Tornado3D ThreeOh is now available and shipping, along with the
new 340 pages long manual. You can have a look at the Tornado3D
3.0 feature list and to some pictures on:
http://www.Tornado3D.com/30.html
Tornado3D ThreeOh (c)1999 Eyelight
WHAT'S NEW IN TORNADO3D THREE OH?
o New Topologic Paradigm.
The old Point->Edge->Face paradigm has been dropped in favour of
a modified Winged-Edge representation of polygonal topology.
This means 'Edges' no longer exist and are implicitly defined by
Face sides. This change has a number of significant benefits,
but also implies a few differences with respect to the past.
o Larger polygonal objects
The immediate result is that larger polygonal object can be
modeled since on average edges reached their limit twice as fast
than point or faces. In other words, in the past an object with
15000 faces would probably not have been editable any further
due to the number of edges. Now since points and faces proceed
almost on pair on meshes, the full number of items allowed can
be used.
o Faster execution
Some operations, such as polygonization and merging are now much
faster because the Edges are not taken in account any more.
o Uses less memory
Objects require less space to be stored on disk or kept in
memory. Loading and saving is also faster.
o Mesh enforcing
Tornado3D now only works on Meshes (see the definition of Mesh
in the manual) instead of requiring them for some operations
like in the past.
o High speed face drawing
Tornado3D is now much faster at redrawing shaded objects, but
this has the drawback that wireframe redraw is slightly slower
(each Face's "Edge" gets drawn twice on average).
o More MAXITEMS
Previous versions of Tornado3D allowed at most 32000 items in an
object, be points, faces, edges or surfaces. Now this limit has
been expanded to 65000, more than doubling the size of the
largest plygonal Mesh that can be modeled. Coupled with the new
paradigm described above, this means that objects four times as
large as before are now possible.
o Improved Raytracing
Raytrace can cast semi-transparent, object or texture-map
colored, shadows. This slows down the rendering, so it is
disabled by default. To activate this feature set the "Soft
Shadow" checkbox in Lights panel for a Point Light that casts
shadows.
o Perspective particles
Particles and soft particles now react to perspective just like
3D objects.
o Realtime asyncronous object finder
This window replaces the old Find Object Panel and shows the
object's names and hierarchical links in realtime, as changes
are made. It supports several options:
Click on a name selects an object deselecting all other
Shift click multiselects the clicked one keeping the other selected
CTRL click opens the Info Panel for that object
There is also a cycle selector that filters object kinds, only
listing those of the desired property (defaults to All, can
filter "All", "Objects" -poly geometry-, "Lights", "Splines"
-nurbs, paths, beziers and ffds-, "Implicits","Forces",
"Particles", "Bones" )
A second filter is provided by the string gadget next to the
cycle one that allows to enter an anchored pattern ('*' matches
any char sequence, '?' matches a char, caSe IS significant) and
only shows objects whose name matches the pattern (defaults to *
to show all).
o Realtime Flipbook Anim preview
A realtime frame-shuttle bar is located in Project Windows
borders, and the frame number is displayed in title bar. In
animation mode, this allows to shuttle back and forth to preview
the animation and to quickly jump to the desired frame in an
interactive approach. The preview is now double buffered for
flicker free animation.
o Anim controller window
This window replaces the old VCR bar located at the bottom of
the screen and allows to play a preview or to single frame it.
o Time Config
This new button located in the Anim Controller opens Time Panel,
allowing to change the Frame Per Second setting and the Max
number of frames in the current project.
o Streamed Previews
The Film button creates streamed previews with disk playback,
thus allowing to preview the animation at high speed. A click
creates a preview. Shift click forces old preview to be
discarded and Ctrl click opens the stream settings panel.
