nsw@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (Neil Weinstock) (10/07/89)
Hi ho. I was discussing with someone the other day about rendering software,
and began to consider the notion of modular 3D software. I am not
particularly familiar with this area (3D rendering, that is,) so at least
part of this posting is the question, "does this exist today?" And pardon
me if this posting is unspeakably naive and/or ignorant.
What I would like to see is a rendering (and animation) system that is
completely modular. After all, we've got multitasking, might as well use
it. I want to be able to buy an object designer, maybe a scene layout tool,
a renderer, and an animator all separately. I could start off with an
inexpensive non-raytrace renderer, then move up to a gonzo one when I get
ambitious.
The reason I single out 3D rendering is that it seems like a process that is
very modular, and all the modules are nearly of equal importance. Also,
there's a ton of Amiga software for it out there, so it's not like no one
cares about it.
Now, I know that programs such as Modeler-3D exist, and how animation
programs are often separate from the renderers. But I still hear things
like "I use Sculpt to design my objects, then use Interchange and do
the rendering with Turbo Silver". (conversion programs? blech)
I have heard that the renderer in Turbo Silver is great, but the user
interface is sub-par. Can I just buy the Turbo Silver rendering module?
If not, why not? The Caligari user interface (non-Intuitionness
notwithstanding) is really neat, but the renderer is not great, at least
not the last time I checked. Can I buy the Caligari object design module
separately? Nope.
I think you see what I'm getting at. Am I really off in the woods?
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\\\\ Neil Weinstock //\\ att!cord!nsw or //\\ "Oh dear, now I shall have ////
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\\\\________________//\\__________________//\\____________________________////shf@well.UUCP (Stuart H. Ferguson) (11/01/89)
+-- nsw@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (Neil Weinstock) writes: | Hi ho. I was discussing with someone the other day about rendering software, | and began to consider the notion of modular 3D software. [ ... ] | I have heard that the renderer in Turbo Silver is great, but the user | interface is sub-par. Can I just buy the Turbo Silver rendering module? | If not, why not? The Caligari user interface (non-Intuitionness | notwithstanding) is really neat, but the renderer is not great, at least | not the last time I checked. Can I buy the Caligari object design module | separately? Nope. | I think you see what I'm getting at. Am I really off in the woods? Yes, I see what you're getting at, and no, you're not off in the woods. It would be a nice thing, modular rendering systems. Some of the parts already exist, namely the programs that deal with ILBM's and ANIM's. There are tools for touching up ANIM's, cutting them up, splicing them together and doing post-processing effects such as wipes and mattes. The problem is with the modeling, scene design, animation design and rendering. These components don't work well together because there is no medium for shared data such as exists with the IFF standard ILBM and ANIM formats. The best that can be done currently is to use a translator like "Interchange" to convert formats, but this doesn't work very well since the formats are so different. I don't think we'll be seeing standard 3-D object data formats very soon, either. The differences between the different rendering and modeling packages are not simply syntatic, but rather the whole philosophys are often totally incompatible. Any standard format at this stage would make one package look bad because it was not designed to render things of that type, and make unavailable some of the special features of a different package. There have been people in the Amiga animation and rendering fields working on the problem since as long as I can remember, and I don't see anyone getting closer to a solution. Of course, I could be wrong. RenderMan. I know you're thinking RenderMan. I don't think RenderMan is going to be it. Scene layout and animation might be done with a suitable standard IPC interface. An animation program could send keyframe information to a rendering program through a message port or call-back. I don't think the animation aspect of the picture has been well-addressed at all at this stage, however. Yes, I agree it would be nice, and we're not the only ones who think that, but I'm not holding my breath. -- Stuart Ferguson (shf@well.UUCP) Action by HAVOC (ferguson@metaphor.com)