#Real3D
20 messages in this thread
I looked into Real3D and talked to you at the show. I spoke with the
president of the Computer Arts Institute in California as they had
asked me to look into your product.
I told him that I was impressed by the power of the software and that
Ihave been told that your renderer is very impressive. Real3D has
features that I have not even seen on $10,000 and up packages.
The negatives, however, as I saw them were as follows: The interface
is designed for "power users" not artists. Secondly, I was not
impressed with the tape playing at your booth. It appeared to be VHS
and possibly third generation or worse.
Do you have any rendered examples of Real3D?
I must admit that some of the features of Real3D as were demonstrated
to me had me quite amazed. I am interested, to say the least.
Before you consider Real3D you'd best look at the manuals. They are
by far the worst software manuals I have ever seen, and literally
fall just shy of no manuals at all. I had Real 3D (well, I still do
but it is in the closet gathering dust) and used it for about a month
trying to work through the tutorials. I used the better part of a
pad of yellow stickies to mark pages with incomplete sentences,
menu/requester names and button lables that either did not exist, or
were actaully named/positioned differently in the program and
instructions that did not work. I also had a legal pad filled with
corrections and additions that would have to be written into the
manuals to make them useable. I had another pad of "work arounds"
for things that caused machine crashes, or Real 3D to end up with all
its windows closed and just its screen sitting there uncontrollable
and uncloseable. There is also no index, and the TOC refers to
section numbers, not page numbers. The section numbers appear only at
the beginning of a section and are not also on the pages themselves
so even with the TOC you are reduced to single-page flipping and
scanning much of the time.
Then there is the issue of the dongle. If you have any other device
that uses the joystick port (like a joystick or drawing device) you
are SOL. The dongle uses it. The dongle is also apparently not
passive. There were other programs that would crash if they were run
while the dongle was in place.
It is also primarily made for the PAL market. You have to scustomize
it for NTSC and pixel aspects of your chosen target display. This is
not straight forward for technical people let alone artists. The
program is alos very slow. Camera and light pointing are confusing
and more difficult than they need to be.
I think you should take are real hard comparative look at Caligary
(The PC version is quite nice) LightWave standalone (if you do not
want a Toaster). Even Imagine with its history of poor docs would be
a better choice. And I say that as one who tried and just couldn't
get comfrtable with Imagine.
BTW, I make my living mainly off Lightwave. I have yet to be
presented with a project that absolutely cannot be done with
Lightwave. And I find the lightwave documentation and interface let
me focus on creating the animation/graphic look I want rather than on
how to operate or get around the program to get what I want. IOTW,
with Lightwave I feel I am contrained by my talent and creativity
whereas with Real 3D, I felt like the program and its documentation
were the limiting factors.
Thanks for the message!
I also use Lightwave for the majority of work I do.
I do some consulting work for the Computer Arts Institute in
California and recently the owner of the institute expressed interest
in Real3D. When the president found out about this, he asked me to
look into it. I truly appreciate your reply and will be passing your
input along.
I recently considered experiementing with Imagine, but after visiting
SIGGraph and seeing Lightwave finally entering the multiple platform
market, I am content to wait. 😉
I must say, however, that the new Real3D does have some powerful
functions. But it all comes down to what people out in the real
world are using.
Caligary, Lightwave and Imagine are all multi-platform now. Real-3D
has, I believe, rendering engines available on other platforms and
was supposedly working on a Windows version, but I don't know what
it's status is.
Has the Lightwave IBM version been released? I am dying to get it
running on a Pentium. Also, does anyone know if Alan is going to add
Network rendering capabilities?
Any idea by anyone how fast rendering will be possible for lightwave
on the IBM platform, say by a 486DX2 – compared to an AMIGA 4000 with
a warp engine.
At this point there's no way to know how the PC version of LW will
compare to the Amiga version since it's not released. However,
VistaPro and Imagine running on a 486/66 seem to be about twice as
fast as running on a 33mhz 040 from what I've heard. Real 3D is also
quicker. Not sure about Caligari though.
