash Player Projector

Last step: Open the Flash Player (http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html), select your .swf and click on create a Projector. This will generate a projector for your swf: press one of the buttons and you will see how the Flash Player will directly resize!

That’s it! Enjoy the code and if you want to test it, download the code below

Download the code of the C# and the Flash example application

If you want to have a sneak preview of the content of this book explained by the author himself, don’t hesitate to watch David McCandless speech at TED:

And if you can’t get enough, here are the websites of the author including some of his work:

http://www.davidmccandless.com/
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/
http://www.informationisbeautifulawards.com

Renault Twizy featured David Guetta's new clip

The car is running –ok,ok, dancing – to the rhythm of David’s beats. Not sure if the advertisement placed on the top of the building is translated in other countries or even censored/blurred when aired?

Here is the clip (the Renault Twizy is at 03:10)

I ask myself what’s the strategy followed by Renault: I think this promotion is to place the brand Renault and to give it a “younger” image, but why not having shown the car driving around in the city instead of showing an animated ad?

Here is the contra-green-example: Jay’z OTIS modded Maybach! Nice ride isn’t it?

Maybach modded by Jay-Z

Liked this blog entry? Why not checking my article concerning subliminal ads in videoclips?

Link: http://www.renault.com/fr/vehicules/renault/pages/twizy.aspx

Step 1: Download a precompiled Windows version of ffmpeg

http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/

Take the correct distribution (all the ffmpeg distributions are compressed in .7z. Download WinRAR ) and go to the /bin directory and check the ffmpeg.exe. This is the only file you will need. Once extracted, you can place it in a directory of your choice or even set this path into the Windows system variables so that you can call the ffmpeg command from everywhere.

Step 2: Write a batch file to convert the flv to mp3

Sometimes old school script programming can be so cool We are going to write a MS-DOS batch file that will automatically convert the FLV files of a directory into MP3 and place these encode MP3s into a directory /encoded-files

Here is the content of the batch file:

mkdir "encoded-files"
 FOR %%X IN (*.flv) DO ffmpeg -i "%%X" -ab 256 "%%~nX.mp3"
 FOR %%X IN (*.mp3) DO MOVE "%%X" "encoded-files"

The above code is pretty straight forward: -i is used as input parameter for ffmpeg. Then we are using the –ab 256 to tell which kbit/s encoding we would like to use.

The %%~nX stuff is a MS-DOS command telling to only extract the name (of the file) parameter without the file extension. This allows us to give the correct extension (in our case *.mp3) to the encoded file.

Step 3: Launch the script and enjoy the music!

Go to a directory that contains a lot of FLV and you want to convert MP3 and launch the script! After a few seconds (depending on the power of your PC) you will have all your MP3 into the /encode-files directory.

It couldn’t be easier

#5: GarageBand

GarageBand is defacto the music application everyone has on its Mac. When Apple launched the iPad version, the similarity to the Mac’s version was very high, and I must say the realization is pretty good. The number of virtual instruments is very high and the instruments and loops are classified like in the Mac version. You can improvise a drumbeat while tapping onto the screen and depending where you are tapping, the sound is changing (try it on the percussion, you will notice that even if you are tapping on the same instrument, the sound changes depending on the position where you have tapped).

Numbers of effects will help you in tuning and finding the correct sound. The loop library is also filled with bunches of samples and if you have bought the GarageBand sound banks you can import them into the app in order to extend the number of samples.

Pro:

• Well realized interface design, it’s a pleasure to play with these virtual instruments.
• Even if you are not inspired the “Smart Instruments” will help you to quickly find new chords and produce new arrangements.

Contra:

• Missing editing options for instruments: after you have recorded a pattern you cannot change the value of the note and the bars like in the Mac version of Garage Band.

#4: Fruity Loops – FL Studio HD

This is good drum machine to quickly generate beats but also to create whole samples. The app comes with a bunch of samples and instruments, which gives you good possibilities to create something original. The 16 step drum machine will give you full control on your beat and I’m pretty sure you will create very soon a nice dance track!