o Stream Settings Panel
This panel controls start, end and step frame for the animation
to be streames, allows to choose the stream location, to define
the size for the stream buffer and has a Drop Stream control
that frees the stream. Streams are played from disk and the
StreamBuffer size (default 16K) can be fine tuned to improve
performance. Of course placing streams on ram disk improves
performance more than any buffer can. Streams are only played on
Hi or True color graphic cards, and require 4*x*y bytes per
frame, where x and y are preview area's x and y extents. Streams
are built from video memory to be compatible with 3D
accelerators so resizing the project window after creating a
Stream makes the preview distorted. Also, the actual color depth
depends on screen depth (please note that the preview will
store portions of windows occluding the preview area -this may
be useful as dragging the Anim Controller window over the
sreamed preview will record timecode over the preview).
o Realtime Progressive Display Update
During preview in mode 7 and 8, both in 68K & PowerPC, Tornado3D
can optionally show the rendering in progress thus allowing to
interrupt the preview early if the results are not pleasant. To
activate Progressive update, move the mouse to the top of the
screen and to deactivate it move it in any other place. Warning,
THIS SLOWS DOWN A LOT THE PREVIEW! especially in PowerPC mode.
o Interruptable PowerPC renderings
Interruptable PowerPC renderings even during accumulative passes
(this improvement applies to 68K as well, previously the Abort
was for frame, not for subframe).
o PowerPC rendering status
PowerPC rendering displays a working message while it renders,
to let the user know it is really at work NOTE this has slowed
down rendering, but general consensus was for this, so...
o Track View
The old Anim Panel is now the Track View Panel, realtime and
asyncronous, resizeable and with scrollbars. Any change
performed on this Panel or thru the KeyInfo panel is immediatly
reflected to the main project window, and vice-versa, allowing
to fine tune animations with no interruptions.
o Control Window
The Control Window is the heart of Tornado3D ThreeOh. This
multiple-function panel allows to control most of the new
realtime features and is ready to be expanded in the future. It
has six different "Tabs" that relate to different operating
modes, all updated in realtime.
o Coordinates
Coordinates are now in Measure Tab, part of Control Window, that
also shows the rotation / scaling amount and the size of Tape
Rulers (see Helpers)
o Navigate
The Navigate Tab allows to navigate the scene and implements the
much requested zoom-to-extents or zoom to dragbox operations.
o Fit Selected, fits the view to the first selected object
extents, plus a margin.
o Fit All Selected, fits the view to the cumulative extent of
all selected objects, plus a margin.
o Fit All, fits the view to the cumulative extent of all objects
in scene, plus a margin.
o Fit Drag, allows to draw in any non-perspective view a Drag
Box and fits the view to the extent of the Drag Box in two
dimensions, leaving the third as it was. This function is often
called Zoom Box.
o Numeric
The Transformation panel is gone, it is now the Numeric Tab in
Control Window. It displays in realtime the object position,
size and alignment, and allows to change them. Changes are
undoable and performed immediatly upon hitting the return key in
any of the numeric entry gadgets unless shift is depressed when
pressing return. In this case, changes are stored internally and
updated at the first unshifted return -this way complex objects
are not redrawn every time if more than a single coordinate has
to be changed at once. When moving, scaling or rotating
interactively an object, the values here are recomputed in
realtime.
o Plug-In
The Plug-In Tab is activated by GolemGui plug-ins and its
contents depend on the Golem Plug-In invoked.
o Layers
The Layers Tab allows to choose the currenty active and visible
layer much in the same way as the Layers menu commands. See
Layers for a complete description of the Layer system.
o Create
The Create Tab is activated when adding an object with realtime
preview capabilites. See this feature for a complete description.
o Realtime Automorpher
The automorpher now works even for standard XFORM animation,
thus removing any need for "make keyframe" commands, just enter
anim mode, select something and move it: anim panel will show in
realtime the new keyframes and a spline path will be drawn.
Animation has never been easier. Also, Path Splines are not
drawn in model mode anymore.
o Bezier curve primitive
A new spline kind is available, the Bezier Curve. It is the
popular Cubic Bezier Curve, with tangent editing capabilites.
