Sculpt Anim 4D
14 messages in this thread
Thanks for responding, Steven. I saw the B&W printed version of a Teapot
and 2 cups full of liquid credited to Marcus Brooks made with Sculpt
Animate 4D. It looks super printed in B&W and reduced to 3"x4". I just
wondered what it looks like in HAM at my house.
I was more interested in the other picture in the 4D announcement — the
one with the transparent sphere. Does this mean that the Sculpt series
will finally have a true "glass", with a refractive index that I can set,
etc?
I don't know if a refractive index is a new feature of SA4D, but if the
glass sphere on the tripod is any indication, there is no refraction.
Unless, of course, that object is really a soap bubble. Refraction is not
mentioned in the feature list. I was a little disappointed that image
mapping was not listed either.
Bob – There always IS Turbo Silver which does include true refraction and
image mapping for about $300 less money, not to mention the Trace times are
magniudes faster than Sculpt products.
Thanks Stan, but I have Turbo Silver and it is superior in the ways you
mention, but I have a hard time mentally 'connecting' with your object
editor/user interface. Some aspects are obvious and intuitive, but others
seem cryptic and obtuse, or even arbitrary. And, frankly, the documentation
I have for Turbo Silver is about the worst ever. Perhaps the new manual
will help me become a bit more chummy with TS. BTW, the upgrade to SA 4D is
'only' $199.00.
Bob – The NEW manual for TSilver went to the printers yesterday, and we
expect to have them back by Friday next week at the latest. I do agree
that our object editor leaves much to be desired. But with programs like
Interchange and 3-Demon out there, lots of folks are continue to create
objects in Sculpt and move them over to TSilver. BTW the 3-Demon version
with TSilver support appears to be finished. And it works just fine. Stan
Kalisher (Impulse)
Stan,
I'm just curious. I'm not a TSilver user, or a Sculpt user, or a user of
any 'art' program other than DPaint II. However, since you admit your object
editor isn't the greatest and some of your users confirm this, will Impulse be
upgrading it in the near future?
-sja
The most difficult part of this type of program is the object editor. (for us
at least) The reason being the inherent problems with the Amiga re-draw and
amigados clipping routines, prohibit us from actually doing it the way we want
to. For the forseeable future we have no plans to change our editor. With
programs like interchange, 3-Demon, and now Aegis modeler out there, Users
should be able to construct what they need and render it in TSilver.
Stan Kalisher (Impulse)
I called Byte by Byte on Friday to check this out, and the answer is "No",
the "glass" texture is the same as the old one, although the rendering is
supposed to be a little improved. We are still not able to select the
refractive index. My feeling is that Sculpt may never be able to, since it
seems to use surface textures rather than strictly modelling a 3-D object.
The change in the proportions of transmittance and reflectance as one goes
around the curve of a sphere or cylinder gives SOME illusion of refraction,
but it's just not the same ….. <sigh>
It seems as though the shortest path to more realistic renderings is to
move to Turbo Silver and adjust to their object editor. I know that there
are object translators, but if the source object editor doesn't have the
characteristics that TSilver has, how can it translate what is not there?
Bob – Once an object is brought into TSilver via interchange you can then
give it whatever properties you didn't have in the original editor, i.e.
refraction, or mapping etc. 3-Demon should have their Turbo Silver version
out shortly, and they support all of our properties except mapping and
textures.
Thanks Stan. I thought that when you mentioned the TSilver version of 3-Demon
in an earlier message, you were alluding to 3-Demon's full support of TSilver.
I did't know what it was then, but I have just read a review in Amiga World.
The way this is heading, I will end up with one program to dot my i's and
another to cross my t's. <smiling now>
– Bob
Of course! and one each for left and right parenthesis. <–Stan
I'm thinking about Silver, but I already have so much (time as well as cash)
invested in Sculpt. I may take a long, hard look at Silver next time I'm in a
store, especially if they have a copy of 3.0.
…wjas {;-O>