REAL 3D VERSION 3.0

SPLINE MODELING

Real 3D's primary form of modeling is based on mathematically generated surfaces. There are several advantages to this. No matter what level of zoom you use when viewing the surface, it retains a perfect curvature. What this means is that a spline sphere of only 36 points will maintain a perfect spherical shape no matter what distance it is viewed from, if you use polygons you must first determine the 'quality' level and create the sphere using a predetermined amount of points.

Compared with a simple polygon sphere, that is not intended for close ups, the point count ranges between 500-3000 points, if you intend to zoom into a detailed shot the point count can go up quite dramatically. This point count difference by itself makes a huge difference in your scene complexity versus memory available abilities. Also, the adjustable detail level ability is removed once converted to polygons because the mathematical basis of the surface has been removed, it then becomes a function of the size of polygons used to recreate the surface.

Real 3D renders each spline as if it was converted to polygons that were the size of a single pixel in the final scene, I'd rather not think of the memory requirements that would be required to create an actual polygon model of that quality level!

The most powerful spline modeler developed for any desktop PC. While other programs are just now adding support for splines, Real 3D has been using them since it's initial release more than four years ago. But unlike most of the other programs the splines are directly rendered instead of converted to polygons, so when animated the splines maintain the mathematically perfect curvature which is their main advantage.


40+ linear and non-linear spline modification tools. Bend, distort or otherwise modify any spline or section of a spline without worrying about polygon errors. If this isn't enough you can define a custom curve to control the amount of distortion at any distance from the source of the bend or distort function.


Shrink wrapping of spline objects onto other objects. Shrinking or expanding a spline model using these methods allows points on the surface to move until a collision is detected, at this point they 'stick' to the other surface making the spline follow the curvature of other objects. By balancing the point count of the spline you can make precise copies of other objects or more 'organic' looking objects.


Because of a splines mathematical basis you no longer have to worry about point counts on curves that are being used to make an object. In most packages all curves must have the same number of points in order to build a surface from the curves, this is not the case with splines.


Surface coordinate system allows you to enter 3d points just by clicking points from object surfaces.When this function is used, the coordinates actually move along surfaces of objects under the cursor, instead of the standard flat input plane. For example, to create a motion path for a snake wriggling over a mountain, just draw a curve along a surface representing the mountain. *


A rounding function that allows you to easily round objects by selecting points and defining rounding radius for them. This also works for solid objects, such as pyramids and polyhedrons. *


Automatic 'subdivide freeform object to sub-groups' function. *


'Deselect points function' which are already included in one of the selected sub-groups. This makes it easy to sub-divide very complex objects to sub-groups and make sure sub-groups don't overlap.

 

 

CSG MODELING

 

Full CSG modeling system. CSG, otherwise known as Constructive Solid Geometry, uses another form of mathematical surfaces. The use of truly solid objects instead of just a surface allows you to use error free boolean functions between objects, at the same time these objects are mathematical so there are no polygon silhouette edges to worry about when zooming in. This sort of object renders very fast since it is based on more simplified shapes such as cubes, spheres, cylinders and other common geometries.

• CSG modeling uses the same tools as spline modeling so there is no need to learn a new tool set.
  
  
• Paint function that allows one object to cut a piece out of another and leave behind it's material properties.
  
  
• Creation tools that include: Lathing, rounded polyhedrons, subdivided tubes ect.

If you just can't live without polygons Real supports import and export of polygonal objects so you can use objects from other packages in Real or export a highly detailed spline model as a polygon object. A good portion of the spline modeling tools will work on polygon models and you can animate them much the same as any other object in Real.

Triset meshes allow colorization of individual faces -> better support for converted triangle objects. *


Normal orientation feature to fix phong shading problems of converted objects (Modify/freeform/Surface type). *

Real 3D supplies many functions that allow you to work faster and more efficiently with all of the supported model types. The functions range from possitioning tools to full color image backgrounds behind the wireframe. 

