CompuServe Thread

Mike, I've been looking for an excuse to get the bikes on the road anyway. If you can make a list of questions you want answered, I'll ride down to Digimation and check it out. If they will be willing to spend the time to give me a demo, which I'm sure they will. I'm pretty new to all this, so give me some good questions, and any examples from other programs that I could make a comparison with. If you think I'm too new at this to give you a good report, don't be afraid to say so. I'm not the sensitive type.<g> But, let me know, I'm willing to try and help. Terry

Mike; I saw WB at the ASOFT party. I cannot answer all of your questions, but I did see them bring in some grass, and make it red. I believe you can make anything, any color you want, and the palette is infinitely adjustable. If you are not aware, the price for WB at the show was $995 for a limited time. As far as integration into 3DS, I asked that, and their was some hesitation. Kind of like, "Well, you could to this, or you could do that, or you could do ??? I am not sure of the answer I really got. You will need to wait for others to answer. I hope this helps, Dennis

Mike, as to your questions regarding World Builder from Digimation/AnimaTek. It's A LOT better than Vistapro! (Mucho mas bucks, too!) It looks like 2 of your 3 questions have been answered already, so I'll try to answer your third. I spent some time w/ David A. from Digimation as he demo'd WB at SIGGRAPH. The question came up in the crowd about integration with 3DS animations and here's what was demo'd/said : WB has the same "Merge" diag. box that 3DS does (it includes Objects, Lights, Cameras, Animation). When bringing in objects, it brings in ALL the object's material settings, too. WB's materials editor is the same -button for button- as 3DS r.4. So you get all your textures and subtle settings. Because WB generates outdoor scenes,they added a "Parallel Light" to its light settings to simulate sunlight, which has all the color controls our regular 3DS lights have now. One downside, WB's renderer does not support IPAS routines. So any effects would have to take place elsewhere. As for scene import/export, there are 3 basic ways to do it. I'm sure there are more if you get real creative! First, you can render your imported animations directly in WB. This can be done two ways: if your animation paths do not rely on the landscape's geometry, you can animate it all in 3DS and import your cameras, objects, and animations. If your animations depend on the landscape, WB can export scenes/specific objects as DXF files (with parameters for mesh detail -I think-) and animate in 3DS, then import cameras, objects, and animations back into the official world in WB for final render. OR—- you can generate a landscape in WB, save as a .3ds file, open in 3DS itsself, and then render. The problem with this method is that you will loose the objects that WB created with fractal methods. These include: grass (you will only get the simple mesh spikes used to spawn the fractal grass), water (you get the surface, but not the waves or refracted reflections), some other fractal plants (the majority are meshes -I think-), and the skys with fractal clouds (which could be rendered in WB and used later as a background element in 3DS.) OR—- You can render the scene in WB, asking it to save the Z buffer info. Then, once in 3DS, you load the WB scene in Video Post and do your final render with 3DS honoring the Z buffer info generated by World Builder. Digimation has an animation of a T-Rex walking thru grass that was animated this way. You can see its toes rendered thru the grass as it stomps around! As far as creating wild abstract worlds go, WB can handle it. I have been wanting a copy of KPT Bryce since it shipped, but HSC doesn't seem too interested in doing a PC version. So when I saw images for WB, I thought this might be my answer. So I have been doing some serious comparisons since then and WB is looking like the winner! Especially since it is currently shipping (Bryce isn't out for Windows yet), it does animation (we will have to wait for Bryce's Pro version), it imports 3DS objects/scenes, and it cost's the same as Bryce-Pro will (whenever it ships). In order to create some other-worldly scenes like Bryce, WB has the tools to do it. All the geography is made of simple splines. You can alter the sample scenes that come with WB, or create your own wild landscapes like in the demo renderings from Bryce. WB uses texture maps and bump maps to do most of it's detailing – so covering a mountain with 'happy faces' is possible . . . or pulsing blue veiny things . . . or plaid . . . or – you get my point! <G> You can also import ANY object as a 'plant'. David A. imported a cow and WB randomly placed it all over a landscape! Instant herd! The scale on any object can also be changed to create some Dali-like worlds. The skys are a combination of Vistapro-like cloud commands and 3DS color choosers so you can make stormy Mars skies or beautiful Earth sunsets. As you can see, I'm pretty sold on it! And I just recieved a note from a dealer that has a special on it (until AUG.18th!) for $135 LESS than other specials. The dealer's name is Michael Cortese at CIS# 71035,743. I'm calling on Monday for mine! Did I answer your question? This post is so long that I hope so!!! Sincerely, Sean Platter