CompuServe Messages

Some more discussion….. can you take it? I personally am very greatful for your feedback… <<<Then the basic "shareware" version shouldn't support textures but instead use only solid colours. If you have all the features but not the speed then most people are going to turn to the Fast Previewer?>>><<<Understandably there are lot of calculations that need to be performed at every frame but unless the performance can be improved I have to resort to Fast Previewer or generating a Preview.<<< The DOS version uses only solid colors with no textures. Folks wanted textures, so we gave it to them for free. They fly nicely in the demo worlds and add a lot to the images. To texture or not to texture, what to do……… In the non-free versions, you can just turn them off whenever you want to……… And I tried the Fast Previewer with the Chevy model and got less than one frame every 4 seconds when in 1/4 screen. Full screen was impossible and I didn't even try to guage it after I got above 1 frame in every 11 seconds. I guess we all need faster rendering solutions <g>. When the faster and cheaper cards get here we will all fly more freely……….If they would just hurry up! <<It is for this reason that I think VR technology has a way to go. >>> granted this is very true…….. and we can all help it get there and benefit from being there when "IT" arrives, I hope. <<< I see it's greatest benefits in creating real-time previews. What I really want from technology of this type is a real-time gouraud preview of my animation at a reasonable rate of 15fps. It doesn't need textures or special effects.>>> If this is the case then I think that you are probably right that the Fast Previewer will suit you better than a Virtual Environment. I will bet that once you start interacting with your models, your goals will change, however….. It's amazing how we always want more….. The need to move things around, and change the world, train people in your world how to do something, give them tasks to accomplish… And how about the desire to interact with other people in the same environment for games [ I can't believe I said that 😕 ] and for communication of complex ideas and feelings that were impossible before (i.e. interacting live on a 3D mechanical design with engineers across the country or world) , Another example is with handicapped people who can have new capabilities they cannot in the real world. Much work has been done showing how simple Virtual Environment interaction of some sort can make some major changes in rehabilitation and a growth towards self reliance. The education possibilities are changing the planet already. There is an unbelievable demand for interactive curriculum. And whoever gets beyond interactive CD's first is going to do well. I have personally seen such requests from sources ranging from the National Academy of Sciences, to the New York City School Board, to numerous private industries creating their own training projects, to community colleges business departments, high school and college art and advertising departments and even kindergartens in my home town. If a small company in a relatively rural town like mine can see these opportunities, the big guys are obviousely getting hit over the head with such a potential market demand. This is what is driving the market to finally produce the hardware to pull it off. It sure isn't us mom & pop types that have been successful to get the cost under $ 5000 for decent performance. The new possibilities are pretty endless. And the new opportunities for 3D modelers for projects other than video animation are also just beginning to open up. These are the goals of VR… Not just fast previewing. Uh Oh, I'm rambling again…..sorry. <<<<I found the lighting for the chevy model to be fairly standard. If you have to tweak and change a model in order for it to be viewed then you miss out on the "quick feedback" possiblity of VR technology.>>>> I agree 100%. You don't have to do anything to the lighting as far as I have seen between 3D Studio and NAVFlyer. They look the same to me. When I render the default chevy model, the car itself is much more black and grey in color on the image than red. I almost emailed you the JPG then realized how silly this is.. you can render it yourself and see. This is NOT a bright red car. In NAVFlyer, I found a nicely lit bright red car when I lit the model and changed the material so that it rendered that way in 3D Studio as well. It is very difficult to discuss this when you havn't yet seen the demo worlds. You will find them very bright with a the SKY texture showing a nice bright blue and billowy clouds, and the same 'reflected' (just mapped, not really reflected) in the glass buildings. <<I tried several times to load this model and MUSEUM.3DS but my computer hung. When I loaded the SECTANT.DXF I had no problems. I could also load all the 3DS models in my 3DS/mesh directory. Any ideas on what may be the problem?<<< I would suspect that you are just not waiting long enough for the model to load. Unfortunatly, when the 3DS load starts up, our 'please wait' message disappears, so it seems hung up, but I have NEVER seen it just hang up. When something does go wrong, you get and error message and then it dumps the NAVFlyer out and the window disappears. So try it again! <<Sapphire 2SX board.. What are the rendering features of this board?>>>> I will fax you a spec sheet on it if you give me a number. I can't find it right now (middle of the bleary night) to quote from. It is a GLINT based board. <<<What is the polygons per second/fps performance?>>> They will tell you the fps depends on the model and system. and the poygons per second depend on many things, like how big is the rendering area, how many lights, etc. There is not cut and dry statistics for this stuff, but I would refer you to the article in 3D Artist a few months (?) back that reviewed 3D rendering technology. Great article, which used as close to a standard as anybody's by rendering the same teapot at about the same size ,etc. etc.This article covered the boards and software renderers I mentioned plus a few others. << If you are designing specifically for VR than many further optimizations could be made to get better performance. But this is not my purpose so I miss out on viewing my models in a VR world because they aren't "designed" for it.>>> I have seen this is a common response. But I am ever hopeful that we will yet entice you to change your mind. I can see you are going to be a real challenge David <g>. When I win you over I will finally have made it, right? <bg>. <<<If you don't have very fast rendering speed then you don't have VR. If the images aren't shown at a reasonably speed then you aren't getting anything more that you don't have in a standard rendering package.<<< Ouch. that hurt. OK Uncle…. I guess we only 'have VR' in your mind on the accelerator cards today. Personally I disagree wholeheartedly. My son can fly the solar system and ride each planets orbit, or look down upon it, on the fly, or move the planets around to make 'happy faces' by putting Venus and Mercury inside of the Sun like 'eyes' and the earth pokes out like a mouth. (I never would have thought of that) He now understands what make the tides happen and why the Sun looks like it is going up and down instead of us moving around it. He understands it because he 'experienced' it for himself, by himself, how he wanted to. It is much different than watching an animation. It's on the same machine with 3D Studio, and while he is a pretty darn good 3D Animator for 9 yrs old (got the keyframer down last summer) he can't do that in Studio wtihout waiting a long time for flics to render and then just watch them. And on the other hand, we can't do shadows, relflections, transparencies. etc. The magic of 3D Studio is not even approached by NAVFlyer or NAVIGATOR. It is a completely different magic. NAVFlyer is NOT A RENDERER. CDK IS ALSO NOT A RENDERER. Sorry for shouting… <<< But for me personally, I don't need VR if the performance isn't fast enough to get quick feedback. But in any event VR will become viable in near future and when it does I'm sure you'll be in a good position to deliver it to the masses. Save me a place at the head of the queue <g>>>>>> Done. Thanks for the feedback! I really do appreciate it and when we can handle models with tens of thousands of polygons on a PC I will let you know. It will happen. And everyone is not as crazy as we are about this stuff to work on even though it is not here yet. Thanks a lot for trying it out and I do hope that you retry to fly the City as an example of what we could do collectively in the Studio City project. If each contributor had a few hundred polygons '3D placeholder' in the city and we could fly up to it and then pull up Gifs, JPGs and FLICs of that structure fully and beautifully rendered, would this not be a great way to have all our works in one space at one time for all to experience? This CAN BE DONE TODAY. But it would mean that we would have to make this 'special world' of low poly count. I have volunteered to both make the placeholders and set up free fully functional NAVIGATOR with the city hard coded into it and all bitmaps attached to the correct '3D placeholder'. So give that city one more try, whadda ya say? Email me with any problems or call me and I will walk you through it to whatever the problem is and try to help you solve it. I'm at (904) 378-5486. Thanks again David, Angela — flyin' on (a little bumpy here in the turbulance <g>)