Selecting a control point (one that is touched by the curve)
automagically selects the left and right tangent points, to drag
it undeformed. Rotating in centroid mode such a vertex allows to
change the curve tension. Selecting a tangent point instead
allows free deformation of the curve.
o Color keyed primitives
Lights are yellow, Camera is green, Force Fields are red, Axes
are drawn with different color to be easily recognized, X is
Red, Y is Green and Z is blue.
o Smarter Import
Now object import hints at the flags to be set when loading an
alien format pre-activating them according to the file type. It
also uses a the much more sophisticated normals alignment code
that requires meshes.
o Improved Lightwave Import
Now Lightwave import allows for N-sided polygons, concave or
convex, -even with holes- and up to the maximum Lightwave's
limit of 32767 sides and auto triangulates them during loading.
o GAMMA file format export
It is now possible to export objects in the GAMMA file format.
The exporter will warn if the object is not legal for GAMMA and
refuse to save it.
o Export Gui
Alien Format export now has a gui that allows to choose the
export format.
o New color double buffering
Gfx-card optimized, replaces the old "videodrivers" system that
used an 1-bit thin AmigaOS function. Now full 32 bit color (or
15 or 16) double buffering is possible and is even faster than
before.
o Realtime Object Creation
Interactive object adding, see the new objects change as you
change the parameters before actually adding the object to the
workspace. No more Add/Undo to find the exact size or number of
sections. This function activates the Tab Create in Control
Window and is automagically selected when adding polygonal
objects.
o MeshSmoothing
Catmull-Clark's subdivision surfaces are a faster and more
stable mesh refinement tool, replacing old metamesh. Like
metamesh they improve object roundness, and have the side effect
of making faces quadrangular after first invocation. They lack
tension control, however. Found in Subdivide/Meshsmooth . They
also work with selection of faces and preserve surfaces, thus
allowing to add detail where it is needed.
o Sculpted Surfaces
The new Sculpted Surface polygon type is another powerful
Database Amplification feature (in Lightwave's terminology those
are MetaNurbs). It turns any polygonal mesh into an highly
refined Spline Surface, allowing to model with polygons and
render splines. It works on real Nurbs Patches arranged as Coons
Surfaces and allows for direct rendering of the resulting
surfaces. The direct rendering, however, presents singularities
where faces share more than three or four vertices. This is
unavoidable, so the correct way is to polygonize the completed
object then Merge the resulting polygonal shell. In the future
it will be possible to convert its representation to standard
Nurbs Patches to be direct rendered or further edited. Not very
fast yet, but safety first: it is numerically stable.
Quick tutorial: add a cube, select it, open Obj Panel and set
Sculpted Surface, and it will change to a smooth version. Most
modeling commands can be used to sculpt the low res polygonal
shell with a realtime visualization of the spline-based result.
Try beveling the cube to grow surfaces adding detail only where
it is needed.
o New PowerPC support!
The PowerPC render engine is now compiled with the latest EGCS
compiler and makes extensive use of the Message System to
communicate back and forth the 68K executable. All the
high-resolution rendering and Nurbs / Sculptors rendering
crashes are gone. This change *REQUIRES* that WarpOS V4
(http://www.haage-partner.com) AND PPCLIBEMU (any Aminet site)
are installed and running!
o Layers
Eight layers are now available. In the active layer the editor
operates as before, but objects can be placed into other layers
becoming unselectable and gray-drawn. Layered objects are
visible also while modeling, as a visual reference aid. Both the
hidden property and the initial hide of camera, lights and
markers have been superceeded by the layers system. Note you
can't change the ACTIVE layer when editing an object (the
visible layer can be changed). Layers are controlled both by the
layers menu items and from the MX gadget Layers window in
control window.
It is suggested to send to the back layers the parts of your
scene that don't require changes to speed up modeling, and to
turn on the hidden layers visibility when you need to precisely
match a position between objects. Layered objects are always
rendered as if they were active, so there is no risk of ruining
a scene by forgetting to move them in the active layer.