Pro:

• A good synth and drum machine
• Very easy to use

Contra:

• Mainly aimed for electronic music, but classical instruments such as strings are also included in the sample package

#3: SoundPrism

If you like these kinds of apps generating random or harmonious tones, this app is for you. SoundPrism is composed in three parts and by pressing on the right part you can generate organ and synth tones played on several chords.

Pro:

• A very original instrument, especially if you want to create and use the samples for your own creation.
• Multi-touch is also supported, so you can play

Contra:

• Free version limited to 4 “instruments” but this is not a big problem if you are just looking for producing nice sounding tones out of your iPad

#2: djay

This app realized by the German software company algoriddim is a real must have if you want to impress your friends (especially girls ) because it’s a virtual turntable. Let me first say that djay won the Apple Designer Prize this year and it really deserves its title. Once you have selected your two tracks from your iTunes library you can start to mix and put the fire on the dance floor. djay also contains an automix function so that you can leave the app alone and it will make the mix and the transition automatically. Loop and EQ functions and of course cue points setting are also included. You can even record your mix.

Pro:

• Everything is smooth and accurate. The response time while scratching discs (… sorry MP3s ) is accurate, there are not lags.
• The interface is really beautiful; you can even touch and move the playing head!
• Multi-touch support is nice: you can scratch and change the EQ

Contra:

• An effect button would have been nice, but come on this is really a detail

#1: Korg iMS-20

Let’s finish this “must-have” tour by the most impressive app of all. Impressive by the fact that it’s a reproduction of an existing synthesizer the famous Korg MS-20 used by famous electro artists such as Daft Punk, Depeche Mode, William Orbit and of course the Gorillaz. So first of all let me say this is an all-in-one app, meaning you have a drum machine, a synth, the keyboard and the KAOS Pad. There is a small training time before understanding how everything works, but with some deduction and tries you will certainly found out (without the manual) how to generate your first electro track.

The app is well done, allowing users also to wire virtual cables and so to produce even more astonishing sounds! This is sooo impressive and the numbers of configuration and features parameters are almost unlimited. You can also load your own samples and instruments.

If you are looking for the best app to create your next electro track or astonishing beats, this app is for you.

Pro:

• A professional app that has a huge (unlimited) potential

Contra:

• The app is expensive (about 25 Euros)

Blender and min3D: how to export the OBJ 3D model?

Oh yes, this is the most frequently asked question: how to correctly export OBJ from Blender to min3D. Here is a small tutorial to explain you each step. Some “hacking” is needed, so be sure to know how an OBJ and .mtl files work (not very difficult: http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/data/mtl/mtl.html)

I will be using the latest version of Blender (2.58a) for this tutorial, so be sure to use the same version, otherwise you will get faulty OBJ exporter. Yes this is a real problem, because the previous version of Blender couldn’t export the .mtl file correctly; in fact it was missing, leaving developers to create and edit manually a .mtl or to reconvert and re-import the OBJ over Daz3D.

So here is the start point in Blender, a textured dice (yes, a really basic example ):

The cube has 6 textures (stored in a file named dice.png). The texture has a size of a power of two (1024×1024). After applying the texture to the dice we will now export it.

Go to File > Export > Wavefront (.obj) and leave the settings as is and export it (e.g. dice.mtl)

Blender will now export the obj and the .mtl file. Please note that the path contained in the .mtl is false and must be manually edited.

Change the file path to the correct usemtl

usemtl dice.png

and of course a small modification in dice.mtl on the map_Kd line:

map_Kd dice.png

And here is the result:

Here are the files:

dice__blender_min3d.zip

Since the newest Blender version, the OBJ exporter works as expected and can be used to export OBJ for min3D.

Daz3D and min3D: how to export the OBJ 3D model?

If you prefer to use Daz3D (www.daz3d.com) for creating and generating your 3D models, here are the parameters for the export of OBJ models:

Then you must manually edit the generated .mtl and .obj in order to set the correct paths to the textures.

