SA-4D Comments
5 messages in this thread
I've been using Sculpt-Animate 4D for a little while now, and I just
thought I'd make a few comments. Overall, I'm quite impressed. Object
creation has been made easier with the addition of a few new tools (direct
entry of co-ordinates is something I've been waiting for for a long time)
and improvements on old ones (the requesters are now much better, thank
goodness!).
The two best things, though, are an increase in rendering speed, and an
improved image at the end of the process. I tried a few fairly standard
scenes and found about 3-fold increase in speed, then I tried a very
complex scene that I've been fiddling with (lots of glass, a couple of
lights, etc), and found an 8-fold decrease in rendering time.
And, because 4D renders the image at the maximum colour resolution, only
computing the colour map after all is done, the resulting image is much
cleaner. In fact, at first I was disappointed because some of the glass
got lost in the background; before it had always been dirty enough to be
seen!
Thanks for the info. What program were you comparing 4-D to, Sculpt 3-D?
Do you have any experience with other 3-D programs? Anything else you can
say to a future 3-D consumer would be very valuable.
Yes, I was comparing 4D to 3D. I haven't used any of the other 3D
programs, except for a bit of fooling around in stores (unless you count
DBW_Render, quite some time ago). I was underwhelmed by Silver's object
creation facilities, although it is a little unfair of me to compare it to
Sculpt's since I am so much more familiar with the latter. A fair review
would require equal time spent with each. And a poor object editor is not
the handicap it once was, what with Modeler-3D and InterChange. I've seen
some output from Silver, and it looks quite impressive, especially with the
terrain module. I'll be sticking with the Sculpt series because of the
time I already have invested a lot of time in it and am now quite
comfortable with it — and it is a powerful piece of software. I'm sure
that people who have used the other 3D software out there would be glad to
give you their opinion. As for recommendations within the Sculpt series,
it depends what you want to do. If you just want to dabble in ray-tracing,
then Sculpt-3D is a bargain. If you want to add the capability to animate
your creations, then Animate-3D will do this for you (it is not a
stand-alone product; it modifies Sculpt to create a new program called
Sculpt-Animate). If you feel the need for more precision, speed, and an
improved user interface along with more tools to help you along, then
Sculpt-Animate 4D is the (considerably more expensive) thing for you. Hope
this helps.
Thanks for the info. What is the price differential between Sculpt-Animate
and 4D? Somehow I'm going to decide on a 3D package. I've asked a lot of
people and read AmigaWorld and Amazing Computing concerning the subject and
they really haven't helped too much. I really haven't heard anyone call
any of the packages a waste of money and I suppose that is good. I just
don't want all that money and software to gather dust like some of mine are
now. Thanks again.
The upgrade from 3D to 4D cost $200. If you're comparing retail
prices the differential would probably be a little more. Sculpt-3D and
Sculpt-Animate are listed at $100 and $150 respectively, usually discounted
down to around $70 and $130 or thereabouts. 4D is listed at $500. I've no
idea how deeply it will be discounted. These programs COULD be
dust-gatherers, although I'd bet that if you shelled out for 4D you
wouldn't be so inclined to let it sit idle! It really depends how much you
may need to render 3D objects, or how much you may be fascinated by it.
With me it's mostly fascination, but I seem to keep on thinking up "useful"
things to do with the beasts.