rronkko@csc.fi (09/12/90)
Because people have lately been asking questions about Real3D, I decided to phone RealSoft and asked, if they could post a description of their program. Unfortunately they do not currently have access to internet, so I promised to post the notice for them. Here it is: (Please NO E-mail to me! I do not work for them, just spreading info!) **************************************************************************** Real 3D FEATURES ---------------- Real 3D is design and animation program for producing high quality, realistic pictures of three dimensional objects. It provides an impressive set of advanced features including: Ray Tracing A ray tracing of Real 3D is strongly based on the physical reality of the real world. Real 3D produces pictures by simulating the laws of physics, and consiquently they represent reality with astonishing accuracy. Speed Innovative methods and new ray tracing algorithms make Real 3D really fast. When using fastest ray tracing mode, rendering time is typically from 1 to 15 minutes. Hierarchical With Real 3D you can create hierarchical objects. Object This means that objects you create can be made of Oriented subobjects, and these subobjects may have their Construction own substructure and so on. This kind of a tree of Objects structure is well known in the context of disk operating systems, in which you can create directories inside directories. In Real 3D counterparts of these directories are used to collect objects into logical groups. This kind of approach makes for example object modifications extremely easy, because it is possible to perform operations to logical entities. If you want to copy a DOS directory, you don't have to take care of the files and directories inside it. In the same manner, you can stretch a complex object in Real 3D as easily as one part of it. True Solid Real 3D includes a true solid modeler. Solid model is the Model most sophisticated way to represent three dimensional objects. This modeling technique requires much computing power and therefore it has earlier been used only in enviroments, which are many times faster than Amiga. Now it is possible to Amiga owners to reach all the advantages of solid model, thanks to ultimate optimizations carried out when developing Real 3D. Smoothly Curved In addition to plane surfaces, Real 3D includes several Surfaces curved surfaces, such as ball, cylinder, cone and hyperboloid. This means that no matter how much you enlarge a ball created by Real 3D, you don't find any edges or corners on its surface. Furthermore, this makes the program much faster. And what is most important, the produced pictures look really good. Boolean Solid model allows Boolean operations between objects. Operations It is possible, for example, to split an object into two pieces and move the pieces apart so that the inner structure of the object is revealed. Operations can also be done so that the properties of the material of the target object are changed. By using a brilliant cylinder one can drill a brilliant hole into a matt object. Operations are a powerful way to create and modify objects. Especially in modeling technical objects these Boolean operations are indispensable. Properties of A user of Real 3D is not restricted to use some basic Surfaces surface brilliancies such as matt or shiny. Instead, the light reflection properties can be freely adjusted from absolute matt to totally mirrorlike, precisely to the desired level. Properties of Due to solid model, it is possible to create objects Materials from different materials, which have suitable physical properties. Just as surface brilliancy, also transparency of a material can be adjusted without any restrictions. Even light refraction properties are freely adjustable so that it is possible to create optical devices from glass lenses. These devices act precisely as their real counterparts: a magnifying glass in Real 3D world really magnifies! Texture Mapping The texture mapping properties of Real 3D are not restricted to a typical chequered pattern: Any IFF picture can be used to paint objects. You can create pictures with your favorite painting program as well as with a video digitizer or a scanner. For example, by digitizing a wood filament pattern, it is easy to create wooden objects looking very realistic. Pictures can be located precisely to desired places, with desired sizes and directions. Real 3D offers as many as seven texture mapping methods, including parallel, cylinder, ball and spiral projections. Light Sources Unlimited number of light sources of desired color and brightness. The only restriction is amount of memory. Animation As well as you can create sigle pictures, you can Support create series of pictures, animations. Real 3D includes also sofware for representing these animations interactively. Animation representation can be directed by a script language from ascii files or even from keyboard. Instead of looping animations you can define infinitely many ways to represent your pictures. Therefore you can create animations from a small number of pictures by displaying them various ways. Rendering Real 3D includes several different rendering tecniques: Techniques a real time wireframe model, a hidden line wireframe model, a high speed one light source ray tracing model, a non-shadow-casting ray tracing model and a perfect ray tracing model. You can select either a HAM display mode with 4096 colors or a grey scale display mode offering higher resolution. Also version with 16 million color rendering (24 bits output) will become available during November 1990. Availability When writing this document (6.9.1990), marketing of Real 3D is already started in Europe with a little lower price than that of Sculpt 4D. The distribution in the USA is not yet arranged. For further information of Real 3D, please contact: REALSOFT KY KP 9, SF-35700 VILPPULA FINLAND Tel. +358-34-48390 ****************************************************************************