#Topas 4.0 vs 3DS 2.0
12 messages in this thread
I'm helping a friend to do a review/comparison between 3DS r2 and Topas r4
for a local magazine. For those of you who use Topas 3.x (and maybe 4.0)
what do you feel are the major differences between the two products.
From my limited experience with Topas, here are a few of my ideas:
3DS Topas
—————— ———————–
Video Post Texture mapping proxies
IPAS Distance Lights (w/geographical
Sun)
Please add to this list. Thanks!
-MM
Mike
I have 3.5 years TOPAS experience and good knowledge of 3DSR2, how much do
you need and what slant, features or usability.
I started on a reply (offline) but ended up writing what would have ended
up as pages of stuff. In terms of features it would be easy to make them
look very similar, or at least competitive. In terms of usability TOPAS
goes back on the shelf and from all I've heard about V4 looks destined to
stay there.
Grahame
It's a pretty small article, 1000 words or so. So there is not much room
for details. I was just looking for a few general comments.
-MM
Mike
General impressions, and taking on board Ken's comment about being fair.
Firstly TOPAS works mostly through the camera view, you can turn off
perspective and align to any plane but it is much less of a CAD derived
interface than 3DSR2. Multi-port viewing on a standard-res monitor is
pretty unrewarding and other than totally hiding objects there is no way of
speeding up redraws. Using a higher resolution is awkward because the
(memory resident) texture buffers are sized to match the current display.
TOPAS has the RRS i860 accelerator system available, and needs it to
compete on speed with 3DS.
TOPAS has interactively deformable & tweenable spline meshes, they are
great for playing around with but have problems if you want precision.
(I'm mostly describing TOPAS features because I guess you know 3DS)
TOPAS lights are being improved for V4 so lets wait and see.
Animation editing is now well sorted, but I often find I need to resort to
editing the textual script file especially if I want to loop something,
maybe V4 will change this.
As an owner from early on and especially one interested in photorealism I
would say that the main thrust of development has been on the free form
modelling and animation side rather than the rendering side. The rendering
capabilities and speed have not changed much since V2.2, apart from a
simplistic "metal" shading mode…
Great for people who like it in Chrome!
<more>
Mike,
You don't appear to have made much of a start. Do your friend
actually have the products (or a beta) to review? Or perhaps any
competitive analysis info? I think GSL's analysis points out more than 25
features of TOPAS 4.0 that are not in 3D Studio. Aren't you getting any
support from these companies in preparing the review?
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
They can't get us 4.0 in time for the deadline. They did send us a generic
Press Release, and a copy of Rio, and Topas 3.61 but thats about it. No, we
are not getting very much support. Again, I'm just looking for general
impressions on how the two compare. This is _not_ an indepth technical
piece, its for people who have never heard of 3DS or Topas before.
-MM
Mike,
Unfortunately, my info is perhaps *too* in-depth for the casual
user. You might try talking to Crystal Graphics @ 408/496-6175 (developers
of the program). Possible contact would be Debbie Derana. I just feel
that without some recent input from them on enhancements in TOPAS 4.0, that
there isn't any basis for a fair comparison. It might be too much like
comparing 3D Studio 1.0 to 2.0. TOPAS 3.61 isn't anything like 4.0.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
Thanks for the info, we'll give them a call.
-MM
Kevin
I'd be interested in their 25 points (?) I really can't think of anything
practical that could be done in TOPAS but not 3DSR2, but I await V4 with
interest. I hope they are not basing their list on features which exist but
don't really work well enough to get excited about (e.g. sunlight)
Grahame
(the two things I still use TOPAS for are dumping frames to tape, TOPAS
loads the Vista faster, save on expensive MII heads and the outliner for
when I really have to do a flying Logo but I DXF it out tidy and render in
3DSR2)
Mike:
I don't think 4.0 is out yet, is it? It's not really fair to compare 3dsr2
to topas 3.61. Give 'em a fair shot <grin> and wait for 4.0 release.
Ken Loss-Cutler
Hey, we would love to compare the 4.0 release. But they were afraid to send
us a beta. They just gave us an phone interview with a spec sheet. The 4.0
release will miss our deadline.
-MM
I understand your predicament, but using 3.61 is simply OLD NEWS. Everyone
knows that 3dsr2 runs rings around 3.61 . The test (translation: the
newsworthy article) must be 4.0 . GSL is obviously trying to keep things
under wraps until they get things finished for SIGGRAPH. They know, as you
must, that any comparisons done with 3.61 will not hurt them. They can
just say "Ah, but we fixed all that in the update.". Your article will
simply not be valid until after SIGGRAPH, deadline or no deadline. What a
racket, huh?
Ken