What's in 3D?
19 messages in this thread
I've recently seen a demo of 3D – and very pretty it was. I have some
questions which I'd love answers to – if you know them (!)
Is 3D a standalone product or are other products requisite?
How much is it?
Where is it available from?
And, subjectively, how good is it?
I await your responses. Thanks, Phil
How you do Phil?
I'm an English chap living in L.A.,California and a 1 year veteran user of
3d studio. It is a standalone product with everything you need to model 3d
objects, create and apply materials, create and edit cameras and lights,
animate them all and view them. It is capable of producing broadcast
quality animation (if you are) in true colour 32-bit (RGB and alpha-channel
for compositing over live video) in the same league as Topaz and Wavefront
etc. The interface is very user-friendly, even more so with version 2, so
you can produce simple but effective animations quite quickly. Of course,
the difficultly increases exponentially with the relative complexity of the
animation. Price/performance wise, nothing comes close on the PC platform.
Many users also have other types of software which compliment 3ds, but are
not absolutely necessary. If you want to create animations to be played
back on a PC then Autodesk's Animator Pro can be used as a combined paint
package / post processing tool for painting texture maps and editting
animations created in 3ds. If your animations are destined for broadcast
then you would probably want a 24 or 32 bit paint package/image processing
package like TIPS or Photostyler for Windows.
To get it you'll have to contact Autodesk UK, for your closest dealer and
it's price is $2995 here, so probably that many pounds, but I'm just
guessing.
Martin, greetings from a cold, wet England. Thanks for responding. I have
Animator – although I don't use it very much. Is 3D capable of a
realistically fast playback on the computer? Or do you *have* to output
frame by frame to video?
I read somewhere about Autodesk being used with 3D. You've said that it is
standalone – have you any idea why Autodesk would be a requirement?
I'm interested in "modelling" buildings and "walking through" them. Would
3D fit the bill?
The price in the UK is 1895 (apparently) – not too far out, for a change!
(Where in England do you originate from BTW – I always get jealous of the
English who migrate to California – I get phone calls complaining about the
heat when I'm watching storm clouds).
regards, Phil
Phil – "cold, wet England" wasn't enough? Now it's "cold, wet, tory
England"!! <grin>
Dave
But it could have been "cold, wet, Labour England". That really would have
made us shiver! <g>
regards, Phil
Phil – Hah! Well, there was a 50/50 chance I could have offended you <g>.
Funny thing is, they've been telling us for the last year over here that
people are fed up and want change…
Back to your original message… you asked if you needed "Autodesk" to use 3D
Studio… I wonder if you meant if you needed AutoCAD? If so, the answer is
no. You can create new geometry in 3D Studio. You can also make 3D drawings
in AutoCAD and DXF them over to 3D Studio, but it's not required.
Dave
Dave,
Absolutely no offence taken. My feelings were that – yes, most of Britain
wanted a change – unfortunately they weren't happy with the change they
were offered. As I believe that the politicians don't really matter anyway
(because most of the decisions which affect the population are taken by
civil servants and merely passed into law by the government) it really
doesn't matter who won.
regards, Phil
Phil,
I assume your cynical attitude of the brittish political situation results
from watching "Yes Prime Minister" too much <g>. One of my favorite shows
here.
James
Ex Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher puts "Yes Prime Minister" down as her
favourite show too……
regards, Phil
Phil, I think we need to clear up our terminology, here, so that we are
talking about the same products. Autodesk is the software company not a
product. They have several multimedia products: Animator (which has since
become "Multimedia Explorer") which was a 2d paint and animation package
limited to 320×200 256 colours; Animator Pro which is a step up from the
original "Animator" and is resolution independent (typically up to 1024 x
768) but still 2d and limited to 256 colours; then we have 3D Studio (or
3ds abbreviated) which is a broadcast quality 3 dimensional animation
package which has a full 16.7 million colour capability. You can play-back
animations on the PC quite acceptably as long as the changes between each
frame are not too great, making it jerky, but these can only be 256 colour
(8 bit) animations or flics. Right now if you want 24-bit animations to
playback smoothly you have to record frame-by-frame to a frame accurate
VTR.
I don't know what you mean by ".. why Autodesk would be a requirement?"
Autodesk what? If you mean Animator or Animator Pro, they are not required
but are useful. 3d Studio is perfect for modelling buildings and doing
walkthroughs, having done this myself I can say this with certainty.
I was born in Liverpool, but grew up in Rotherham near Sheffield, escaped
to London when I was 16, then went to Manchester Polytechnic, graduated and
escaped to California via Boston, Chicago, Denver and Las Vegas. Bit of a
nomad, eh? I live in a coastal area 60 miles south of L.A. called Laguna
("Far from the Madding Crowd" and crime and pollution etc, etc). However, I
may move on eventually, Australia perhaps, or maybe even back to Blighty if
the economy ever picks up.