To send an object in a layer, change its Layer number in Object
Info Panel.
o Wireframe Clipping
True 3D clipping in perspective wireframe and culled solves the
annoying "lines back from infinite" without much slowdown.
o New Hierarchy Animation
IT IS MANDATORY that objects to be animated with hierarchy have
their axes of equal size. Otherwise the scaling matrices will
turn into so-called Skew matrices, distorting the objects. If
this constraint is enforced (for example by making all the
non-uniform scalings in point mode) Linked Objects will animate
without problems.
o Shaded Editor
Color shaded, z-buffered, object display in non-perspective
editor windows! This change incorporates the code from
Eyelight's-developed CGX3Drave software engine and allows direct
rasterization on graphics card memory. This function really ONLY
WORKS WELL on graphics card that have local bus access to video
memory. SHADED REDRAW IS MUCH FASTER THAN WIREFRAME on a
CybervisionPPC, even without the 3D chip acceleration! Turned on
by default can be turned of in Workspace/ Settings clicking
"Shade Selected".
o Dynamic redraw system
Now redraw is performed dynamically, keeping track of the time
needed to draw each frame and automagically selects some special
acceleration features according to the user's movements and
machine speed. The following controls are found in Workspace/
Settings
o Adaptive degradation
Adaptive degradation reduces the preview mode complexity to
speed up redraw. This means that if the Photo preview is too
slow to keep up with the speed at which the mouse travels,
Tornado3D will switch to Realistic mode for next frame, and if
even this is too slow, it will keep reducing the preview level
until Flat Shade (note it will not go to Culled or Wireframe
since they are now slower than Flat Shade). Works along the
following controls.
o Keep framerate
This is the number of frames per second that thet dynamic redraw
engine will try to keep constant. Higher numbers will activate
the degradation earlier, while lower numbers will allow for
slower redraw favouring quality.
o Auto restore
Activating Auto Restore, the degradation will be canceled
automagically when the mouse button is released, thus returning
to the previous preview mode. For example, if editing metaballs,
the realistic preview that shows them would change to a fast
polygonal approximation in modes 3,4,5 or 6 and then when the
movement has completed, it would return immediatly to Realistic
preview to show the final result. Sometimes it may be useful to
keep the degradation level reached, for example when making many
small changes to a very complex scene. Deactivating Auto Restore
the degradation will become permanent and the user will need to
manually switch back to an higher degradation level.
o N-th face display
Another draw acceleration feature, this one allows to reduce the
number of faces drawn in the editor, drawing only one every N.
By default N is 1, thus redrawing the entire objects, a value of
4 would speed up the redraw four times and still provide a
reasonable display for very complex objects. If an object has no
faces, the Nth face will turn into an Nth point display. This
acceleration ONLY works in object mode, as hiding items to be
edited in Point and Face modes makes no sense.
o Full Time Inverse Kinematics
This new engine allows Inverse Kinematic chains to follow an
external goal and solves the Inverse Kinematic system for each
frame of an animation instead of requiring the animator to
manually create keyframes.
This is not possible by placing the end effector explicitly in
the frames, as it is part of the Hierarchy to be animated and
editing it would create Link Poses, so an End Effector external
to the group is required. This object (an axis, usually) must be
named "GOALxxxxxxx" where "xxxxxxxx" is the name of the true end
effector (last item in the group's chain). The Inverse
Kinematics Goal property in object panel must be set. In test
scene FullTimeIKdemo.prj the end effector is called "EndEff" so
the axis has to be named "GOALEndEff". Once done this, the
Inverse Kinematics structure is bound to this axis and will
follow it while it moves, trying to reach a stable solution.
Remember that if an Inverse Kinematics chain is anchored,
movement outside its "reachable plane" is not allowed.
o Dynamic Interactive Rendering
The interactive rendering engine is not anymore a preview tools
that can be navigated: it can be changed in realtime! Move
lights or objects and see how shadows change, or edit a metaball
and see it fuse in realtime! Any change is immediatly recomputed
and displayed. This also works in the other preview modes as
well.
o Smart point/face perspective update
When editing points or faces, the draw mode changes to a special
"point cloud" mode that displays in realtime all the points
edited and optionally honors the n-th face setting displaying
only one point every N.
