#If Wishes Were Fishes…
12 messages in this thread
Here's my list of wishes for future releases of 3DS. I'll begin
with some I think could and should be done for the next minor upgrade
(say, 3DS Release 3.1):
NEW-SUBTRACTIVE-TRANSPARENCY should be settable on the fly without
having to edit 3DS.SET and then restart 3DS. For that matter,
ANYTHING that is not a memory allocation parameter (say, SHAPE-MAX)
or a hardware initialization parameter (say, MAIN-DISPLAY or
COM-PORT, etc.) should be settable from within 3DS. But
NEW-SUBTRACTIVE-TRANSPARENCY is a special case. The new algorithm
produces MUCH better transparency effects than the old R2 method, but
(as I found out the hard way) can't be used with opacity mapping to
make parts of an object invisible (black pixels of the opacity map,
with Opacity Mapping strength set to 100%). Even with those settings
the object is still dimly visible.
Because of this, r3.1 should alter the Materials Editor display to
have THREE types of transparency, not two. Instead of just the [SUB]
and [ADD] buttons, there would be an additional [RICH] button which
would specify the new subtractive algorithm. By making this a
Materials Editor option rather than, say, a Render/Setup/Options
dialog option, both types could appear in the same scene. You could
have the rich-colored transparency for things like glass beads or
bottles, and have partially invisible [SUB] opacity mapping for
objects that need "cutouts," say, the leaves of trees created with
Silicon Garden's Medium Leaf Detail mode, or the trees created with
the Forest mode. And both the beads and the leaves could be together
in the same scene.
Other parameters which should at least be made settable from the Render
/Setup/Options dialog include AA-FILTER-KERNEL, RENDER-BAND-HEIGHT (unless that
is used to initialize a static memory block), etc. Of course, such parameters
should also be saved in the .PRoJect files.
The ability to PUT a Keyframer Path TO the Shaper and/or Lofter and/or Disk
would be nice. It would be a comparatively easy way to implement rotation and
other transforms of entire Paths.
How about a simple screen saver? Just blanking or dimming the
screen would suffice. We don't need After Dark for 3DS. 🙂
For Release 4, RAY-TRACING! Spline modelling (preferably NURBS)!
Fluid dynamics! Completely revamped VIDEO POST module with more
functional and usable user-interface (one should be able to insert an
event without having to move EACH of the subsequent events ONE AT A
TIME!!)! In fact, the whole user-interface could use an overhaul —
this is a GRAPHICS program, so what is all that MONOSPACED TEXT doing
on the screen!? How about floating tool palettes instead of text
menus? The AutoCAD-style user-interface is passe' in these days of
GUIs.
In fact, Release 4 should be a Windows NT program, thus supporting
new RISC chips such as the MIPS, Alpha, PowerPC, etc., and supporting
multiple processors in one machine. It would also be multithreaded,
allowing a user to model while rendering is ongoing. Making it a
WinNT program would also take care of memory management hassles,
networking, user-interface, video drivers, etc., since WinNT's API
includes all of that already.
Hey, if AutoCAD is now a Windows program, why not 3DS?
Excellent requests. I second each and every one of them, and am
compiling my own list as well.
Marion, you should probably save your R4 wishlist items up until April
1st, and give them all to me then. We're working on basic
architectural issues until then, so I'm pretty wrapped up.
Re 3ds.set options not being in the program… in a perfect world
they would be. LOTS of 3ds.set options were brought into R2 from R1,
and more were brought into R3 from R2. The problem is that sometimes
we think of features AFTER the program is locked down,
user-interface-wise (for documentation), and we can ONLY add certain
items as 3ds.set params (or not add them at all).
Ah… life in a perfect world (would be great, but possible a tad
boring).
As I said, Gary, consider it for Release 3.1, when you can also release a
documentation supplement. Such as:
"In the Materials Editor Dialog box, you will now notice three
buttons instead of two for Transparency Type, to the right of the
Transparency slider control. The first and second ones, [SUB] and
[ADD], function the same as they did in Release 3 if you did not
alter the NEW-SUBTRACTIVE- TRANSPARENCY option in Release 3's 3DS.SET
file. [SUB] now always acts as if that value were OFF.
