CompuServe Messages

Here's a few thoughts for your wishlist in-basket: -have the 3DS flic player load flics into RAM when it plays them. If it can render in RAM, why not play back? I'd rather not leave 3DS to play flics with a 3rd party program. -add numbers 1 to 256 in the RGB and HLS slider areas in the materials editor. It would make it a lot easier to tune colours than guessing the location of the sliders, and to compare settings when tweaking materials (23,184,0 is easier and more accurate than "about 1/4" from left, just to right of middle, 0") -have an installation option for materials maps. I'd rather run all of them off the CD than fill my my hard-drive with a few megs of bitmaps that I usually don't use at all (until I get a message saying that the renderer can't find one I erased that's used for a reflection map or whatever, but doesn't seem to be on the CD, for which I have added all map paths in 3DS.set). Actually, running off the CD would do for just about anything, except possibly the main EXE file and whatever else is continually needed for fastest rendering. -include the postage stamp materials maps images on your next CD, or an updated equivalent. It would be a lot easier to use the supplied maps if you did (though I hasten to add the R3 CD is a GREAT improvement in my opinion over R2 CD, much more useable stuff and the indexes are great!)(As are the images of the fonts, which I promptly printed out for constant use). -a little more in the way of using flics would be nice. Specifically, in Video post, I'd like to "mirror" flics. For example, I just did a pendulum clock which spins 720 degrees one way, then 720 back the other way, and so on. I would have preferred to render 1/2 of the flic, then just reverse that to complete the second half, rather than render the flic the whole way through (at 4-1/2 minutes per frame x 180 frames = 14 hours which could have been 7). Possible Animator would do this, but I don't have it, and I don't want to shell out a grand to do this. Just a wish. -there are a number of commands that can be run by clicking on unmarked areas of the screen. I call these "bonus" commands, because I never seem to stumble across them except by accident. Possibly they could be a little more formalized. -as a veteran AutoCAD user, I really miss object snaps for creating things. I realize that views can be oriented to faces, but I'd like to be able to draw a box with a vertex snap, for example. Possibly I just need to read the manual some more. -anyway, that's it for now. thanks for your time & consideration. -Gary Sim, 71175,2104