CompuServe Messages

Wayne, First of all, a good 90%+ of doing 3D modeling and animation is problem solving. The learning curve will be what almost anyone would consider high when it comes to doing 3D modeling and animation with any of the popular packages used by professionals. Good looking final renderings depend alot upon how much the artist knows about 3D spatial relationships, light & shadow, materials creation and how all of these things act and react together in a 3D scene. The next thing that will make a difference is how life-like you want your renderings to look. Since you are dealing with organic structures, your best choice would be to use a 3D package that offers metaballs; if you don't even want to spend the $3000 for 3DS, forget metaballs – I don't think they are available for any package under $10,000. The next best choice would be a 3D package that offers spline modeling – modeling that uses curves to form objects rather than polygons. With a spline model, you won't have any facets that you don't want. Now you have to decide how much stuff you want to model, a decision that will probably be based upon how realistic you want things. The realism will take time – lots of it. If you don't want to spend the time, then you have a couple of choices – hire someone to do it for you, or buy models from a company like Crestline or Viewpoint. Again, detail will be an issue. Some of Viewpoint's most accurate models are over $1000 & $2000. The other thing to keep in mind is that most, if not all, companies that sell models create them with polygons. Although polygon modeling is on the way out, it is the prevailent form and will probably be around for a least another decade. One bonus of a spline modeling program would be the ability to convert a .DXF format (the most widely used) object to curves. As far as I know, all professional level 3D packages read and write this format. The downside to converting a .DXF file to curves in a spline modeler is that there will be so many control points (based upon the objects complexity) that it would be pointless, and in some cases, impossible to work on it effectively. Another decision will have to made on what type of rendering you want – Shading or Ray Tracing. Shading is not as realistic as Ray Tracing, but it is many times faster. There are a number of applications available for under $1000. As with any product, they all have strengths and weaknesses. Some do not offer animation, but you can create animation by rendering multiple images at different positions and importing them into a 2D animation application. ___Professional___ Animation: Master – $800 — Hash, Inc. Playmation – $350 — Hash, Inc. Imagine – $800 — Impluse Imagine Lt – $99 — Impulse Crystal TOPAS – $580 — Crystal Graphics trueSpace – $500 — Calagari Lightwave 3D – $995 — NewTek Ray Dream Designer 3 – $250 — Ray Dream ___Other___ Simple 3D – $50 – Visual Software Asymetrix 3D F/X – $90 – Asymetrix ___Free___ POV Ray Vivid Ray Tracer Polyray None of the above is meant as a discouragement. However, you should be aware of the fact that if you are developing this CD-ROM for commercial sale, that quite a few companies spend as much as $500,000 developing one multimedia CD-ROM. A good reference would be the five part series of articles beginning with the April '94 issue of Desktop Video World (Now DV Magazine). My personal recommendation for software would be Hash, Inc's Animation: Master. It is an application designed from the ground up to be the best at character animation, and it is. It is also capable of stunning realism – download RODLOW.zip from the Hash, Inc. library in Animation Vendors A forum. It maybe the least well-known of the above mentioned professional level packages, but it is the all-around best. Version 3.0 is due out by the end of March and will be adding features that put it even further ahead of the competition. It is also available for PC, Mac, Amiga, and SGI, with all project files being cross-compatible. There is even a Windows NT version coming out that can be used with the DEC Alpha chipset. It was also written from the beginning as a 32 bit app, so when Windows '95 comes out, or if you use NT or OS/2, it already takes advantage of the 32 bit OS. If you research it enough, you will find that no other program in the $300 – $5000 price range, and maybe even higher, can out perform it's organic rendering capability. Michael S. Flynn