o Gobos for Lights
Gobos are a spot/umbrella light property that allows to mask out
some of the radiated light, acting like a gobo as used in cinema
and stage lighting. Two gobos are provided: Square that produces
a square with soft edges and Venetian that provides a venetian
blind look, also useful for car headlights. More will be added
in the future. Gobos respect perspective and can work with
projector light sources. Gobo size and gobo soft are two
percentage values, the first expressed relative to the coneangle
size and the second relative to the first. Lower size in
Venetian to get more slices, and in square to get sharper
corners.
o RadMapping
This new material property simulates "Radiosity" at blazing
speed using cubic mapping technology. Radiosity is a rendering
method that treats objects as light-radiating surfaces, and
allows very subtle illumination effects for the diffuse color
component. For example, placing a white ball over a blue
tabletop will slightly tint in blue the ball. Radiosity has
limited use outside architectural rendering, however, and can't
deal with specular surfaces. (In practice Radiosity computes
ambient light instead of trating it like a fixed constant).
Tornado3D now implements a cubic mapping property, similar to
the cubic reflection and refraction mappings already available,
that tints an object with the color from the objects nearby.
Unlike reflection or refration, this mapping is not
view-dependant, and really shows what is straight on the objects
faces. Using Radmapping along with Reflection mapping is
possible but not suggested, as the two components should really
be mutually exclusive.
o Free Form Blobs
Implicit surfaces do not need anymore to be grouped in order to
fuse, and the subdivision level is expressed by an absolute
'cube size' value allowing a firm representation of non moving
implicit objects during animation. (Note that now lower cube
sizes yelds more detailed objects -this is the opposite as
before- BUT the polygonization requires the old higer=more
definite values and that the objects to be polygonized are
grouped).
o Blob Polygonal Approximation
Implicit surfaces are now represented with a polyigonal
approximation of their real shape, not only spheres, while on
the editor and in preview modes lower than 7.
o No-wait Click-Drag
The new Click-drag paradigm now allows interactive operations to
start even immediatly after selecting an object. Simply click
and drag over an object to transform it, saving time and making
everything more intuitive.
o New Subdivide
The new faceted subdivision code is based on Meshsmoothing's
approach and is slightly different from the simple geometric
approach used before. Flat-subdivided objects will have a more
complex inner structure that improves shading and allows for
easier organic modeling.
o Helpers
A new class of objects has been introduced: Helpers. Helpers are
tools just like those you would use when drawing or building
something in the real world. They don't get rendered, but are
useful as measurement and reference tools.
o Tape Ruler Helper
This helper allows to measure distances in 3D just like its
real-world counterpart. The result in world coordinates is shown
in measure window and gets updated in realtime when moving it.
Selecting the Helper "father" allows to move it as a whole,
without changing its size. The most common use of Tape Rulers is
to measure (or manually set from a real drawing) distances
creating construction lines, then to place them in a layer to
build an object from points.
o Acetate Helper
This helper works like the "background image" allowed by other
softwares but is MUCH more powerful. It allows to create a color
"Acetate Sheet" that is placed behind the grid (just imagine a
drawing board with a fixed Acetate sheet) as a visual reference.
It is always displayed in FULL COLOR also when editing other
objects and will respect Zoom, Pan and other draw settings.
Since more than one Acetate Helper can be added, different
helpers can be used for front, top or side views. Acetate
Helpers can be rotated, rescaled, fitted to the Image aspect
ratio. To activate them simply apply an image in any mode
(Planar, spherical, etc.) in material editor. Helpers are shown
in preview but not rendered. The most common use of Acetate
Helpers is to add an helper, size and texture it, then send it
to another layer. It will always be visible but not get in the
way when selecting objects.
o Automatic Normals Alignment
This improved "align selected" command works on entire objects
without manually selecting a seed face and fixes automatically
the normals alignment so that they face inside or outside the
mesh.
o Extend Faces
This new selection method selects faces connected to already sel
faces, following the mesh structure. It allows to "grow" face
selections.
o Metapolys
The Make Metapoly menuitem creates a "fake" N-sided polygon from
the boundary of the selected faces. This hides from redraw the
shared edges between selected faces, thus allowing to create
faster redrawing and cleaner looking object. Again it works with
the winged edge approach, so objects must be meshes.