Help, my texture does not display on the 3D object!!!

This is the most frequently asked question and I must say the most interesting because obviously there are some differences between devices, but let’s start with the simplest solutions to common texture problems:

#1: Check the mtl file

There is a slight problem with the mtl files generated by several 3D softwares: they contain bad characters (ok not bad, but hidden) that might be not correctly parsed such as return carriage/lines (/r /n) and tabulations (/t). The solution is to remove the tabulations at the beginning of each line in the mtl, otherwise the texture won’t load.

#2: Check the path in the mtl file

The mtl file contains in its first line the path to the .png / .jpg. Check if this path is correct.

#3: The NotPowerOfTwo problem with OpenGL on Android devices

This is the weirdest problem, and unfortunately there is not a lot input about this. I’ve never noticed this problem on my Android device (Dell Streak) till the day I’ve got message from users telling me that they couldn’t load textures on their Nexus S.

I first thought something else might be wrong with the paths till I’ve tested it myself: no textures!

But what is the difference between the Dell Streak and the Nexus S? Apparently there is a curious difference between the implementation of OpenGL on these Android devices. In fact some devices have not the support of NotPowerOfTwo textures in OpenGL. Many visitors also faced this problem; apparently the support of NonPowerOfTwo textures is not completely implemented/ not supported in OpenGL in some Android devices (http://code.google.com/p/min3d/issues/detail?id=5&can=1&q=NPOT) and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5705753/android-opengl-es-loading-a-non-power-of-2-texture, meaning the way OpenGL is implemented in each device might differ. That’s the reason why the Dell Streak shows the textures and the Nexus S not (that is my explanation).

But there is another problem linked to this NotPowerOfTwo problem: min3D loads all the textures into a TextureAtlas (http://code.google.com/p/min3d/source/browse/trunk/src/min3d/parser/AParser.java).

The texture atlas is a sort of big texture composed by each single texture. Min3d will reference internally to this “big texture” and here seems to be a caveat on some Android devices : in fact you must also take care that the whole texture map (TextureAtlas) is a power of two, meaning if you have 4 textures à 512x512px each it will work but if you have 5 textures à 512x512px each it won’t work because 2560 is not a power of two.

Be aware that this is my personal explication to the problem; I couldn’t find any other explanation to this problem especially a list of Android devices supporting the NotPowerOfTwo textures in OpenGL. But in any case you should always use PowerOfTwo textures: they are quicker to load.

The 3D object does not appear!

Solution #1: Check the raw/your_obj path

This is a very common mistake: please check that the path to the OBJ file is correct and contains the full package name (com.yourPackage.). Note that you don’t need to put the extension .obj to the file path.

IParser myParser = Parser.createParser(Parser.Type.OBJ, getResources(),"com.testObj:raw/face_obj",true);

Anyway, the missing file or bad path  will lead to a Resource$NotFoundException. That should be a first hint to check if the path to the file is correct:

Solution #2: Check the scale

This sounds stupid, but especially if you are using several programs to generate your 3D object, you should be aware which scale you are using: Blender and DAZ 3D are not using the same scale leading to export sometimes huge 3D models. The best way is to test several scale parameters.

faceObject3D.scale().x = faceObject3D.scale().y = faceObject3D.scale().z = 0.5f;

This is also the case when you are loading an OBJ found on the web and if you don’t know which scale units where used by the exporter.

Bag Raiders’ style is quite difficult to classify because some tracks begins with an electro style and then slightly slide to some indie pop beats. Here are some of my favorite songs:

Sunlight

This track is a real pop song, the clip is the most interesting one, not only for the video performance of the monkey

Prelude

prepares your ears to the next song. Small arpeggios that will remind you the chords of Robbie Williams Feel).

Not Over

This is the most dancy and catchiest song of the whole album. 4 stars for this track

Gone away

This track combines a piano chords and a 80s beat. The vocal reminds me of Sophie Ellis Bextor.

