Particle FX
Pawel,
The question of wether or not somebody will create a particle system for
spline models is a serious one, at this point. It does not matter how great AM
is, if it can't do the things people see on TV and the movies, it will remain
in a niche that may be impossible to climb out of. Some of the things I need,
and probably others, aren't just particle effects. Lens and flare effects are
becoming extremly important. Collision detection should not be a real problem
since I think it works by knowing surface areas, both of which have to be
calculated for either polygons or splines.
Another thing that should be possible is using ACTION to morph entire
figures of the same class, including any movements, maps, etc., as long as the
figure you are morphing to has an equal or less number of control points. We
should also be able to morph the MAG, ALPHA, and GAMMA of control points.
It seems that we are in somewhat of a Catch-22 – we could have many more
features if there were a lot more users to create revenue, but you can't
attract users without the features.
Myself, I am going to wait and see what AM 3.0 is like. Then I will be
looking at switching to Real 3D for Windows – $1,300, or the upcoming Lightwave
3.5 for Windows – $950. With the price of upgrading to AM 3.0 being about the
same as going the competitive upgrade route to Lightwave, AM will not be the
only application losing users. Unfortunately, I am currently in the unemployed
mode. If I can get back to work before the end of the year, my tax refund
should allow me to purchase Lightwave, while keeping AM, but to be honest, I've
already made up my mind about 80% in favor of switching to Lightwave.
Michael S. Flynn