o MetaPoly selector
When PICK-selecting (only -no dragbox) a face that belongs to a
Metapoly selection set as defined above, all the connected faces
are selected as well and thanks to the new Beveling and
Extrusion commands this makes possible to easily work with
Concave or Convex, N-Sided polygons even with holes.
o Improved Polygonizator
A Single polygonization command in Multiply/ Modify/ Polygonize
now autodetects the object kind and computes shapes for Spline
Paths, Bezier Curves, Nurbs Curves, Nurbs Surfaces, Implicit
Objects and Subdivision Surfaces.
o New Adaptive Grid
New adaptive grid layout, now the adapt. grid in orthogonal
views is the same "adaptive object" used in perspective and has
much higher precision with only slightly slower display.
o New Adaptive Snapping
New adaptive grid snapping, with full 3D intersections allows
for much finer control over grid snapping. When dealing with
multiselected items, such as points or groups of objects, only
the first item will be snapped.
O COMPLETE NURBS (Non Uniform Rational B Splines) MODELER
o Perfect Circle Nurbs curve primitive
The Nurbs Curve primitive defaults as a perfect circle,
something that can not be represented with other kind of splines.
o Nurbs Sphere Primitive
A Perfect Sphere Nurbs surface, with infinite detail. Note this
has singularities at poles when directly rendered. It is not a
bug, it is currently unavoidable due to the way normals are
calculated -polyigonized it will be ok.
o Non-Uniform control points adding
Adding points to Nurbs Curves allows three operation modes:
- clicking on an existing Control Point adds in place a control
point, usefult to create sharp turns;
- clicking on a curve segment, adds a control point in that
position (nearly: actually order -1 points are created and is
dependent on curve resolution: increase path preview draw res to
get more accurate results).
- shift clicking on the segment adds a single control point near
the curve.
o Lathe Nurbs Curves
Creates a full 360 Degrees surface of Revolution from any Nurbs
Curve
o Extrude Nurbs Curves
Creates a tubular ruled surface along +Z axis from any Nurbs
Curve
o Skin Nurbs Curves
Creates a complex ruled surface interpolating all the selected
Nurbs Curves (at least four). The old skin command that only
polygonized paths has been removed.
o Sew Nurbs Patches
The Sew U North and Sew V East menu commands allow to seamlessy
join with C1 continuity different Nurbs patches creating larger,
more complex, objects. It works with any order of boundary
surface and any size of patch but requires patches of same UV
structure.
- Sew U North
Will sew the second selected patch along the top Row of the
first selected one
- Sew V East
Will sew the second selected patch along the right column of the
first selected one
o Nurbs Patch Panel
Allows to choose the new settings available for Nurbs Patches
when creating them.
o Size U and V
Patches can now be rectangular and have any size desired
(remember that for Nurbs Modeling high definition patches are
not required. It is better to keep patches down in size and sew
several patches).
o Quadratic, Cubic and Quartic Nurbs Curves and Patches
Patches can now have any order from Quadratic (3) to Cubic (4)
and Quartic (5) and can have different orders for U and V
direction.
o Auto Wrappable Patches
The renderer can now close patches of any Order and Size on U or
V parametric directions automagically with at least C1
continuity and no extra memory. This allows to create perfect
looking seamless objects without having to deal with duplicate
control points.
o RubberBand Faces
While adding faces in interactive AddFace mode, a realtime
rubber-band is computed from the point set selected and gets
displayed following the mouse until the face is added.
o New Extrusion
Extusion of faces and face sets (MetaPolys) in Face mode.
(Amiga-E) the extrusion is computed along the average surface
normal in the selected set of faces. Opposite face produce
translation only in one direction to avoid unexpected results.
o Improved Separate Surfaces
Now works on Face Sets as well, and uses the Winged-Edge
paradigm for faster execution.
o Bevel N-Sided
A new Bevel tool allows to bevel face sets or Metapolys, even
when N-Sided, concave, convex, with or without holes.
o Improved Postscript font Beveling
Uses the new beveling code and should work with insets upto 3.0
on sans serif fonts
o New Fractal Subdivide
Fractal subdivide is now a refine tool and does not alter the
number of faces, use subdivide then fractalize to obtain the old
effect, and use it alone to roughen an object by displacing its
vertices along the vertex normals. Works only on objects with
faces.
o Center Axis
A new Refine tool that allows to center the object's axis with
the points. Normally the points will move around the axis'
center, but if if invoked with shift depressed the axis will
move instead.
o Detach Faces
A new Multiply tool, detaches faces from their shared faces and
creates new points for them, this allows shading changes like
separate surface within a single surface and other modeling ops.
