How to rotate circles in 3D without them looking flat?

[mk3]

Okay, I'm trying to create a fake-sphere effect using a circle with a radial gradient... pretty standard.

I've created a load of "spheres" as childs of a _holder sprite. Then, when I want to move the view, I just use _holder.rotationY += 1 or whatever. This is all fine, except the circles are turned on their sides and they don't look like spheres anymore!

I tried setting sphere.rotationY = 0 onEnterFrame but it didn't work. I don't know the best way of doing this... maybe I should be using Matrix3D instead, or even skipping AS3 and just learning/using papervision with AS2?

Context: I've only very recently started using Flash. I learnt AS2 which I can use fairly well, and in the last week I've started using AS3, so I'm not quite up to speed on it yet. I've been learning my animation stuff from Keith Peter's excellent books... At the moment, I'm trying to make a model of a molecule (of graphite) with spheres representing atoms and lines/springs as bonds, which the user can then rotate.

Thanks very much for any help!

I have tried searching in Google/on these boards and couldn't find anything, but if this has been asked before, I apologise..

[mk3]

Apologies, I double posted. I didn't realise there was a delay to get a thread approved, and so I thought my first post had failed for some reason. So feel free to delete this thread.

The other thread is here http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=800319