Autodesk Scaleform is a high-performance, proven visual user interface (UI) design middleware solution that allows developers to leverage Adobe Flash® Studio to quickly and inexpensively create modern GPU-accelerated animated UI and vector graphics, without learning new tools or processes. Scaleform creates a seamless visual development path from Flash Studio directly into the game UI.

In addition to UI, developers can use Scaleform to display Flash content inside the 3D environment as animating textures mapped onto 3D surfaces or as standalone 3D objects using the 3D capabilities of ActionScript 3 or AS2 3Di. Likewise, 3D objects and video can be displayed inside Flash UI. As a result, Scaleform works well as either a stand-alone UI solution or as a way to enhance an existing front-end game framework.

This tutorial will walk you through the process of installing and using Scaleform. We will enhance the DirectX ShadowVolume SDK sample with a Flash-based UI.

Note: Scaleform has already been integrated with most major game engines. Scaleform can be used directly with supported game engines with minimal coding. This guide is primarily targeted at engineers planning to integrate Scaleform with a custom game engine, or to those looking for a technical overview of Scaleform’s capabilities.

Note: Please make sure to use the latest version of Scaleform when following this tutorial. The tutorial works with Scaleform 4.0 and above.

Note: The tutorial may be incompatible with certain older video cards. This is due to the DirectX SDK ShadowVolume code on which the tutorial is based and is not a compatibility issue with Scaleform. Should a “cannot create renderer” error message be encountered when running the tutorial, the source of the problem can be determined by checking if the Scaleform Player application runs successfully.