Today I want to show how easy it is to produce a basic 3D object in Silverlight, in the below example I have used 5 circles to produce a sphere animation. I treat each circle with a looping Projection Transform.

Each circle is treated with the exact same treatment but offset so that they form a sphere, to break out each circle press the ‘Break Apart‘ button. To fit the circles together again, press the ‘Place Together‘ button.

You can enhance the 3D effect further by pressing the ‘Spin‘ button, this simply plays a storyboard to spin each circle on an additional axis.

To create this effect I have used the Projection Transform Rotation properties and used Easing on the animations inside Expression Blend 3 to help the inertia look right.

Grab the Source

As usual you can download the source files for this example here.

Metia (my employers) have just finished producing not only one of the first ever Silverlight banners for MSN, but the first banner to incorporate Deepzoom and Smooth Streaming and be expandable. View the Mass Effect Silverlight banner live on MSN.

The video also features a full screen view for the HD video.

The Smooth Streaming allows users to view the video at the highest quality possible based on their internet connection and CPU speed. If the users connection drops to a slower speed during the video, the Smooth Streaming seamlessly adapts to keep the video stream consistent and free of buffering.

The banner also features a Deepzoom component.

This part of the experience allows users to zoom in as close as to see the stubble on the characters face! The Deepzoom functionality lets you zoom into an image serving up only the part of the image you are looking at and thus not having to download megabytes of data.

This banner is running live on MSN right now, and is due to feature on the MSN home page this Saturday.

You can read more in the following posts:

Dean Gifford at Rocket Panda talks about a World first

Damon Serji talks about the first interactive Silverlight banner in the world

Metia official statement by Steve Ellis

Metia (my employers) have finally got round to updating our home page, which now features a Silverlight front end that I worked on. Flip the tiles to read more of an article and receive more options.

Site features

• The site features a randomised layout so that every time you return the tile positioning should look different.
• The tiles make use of the new 3d projection properties in Silverlight 3.
• All the content is pulled through dynamically to allow updates to be made with ease.