The 'Reflect' function allows you, for example, to position a light by defining where you want a highlight to be on an object. This function works with objects also, so you could also position an object to be in the reflection of another object using this function. *


Fast background image blitting allows accurate perspective matching, rotoscoping, etc. *


Active Camera View feature interactively updates camera view windows while the user is moving a camera object. *


View Tool window allows you to easily activate the most commonly needed controls during creation and modification functions. For example, depth, angles, rotations, 3d coordinates, centering etc. can all be activated through this window. The window adapts according to the selected function giving instant feedback of what is possible during the currently activated function. Primitive depth can now be defined numerically or with the mouse during object creation. *


It is possible to view and modify the geometry of all objects through a numerical interface. *


Fractal based object creation tools for trees and landscapes.


'Dump Object Tree' function prints a diagram of object hierarchy and all object attributes. This is very handy when examining very complex scenes. All objects can now be converted to polygonal models (trisets). This allows you to export models consisting of B-Spline and quadric objects to programs which can only handle polygonal models. *


Hot key for repeating the last action. *


Bounding box drawing attribute on an object by object basis allowing you to remove objects that are completed and don't need further work. *

The rendering engine provided with Real 3D is a full distributed ray tracer that allows for incredible output quality. The abilities of the system include area light sources that cast soft shadows, depth of field that does not slow the renderer and full reflection and refraction effects with volumetric sampling abilities. 

• Multiple rendering quality controls that allow you full control of the rendering process when required.
  
  
• Volumetric ray tracing so that solid objects such as glass or water can have internal characteristics like not being perfectly clear.
  
  
• Depth of field allowing that extra touch of realism without requiring extra rendering time.
  
  
• Distributed light sources that can cast soft shadows. These lights are directly rendered and do not require shadow maps that eat up precious rendering memory, they are also not required to be spot lights like in other programs.
  
  
• 2 ... 10 times faster B-Spline rendering.
  
  
• Lens flares.
  
  
• Glow effects for simulating fire, atmospheric effects, laser beams etc.
  
  
• 2D Particle effects
  
  
• 'Fade' object attribute for fading objects in and out and for quickly rendered transparent layers.
  
  
• Auto box rendering: This feature saves memory and speeds up rendering of complex scenes. The feature makes it possible to render efficiently large images.
  
  
• Automatic field interlacing.
  
  
• Rendering settings can be named, saved and reloaded.
  
  
• Distance antialiasing.
  
  
• 8 bit alpha channel output in IFF file rendering.
  
  
• Non-adaptive supersampling for creating very high quality images.
  
  
• Open 3rd party interface for post processing effects.
  
  
• Full JPEG support: it is possible to render directly to a JPEG file and use JPEG images as textures.
  
  

 

The animation system in Real 3D is one of the most advanced systems available on any platform. Real 3D has over 20 methods of animation, many packages are just now adding features that Real 3D has had for over 3 years such as skeletons and Inverse Kinematics.

• Full skeleton system with skin tension control, constraints, joint friction and others.
  
  
• Inverse Kinematics that can be used manually to modify a skeleton controled object or can be used as an animation method that will cause a joint to follow a path.
  
  
• Morphing of objects with different numbers of points.
  
  
• Dynamic simulations based on physical properties such as mass, friction, velocity, spin and collision detection.
  
  
• Keyframing and morphing based on linear or spline curves.
  
  
• Modify time itself to produce lip synced or animations matched to music, quickly and easily.
  
  
• Easy to use high level interfaces for most commonly needed animation effects.
  
  
• SURFACE ANIMATION technique automatically detects surface and friction between animated objects.For example, a character that is animated to 'walk' will automatically detect the floor, detect any variances in the floor object, be held to the floor with gravity, and derive its forward motion automatically because of the friction between the floor and feet. No slipping feet here! Now make that character climb stairs!
  
  Move out of the Stone Age! The wheel was a great invention that until now was useless in desktop 3D programs. Not any more! Put a spinning wheel on the ground in Real 3D and it will automatically roll at the proper speed. You can even 'steer' your car by just turning the front wheels!
  
  
• COLLISION DEFORMATION done with ANIMATED SHRINK WRAPPING method gives you some very special effects. Leave footprints in the sands of time! Create a girl character animated to stroll down a sandy beach, watch her leave subtle footprints in the sand. But what about that beach dress she's wearing? Yes, it will automatically conform and follow her body movements perfectly! Can also be used as a very powerful modeling tool.
  
