3DC 6

Richard,

I’m happy to hear that you’ll be focusing on nurbs. You’ve got to download the Realsoft3d demo from [img:xhs31guy]http://www.realsoft.com[/img:xhs31guy]
<!– m –><a class="postlink" href="http://www.realsoft.com">http://www.realsoft.com</a>&lt;!– m –>
. Check out the sds tool. I think most 3dc users would really like something like this added to 3dc. It’s so easy to make complex objects, you’ll be amazed. (At least I was)

Also, I’d like to know what the upgrade price will be for 3dc 6. Even a ballpark figure would help me to set a budget for later on.

Thanks,

Ben

Hi Richard,

(The thread you mentioned in your andquot;3DC 6 progressandquot; seems to be locked to replies)

It doesn’t seem to say which changes you are making – I assume it’s the 3 that got the highest votes ?

You mention you are working on the new render engine (Direct3D IM), but what have you planned for the others?

I’d really like to see a better UV mapping tool, one that zooms with the options of tiling textures.

(Alternatively how easy is it to write a 3DC.Operation DLL ? andnbsp; )

Regards

Paul

Paul,

It isn’t really andquot;locked to repliesandquot;, but it isn’t a andquot;request threadandquot;.

I haven’t really made all of the decisions yet. Obviously the renderer is being replaced. I have already enhanced UV mapping, modelling and skeletal since the poll came out (in 5.6 and 5.7)

There will definitely be modelling enhancements. I would like to integrate NURBS with the general modelling environment. It would be nice if operations were to work on the NURBS also.

I’m not really sure how one would tile textures with a UV tool. Perhaps you could explain. And what would Zoom be? I thought it already did that.

I would LOVE to write a andquot;paint on 3Dandquot; tool. And 3DC 6.0 would allow something like this to exist. But it would be a huge job I think and the price of 3DC would have to increase considerably as a result. Interestingly enough, objects that have been andquot;painted in 3Dandquot; are much less efficient for game engines than UV mapped objects. And I would guess it would not be particulary andquot;preciseandquot;.

Writing a 3DC.Operation DLL isn’t so hard. But, they work using the RM objects. But, the UV mapping tool uses a 3DC andquot;editportandquot; which can be a bit tricky since it was never designed to be used by end users. Also, Operations are andquot;secureandquot; which means you would need a special license to create one. All of this might get a bit easier with 3DC 6.0 since I plan to modify the operations to use a new and improved 3DC API.

Richard

Subdivision surfaces are a possibility for 6.0. Though this is in effect just a real-time smoothing of an object. But, Realsoft3d does have a pretty neat implementation of subdivision surfaces. I’ve never seen an implementation that includes weighting of points like real NURBS.

As for cost. Nothing has been decided yet. It will depend on what features are included in 6.0, the amount of effort required for development, the selling price for 6.0 etc. It could be anywhere from $0 to $40. But you have a while to save since I don’t expect 6.0 out for quite a while.

Richard