It is quite useful for the creation of mechanical objects
morphings.
o N-sided Polygonizator
Multiply/Make Polygon works similarly to the old make poly
button but deals with concave and convex N-gons, and allows to
triangulate even holes making use of bridges to be joined later.
It also works in any orientation by creating a metapoly based on
first three points face normals and orienting them. Select any
number of points in clockwise or counter clockwise order, and
invoke this function to triangulate them.
o Micropixel Accuracy
New Micropixel accuracy in rendering leads to pixel perfect
object intersections and smoother slow moving animations,
horizontal resolution for antialias and hidden surface removal
is performed as if each pixel covered a 255 pixel area.
o Aspect Ratio in Preview
Preview mode 7 and 8, when used in True Camera mode clip preview
ratio to be same as final rendering image ratio if Y is larger
than X allowing correct preview when dealing with strange aspect
ratios (for example for aartwork to be printed)
o Footed Animation
In character animation using poses, it is common practice to
create many extra keyframes to keep the feet locked to the
ground. This is needed because interpolation of poses moves down
the legs/feet without displacing upward the object hierachy, it
is the animator that has to do that. With the Tie to Ground
function, T3D examines the object in each frame and displaces it
automagically upwards (along World Y axis) when a part of the
object falls below ground, conventionally set at Y=0 world
coordinate. This displacing is performed examining the entire
object structure, and not just the axis, so it works properly
when using bones-deformed objects and will be precise to the toe
hitting the ground.
o P-code Golem scripts
The make Pcode menu item allows to select a golem script and to
save it in a semicompiled format, called P-code. The new file
name will have .glp appended to it and can be read just like an
ascii script by T3D (but faster). It is not humanly readable,
however, and this allows third party developers to distribute
their golem scripts. THERE IS NO P-Code to Ascii conversion
tool! Once Pcoded the golem script is like a compiled program,
so MAKE SURE TO KEEP AN EDITABLE ASCII BACKUP OF ALL YOUR
SCRIPTS!
o Faster Golem execution
The new Pcode system allows for much faster execution of large
scripts and is applied to Ascii scripts as well, compiling them
during load.
o Attachable Engines
A new object property is Engine, located in Object Info panel.
By setting the engine to one of the special golem engines found
in Plug-In/Engines, all the manipulation that previously
required a global PRERENDER golem script can be done locally and
per-object. The new GLM_EngineObject variable is initialized
(ONLY FOR ENGINES) to point to the object that owns the engine.
This means engines are Black Boxes that can be shared among
objects, projects, users, without being tied to a particular
scene (unless wanted). The future introduction of GolemGui will
allow for easy control of variable parameters thus making
engines really integrated into Tornado3D. The checkbox allows to
activate or deactivate the Engine.
o Faster CGX 3D Rave / Permedia 2
The new "?" button to the right of the Hardware Acceleration
gadget in Preferences allows to open the CGX3Drave Panel with
full control over 3D chip settings and support for up to ten
different engines
o Broadcast markers
Broadcast Safe and Title area markers appear on preview as two
concentric boxes drawin in shades of blue. The outermost box
shows the Action safe area while the inner box shows the Title
safe area according to ANSI/SMPTE RP23.7
o Intensity mapping
To match real and rendered sequences. Activating the Match BG
Dynamic Range gadget in world panel changes the rendering
procedure so that, if a BG image is installed, Tornado3D tries
to match the final rendering to the original image dynamic
range. This compensates for the integration "blurring" of the
background and forces the rendering to adapt to the BG range.
This is useful for special effects work, for example when using
video-acquired imagery as background because it has a far
inferior dynamic range than the infinite one a renderer has.