  
• Hierarchical Skeletons with Constraints and Joint Friction.Combined with Real 3D V3 Inverse Kinematics, character animation is really getting exciting. Pull on a finger tip and accurately control the kinematics of the joints going right back to the pelvis. Joint constraints in both 2D and 3D with friction control. Invaluable tool for procedural and keyframe animation.
  
  
• Skeletons can now contain 'sub-skeletons' which allows tree-structured skeleton systems. For example, a hand contain five sub skeletons i.e. fingers. Constraints can be used for defining minimum and maximum angles for bones. There is no need to subdivide freeforms to sub-groups any longer. A skeleton can be attached to freeform objects directly.
  
  
• Easy to use interface for attaching skeletons to objects. Just select freeform objects and define a skeleton for them.
  
  
• Enhanced Inverse Kinematics: Motion curves are now automatically snapped to the nearest joints of a skeleton which makes it very easy to create 'motion capture' animations. Just create a skeleton and load in motions curves for desired joints. Real 3D takes care of the rest.
  
  
• 'Fidelity', or skin tension, attribute can also be defined for individual points of freeforms.
  
  
• Easy to use interface for the procedural creation method. The user just defines attributes, such as life time, randomness, velocity, spin etc. and Real 3D creates the correct hierarchy for the effect.
  
  
• Improvements to morphing: The user has now control over what properties of the target object the morphing method affects, such as geometry, color and material. Morphing no longer stretches skeletons if bone lengths are equal. Morphing also handles angle constraints. Morphing can be applied to objects with different number of points.
  
  
• Enhanced Keyframer: 'Keyframing' method allows you to create keyframe animations by a traditional keyframe interface. New 'Discrete' interpolation type added. This allows for example camera cut effects. The envelope editor allows the user to view and define motions, rotations, scaling etc. for objects through envelope curves.
  
  
• Now the user has control over the time distribution for motion curves. In other words, it is possible to define time/frame values for each knot point on a curve.
  
  
• A new animation method attribute to turn off inheritance of time modifications.

• Mixing of multiple layers of materials. The mixing can be set constant, controlled through mathamatical formulas, builtin 'scope' functions or you can program in custom scope functions.
  
  
• Distort the material using builtin distortions or program your own.
  
  
• Create spline mapped materials that will conform perfectly to spline meshes. Materials will follow the curvature of the object perfectly and will stretch or distort according to the objects animation.
  
  
• Custom program effects that can control all features of the material system including: specularity, brilliancy, bump, color, turbidity and texture access coordinates for warping the material placement.
  
  
• The material purge function scans the scene and deletes materials which are not mapped to any objects.
  
  
• Glow size and brightness attributes.
  
  
• New material color handler for defining a constant material color which replaces object's original color.
  
  
• New 'Roughness' mathematical bump map, with density and bump height control.
  
  
• New 'Dither' mathematical color map, with density and intensity control.
  
  
• Additional Edge X/Y gradient control for texture gradients allows sharp texture map edges with interpolated texture map interior.
  
  
• Infinite tiling is now possible also when applying FreqX/Y feature to make texture denser - this fixes the 'seam' problem in spherical mapping.
  
  
• Much faster clip mapping.

The programing language included with Real 3D is a full featured and high powered compiled language, not a simple scripting system add on. The language, called RPL for short, is capable of running the entire program from animation and object creation tools to rendering and material controls. If Real doesn't contain an animation method that fits your needs, you can write one, if you need a custom modeling tool, again, you can write one. The language is quick executing and small in size while providing amazing power that is always available to the user because of it's complete integration with the program.

 

• Extended GUI programming support. Functions for creating windows, sliders, buttons, etc. are now available. For example, all the tools in the 'Custom' menu have been created by using these new RPL functions.
  
  
• Local variables .
  
  
• Function parameters.
  
  
• Fast compilation/linking.
  
  
• Built-in vector operations.
  
  
• Functions for writing and reading raw files.
  
  
• User menu system allows you to write custom tools and bind them to menus.
  
  
• The new RPL auto-configure feature provides the user with an easy to use standard for expanding and customizing the user interface using RPL. It is possible to integrate new macros and tools in the program by copying the RPL files to the 'startup' directory of Real 3D.

* Items new in V3.