CompuServe Thread

<<How long before the actuall release are these announcements usually made?>> Usually 90 days or so. It can vary from product to product. (or Manager to Manager <g>) <<My situation is this. I am about to drop $25,000 into a system that will be built around 3D Studio. I can't do this twice, so I need to be relatively sure that I can use what I get now.>> That is a healthy chunk of change. I will do my best to answer your questions. <<Release 5 will be for NT and will be able to fully utilize the 32 bit architecture of the Pentium 100. It will be multi-threaded to take advantage of a dual CPU system.>> What we have officially announced is that R5 will be an NT release. Gary Yost has said here on the forum that the main reason for the NT release was to take advantage of the strong robust nature of the NT operating system. << "You can model on one CPU at the same time rendering operations are being done on the other" (Quote from a dealer) In other words there will be no dead time during rendering.>> Autodesk has never made any official announcements concerning the features of Release 5. No information of this nature will be given until the product is announced. You should wait until SIGGRAPH to look for information like this. <<In other words there will be no dead time during rendering. The same as having a dedicated render server in the same box. If this is not true, then I would rather throw the extra $1000 it will cost for a dual system at more ram or programs.>> This is all speculation, based on the fact that we have announced NT as an operating system. Sorry, but until we officially present the product, I don't have any information to give you. Perhaps Gary can comment more. <<There *are* no 3D-Graphics Accelerator boards on the market today that will speed up rendering time in 3DS.>> This statement is true. <<elease 5 will support 3Demon SX48 Accelerator boards.>> Once again, Autodesk has made no such announcement. Whoever told you this has speculated based on the single announcement that R5 will be an NT release. <<Gracie makes an acc board that can be used with 3DSR4 and is on the market now.>> I am not familiar with the Gracie product. I am sure that the board can be used with R4, however I doubt that it gives any enhanced rendering performance over any other graphics board. Unless they have written their own renderer for the hardware. <<Animation Studio (which I will buy with 3DS) does not work with DPS PAR or PVR.>> Yes it does. You can currently save from Animator Studio as a series of TGA files, and then bring those into the PAR/PVR. In the future, there will be a file toolkit for AAS available, and someone might write a routine that would allow you to save directly to an ANI file. But I currently use my PAR with Animator Studio animations all the time. <<There is no need for PAR because AS is NTSC capable and you can go directly to SVHS decks without additional converters.>> This does not make sense at all. How does a software package attach to a video deck? Animator Studio creates the animations. It is up to some hardware device (a PAR, or a VGA to NTSC converter, or frame buffer, etc.) to get the animation onto video. Bottom line: There is NO way to get from the computer onto video tape, no matter whose software you have, without some type of hardware (video board). <<Animation Studio is for 2D animations only. (What ever that means) I think they are trying to imply that you can only get cartoon quality animations from it. That it can't be used with 3D/photorealistic renderings.>> Animator Studio is a 2D paint and animation package. 3D Studio is a 3D modeling and animation package. AAS works with pixels. 3DS works with meshes, and then renders images. The two work together as a suite of tools. Once you take a mesh in 3D Studio and render it, it is in FLC, TGA, or whatever format. This means it can be brought into Animator Studio. If this is not quite clear, I can go into more detail on the differences between a RASTER (Animator, Animator Pro, Animator Studio) and VECTOR (ACAD, 3D Studio) program. <<That it can't be used with 3D/photorealistic renderings.>> Let me stress this. Once it is a rendering, it is a RASTER image, and can be used within Animator Studio. What Animator Studio can not do is read the MESH before it is rendered. It can be used with the Photorealistic/3D renderings from 3D Studio. << I need for the clients to be able to move through the 3D enviroment, interact with the animation and cause results inside of that environment.>> There are two ways to do this. One is using a 3D virtual world, which is a MAJOR programming job. The other is with some type of Authoring tool. The way most people would do this is with an Authoring tool and a series of possible animations. For example, you have an animation rendered of someone walking down the hallway, and they get to a "T" junction. They can go right, or left. Based on whether they click to the right, or push the arrow key, or whatever, you have the program display the animation that is the right corridor. But you would have needed to previously render both choices for the user. You use your authoring software to control the users input, and it will display the appropiate animations at the proper time. This is a major topic of discussion, and one that can't be handled in a single e-mail. Perhaps you might want to start a thread on when to choose a virtual world, Versus when to just author all possible scenarios. <<If AutoDesk has any products or any information on products that can be used with 3DS to produce the simulation I have in mind I would appreciate some fax'd info. My fax number is 504-673-9477.>> All the product releases are in the libraries. Reading through those might ease some of your confusion on the various tools available. I would recommend downloading the releases on 3D STUDIO, Animator Studio, and the CyberSpace Developers Kit. Search on the keyword RELEASE and you should find them all. -Brian

Terry, Were are you located? It sounds like you need to talk face to face with a good Autodesk Dealer? You can Call Autodesk for a listing of Authorized Dealers in your area at 1-800-525-2763. Our Dealership is located in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Let me know if I can be of any Help. You may not want to post your Fax number on the open forum as that may cause you to get a lot more than you bargained for…<BG> If your close by I'd be happy to have you spend an entire day at our dealership as well as provide you with a couple referrals that will tell you their experiences with our dealership. Murph' James Murphy Consulting