CompuServe Messages

Jonas: Here are 10 ideas for R5. Another batch will follow shortly. 1. Gotta have 3DS able to run on the Alpha AXP under Windows NT. At the very least a rendering engine for this platform. 2. Eliminate the need for Liquid Speed by optimizing the base package to run as fast as it possibly can. 3. Combine the Shaper/Lofter/Editor into one modelling environment. I wanna be able to see my modelling as it happens and where it happens. No more flipping back and forth. 4. Support the import of 2d .DXF files as a 3D mesh. An example would be a building facade. I'd like to be able to import the whole facade like one big flat billboard and apply materials to the planar faces. I don't want to have to model or loft anything first. Perhaps there is a way to do this already and I would love to hear about it. 5. Include a sunpath calculator like the one in AutoVision or better yet GregP's version. 6. Better snap control while modelling. The environment that I use now offers a list of possible snap codes all available if you hit a point and hold your mouse. A menu appears so that I can select endpoint, midpoint, centroid, point on a line, center of an arc, point normal to a line, point tangent to a curve and a couple of others. What I would like to do is simply move one thing to a point exactly adjacent to another without having to know any dimensions. I'd like to be able to move a window to the midpoint of a wall without jumping through any hoops. 7. Include a mapping randomizer to flip and rotate maps thus eliminating the 'perfect wood grain' or 'perfect marble pattern' look. I'd even take it as far as including a process that could alter a map via parameters similar to ones available for SXP materials. This process could alter one original map to have a user defined # of alternates and then apply a tiling pattern using these alternates in random fashion. 8. Ability to see at least a gray scale view of texture map during placement. 9. Put a number inside each of the little color squares for selecting objects by color and/or number. Currently if you pick two object colors that are similar and therefore next to each other on the chart its a pain to figure out which is which. 10. Encourage dealers to bundle similar IPAS routines with 3DS to offer customers the "Architectural PAK" which might have some Yost, Pyros, Digimation, Schreiber, etc. routines (don't forget Mark Meier's lighting utilities) which architects find useful. Bundle this all up for a discounted price of course. Similar bundles should be encouraged for the character animators, forensic animators, etc. Then I could feel like I bought one package from one place and I've got one guy to call if I got trouble. 11. Gotta have 3DS able to run on the Alpha AXP under Windows NT. OK, so I lied about there only being 10 items. One is real important to me. Bob