rick@wam.umd.edu (Frederick E. Brown) (01/19/90)
Hello everyone! I'm considering getting a 3D modeling program for my cx and would like to hear comments on the 3D programs available. Especially Pro3D, Strata3D, Super3D, and Swivel3D. Which ones support animation? Which one is best overall? I partically like Super3D's ability to output points and surface information in TEXT format. Which ones (besides Super3D) can do that? Which ones support 24-bit color (if any)? How much memory do they hog? Any other comments would be great! Mail directly or post, your choice! Thanx rick@wam.umd.edu
ostroff@oswego.Oswego.EDU (Boyd Ostroff) (01/22/90)
In article <9001190002.AA19738@cscwam.umd.edu> you write: >Hello everyone! I'm considering getting a 3D modeling program for my cx >and would like to hear comments on the 3D programs available. I have used Super3D 1.0 a lot, both on a Plus and a II with E-Machines Z-21 monitor. I have mixed feelings. First, it is really S-L-O-W (maybe better on a cx, but a dog on a II). I think this kind of program really pushes a Mac beyond its limits. I did a pretty complex model of our theatre, with lots of surfaces just to see how it would perform. It is very frustrating, even in the wireframe mode. In the "best" solid mode, well .... plan on taking a coffee break :-) In the lower resolution solid modes I didn't find it useful, since it turned my model into something resembling and Escher print, with "impossible" perspective, objects passing though each other, etc. When I tried to print the model on our LaserWriter II-NT it took *45 minutes*!!! Got the same results with several models; I thought it had bombed, but eventually it printed something, which wasn't really any higher resolution than the screen. Again, this was version 1.0; don't know if this has improved with the latest release. I have played with a newer version (2.0 ?) and it does support color, but I don't see many other improvements. Maybe it's a little faster. Interestingly, ver 1.0 didn't seem to run any faster on our Mac II than it did on a Mac Plus, evidently because the 21" screen takes longer to update and that offsets any performance increases from the CPU. I basically like the user interface and had fun playing with it, but IMHO it's just too slow for anything serious. Small models (like some of the example files which come with the program) perform acceptably, but anything complex is really slow. (Of course, if you can afford a ci, maybe these comments are no longer valid :-) > Which ones support animation? Super3D will do animation. You get a dialog box in which you have to enter the translation and rotation increments in each of the x,y and z planes and tell it how many frames to draw. It then does this one frame at a time on the screen (can you say SLOW?), recording each screen as it goes. You then use a "projector" program that flips through the screens which have been stored in a file. I was impressed with how fast the projector could zip through the screens - probably around than 30 frames a second on a plus. Couldn't try this on our Mac II, because it always bombed while it was recording, after creating a several MB file - suspect there was a problem with the big Z-21 screen (was using Super3D 1.0; maybe the new version is better). The process of specifying translation and rotation increments is pretty user-hostile, and takes a lot of trial and error to get the results you want. One complaint I have here is that if you stop the animation sequence (or even if you let it run through) during the record process, there's no "undo" command to restore your screen to the original view. In fact, this seems to be a general problem with Super3D; if you change your angle of view, there's no easy way to revert to where you were - the angle "dials" are relative to your *current* view, so it isn't easy to figure out where you've come from. >I partically like Super3D's ability to output points >and surface information in TEXT format. Yes, this looks like it could be potentially useful, but haven't played with it. Another pet peeve; you manage to open up a lot of windows during the course of creating a complex model. Super3D likes to make them all the same size and directly on top of each other so they are all hidden (even on the 21" screen). There is no "window" menu, and no "close all" selection on the file menu which makes dealing with all these windows a real pain. When closing a file, you click on the close box of the active window only to find another one hidden behind it! Of course, each time you change a window, the program starts to redraw the model in *all* the windows, and this gets very tiresome when you want to close one file and open another without quitting from the program (though you can set the program to abort the redraw on a mouse click, but still it's a pain). We got our copy on some kind of special deal since we had SuperPaint - I think it was only about $50 for version 1.0, however it was a lot more for the new version. At that price, I don't see how you could go wrong; it's a good deal for the money. Aside from my gripes, I had fun using the program, but I don't think it will be any serious competition for Sun or Apollo :-) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boyd Ostroff, Technical Director ||||||| System Administrator, "The CallBoard" Theatre Department, SUNY Oswego ||||||| Serving the performing arts since 1986 (315) 341-2987 ||||||| (315) 947-6414 300/1200/2400 baud 8N1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ostroff@oswego.Oswego.EDU ...!rutgers!rochester!kodak!gizzmo!cboard!ostroff