Always

I have a kind of problem to classify this song. Yeah I think this song is rather made for a boy band, you know those like Take That that are going to throw their shirts in the crowd lol
This song reminds me of this time (the 90′s) and it would definitely fit in this schema. The song itself has a light flavor of Pet Shop boys and Depeche Mode in it.

Way back home

This is the track used by Vodafone in their German TV ad. It has a small touch of “Allein allein” interpretated by Polarkreis 18 about two years ago.

A good album that is exploring several styles. Perhaps too many which is not really negative but expect to be surprised!

Download the AIR 2.7 SDK

The new AIR 2.7 SDK is available here: http://www.adobe.com/products/air/sdk/

Decompress the whole directory in a directory (e.g. C:\AdobeAIRSDK_27)

Compile your SWF with Adobe Flash CS 5 (or Flash CS 5.5)

Open your .fla file. Now press CTRL + Enter to Publish and check the SWF you have created.

Compile with ADT

In Flash CS5 you had the IPA export box; that was before the Apple vs. Adobe problems concerning Flash on the iPhone. But since approximately last semester 2010, Adobe have followed the way of compiling with the ADT (AiR Developer Tool) method in order to package your AIR app as a native installer e.g .exe installer file on Windows, .ipa on iOS, or .apk on Android. It means that the Flash CS 5 IPA Exporter still works, but we want full AIR 2.7 speed don’t we? That’s why we need to use the ADT !

Method 1: With the command-line

To compile with the command line with adt you will need following lines (if you are using adt on a 64Bit machine, note that you need to add the path to your Java JRE.

Here is an easy to understand example of compiling with the target ipa-test ()

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\java" -jar "C:\AdobeAIRSDK_27\lib\adt.jar" -package -target ipa-test -storetype pkcs12 -keystore "C:\iPhoneCerts\iphone_dev.p12" -storepass myPassWord -provisioning-profile "C:\ iPhoneCerts \iPad_Test.mobileprovision" MyNiceCool.ipa MyCoolApp.xml MyCoolApp.swf icons Default-Landscape~ipad.png  "MyCoolFileToAdd.xml"  "aDirectoryToAdd"

Read more about the adt command lines:

http://help.adobe.com/fr_FR/air/build/WS901d38e593cd1bac35eb7b4e12cddc5fbbb-8000.html

Method 2: With ADT-Helper by Peter Vullings (pixelthismobile.com)

If you hate to type complex command-lines and prefer using a GUI you will be very happy to discover this small AIR Windows application: ADT Helper developed by Peter Vullings and freely available on his webpage (http://www.pixelthismobile.com/blog/3/04/2011/adt-helper-tool).

Thanks a lot to Peter Vullings for providing us this nice application!

The ADT Helper application will do the same job than the Flash CS 5.5 iOS export tool! You only need to specify the path to the AIR SDK and press . The application is pretty nice because it will also copy all necessary files to a directory (/ios) and will create a batch file called build.bat containing all the necessary parameters to generate your .ipa file.

Note: per default ADT Helper will write a *.-app.xml for 2.6 we need to change it :

Change in your MyCoolApp-app.xml 2.6 into 2.7

<application xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/air/application/2.7">

Deploy to iOS

That’s the easiest step Press the “Deploy to iOS” button of ADT-helper and you will see a MS-DOS command box that will in fact launch a generated build.bat batch file.

After a few minutes (yes the conversion from the swf to native code, is still very slow, but come one ! ) your ipa file is generated!

Useful resources:

http://www.codeandvisual.com/2011/exporting-for-iphone-using-air-27-and-flashdevelop-part-four-creating-an-air-certificate-and-compiling-to-ipa/

http://www.flashrealtime.com/compiling-big-air-swf-to-ios/

http://www.pixelthismobile.com/blog/3/04/2011/adt-helper-tool

http://help.adobe.com/fr_FR/air/build/WS901d38e593cd1bac35eb7b4e12cddc5fbbb-8000.html

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/air/build/WS901d38e593cd1bac1e63e3d128fc240122-8000.html

http://www.leebrimelow.com/?p=2754

Hier ein paar Bilder von meinem ersten Panini Album der Frauen WM 2011 in Deutschland. Einziger Unterschied zu dem (Männer) Panini Fußball Album: Sie werden keine Angaben zum Gewicht sehen Ansonsten bleibt der Spaß gleich: sammeln, kleben und tauschen. Hoffen wir mal, dass Panini auch wieder für die Frauen EM 2013 ein solches Album rausbringen wird.