Sorry Martin, I was trying to remember something I'd seen written down.
What I'd read was "3D model created in AutoCAD and transfered into 3D
Studio….". My assumption was that AutoCAD was an Autodesk product because
it sounds like one! Regretably I called it Autodesk in error. What was
unclear, because of this, was whether initial drawings had to be done
elsewhere and imported to render, animate, etc.
I'm as nomadic as you but largely round England. I started in Surrey, moved
to North Wales, London, Manchester, Sunderland, Basingstoke, a spell in
Nigeria and then back to Hampshire. I guess most of your places were better
than most of mine <g>. I'll swap you the nicer parts of California or New
England for Huddersfield any day!
regards, Phil
Let me jump in here for a second. AutoCAD, a software product from
Autodesk, is a highly detailed, full-featured computer aided design (CAD)
package in which you can create both 2D and 3D drafting designs. It is
primarily designed to provide everything an architect, or draftsperson
might need, such as detailed dimensioning. Autodesk 3D Studio is a 3D
modeling, rendering, and animation package, which is also from
Autodesk–through a different division. It is primarily 3D and its purpose
is to provide photo-realistic rendering of still images and animations. 3D
Studio is a stand-alone package, but does not contain such CAD details as
dimensioning, for example. Since there are a number of companies already
using AutoCAD who have already created their designs in that package–or
who are accustom to using it–or who require many of its detailed CAD
functions, we've designed 3D Studio to import AutoCAD files for rendering.
Typically, an architectural firm may want an animated "walkthrough" of a
building they've already designed in AutoCAD. They bring it into 3D Studio,
add lights and cameras, apply various materials (designed in 3D Studio),
design a walkthrough (animated path), and render the monster.
Autodesk 3D Studio is covered here in the ASOFT forum. AutoCAD is covered
in the ACAD forum. (Or is it ADESK? I'm never over there, so I can never
remember how to get there.)
– Jack
Jack,
Thanks for clearing up my confusion. However, if I may pursue something
(and you'll have to pardon my ignorance) do I take your reply to mean that
I couldn't design, say, a kitchen in 3Ds and then "animate" it? Or could I
do it without great detail or would I have to do it in AutoCAD and then
import it?
As I don't have the product – and it would be for personal use – I don't
want to spend the money without getting a real idea of capability, as I'm
sure you can understand. Whereas the demo I've seen was very impressive, I
would expect it to be. What it didn't give me was a real idea of what I'd
need to go through to get the same results. I have the original Animator,
which is fun, but I wouldn't want to use it to produce professional work.
Similarly, I'd rather know if I'd need AutoCAD for doing something like
kitchen design or, say, an office partition layout walkthrough as well as
the 3Ds. (I'm going to have to persuade my other half to let me spend money
– so the argument has to be convincing <g>).
I'd be grateful for your input.
Thanks, Phil
Phil,
You don't need Autocad to do the type's of things you mention, but the real
beauty of it is if you need to get Autocad objects over that works too.
Building houses/offices is entirely possible with 3DS, plus alot of other
much more fun stuff. I havn't had any problems convincing the other half
since I got a separate checking account to purchase all my "toys". I would
also highly reccomend Animator Pro as well, they are highly comlimentary
products.
James
You can design a kitchen in 3D Studio (in fact, I believe there's a
rendering of a kitchen in one of the libraries here [Gary?]). But, you
would not be able to print out a blueprint of that kitchen–with
dimensions–from 3ds. A walkthrough animation of an office partition layout
is a snap with 3ds. And it's the subject of one of the tutorials.
– Jack
Phil – one of the differences between AutoCAD and 3D Studio is that AutoCAD
uses double precision and 3DS uses single precision in its math calculations,
so you can get a much higher degree of accuracy with AutoCAD.
Another important difference is that you can turn your AutoCAD stuff into
annotated and dimensioned working drawings; you can't do that with 3DS.
Dave
Check the Yost Group (Jack's) reply for the definitive statement about the
Autodesk product line, or at least some of what they sell.
More importantly I was fairly pleased that the Tories won office again,
since I would have voted for them, but, I'm more inclined towards the
democrats over here (I'm still British so can't vote though).
Just got back from swimming at the beach, this evening as the weather's
been pretty good. (rubbing it in <g>). Anyway, let me know how your 3d
adventures unfold.
A Tory Democrat!!
You will be delighted to know that our Easter holiday (Friday-Monday) has a
weather forecast of cold and wet with snow in high places. Swimming
indeed…
Have a good holiday, Phil
Well, I'm going to a cold, snowy, dry place for Easter called Lake Tahoe up
in the Sierra mountains in Northern California. They have casinos up there,
similar to Las Vegas, which my wife likes but I'm going to see if there's
any snow left for skiing and if not I'll probably just hike around a bit.
Enjoy the holidays!