quote:

Originally posted by Amabilis Support:
Ability to get nearer to objects in perspective view.

This is 6.6



This is 7.0

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Originally posted by Amabilis Support:
I managed to get Solid Outline rendering working better. You may have to look closely at the picture, but it is better. Really! (The left picture is 6.6.5)

quote:

Originally posted by Amabilis Support:
It's always nice to have more screen space when modelling so I've added the ability to hide 3D Canvas' title bar.

quote:

Originally posted by Amabilis Support:
3D Canvas 7.0 Object Properties window.

quote:

Originally posted by Amabilis Support:
Here is the new 3D Canvas 7.0 Material Palette:



Notice that there is no specular value, but there is specular highlight via a specular map.

The tabs on the palette are:

Miscellaneous - Color, diffuse, ambient, specular and translucent are now part of a " Miscellaneous material properties" tab
Texture - Unchanged
Texture 2 - Unchanged
Translucency Map - Unchanged
Bump Map - Unchanged
Specular Map - New in 7.0
Environment Map - New in 7.0
Material Plug-in - New in 7.0. Not yet complete
Material Custom Fields - New in 7.0

All of these maps are accessible to plug-ins/operations. Some exports will eventually use the specular and environment maps as needed.

Many of the new features of 7.0 such as specular maps, environment maps, custom object fields and custom material fields are useful right now, but are even more important for the future. These features combined with new exports and material plug-ins provide lots of flexibility.

quote:

Originally posted by Amabilis Support:
There's a couple of new tabs. The one that works to some extent is the "plug-in" tab:



This tab allows you to select a material plug-in. These material plug-ins allow users (who are programmers) to extend 3D Canvas' material features. This is just a sample, but the writer of the plug-in can add additional parameters declaritively. In this example the plug-in "Dummy1" has a parameter of "Type". This was declared by the plug-in writer (me ).

quote:

Originally posted by Amabilis Support:
New tab to the material palette. It allows you to enter custom material field values:



These custom material field values can be read by plug-ins and operations. This gives programmers the ability to extend 3D Canvas and not rely entirely on fields that I have defined.

Custom object and custom material fields are defined using the the File Menu's Properties.

quote:

Originally posted by Amabilis Support:
Spherical environment mapping. Environment mapping is a way to simulate reflections.

This may just be the worst example I've ever created, but this gives a bit of an idea of how the effect looks:

quote:

Originally posted by Amabilis Support:
I just reached a milestone. I got a very simple material plug-in working.

The plug-in is just a sample. It is called "Rotate Color Components". All it does it rotate the red/green/blue components of a color (red = blue, green = blue, blue = red). Not useful at all, but it is a good, simple, sample for those writing material plug-ins.

In the following, the two spheres have the same material, just a different plug-in. Notice that the material palette shows the color on the left, but the material palette preview shows the color on the right.



I realized that plug-ins can be really handy for changing settings that 3D Canvas doesn't set, or perhaps doesn't set as you would like them.

3D Canvas sets everything up for a render before calling the plug-in so a plug-in could just change one state and render all the normal states as setup by 3D Canvas.

For example, you could have a plug-in that just sets the D3DRS_ALPHAREF render state. In fact, that will be my first real plug-in.

quote:

Originally posted by Amabilis Support:
Another possible use for plug-ins is to change the parameters for one of the texture stages. For example, you could have a plug-in that lets user change parameters for the specular mapping or environment mapping.

quote:

Originally posted by Amabilis Support:

I wrote my first material plug-in. It allows you to adjust the alpha test method for textures. Basically, it defines the cut-off for what alpha value is translucent and what is transparent.

An example of various settings:

quote:

Originally posted by Amabilis Support:
Another new Material Plug-in.

The Set Specular Color allows you to directly set the color of specular highlights.

The sphere on the left has the default specular color, the one on the right uses the new plug-in with a specular color of red.

quote:

Originally posted by Amabilis Support:
Object cloning is turning out to be quite easy. I wrote the hard part a while back when I added the data storage/entry.



Notice that one of the spheres is selected. If you modify the object, the changes are immediately seen in the copies.