3d Objects

[micpool@mac.com]

animating models this way isnt really very good in catalyst- its not a very efficient use of models.
models tend to be huge - much bigger and more unwieldy than movie files.

and the modelling application is sooo much better at editing, and rendering-

why do you need it to happen live?
why not render off line to a movie???

if you had a loop of 20 300k model poses it would take up 6Mb or so , not that huge.

I thought live was the whole point. Most of my work is prerendered, but ocassionally I do need to throw together a few looks for some ambient visuals with no pre-production, I think a few animated figures, would be more interesting to play with than a cardboard cut out forest.

Also I think the more possibilities included in software tools, the more amazing creative things video designers will find to do with them beyond what was originally envisaged.

[samsc]

if you had a loop of 20 300k model poses it would take up 6Mb or so , not that huge.

I thought live was the whole point. Most of my work is prerendered, but ocassionally I do need to throw together a few looks for some ambient visuals with no pre-production, I think a few animated figures, would be more interesting to play with than a cardboard cut out forest.

Also I think the more possibilities included in software tools, the more amazing creative things video designers will find to do with them beyond what was originally envisaged.

i can give you more models in a test version - if you like?

[Gian]

Sorry get on the discussion,

But i like that...

Richard, you can email me some models ? or have it on the web for dwnload?

my email is gbortolotti@ibeamsp.com

Thanks

BTW Great job on version 4. Looks great

Gian

[samsc]

Sorry get on the discussion,

But i like that...

Richard, you can email me some models ? or have it on the web for dwnload?

my email is gbortolotti@ibeamsp.com

Thanks

BTW Great job on version 4. Looks great

Gian

there are a few simple ones builtinto the software.
they are a visual fx.

there are many places to download models on the net -
like

http://turbosquid.com/

[litemover]

I look at the model feature to enable one to project on very obtuse or nonlevel surfaces such as arcs and the like without muddling up the image. A good example are when production designers make wings on the Grammy's to project on. Originally those wings were 3d convex and concave wings that needed a model mask for each segment in order for the image not to distor. They had to eventually flatten out the wings so that the content wouldn't distort.

Richard is correct about rendering in games. It's a farce. Caustics, shadows, fire, nearly every effect is not done in the way you would if you were rendering out to a movie. It is faked. If you saw the geometry of game characters, stripped of their bump, normal, and texture maps, they would look like grey humanoids with no features. I wouldn't expect Catalyst or any video playback software to be able to mimic this though there are some cool things that can be done with hight maps and shaders to look like 3d. A hieght map is a gradient black and white image and there are some open gl shaders that could be implemented to create some interesting stuff.

That being said, I really look at Catalyst as a great playback program with some very cool efects and options.

Christian Choi

[micpool@mac.com]

i can give you more models in a test version - if you like?

Do you mean more wavefront .obj files (In which case I'm fine creating my own) or the means of being able to use more of them.

When will the program have the "Ability to import 3-D images (.obj)" using the user interface?

[samsc]

if you had a loop of 20 300k model poses it would take up 6Mb or so , not that huge.

I thought live was the whole point. Most of my work is prerendered,

3d models have to be stored on the graphics card - which is a very limited resource compared to the hard disc. around 100MB ( on older macs ) compared to GBytes on the hard disc.

it takes more memory than you think to store models, and you can easily overload graphics memory. -

there are also serious realtime performance limits with having large models- graphics architecture related.

almost everything in 3d is much harder than it looks.
for years artists and programmers in games have struggled with very limited resources-
games might look really cute and fast - but they have been very highly optimised - with simple geometry - texture maps and things like bump maps to make it look like it has more detail than it has.
in the realtime 3d world - geometry is often very simple. the textures make it look more complex.
also you might be shocked to discover realtime games rendering is a horrible hack. almost everything is faked up and heavily optimised for specific situation...those games with nice things like soft shadows - are a horrible hack...often pre-rendered - or simplified.

offline rendering - with things like radiosity and raytracing and nice shadows - making 3d models look real - is an entirely different art - to realtime - and takes a very long time to process frames. thousands of times slower than realtime.

do not get these two confused.
you cannot do any kindof realistic rendering with realtime rendering.
thats why its better to do it as a movie...