I'm Cheap! What's Free?

[gidgit]

Haha, thanx for the heads up here Paul... I was mainly going on what I had learned from another source on another 3D board... and of course the sluggish part going from my own experience with said app... ( running it on a small 266 celeron )
It was this sluggishness that had led me to inquire as to what's up, to which I had recieved a reply indicating what I had originally posted here... beyond which, other than the language discrepancy here, fact remains... you will require a quicker machine than mine to work with this app in a fluid manner... this all said, Wings is very cool indeed and poised to become much more with a bit of work [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

What? no more free Strata Base? ah now this is sad news indeed if this is the case... I agree that Strata was/is a perfect 3D app to begin one's 3D experience... excellent handles for manipulation...etc

Ah Doug, in search of the magic app that does all for free... if this was the case there would be little reason for the big apps to even exist at all... does this make sense ?

but... you could always try this... Amapi3D

Amapi

make sure to copy your licence password down in order to activate for saving etc...

[This message was edited by gidgit on October 05, 2002 at 14:41.]

[Zorganite]

one I've found (hey, I'm new.. yay) to be really nice.. is 3D Canvas.. ( www.amabilis.com ) I kinda found it by accident, but I like it. I think it's better than Wings3D (but I havent really tried it out so dont eat me if I'm wrong here) and there's also a Pro version for 70$.. it seems nice.. I'm really.. not a person to ask about that.. but hey.. it's a nice free one. it's not a demo either! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img] it's just, well. FREE! haha.. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif[/img]

-Zorg

[gidgit]

Try it out some and let us know what yas think... also what type/size of machine you are using... thanx [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[Zorganite]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by gidgit:
Try it out some and let us know what yas think... also what type/size of machine you are using... thanx [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

??? try out what, the pro version? wings3D?

(was this even to me??)

-Zorg

[Ross Macintosh]

the free demo of Vue d'Esprit 4. The demo I have continues to work after the 30 days was up. It still has all the limitations of the demo of course. I can't save in the native format etc. but it does allow you to import models and create scenes with them, render them, and save your output as jpg's etc. I've had fun bringing in ready-made models available on the internet and rendering them. The attachment below is an example. I didn't model the "Swan" chair but did find it enjoyable to create the setting and lighting for it.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[gidgit]

haha, yes Zorg, the message was to you... sorry bout the confusion, anyhoo, I was suggesting that you give the free version of 3D Canvas a good go and then let us know what you think... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

hey right on Ross... cyber chair... this looks great.. btw, nice that you are back... and wow, Spud Island... that is such a nice place with very red sand... I have relatives in NS and have visited both provinces, and... wow, what a nice place to build... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

[dougc]

What's considered a big model? I often see people post rendering times for images. I know from 3D PC games that the typical game-engine load is 500-800 rendered primitives/per-frame, but that's 30 to 75 frames per second usually, and ray-cast besides.....How many primitives/vertices does a "big/complicated" ray-traced model-scene have? 50K? 500K? 1 mil? What's the biggest you've ever done? Do commercial programs have limitations in this regard that typical users run up against a lot? -I'm imagining data structures to make it easy to handle large files in little pieces, but don't know right off "how large is large"....?

[Zorganite]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by gidgit:
haha, yes Zorg, the message was to you... sorry bout the confusion, anyhoo, I was suggesting that you give the free version of 3D Canvas a good go and then let us know what you think... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


yeah my PC is kinda old, 64mb ram.. and, uh, like 500mhz.. it's really not very good. I'm getting a new one soon tho.

I'm going to have fun testing out 3D canvas fully..

-Zorg

[bmh216]

doug,
I can't speak for any commercial program except Lightwave, but it allows you unlimited polygons, actually limited only by the amount of RAM in your machine, and you can even get around that by using "bounding box limit" which shows your models as simple boxes when you manipulate them. This keeps the machine from bogging down with huge meshes.

An organic character meant for still-image work can exceed half-a-million polys, easily. Not a very efficient mesh, but I've seen it. The problem with any sort of data structures in rendering raytraced images is that the scene must be taken as a whole by the raytracer. Every poly must be considered, even those hidden from camera view for true raytracing to take place. So, although you have a nice idea, I could only see its' implementation in a non-raytracing renderer. Remember, rays are emitted from the camera and must trace their way through the scene.

Hope this sheds some light on the subject...
Brett

[gidgit]

Hi Brett, good info here..

I have to say though regarding raytracing, that many times I find I get better results by not rendering backfaces , I suppose that it all depends on the lighting and positioning, as well the reflective values placed on surfaces, transparency levels if any...etc...

Could you shed some more light on this? ( I am such a rookie [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] ) Thanx in advance