#IPAS Prog. Tutorial?
2 messages in this thread
Posted for a co-worker, reply to me please:
——
I have just started to program IPAS routines, and am having troubles. The
book that comes with the dev. kit isn't much help (great as a reference for
someone who already knows how to write a program to interface with 3DS). It
doesn't have anything in the way of a step-by-step tutorial on the basics. I
guess a different person wrote this than the 3DS tutorial book, which is
excellent.
Anyways, my question was, does anyone out there know of a good IPAS
programming book, or other source of info. It would be a great help.
Thanx in advance,
Tex
-Matthew Manuel
Hi Matthew,
<< Anyways, my question was, does anyone out there know of a good IPAS
programming book, or other source of info. >>
Planet Studio had a great article by John Foust that described some of the hand
waving that goes on in each of the plug-in type's *xp.c.
In addition, books like:
Computer Graphics – Principles and Practice by Foley, van Dam, Feiner, Hughes
Advanced Rendering and Animation Techniques by Watt and Watt
Graphic Gems I,II,III,IV,V
3D Computer Animation by Vince
Curves and Surfaces by Farin
are all a great place to start understanding the required base 3D graphic
concepts.
In addition, the examples that ship with the IPAS4 Toolkit offer many, many
insights into the underlying architecture. The best mechanism to enjoy these
insights is to compile all of the examples with the DEBUG option and then run
the routines in a debugger. This way, breakpoints, watches, etc. can be used to
step through the code with the manual on your lap and really *see* what's going
on inside.
In addition, many IPAS programmers start by becoming familiar with one of the
IPAS types and becoming proficient with it before moving on to other types.
Download the catalog files from the Software dev kit section as well as the
Script section for your friend. There are many additional examples there.
Search on the contributor ID of 76330,3402 for a set of very useful and
enjoyable examples created by Mark. Please note the files called IPASQ1.zip
and IPAS3Q.zip for a large number of common Q&A threads from IPAS developers.
jonas[adesk]