Hi All,

3D Canvas 6.6 is now available:

Download 3D Canvas 6.6

3D Canvas 6.6 includes a new renderer that will likely be less dependent on "good" video card drivers. This means it is much more likely to work on more obscure video cards and on laptop computers. The new renderer does not look any "better" than the old renderer.

There are no new features in version 6.6. If 3D Canvas 6.5 works properly on your computer there is no reason to install this version except to ensure that it works on your computer.

3D Canvas 6.6 can be installed alongside 3D Canvas 6.5. There should be no conflicts. It should be possible to open models created in version 6.6 with version 6.5.

One important note: Some 3DC/3DO files created prior to version 6.0 may not load properly. This will be the case in the final version also since there were some older versions of operations that couldn't realistically be implemented with the new renderer. Odds are this will not happen or when it does the problems will be small.

Even though there are no new functions in this release it is the largest change in 3D Canvas since 3D Canvas 3.0. As a result there are likely many issues.

Known problems in this Alpha Release
------------------------------------

o) When tool tip help is displayed over a 3D rendered scene the scene will no longer display properly. Clicking on the scene normally will correct this.

o) Lighting is slightly different than (and IMO inferior to) 6.5.

o) Shadows are not implemented

o) Animation recording is slow (anyone know how to get a device context (DC) in DirectX 8.1-it used to be possible)

o) The software renderer does not work. It doesn't work in the DirectX 8.1 SDK either

o) Specular Highlighting seems less attractive than in 6.5

o) Objects are currently limited to a maximum of around 5000 faces. This will be corrected in the Beta (or as soon as I can figure out a way around it)

o) Boolean operations result in lost ambient/diffuse/specular/translucent properties. Perhaps this way always the case and I didn't notice.

o) Translucent grid does not show objects below the top of the grid.

o) Blue Moon Rendering Tools (BMRT) may or may not work. I can't find an installation of BMRT anywhere on the 'net.

o) Does not currently check for installation of the correct version of DirectX.

o) The system validation function does not show textures on the rotating "3D Canvas" object. (system validation may not be necessary in 6.6)

Plug-ins created for release 6.5.0.6 will NOT work with this release.

Richard

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Amabilis Support,

My original plan was to have 3D Canvas 6.6 be "just" a new renderer with no new features. Version 6.7 was going to add a few new renderer-specific features. I've decided to change plans and combine the two releases.

I've been playing around with shadow volumes and have had some success. I've attached a screen shot showing the volumes in action. Notice that these behave very much like real shadows unlike the old 3D Canvas shadows. Notice that the shadows go "up" the wall were they hit just like real shadows and if you look closely you will see that self-shadowing occurs (on the teapot).

Note that you will need a video card with stencil buffer support to render these shadows. It think that any NVIDIA GeForce or ATI Radeon card should support it, but I can't be certain.

In version 6.6 performance of these shadows will be a little on the slow side. Some of the optimizations I would like to have won't be possible to implement until 7.0. But, for less complex models you should find that the shadows are "real-time" if you have a relatively recent computer.

Richard

ShadowVolumes2.gif (32 Kb, 349 downloads) Shadow Volumes

And another screen shot. This one shows a cylinder's shadow across terrain.

Richard
PS Terrain didn't work in Alpha 1

ShadowVolumes3.gif (79 Kb, 382 downloads) Cylinder Shadow on Terrain

Looks great.

Will we be able to set the TEXTURES to smooth or flat shaded in some future update.?
Aka Gile[s]

Bazza

Doh!

My work PC has a TNT card, not supported and the reference rasterizer doesn't work.

(Which is a bit odd as my DX 8.1 SDK reference driver worked fine after DX9.0b installed)

At least it should work at home (GeForce)

bazza,

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Textured objects can be flat shaded. (Perhaps you mean cartoon rendering-if so yes some day)

This really isn't the right thread to ask for enhancements. Can you post more under the "3D Canvas 7.0 Suggestions forum? Thanks.

paul,

I'm not testing all of the caps that I should be right now. It could be something to do with that, but I wouldn't have thought so. Also, I found that I wasn't using D3DPOOL_MANAGED which was causing me all sorts of grief including redraw failures I mentioned above. That'll teach me for using sample code provided by Microsoft

The reference rasterizer doesn't work on my NVIDIA or ATI. So I am missing something somewhere. Again... darned Microsoft sample code!

Richard

A new feature for 6.6 is cartoon rendering. It will require a video card with verex shader support.

Richard

CartoonRendering.gif (23 Kb, 325 downloads) Cartoon Rendering

The final feature for 6.6 is bumpmapping. In the attached screenshot the sphere on the left has no bumpmap the sphere on the right has a bumpmap assigned.

Richard

Bumpmapping.gif (61 Kb, 1741 downloads) Bumpmapping

I have now finished fixing all of the major bugs of this release. There's still some work to do, but I now expect the first beta to be available on or before Saturday (July 24th).

Richard

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Amabilis Support,

... looking forward to giving it a test

Plugins will be available for the Beta shortly after it's release.

I love the new renderer. This is going ot be a great leap forward thanks to your dedication and hard work Richard.

An interesting thing that I found out when testing this tonight. For some reason shadows work on a TNT2 but not on a first generation Radeon. Generally one would expect a Radeon to be much superior to a TNT2. I guess a stencil function is missing or perhaps I haven't looked at all of the available stencil modes. I'm going to look into it in more detail since I was quite shocked (and pleased) that they worked on a TNT2.

Richard