"The third button, [RICH], is simply the same as [SUB] would be in
Release 3 if you had that option ON. It provides much richer colors
for subtractive transparency, but prevents opacity mapping or
VARY.SXP from being used to make parts of an object completely
invisible, or able to fade away to complete invisibility. The
presence of this button means that BOTH types of subtractive
transparency can be used in the same scene, or even on the same object
provided the object has more than one material. Only one can be used
for any given material, however.
"For this reason, the NEW-SUBTRACTIVE-TRANSPARENCY option has been
removed from the Release 3.1 3DS.SET file. For backwards
compatibility, the option will be permitted to exist in a 3DS.SET
file, but will be ignored."
Sorry Marion, but UI changes aren't allowed in incremental updates…
I've got absolutely no control over that. But your comments are
noted for the R4 wishlist.
Then with all due respect to Autodesk, that's a nonsensical policy. The
whole point of the three-level version numbering system is that bug fixes
change only the second digit after the decimal point (3.01, etc.), MINOR
IMPROVEMENTS (including new features visible in the UI) would change the first
digit after the decimal point (3.1, etc.), and major revamps would change the
digit to the left of the decimal point (4.0, etc.). This is the way it is in
the entire rest of the computer software industry.
For instance, Aldus Pagemaker 4.2 (for the Macintosh) added the whole
concept of Aldus Additions, which meant adding a whole new heirarchical
pull-down menu to 4.0 which lacked that feature entirely. Yet that change
wasn't considered major enough to call it 5.0. I can give you many other
similar examples from the likes of Lotus, WordPerfect, Adobe, Borland, and even
Almighty Microsoft (see MS-DOS 6.2 or Windows 3.1?), and even from direct
competitors to both Autodesk and the Yost Group. If it's good enough for them.
. . .
Maybe you haven't realized just how enormously difficult it is to make a
change in 3DS.SET for one job when you have a rendering farm. You have to make
the change on EVERY SINGLE MACHINE that will have anything to do with that
project! One at a time. These have to be on the LOCAL DRIVES of the machines
in question, too, so there is no way to automate it over the network. Our
rendering farm is I dare say like many others in that we don't have a keyboard
and monitor hooked to each individual machine. (I have AUTOEXEC.BAT set up to
put the machines into Slave mode on bootup, synchronizing the clock to the
network included, requiring no keypresses whatsoever in the process.) This
means that for each machine, we have to hook up a keyboard and monitor, bring
down Slave mode, make the change, restart Slave mode, disconnect the monitor
and keyboard, hook it to the next machine, and so on. (Yes, we could get a
massive switch box, but why should we pay so much extra because Autodesk has
such a nonsensical policy and for no other reason?) This is just too much to
have to do to render ONE PROJECT, and then we'd have to REPEAT the process to
change it BACK! And this still ignores the question of how to have BOTH
transparencies in the same scenes!
Autodesk wants us to go through all of this just because THEY don't want to
make changes visible in the UI (in other words, any sort of new feature
whatsoever that is at all usable to the average user) between major left of the
decimal point version revamps? Perhaps this deserves a rethink.
Feel free to write a letter to Bob Bennett at Autodesk.
– G
Write a letter? You mean Autodesk doesn't have reps who read this forum who
can pass customer displeasure with their policies back to them?
Marion,
BoB Bennet does read this forum. However, you can formalize and
summarize your thoughts, email it to me and I'll make sure he gets it.
Jonas[ADESK]
As Jonas said, it's possible that Bob and others will read a transcript of
forum message traffic that includes your message, but not a sure thing. If you
want your letter to definitely get to a specific individual, you should send
them mail. If you want to send email to Bob, you can mail him via the
CIS->Internet gateway at bobb@autodesk.com.
– G
Not to derail your railing at Adesk et al, but, can't you put a copy of 3DS.SET
out on the network and have each slave copy it onto the local drive in
AUTOEXEC.BAT during bootup? Make the change on the master machine. copy it to
the net and then go turn everything on. Not *too* painful…. FWIW
David Taffet
Great tip, David. Jamie Clay at Autodesk does something similar… he has a
couple of batch files that propogate different versions of his 3ds.set out to
all the slaves depending upon what kind of job he's running. We separated the
3dsnet.set information exactly so people could do this sort of thing.
– G