CompuServe Thread

VIB3DS.VLM. LSPEED.VLM. FPREVIEW.VLM. Under Novell Netware using the newer client shells, .VLM means Virtual Loadable Module, which can be located anywhere in memory (EMS, XMS, UMB, Conventional, whatever happens to be most efficient). But what do they mean in 3DS? I have the feeling that it means "Vibrant's Loadable Modules." All three of those .VLMs I mentioned are from Vibrant. They add powerful features directly to 3DS in ways that mere IPAS plugins cannot, and in one case make what appears to be an IPAS do things an IPAS alone cannot do. VIB3DS.VLM is part of the Vibrant In-Line Video Drivers. LSPEED.VLM is part of Liquid Speed. (In both cases there are .RES [presumably Resource] files associated with them). FPREVIEW.VLM was introduced with Release "4" and is the Camera Control/Fast Preview module. All have copyrights by Vibrant that appear as 3DS is being started. They are all therefore automatically loaded by 3DS as it starts! What's the deal? Is only VIBRANT _allowed_ to write .VLMs? I saw no information on them in the IPAS Toolkit we ordered some months ago. I have seen no .VLMs written by anyone else including Digimation, Black Box, Schreiber, Pyros, etc., let alone Vibrant's direct competitors such as Panacea. Who knows what wonders they could work with such access to 3DS's raw power that makes things like Liquid Speed and Camera Control and Fast Preview possible? Why isn't there a developer's kit for these, or if there is, why is it apparently restricted to Vibrant? Was there some contractual thing involved? If so, this sound suspiciously like an Unfair Competitive Advantage (the same thing the Department of Justice is breathing down the Redmond Barbarian's neck for) given to Vibrant. More to the point for us end-users, it seems to be restricting one of the main ways of extending power of 3DS to just one company with a relatively restricted imagination (video accellerators and drivers mostly). Who knows what the imaginations that gave us Bones Pro, MetaReyes, MeshPaint, Imagine Puppetteer, LenzFX, The Script Extensions (imagine a SCRIPT.VLM which lets you write .VLM-type extensions in TSE BASIC!!) etc. etc. etc. could do with this power? Why restrict it?