If you haven't already you should check out what's been going on at the Papervision3D
shop blog.papervision3d.org.
This framework is amazing, and you can do a lot of things with 3D and as3. I went
ahead and papervisioned the Disco Water effect.
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Disco Water (Flash Effects)
cacheAsBitmap does wonders for these kinds of effects and allows for faster rendering
of animation that doesn't scale or rotate.