>At this point there's no way to know how the PC version of LW will
>compare to the Amiga version since it's not released.
Allen said that he has LW running on a 486/66 and it is about 2.5
faster than a stock A4000. He isn't done with LW/PC (still a few
bugs) but it is usable as of now.
Thanks for your estimate. That makes an Amiga with a warp engine about
50% faster than a 486/66. I wonder how fast the Pentium is and how
you could soup up an IBM.
I've been looking into the speed differences between a 486-66 and a
Pentium myself. If I remember correctly from the Intel benchmarks
I've seen a Pentium 66 is supposed to be just under twice the speed
of a 486-66. You can also get a 90mhz Pentium or a dual Pentium
motherboard that will do multiprocessing under Windoze NT. Of course
you'd need a special versions of your rendering software to take
advantage of the dual processor board. I have been told by a few
dealers that Pentium 60 machines tend to be a little flakey and to go
with a Pentium 90 which uses a lower voltage chip that runs a lot
cooler.
Thanks. My interest is even more in comparing IBM vs AMIGA speeds for
rendering lightwave. I want to determine where to get the biggest
(rendering) bang for the buck, although at this point with a couple
of IBMS and a couple of AMIGAS, I probably won't be buying anything
else more. It does seem from what people are saying though, that the
rendering capacity per $ invested will be about twice as much on the
IBM than on the AMIGA platform. That assumes an AMIGA with a warp
engine does the same rendering speed as an IBM type machine (this is
from another commentator on the forum) and assuming the IBM costs half
as much as that set up.
Hmm…sort of depressing from an AMIGA standpoint.
Any comments anyone?
You don't say whether you have a Toaster in your Amiga, or what kind
of work you plan on doing.
If you plan on rendering to NTSC, you'll probably find out that it's a
pretty expensive proposition on the PC, because 99.99% of the video
cards aren't capable of outputing a 24-bit NTSC signal. Cards that
can, are very expensive, on a par with the Toaster.
I plan on getting the PC version of LW because I think I'll be able to
model and test-render faster on the PC, and then do the final work on
the Toaster in my Amiga.
Since things won't be happening until the end of the year, we can all
probably evaluate our needs until then and make the right decisions.
Jeff,
Thanks for the info. That makes an Amiga with a warp engine somewhat faster
than the 486/66.
Michael
If LW runs through Windows, it's likely to be slower than the Amiga
version.
-= Vance =- Image Master
Flying high on Imagine and Imagemaster R/t!
LightWave won't run under Windoze 3.1 from what I've heard. You'll
need Windoze NT or Windoze 4 (Chicago). Both are 32 bit operating
systems that rather than DOS shells. That should allow LightWave to
take advantage of the hardware it's running on rather than being
hindered by a 10 year old operating system.
Besides, from what I've heard compilers tend to be more efficient on
PC's. VistaPro runs under Windoze and I've heard it's faster than
the Amiga version.
Impulse said they avoided using Windows as they said it would slow
down the rendering process, since Windows is such a pig for resources
to just get it to run. The announcements I read on LW for other
platforms included Windows as well as Windows NT.
This is true. However, Windows 4.0 will finally allow (or so they
say) true 32 bit access and speed.
I know about Windows being a resource pig. I suspect that the reason
Newtek listed it as being compatable with Windows as well as NT is
that Windows 4 (Chicago) was supposed to be available before
LightWave. Of course with Windows 4 being delayed Windows NT might
be the only option for early LightWave PC users. :^( It's like
Imagine; it might run under DOS, but will it run under DOS 3?
I haven't seen it but someone ws giving speed comparisons, so I assume
its out.
I have to support you in your view of Real 3D! It isn't easy! I am a
Lightwave user who has found only SoftImage to be more impressive!
Imagine is good too!
Once Real becomes a bit more artistic friendly…SoftImages does all
Real will do, and it is a breeze to use… and "studio" like, I might
go back.
Every once and a while, I will pull my copy off the shelf, and try
again, thinking I was just having a bad day…well, I know a little,
but not enough… I don't have six months to learn software and make
money!!!