Created animation can be instantly see by using Preview / Test Movie function, by default, F5 button. Header of the preview window contains information about: the consumption of processor resources, and size of the output file. You will use the preview of scene very often. Preview shows the final SWF. The only different between preview and final SWF is in location of the file. Preview generates temporary SWF file in internal system directory and use of "Publish" function bring up a file browser window to let you point a target location for saving the file. 

To make anything visible in generated SWF file, you need to put at least one geometry object in the scene. We have prepared some basic objects in 3D software terminology often called "primitives". You can also import meshes pre-made in other 3d applications.

The parameters of the object directly affect the efficiency of rendering. Present graphics cards are sufficient to handle complex scenes. Even high poly meshes will perform smoothly with standard surface filling. You may notice slow-downs when using high poly objects with transparency or cartoon shaders while working on full screen resolution, especially on laptops, which are usually equipped with less powerful GPU’s when compared to Desktops.

Each of the objects with the same geometry can be displayed in several ways. You can affect it with parameters located in the Surface container. Read more about the object surface parameters here >> Surface

Esquimo provides also a basic interactivity of animation. Without knowledge of ActionScript, you can define a number of different reactions of objects in response to actions of user. Clicking the mouse cursor  on an object or placing the cursor over an object can trigger events that cause, inter alia, changes in properties of the object (change of position of color), jump to the defined URL address, or control of animation playback (stop / continuation of scene play). More about the events can be found in section >> Events

Primitives, imported geometry

Esquimo has been equipped with several built-in primitives. The main feature that makes them different to imported geometry is that they are generating on the fly by short especially prepared routines. Thanks of that they increase a size of the output file many times less than imported geometry. The more complex structure the difference is more visible. If possible, always try to use primitives. Of course in many cases you will not be able to build desired scene using only primitives. Then the geometry importing comes handy.

Let's look at the bundle of primitives supplied with Esquimo. Click on the icon of the object in order to move to its description.

And a couple words about importing geometry...