3DJoy's
Presenter module is planned to provide a professional 3D rendering, and animation
tool that is both powerful and intuitive to use. It is recognized as having the premier
spline-based modeling and Digital Clay™ sculpting capability on the Macintosh. It's
Digital SoundStage layout, camera, light, and directional microphone handling interface
will set the standard for rendering and animation on the Macintosh.
Building on its Digital SoundStage and Directional 3D Sound capabilities, Presenter
will add ground-breaking Explore surface editing, unique motion control plug-ins,
and complete QuickTime VR movie generation capabilities. It's render plug-in structure
will provide for a link to the speedy Ray Trace and blazing Phong modules and to
Pixar's MacRenderMan. Users like Bob Sauls and Shelly Green say that the Phong shader
is faster than Electric Image's Phong shader and Eric King says the speed is "downright
scary". It offers antialiasing and texture mapping, but no shadows.
Special render options will include a unique Wrap texture mapping that fits the
map directly on the spline-mesh surface and eliminating projected map distortion
and "creep", Cylindrical, Spherical, and Cubic mapping along with graphic
map placement interface, and Ease In/Out buttons that enable animators to smoothly
vary any parameter over time.
All information presented here is an outline of what is planned, and not a list
of actual properties to be included.
3D RENDERING/ANIMATION/SOUND
Digital SoundStage™
The ability to pull together 3-D Sound, Live Action Movies, and Animation in
a single application.
Directional 3-D Sound™
The ability to:
- Place 3-D directional and omni-directional microphones into a scene.
- Link sound to motion.
- Record stereo and Doppler effects.
RealPhysics™ Object Dynamics
The ability to apply physical laws to objects for creating natural and realistic
motion dynamics. Available dynamics include:
- ATTRACTION - Used to assign the strength of a bond
between two objects. If, for example, one leaf has a strong bond to a branch while
another has a weak one, the latter can be blown away by a strong wind.
- COLLISION DETECTION - Used to detect when one object
comes into contact with another. Because of the special sound capabilities built
into Presenter, a specified sound can automatically be caused to occur at every occurrence
of A COLLISION. If a ball is bouncing down the stairs, Presenter will show the animation
together with the sound of the bounce occurring at the precise moment that the ball
hits a step.
- ELASTICITY - The ability to maintain momentum when
hitting another object. A 100% elastic object will bounce off with the same momentum
that it hit with while an object with 0% elasticity will stop dead.
- GRAVITY - Used to assign a gravity value or select
from a series of gravities ranging from the gravity of the moon to the gravity of
the sun.
- MASS - Used in calculations of collisions.
- MOMENTUM - This allows for movement on any axis or
any combination of axes and can be set or modified at any point in time with the
resulting in-betweening across frames.
- TORQUE - This option allows for rotation on any axis
or any combination of axes and can be set or modified at any point in time with the
resulting in-betweening across frames.
A major added benefit of Presenter 3D's RealPhysics capabilities
is the ability to apply multiple effects to single objects or groups of objects.
Coupled with the ease of assigning object specific and background sounds at the same
time the motion is created, effects like the buffalo stampede, planes flying, and
bees swarming are made even more dramatic. As an application example, if a single
horse was duplicated to create a herd, you could apply the Quadruped Motion and Flocking
animators to the folder containing the herd. With sound automatically applied to
each hoof beat and a spline path defined, you could produce a horse stampede similar.
The entire effect is automatically created without any keyframing or tedious movement
of model parts.
KineMagics™ Motion Control Animators
The KineMagics™ plug-in motion and effects animators provide automatic control
and flexibility of movement of objects and between multiple objects. Included plug-ins
are:
- FLOCK for flexible group movement with random
motion as occurs with birds flying in formation or a school of fish swimming.
- PATH provides control of motion along a path
with automatic banking.
- QUADRUPED produces a basic four-legged animal running effect that could be tailored
for horses, deer, dogs and a variety of other animals.
QuickTime VR
Presenter 3D generates QuickTime VR movies ready for the QTVR player without
post-processing.
- Automatic QuickTime VR Panorama movie generation
built-in.
- Automatic QuickTime VR Object movie generation
built-in.
- Optional QuickTime VR Multi-Node movie generation
capability available that supports QTVR panoramas from photographic or other 3D software
tools.
Real-Time Surface Attribute Edit
Presenter 3D provides realtime feedback for selelection of surface looks, making
a usually time-consuming effort more efficient.
- Explore mode enables real-time fine tuning
of surface shading parameters using graphic display of multiple options.
- Expert mode features real-time preview
of effect of varying surface settings (specular, transparency, reflectivity, diffuse,
glow, refractivity, and highlights).
- Quick Set mode provides a simple way to change
object color and set gloss, reflection, and glass surface settings with realtime
feedback.
