Silverlight 3D's True Power: From 0 to 100 in a Practical Way

Silverlight 3D introduces a new element, PlaneProjection, which enables us to project a UIElement in 3D space. Silverlight 4 recently benefitted from hardware acceleration to support this capability, called “2.5D”. “2.5D” is also on Windows Phone 7, with enhanced performance enabled by default. This exciting feature is very interesting, as it enables us to provide very cool, exciting effects that, if done well, run smoothly and do not affect the client’s CPU. They can be done with very little effort if one understands the concepts and basis of this functionality clearly. If we add the advanced animation System and the Behaviors framework to the equation, we can create impressive interactions in no time with "just drag & drop". In this session we will start with a quick introduction of the concept, then build cool effects in a smart way, enhancing them with easings and enabling automatic interaction by applying ready-to-use 3D interaction behaviors. We will also explore the actual capabilities of some Silverlight 3D engines, including Balder and SilverMotion. All this in a demo-intensive and very practical session.