CompuServe Thread

The Meier Utilities for 3D Studio Release 4 =========================================== This is an update to the Lighting Utilities with many new features. ————————————————————– – Real time name popups for lights and cameras (similar to icon Tool Tips under Windows). As you move the cursor about the screen the names of any lights or cameras you get close to automatically pop up beneath the cursor. – Graphic Selection of lights for use with all commands including Update, Array and Delete. – Ability to save and recall groups of lights, cameras and meshes using a 24 character name. Up to 64 sets per 3DS or PRJ file. Named groups of items may be used with any command. – A new command to add a group of objects to the exclusion list of a group of lights. – A new command to very quickly toggle lights on/off. – A new command to quickly toggle cone visibility for spot lights and cameras. New selection tools for manipulating multiple mesh objects, lights and cameras. ———————————————————– – Select items based on common criteria including any combination of color/on-off state/hidden state/frozen state/selected state. – Much more powerful wildcard pattern matching including these options: #=any numeric digit, @=any alpha char,~=not the pattern, []=any character enclosed in the brackets,[-]=ranges of characters, [~-]=any char not in the range… Programmable User Interface ————————— – No main dialog – all commands are executed via user programmable keys or strokes. Strokes allow one to execute commands by sketching shapes with the mouse. For example a few strokes which are defined by default are: Point to a light (its name will pop up), press the right button and drag straight down – this causes the light to be toggled on or off. Or point to a light and draw an "L" shape – you may then change the lights color. Or point to an object and stroke a "V" shape. The object will be loaded into the real time renderer. The idea is you don't have to navigate a menu – you just point to the object and "flip your wrist". This simultaneously specifies the object to act upon and the command to apply. To program a stroke you simply hold the Ctrl key and draw the stroke to teach. You then choose the command to assign from a list. This free program is in the IPAS Usage Library in a 166K file named MEIER.ZIP Mark PS Thanks to Jonas for lots of help during development. Also thanks to David Rhoten for beta testing and many good ideas – including the name pop ups.