Texture Mapping
Presenter 3D is currently the only application that offers Wrap mapping for improved
texture map rendering along with the othier projection methods that can have texture
map distortion and "creep" problems.
- Wrap allows mapping directly onto a spline
object, lowering distortion caused by projection methods and eliminating texture
map "creep" common with projection maps.
- Cylindrical, Spherical,
Cubic, and Direct
projection mapping with intuitive placement control.
- Bump Mapping with positive and negative extensions.
Time Line Animation
Provides an event-based, time line interface for camera, light, microphone, object
animation with:
- Cut, Copy,
and Paste of events and timeline spacing in and
across channels.
- Easy camera edits across multiple cameras.
Photorealistic Render
Presenter 3D offers blazing render speed rivaling and surpassing other renderers.
- High speed photorealistic Ray Trace shader.
- Extremely fast Phong shader.
- Unparalleled interface to MacRenderMan (procedural
shaders, motion blur, fog, CSG Booleans, etc.).
Virtual Control Room Window
Provides intuitive and speedy preview of camera and light positions for single
frames or or for animated preview of camera and light views with stereo sound playback.
- >Provides real-time graphic feedback on
camera lens angle and position, spotlight beam and projector beam.
- >On-screen editing allows "splicing"
of segments from each camera into a final "film" for preview in the 3-D
window.
Render/Animation/Sound Tools
The Presenter module of 3DJoy provides a powerful and intuitive set of camera,
lighting, and sound controls that make it stand out as a true Digital SoundStage.
Cameras
- Still cameras with bank angle, field of view,
focus, F-stop, and shutter speed selection.
- Motion cameras with bank angle, field of
view, focus, F-stop, and shutter speed selection.
- Stereoscopic Pairs special effects stereo
camera.
- Red/blue Stereo special effects stereo camera.
- Autostereogram hidden 3D image camera.
Lights
- POINT (light bulb)
- DIRECTIONAL (sun)
- SPOTLIGHT graphically adjustable beam, soft
edge control and features view from light previews.
- SLIDE PROJECTOR-Projects PICTs onto objects
in the manner of a real-world projector and features view from light previews.
- MOVIE PROJECTOR-Projects QuickTime movies
onto objects in the manner of a real-world projector and features view from light
previews.
Microphones
- Omni-Directional audio pickup with numeric
or graphic sensitivity selection and mono, stereo left, and stereo right assignment.
- Directional audio pickup with numeric or
graphic sensitivity and audio falloff selection and mono, stereo left, and stereo
right assignment.
Additional Features
- Non-sticky and sticky mode for selection of tools
- Smooth Ease In/Out control (excellent for flying logos, camera fly-bys, etc.)
- Unlimited Cameras and Lights
- Fully Animated Shaders
- Wireframe and rendered animation preview window
- Changing any parameter over time with Smooth Ease In/Out
- Automatic depth setting in any orthogonal window
General Features
- Supports the Power Macintosh
- Keyed selection of tools
- Hierarchical Grouping
- Wireframe and rendered animation preview window
QuickTime VR
Presenter provides full integrated support for creating QTVR panorama and object
movies right on the 3D's Digital SoundStage™. It provides you with the virtual stage,
lighting, sound recording, and virtual QTVR cameras for the creation of a QTVR panorama
or object scene.. Creating a QTVR node requires only the simple action of pressing
start and selecting the rendering options. The software handles ray tracing a cylindrical
view, rotating and dicing the image, and encoding the QTVR parameters. No additional
steps or utilities are required. The QTVR Panorama
and Object Tech Reports describe the process
for creating QuickTime VR panorama and object movies.
Real-Time Surface Editing
One of the most time consuming tasks in 3D modeling is the
task of correctly setting the surface parameters. This generally involves a series
of trial and error steps of trying some settings, rendering, examining the results,
changing settings, and starting over again. With Presenter's special real-time shader
and Explore, one of the most complicated tasks in 3D modeling is as easy as just
clicking on the image that looks the best. This ground-breaking improvement in shader
technology allows artists to make adjustments to shading parameters and see the effect
on the final rendered surface in real time.
"While using the Explore function, I was able to narrow
down the surface attributes far faster than with any other program", says Eric
King. "It enabled me to spot alternatives that I just would not have thought
to use. The fact that all updates are instantaneous on my 8500/120 was just amazing."
Ronald Davis, a fine artist whose paintings are in the permanent collection at the
Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Tate Gallery in London, and many others says,
"Presenter 3D's new and intuitive graphical surface attribute selection tools
enable me to select the virtual color interaction, reflection, diffuse shading, specular
highlites, inner glow, transparency, and refraction for every surface in my digital
paintings. It gives me a far easier and very accurate way to define a series of rendered
options for all surface attributes. It does this without the trial and error metaphor
found in other 3D software.
Check the Explore Tech Report to see the application
of realtime surface editing.