#Features 2
Steve,
I forgot two more features that I would like to see.
The first is Bitmapped Shadows in a rendering. This is a feature that is
available in 3D Studio. The example used is for the shadows created by a
stained glass window. Light coming through the windows creates a colored shadow
on the floor.
The other one one is the same basic idea applied to MATERIALS. I've
noticed that as soon as any level of transparency is applied to an object, it
no longer casts shadows. It seems that the darkness or intensity of an objects
shadow should proportionally increase or decrease with the amount of
transparency. It would also be nice if when specifying the color attributes for
Textures if we could decide wether or not the shadow casts a normal shadow, or
a colored shadow.
This idea came up during a recent experiment. I have been asked to create
an underwater city for as a possible demo for a possible game. I wanted to
create the effect of light coming down through the ocean creating shodows and
highlights on the surfaces below. To do this, I first created and ocean texture
that morphed over time. Then I created square with horizontal bars going across
it to use as the ocean surface. After creating an ocean floor texture and
setting a cube on it, I placed the ocean surface a little above the cube, set
my light and camera and did a quick render to make sure the setting was right.
Then in ACTION I created a rolling wave motion for the ocean surface. When I
rendered the animation, there was no effect at all because the ocean surface
texture had some transparency in it. The closest I could get, which wasn't good
enough, was to re-create the ocean texture with some transparency, some
solidity, and no blurring. When it morphed in the animation, it kid of gave the
effect of the cube having solid black amoebae crawling all over it.
I realize that this is probably a very specialized effect and not a
financially feasible use of the programmers time.
What about the possibility of uploading a questionaire asking all of the
users to list the three or five features that they would most like to see, and
then uploading the results? I would be willing to tally up the requests myself
just to see where the collective AM user mindset is at.
Michael S. Flynn