Since the image integration is done per frame, this works also
on animated sequences but it may lead to abrupt color changes if
the BG imagery varies wildly from frame to frame. (This can be
used for special effects as well, on scenes that fill entirely
the screen the BG can then become a dynamic channel, used for
intentional correction/distortion of color ranges).
o Subtractive Alpha
The Subtractive Alpha property removes the image installed in
the ForeGround (and that should be a single frame, unless the
clip has been captured twice with a motion controlled camera)
from the one installed in the BackGround. This way, a static
backdrop can be removed from an action filled sequence, and then
used as a masked sequence for special effects work.
o Modulate Sub-Alpha
This alpha mode Subtracts (it does not remove) the ForeGround
Image -that can be animated- from the BackGround one, thus
allowing to modulate the bacground creating darker or lighter
color areas, or adding lighting effects in post-production that
match lighting effects used in rendering. For example, a special
effects sequence with sudden light flashes could be reproduced
using a matching black FG sequence with mid-gray tones in the
flash frames.
o Improved particles
Particle systems have been improved to prepare to the new
GolemGui-based system.
o NURBS HAIRS!
For pixel perfect hair styles, Nurbs hairs replace the old
straight-line hair system with beautifully shaped Nurbs curves
that allow for more realistic results with much less memory and
will soon be animatable with elastic strings.
o Face "Hairs"
Now "hairs" -actually line particles- created with Shift-Make
Particle, are fetched from faces and can be culled for better
"wireframe" effects respecting depth priority.
o Blob 3D Particles
The blob particles have been reintroduced thanks to the new blob
polygonization system and allow for solid, shadow casting, 3D
effects such as water flows.
o Image Panel Ratio
Image Panel now shows (non-transparent) miniatures with correct
aspect ratio (-Gosh, Mr.Smart, with such a revolutionary feature
why don't we call it Tornado3D 5.0? -Holy Cows, Mr.Clever, I
dunno. But we should: some people would have killed for it.)
Other significant changes from earlier versions (Amiga specific)
- Native Amiga (OCS,ECS,AGA) and color index graphics card
support officially dropped, T3D3 should still be able to run on
native amiga displays / color index boards with third party
emulation libraries (this comes with NO WARRANTY AT ALL).
- Direct Virge3D support dropped, Virge will be supported in
future Cgx3Drave releases with the CgxRave driver and no changes
to Tornado3D's executable.
- Newicon.library has been dropped due to users request
- The screen font is now fixed. Tornado3D ThreeOh uses
helvetica.font in sizes 9 and 11 and needs them.
- The new Gui requires that NO patches that change the window's
frame appearance are installed. Just turn off Tornado3D from their
application list.
- The "Tools" gadget window is gone will be replaced by a floating
context sensitive button window in the future.
- The Copy Protection system has been rewritten using all the
data lines found in the hardware keys and creating new serial
number encryption schemes. PLEASE BE VERY CAREFUL RUNNING
PROGRAMS THAT INTERFERE WITH THE DONGLE OR USING MOUSE
SWITCHERS OR OTHER PASS-TROUGH DEVICES. (But we promise YOU,
the paying users, that this time it will take much more than
the year and a half the pirates needed last time. No one
will use for free what you paid real money for.)
What will be in the Free in 3.1 updated to be released before Christmas
- TRIPLE BUFFERING
To speed up editor redraw keeping a copy of non moving objects
and layers, that are currently redrawn at each frame. This will
lead to an order of magnitude faster interactive performance.
- Prestored PatchArrays
This will lead to a several orders of magnitude faster redraw
and editing of Sculpted Surfaces, as the spline patches will be
recomputed only when the geometry changes and not at every
redraw like now.
- GolemGui
For a fully interactive Plug-In panel, and easy to use
scriptable Guis
- Internal virtual memory
Cuts in half rendering memory requirements
- Even faster PowerPC
Full custom math library and no need for 680x0 assistance.
- Advanced force fields
Completly redesigned force field system based on GolemGui will
be a free PlugIn module to be installed into PlugIn Tab
- And more...