CompuServe Thread

r4 still hasn't shipped – I called Autodesk this afternoon, and was told it would ship definitely by the end of the month, maybe as soon as the end of the week! Today I was given an opportunity to play with a late beta of r4, and would like to share what I think we all have to look forward to (and some things we don't!). I confirmed the Patch Modeler will be omitted from the new version, which of course disappoints me, but I do understand. I've never had any operational difficulty with any product I've purchased from Autodesk; their reputation is too important to risk a potentially buggy feature. I recall long, long ago, waiting days for Presidio's 3D Workshop v1.0 to render an animation, only to have the evil thing corrupt the whole file because it couldn't digest its own paths. No bug is fun in any application; when animating, it can mean missing a deadline by days. However, I did get a chance to use the Patch Modeler, and must report that it would have been an incredible addition. Very intuitive, and in seconds I could create extremely complex, smooth objects which would have taken hours (or have been impossible) in the Shaper & Lofter. In any case, I'm looking forward to its inclusion in future upgrades (r4.5?) No, it didn't crash on me, but then again, I wasn't pushing it. I was impressed enough I would have loved to slip a floppy in the machine while no one was looking and pirate the thing. The camera view fast rendering, however, *is* something to look forward to. A while ago on The Next Step, Richard Hart was shown a demonstration on an SGI with a chrome VW Bug model and his face as a reflection map, updated in real time as the operator rotated & moved the object. Of course r4 won't display texture maps, but will give a close approximation of their color in Phong shading (well, the button said Phong, even though the press release says it displays only up to Gouraud, with Phong highlights). What's impressive is its ability to interact with lights & shadows in real-time. The interface consists of a strip of radio buttons along the right side of the screen, controlling roll, dolly, perspective, etc. I think this is a feature many of us won't realize we were missing until we get it — no longer do you have to wait to render a low-rez image or preview .FLI to make sure your model connects to itself, without any floating satellites or gaping holes. The machine I tried it on was a slower one — probably a 486/33 — and my scene moved at least as smoothly as a 20 fps .FLI. The screens & interface look exactly the same — five minutes into my experimentation, I had to quell my doubts I had been duped by making sure it really was r4 by checking the About 3D Studio. . . menu. Since I didn't have much of a chance to build very complex models, I couldn't confirm the new, fast 3D Editor redraws. Nor did I have a chance to play with the Perspective Matcher, IK, or Keyframe Scripting Language. I can't imagine using the scripting language much myself. It seems to be more of another opportunity for 3rd party developers to sell us more stuff, which is healthy & fine, but probably the least creatively productive feature I've paid for in a 3DS upgrade. Well, maybe not as much as the text editor included in r3, but at least now I know what it was intended for <g>. Is it worth the cost? Sure. Being anxious & paranoid, I've already turned in my r3 floppy #1 to my dealer, even though the thing hasn't been released yet. BTW, many people have been asking me what happened to the Hi-Lux BBS, the 3DS-related BBS I ran. It's been down for about a month and a half — we moved, and, for a number of truly absurd reasons we haven't had a chance to plug it in. The good news: It should be on-line at its new phone number by this weekend (the weekend of October 22nd), so give it a call at (510) 233-7859. The bad news? Soon it won't be free – we'll be charging $10 or so for a "lifetime subscription," or something similar, to keep the system on-line. Until then, however, it's still a no-cost, wide-open system, and I certainly won't ask anyone who calls previous to the changeover to send in any money after the fee period begins to continue with unlimited access. Give it a call, it's quite comprehensive, has thousands of files and remains a lot of fun. M. Bman