Voici quelques images de mon premier album Panini de la Coupe de Monde de Football féminin 2011. Vous constaterez que la seule différence majeure avec l’album de football masculin, est l’absence d’indication du poids des footballeuses. Espérons que Panini sorte également un tel album pour l’Euro 2013 !

Here is a short tutorial on how to use and render a 3D object ( in this case a human face) using min3D for Android.

Part 1: Download the Min3D framework

The min3D framework is based on OpenGL ES and you can use it to develop 3D apps for Android. The major feature of min3D is the fact that you don’t need to be an OpenGL specialist. Believe me if you have used other 3D libs like Away3D or Papervision before, you won’t be lost and I was pretty surprised to see how easy it was to use min3D.

http://code.google.com/p/min3d/

Once you have downloaded min3d from the SVN, you will need to create a new Android Project, import the min3d library.

Part 2: Get a nice 3D model

As we want to visualize a nice 3D object, I highly recommend you to have a short glance at www.3dvia.com where you can find resources for OBJ and DAE and other formats.

Navigate to www.3dvia.com and download following 3D model of a face: http://www.3dvia.com/models/66964B5C6E405264/face

Unzip the file. You will have following files:

Now select the .jpg files and paste them into the /res/drawable directory . You will see following message in the console section of Eclipse.

The problem is that Android doesn’t accept capital letters in the file names, so the easiest solution is to write the file name lowercase.
Create a directory named /raw under res and place the face.mtl and face.obj. You will notice this message:

Don’t worry You will only need to rename face.mtl in face_mtl and face.obj into face_obj. Min3D will automatically “know” what kind of file needs to be loaded, so the .obj will be loaded correctly.

Now put also your textures into res/drawable

The final step is to modify the material file. The material file is stored under face_mtl. This file contains a reference to the textures that should be applied to the 3D object. Let’s have a look in it:

newmtl Texture0
Ns 20
d 1
illum 2
Kd 0.7 0.7 0.7
Ks 0 0 0
Ka 0 0 0
map_Kd face_eyeL_hi.jpg <- Modify this line! With face_eyel_hi.jpg

If you would now start the application you wouldn’t see the textured 3D face because the map_Kd parameter has the wrong path to the texture (remember that we’ve changed the name to lowercase?). Ok so you only need to rename the map_Kd lines in order to match the filenames under /res/drawable.

We’ve almost finished. We now have to load the face_obj into min3D. To do this, take note of this line:

IParser myParser = Parser.createParser(Parser.Type.OBJ, getResources(), "com.Test3D:raw/face_obj",true);

com.Test3D is the name of your package and obviously raw/face_obj is the name of your OBJ file. Add in your Manifest file following lines (to register your activity)

<activity android:name="Obj3DView" android:label="@string/app_name"></activity>

Here is the structure of your Android project

Part 3: Modifying and tuning the OBJ file

The problem with imported OBJ file is that sometimes the values included might not completely fit with what you would expect. In my case I’ve faced problems with the luminosity and the loading of textures. In order to solve this, I’ve manually edited the face_mtl file:

newmtl Texture0
Ns 20
d 1
illum 2
map_Kd face_eyel_hi.jpg
Kd 0.7 0.7 0.7
Ks 0 0 0
Ka 0 0 0

[Updated] Important note:

Please remove the tabulation at the beginning of each line in the face_mtl, otherwise the texture won’t load.

And I did this for the other textures.

