Expanded 3D game support for Adobe Flash

Adobe has announced plans to add hardware 3D acceleration to its Flash software.

The upcoming Molehill API offers GPU-based shader support, with Adobe promising hundreds of thousands of triangles rendered in HD - claiming the current Flash 10.1 offers mere thousands.

This will mean a leap in visual quality for Flash-based browser applications and games, putting Adobe's tools in more direct competition with the likes of Unity.

"3D has been one of the most popular requests from our customers," said Adobe. "Enabling true 3D experiences in Flash Player aligns with Adobe's commitment to innovation and delivering a more complete Flash Platform."

"Adobe evolved the web with video and now we are going to evolve the web again with 3D. From interactive websites, e-commerce, and marketing to gaming, 3D will be available to everyone, everywhere.

The new version of Flash, due for a beta release early next year, will also support hardware acceleration on mobile devices, via OpenGL ES 2.0.

Adobe also announced plans to upgrade its AIR platform, adding the new 3D support and bringing it to a broader array of smartphones and tablets, as well as creating Adobe InMarket - a porting framework to deploy AIR games to multiple platforms and App Stores.

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