CompuServe Thread

Try using Syndesis Interchange Plus to do the Conversion of the Human.DXF BTW that object may very well be on the Syndesis 3DROM as there are SEVERAL Very good Humanoid Figures on it.

He doesn't sound like a very good friend if he ridicules your abilities like that. Anybody who behaves like that sounds like an insecure individual. Secure people don't feel they have to put someone else down if they feel somehow threatened. You should talk to Syndesis about Interchange, their multi-format object converter. It's your best alternative. -= Vance =- Image Master Flying high on Black Belt Systems' Imagemaster!

Mike, I believe your friend is quite out of line. Why would he put you down, and the work you _created_, by using a ready-made object as the weapon? What kind of friend is he? And how blind can he be to not appreciate the beauty of Lightwave 3.0 renders? Blaq!

That was pretty impressive of your friend to use an object that comes with his system! You should have loaded up the Urn and shown him a thing or two. No, wait a minute… But seriously, ask your friend to model something of his own… Also, ask Greg Teegarden about LW vs 3DS and see what he thinks. He is a 3DS artist who now uses LW, I'm sure he'll have some pros and cons about the two… JG

Well, speaking as a guy who has used both, I'd have to say that it's a pretty close race, but I'd vote for the Toaster. My vote would have been different say about 8 months ago, but I've watched LightWave mature into the sophisticated peice of software that it is today and am quite impressed. Although 3D Studio is an excellent piece of software, and has many features that I only wish LightWave had, like a local axis system, UV mapping, lights linked to objects, real splines, Video Post, and last but not least a Materials Editor, the bottom line is that LightWave still models better, renders better, faster, and with more realism than 3DS. It would be impossible to use 3DS here on seaQuest. The sopistication 3DS's modeling program is not up to par with LightWaves. I'm not trying to slam 3DS here, because it's modeler does have better splines than LightWave's, and the lofter is still pretty cool, but 3DS falls flat when it comes to control of vertices in a model, design of the interface and sophistication of the modeling tools compared to the Toaster. 3DS's modeler also does not have multiple layer support, a feature in LightWave that I often wonder how I ever did without using 3DS. As far as animating goes, 3DS's local axis system does give certain advantages over LightWave, and as far as I'm concerend, they are often sorley missed. But LightWave's shortcommings in this area are more than made up by it's ability to save out motion files, the introduction of it's motion graphs for smoothing out keyframes, which are far superior than 3DS's Track Info Dialoge Box. Probably the best advantage in LightWave is the Bones feature which allows skeletal deformation of objects, or shall I say character animation. While I understand this feature is supported in 3DS, it's only availble via IPAS which is an extra plug-in routine one must purchase seperately in addtion to 3DS's $3000. price tag- about six or seven hundred dollars more than the whole Toaster, and is not nearly as interactive. Also, LightWave's texture mapping options are more sophisticated than 3DS's. Although I really like the mapping icons and the ability to rotate maps on an object as well as the new Mask's which 3DS supports, I've found LightWaves texture falloff, velocity, and world coordinates to be indespensible for the creation of special effects here at seaQuest, and to the best of my knowledge, 3DS does not support this, although please correct me if I'm wrong. In all fairness to 3DS however, I do have to give them credit for supporting multiple color maps on an object, something LightWave does not do, as of yet. LightWave also supports a full option list of Raytracing, including shadows, reflection, and refraction, although I often wish it had 3DS's environmental mapping option, which would eliminate the time consuming Trace Reflection option necessary in LightWave, but as far as I know 3DS only supports Trace Shadows at this time. LightWave also has built in Lens Flare, an "extra" with 3DS, as also fractal options, diplacement mapping, and procedural 'Ripples', which are more sophisticated than what comes with 3DS. One feature alone that sets LightWave apart is it's backdrop fog option as well as the ability to create a sort of world coordinate gradient which affords realistic horizons that behave in a real world type of fashion. As far I know 3DS supports non of these options. I hate sound like I'm slamming 3DS, because it's been good to me and has got me many jobs, and is repsonsible for me being at seaQuset, but if you want the most bang for your buck, the Toaster will win out every time- and I know because I've used both. -GT PS, Last but not least, the Toaster has the Screamer rendering engine on the way, equal to 12 486 DX266's or 6 Pentiums, -i.e.. for paralell MIPS R4400's running at 150mhz. 600 mips and 340 specMARKS!!! And for under $10,000!