CompuServe Messages

Being the author of Vistapro, my opinion is somewhat biased, but… Vistapro does generate landscapes that make good backgrounds for 3DS and it can generate fly throughs in both TGA and PCX formats. It also comes with tools to join the PCX files into FLC animations. If you want to try the program out, there is a largely functional demo version in DL15 of GraphAVen (GO GRAPHAVEN or GO VRLI). You can't load or save anything but it'll give you some idea of it's capabilities. Coming in early December is version 3.10 which will include the ability to save landscapes as DXF objects, save texture maps (suitable for mapping onto the DXF landscapes), and a utility to convert 3DS VUE files into Vistapro's script format. That last feature gives you the ablitity to generate a sequence of TGA files as backgrounds for your 3DS foregrounds — with the exact same camera positions and orientations. 3.10 will also come with a CD-ROM full of landscapes, sample images and animations, etc.