Beveled Text
I agree with you… it would be cool to be able to use both Type 1 and
TrueType fonts simultaneously. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen,
and I don't know the techy reason why. If it's any consolation,
though, it's the same thing on the Mac! <g>
Re the missing back: Hmm… was this after DXF export, or in
MacroModel? If the latter, then which font, and is it reproducible? I
have not received calls on this, and would want to investigate.
I'm also concerned about your comment on redraw speed. John Tissavary
and I were discussing this two weeks back in the Multimedia Forum,
after he had seen a demo at a dealer's. In my own experience it's
been quite zippy on a number of machines.
There's a couple of things to check… considering the calibre of
your contributions here I'm sure a lot of this will be old hat to
you, but just in case:
— Model complexity: Probably the most important, as well as the most
unusual. All models are naturally stored as splines, but displayed
during work as polys. The sampling rate for display is independent
of actual model resolution. Cranking the display down low and
turning off surface normals will (in my experience) give gratifying
responsiveness.
Although displayed as polys, it's still editable as Beziers in
the world. DXF export is still resolution-independent, too.
— Scene complexity: The usual about hiding objects. One twist: you
can model in multiple files at once, as 2D and 3D geometry can be
copied from doc to doc. Scale, position, and orientation are
preserved. Copying the same 2D floorplan into multiple docs cuts need
for redraw… unusual technique, but effective.
— Lighting complexity: Although very useful for interactive light
and shadow studies, this would be irrelevant for 3D Studio work.
Single lights go faster.
— System complexity: The 8-bit internal renderer is noticeably
quicker than the 24-bit DLL. Keeping the monitor at 8-bit is twice as
fast on my system. Networked Windows will be slower than passive
machines. And, well, you know about Windows setup <g>… Windows
memory and configuration introduce great variables.
That last point bears elaboration… Windows does slow things down.
Comparable Macs interact noticeably faster, although PC rendering
blows the doors off Macs. With a PowerPC redraws are
near-instantaneous, but there's no ability to render there yet…
we'll need to work on that.
Thanks for the tip on the PXP option, John… will pass that along to
the engineers, as I'm sure they'll be interested. If I can be of
help, please GO MACROM, where I hang out daily. Appreciate your
thoughts… thanks!