CompuServe Messages

John, >>The pressure will be to market in the least-common denominator format, for widest possible market share.<< That's not what's happening right now, at all. Add-ons are coming out in abundance for 3D Studio, and virtually nothing else. Users of other programs like Imagine, Animation Master, TrueSpace, Topaz, Strata, Inifini-D, Macromedia and other popular 3D rendering/animation programs are getting practically NO NEW 3D UTILITIES AT ALL, because IPAS routines only work with 3D Studio. And as you might guess, users of these other applications aren't exactly pleased by this turn of events. That's why I'm against the idea of plug-ins. Because it deprives many 3D artists access to new tools, and it's being used by companies like Autodesk and New Tek as a tool of exclusion. If this is what they mean by “open architecture'' then I'm not in favor of it. If IPAS developers were writing all their programs as standalones that output a standard file format, then practically any 3D artist could use their products,… and they'd probably be making a lot more dough as well. But without a more sophisticated 3D exchange standard this is basically impossible. And companies like Crestline and other 3rd party developers will have to go on creating a different package to go with each rendering program. We'll have to design a plug-in for 3D Studio, a plug-in for Lightwave, a plug-in for Imagine, etc, etc…. And we'll end up spending all of our time doing ports to different packages, instead of concentrating on new projects. I guess I didn't make my views on this clear earlier. I hope this helps you to understand better where I'm coming from. To give you one last concrete example: without a better 3D standard I doubt you'll be seeing any Humanoids or KineModelz to work with MacroMedia products. That's bad for you and bad for me. I'd like your users to have access to my models. If I have to resort to using the DXF format, they aren't going to be nearly as good. Now, if you're proposing some type of “STANDARD plug-in technology'', which could work with ALL 3D programs, THAT might be an idea I can get behind! Because it would save me a heck of a lot of work. I guess that's what OpenInventor is all about. >>What does this mean for the 3D plug-in development community? Will the least-common denominator rule here too… will plug-ins be hobbled by the desire to reach the largest number of animators? << I've already explained why I think a new 3D exchange standard is preferable to plug-ins. If a _slight_ loss in facility is necessary to allow more 3D users to have access to our products, then so be it. But I don't think a 3D standard necessarily has to be the lowest common denominator. A good standard can support very complex features, but not all devs have to make use of them. (switching gears slightly..). >>>Most desktop 3D apps would be incapable of reading the standard RenderMan geometry definitions… The reason most developers cite for not importing RIB is the surface definitions. Again, current desktop technology is the limiting factor: texture maps (invented by the president of Pixar, btw) rule the roost, and the few procedural surface apps don't support the variety of function calls found in the RenderMan Shading Language.<< So then it's Pixar's fault that their RenderMan format wasn't adopted as the standard, because they didn't design it to be downwardly compatible with simpler 3D applications. Again, I don't see any reason why a good 3D standard can't be designed to handle both complex and simpler data transfer effectively. -Tim