CompuServe Messages

>> [Impulse is] looking at the stand-alone editor approach…having seperate editors that can be purchased seperately depending on one's needs. They would operate by themseleves, or work in tandem. It's not a universal format, but at least it's a step in the right direction…away from constrictive plug-ins. << Greg, Thanks for the reply. I guess by pulling the different modules apart Impulse hopes to attract a larger user base to the individual parts, rather than the whole. But I wonder what sort of file exchange they intend to use for things like animation, states, particle FX, textures, etc. DXF is adequate for static model transfer, but… Do you think their texture playground will function like Steve Worley's FORGE, and save maps for use in other programs? What if Impulse added an IPAS converter, so 3DS IPAS's could be used with Imagine, (or any other program for that matter)? Is there anything in Autodesks's 3rd party policies that would prohibit this? Hash's Animation Master is broken up into separate modules, although they cannot be purchased separately. And in their newest release they're going in the opposite direction, unifying the different modules back into a single interface. This, and the fact that they're planning to eliminate DXF Import would seem to contradict an OPEN philosophy, but they are also beefing up there DXF EXPORT and adding support for other formats such as RIB, OBJ, and QUICKDRAW. They are one of the first companies I know of on the PC that is falling in line with the new QuickDraw standard. But this makes sense since Hash offers a version of AM for the PowerMAC (Quickdraw will soon be offered as standard equipment for this platform) and their main focus is on splines. As I understand it, Quickdraw will apparently act as sort of 3D SPLINE CLIP ART standard not too different than structured 2D graphics used in DTP today, Hash has also talked about adding motion support to DXF format?! I don't know how this would be possible, except to save every frame or `instance' of deforming geometry as a separate DXF model, or as a new layer in a DXF model file. But this seems like it would be very cumbersome indeed. And so far I don't think they've eloaborated any further on their intentions. But I'll check into it. Also I think their elimination of support for DXF Import isn't so wise. This means that ALL their models will have to be created from scratch, or provided by Hash in their native spline format. I don't know anyone who makes a translator that converts other objects to Hash's spline format. Perhaps they'll be adding RIB, OBJ and Quickdraw IMPORT as well. But this would certainly seem to limit the resources their PC users can draw on, at least in the short term. -Tim