Now you need to go to face_obj, and change the mtllib entry to face_mtl (instead of face.mtl)

The code

Here is the code to load the OBJ with min3D. You only need to extend from RenderActivity and to instantiate this Activity in your onCreate() function.

package com.min3dtest;
import min3d.core.Object3dContainer;
import min3d.core.RendererActivity;
import min3d.parser.IParser;
import min3d.parser.Parser;
import min3d.vos.Light;

public class Obj3DView extends RendererActivity {

	private Object3dContainer faceObject3D;

	/** Called when the activity is first created. */
    @Override
   public void initScene()
   {
    	scene.lights().add(new Light());
    	scene.lights().add(new Light());

    	Light myLight = new Light();
    	myLight.position.setZ(150);
    	scene.lights().add(myLight);

    	IParser myParser = Parser.createParser(Parser.Type.OBJ, getResources(), "com.min3dtest:raw/face_obj",true);
    	myParser.parse();

    	faceObject3D = myParser.getParsedObject();
    	faceObject3D.position().x = faceObject3D.position().y = faceObject3D.position().z = 0;
    	faceObject3D.scale().x = faceObject3D.scale().y = faceObject3D.scale().z = 0.009f;
// Depending on the model you will need to change the scale
    	faceObject3D.scale().x = faceObject3D.scale().y = faceObject3D.scale().z = 0.009f;

    	scene.addChild(faceObject3D);

   }

    @Override
    public void updateScene() {
    	faceObject3D.rotation().x += 0.5;
    	faceObject3D.rotation().z += 1;
    }

And of course you need to launch this activity:

public class Min3dTest extends Activity {
    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    	  this.startActivity( new Intent(this,Obj3DView.class));
    }
}

Part 5: The result

Now launch your application and voilà: you will have now a beautiful 3D model turning around.

Final note

Loading an OBJ file with Min3D is pretty easy (just 2 lines of code). The problem I’ve faced were all linked to the OBJ file format, missing textures (or badly referenced) and of course the scale of the loaded object that differs with each 3D model you will download. So it means you will need to check several times if everything is ok and even need to move the camera to see your 3D model. Of course if you are building your own 3Dmodel you won’t need to take care of this details, but it’s necessary to know, that almost 80% of the “I don’t see my model!” problems will come from either missing textures, faulty scaled or a faulty camera placement.

You will notice if you are debugging with Eclipse and adb that the 3D object won’t display directly and will be really very sluggish (under 10fps ). This is because the Android phone is in debug mode. To really see the result, unplug the USB cable from your mobile phone and tada… you will directly see the 3D object running at over 60ps! I’ve experienced this phenomenon on Froyo 2.2 with an HTC Desire, Froyo 2.2.2 on a Dell Streak and on Gingerbread 2.3 on a Samsung Nexus S L So I assume this is a general “bug due to the debug mode.

[Update]: I’ve extend the tutorial by selecting frequent issues and problems visitors have face while using min3D in a new post: http://www.mat-d.com/site/using-min3d-for-android-frequently-asked-questions-common-texture-issues-blender-import/

Broken Places reminds me a lot of minimalistic composition of Trentemoller and in some way dub producer Burial. A superb juxtaposition of electro sounds, a classical drum machine perfectly combined with a melodic intro gives the tone of the whole drum.

Be the one is a very rock flavored track.

Sevastopol is a pure Moby techno track à la Machette

The Low Hum is also a very electronic track but with a beautiful female voice that will accompain you all along the track.

The Day is the most sad but also the most “pop”-flavored track.

Victoria Lucas is really nice. You will recognize parts of Play

After is one the most powerful tracks with a good electro beat and well place violin samples.

Blue moon is a very electronic track with a uplifting atmosphere and distorted, tunes that give a special touch to the track.

Stella Maris reminds me a lot of Look Back In and in some ways the ethereal chorus combined with high pitched strings will think you listen to the track Evenstar of the Lords of the Rings OST. In my opinion, the most powerful tracks of this album.

The Violent Bear it Away track brings the classic Moby piano arpeggios back with a pure melodic track.

To sum up, Destroyed is a good Moby album but is definitely more melancholic than Play or 18.