I recently finished a project at work that required some 3D animation. Being a Flash designer I opted for Swift 3D. Swift 3D is a fantastic program that works hand in hand with Flash. They even have a 3D Extension plugin for Flash which you can get here.
For those of you that have never used any 3D rendering software I would suggest this package. It was designed for designers who had little or no background with 3D work so it’s pretty user friendly. It’s a little strange getting used to drawing in 3D, but once figure out the different editors it’s really not bad.
Here’s How It Works In A Nutshell
Scene Editor
This is the scene editor view. Here is where you can see your 3D model as a finished product. Here’s where you will position your model for use in drawing.
Extrusion Editor
Use this for creating custom 3D objects. Here you can draw 2 dimensional objects that will be rendered 3 dimensional. Extrusion simply means to give an object depth.
Lathe Editor
The Lathe editor takes the outline and spins it around a center axis. So if you draw half a star, with the center points meeting the Y-axis line in the editor, you might not get what you expect.
Advanced Modeler
This is where a lot of the magic happens. With this editor you can rotate, shape, enlarge and merge your content.
Animation Palette
The animation palette has a whole library of pre-made stock animations. These can easily be applied to your project while in the scene editor.
Preview And Export Editor
Here’s where your project comes together. The Preview And Export Editor combines your images with the animation you are using in vector or raster formats.
Below is a list of links I found helpful and you might to.
Download Swift 3D Here
Swift 3D Tutorials & Help
http://www.pixel2life.com/tutorials/Swift_3D/All
Cool Swift 3D Work
Swift 3D Illuminations
Swift 3D Extreme
Electric ain Dev Lab
For those interested in seeing my finished project click here.
About Me: I've been a web slinger for over 11 years now. I'm particularly interested in web design, search engine optimization and social networking. Check out my site for new tips, tricks, tutorials, and industry news. Come on in the web is fine. 
Nate Balcom on 
There are no comments, yet.
Why don’t you be the first? Come on, you know you want to!