#R3 vs. Silicon Garden
>> If 3DStudio R3 was thoroughly beta tested, how could something like this
>> have slipped through?
I must disagree with your logic on this one! Nothing personal, I
assure you! <g> There appears to be nothing wrong with 3D Studio,
just with the IPAS routines, which _are_ technically from another
company, not Autodesk.
As developers of IPAS routines ourselves, I see all the problems.
Adding all these new features to the core program has a tendency to
create problems for the add-ons. Would you prefer less new features
to make it backwards compatible with an external program that was
around 10% of the price? Gary and company are, like ourselves, and
like Schreiber (I assume) committed to provide _free_ upgrades to the
IPAS routines to make them compatible with the new release.
>> how could any developer in good conscience spend the time and money
>> needed to develop truly worthwhile add-ons if the stuff is only going to
>> get blown out the door in the next product cycle?
I don't see is as being blown out the door, I see it as an opportunity
to develop even better, fancier add-on programs in ways we couldn't
even have imagined in R2! And the fixes are not major, it's just
waiting to have the R3 IPAS toolkit available to finalize them!
If there is a serious problem that you absolutely need a specific
IPAS routine for a scene, what about rendering it in R2? Or
rendering it there with alpha and compositing it into Video Post in
R3 with the rest of your project?
It would be a great world where all the IPAS programs were updated at
the same time as the program, but that would entail having the
program ship a month later. Personally, I'd prefer to get the new
features ASAP and just wait for the add-ons to catch up!