Softimage SOFTIMAGE 3D Version 4, Softimage's legendary 3-D character animation product for the film, commercial/broadcast and games development markets - providing a perfect first step into the world of 3-D production.

New IN v.4.0

• User Interface/General

TurboGetScene: This sample plug-in provides increased performance for loading scenes and also guarantees that the right texture images will be used when loading a scene from a database that was moved to a new location on the network.

• Modeling

Polygon Hide/Unhide: Specify the visibility of polygons on selected polygon mesh models.
GC_PolygonReduction: Enhancements to this existing feature let you reduce multiple models & scenes in batch mode.

• Animation

Dopesheet Enhancements: You can now use the Dopesheet to control for animation data stored in plug-in dialogs or in mental ray shadier dialogs. Materials and Textures
Multiple UV Texturing: Allows multiple textures to use unique UV domains.
Vertex Colour Enhancements: Vertex colours can now use any material shading model including Phong, Blinn or Lambert and can also be combined with the material diffuse/transparency components.
Shading Normal Editing: Interactively edit the orientation and length of shading normals of selected or all components on polygon mesh models.
FreezeNormalColours: This sample plug-in creates vertex colors based on the direction of shading normals.
SetCurrentMatTxt: Set the current material(s) and texture(s) on one or many models at the time, using the selection status of materials and textures in the schematic view.
SetVertexColors: Updated to allow users to choose among the new shading models for vertex colors.

• Playstation 2 TIM2 Image Support

• NEW SDK Components and SAAPHIRE functions

Softimage|3D Standard Features

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• WORKFLOW

• Animation Tools: Playback from any frame, flip-flop, loop.
  
• Camera Memory: Camera position/interest, zoom factor.
  
• Customization: Advanced UI with a clean, customizable look.
  
• Cut and Paste: Ability to cut and paste between text fields.
  
• Extensible Database Management Tools.
  
• Manipulation & Transformation Modes: Referential/relative-to-view rotation, referential translation, constant volume scaling.
  
• Spreadsheet: Perform complex queries on scenes and elements. Use up to 500 different search variables (e.g. models, materials, textures, and lights).
  
• SupraKeys: Similar to hot keys, SupraKeys create keyboard short-cuts and saves them to a preference file.
  
• SwiftKeys: Keyboard Accelerators allow quick access to menu items without using the mouse.
  
• SwiftMouse: Assigns SwiftKeys to a navigational mouse direction.

• VIEWING

• Camera: Up-vector constraint, frame selection/all, rectangular/cursor zoom, zoom, orbit, track, dolly, roll, show/select camera, select interest, hide camera, settings (field of view, depth of field, focal length, aperture, distance to object), picture format (custom, cine, slide, video), turntable view (camera rotation around one axis in parallel projection view).
• Textures: Support for sequential texture animation in shaded view.
• Views: Perspective, front, top, right, orthographic, and schematic.
• Viewing Modes: Wireframe, Shaded, Shaded Wireframe, Rotoscope (wire, shade), Depthcue, Ghost, Transparent Ghosting, Hidden Line, Matte, Vertex color shaded view.

• MODELING

• 2D/3D Primitives: Arc, circle, cone, cylinder, cube, dodecahedron, grid, icosahedron, null, octahedron, square, sphere, spiral, torus, tetrahedron.
• Advanced NURBS: Full quadratic/cubic modeling support, including trim/project/blend NURBS surfaces, and curve extrusion.
• Animated Modeling Operations: Bevel, bridge, bump map, duplicator, extrude, push, and shrink-wrap.
• Boolean: 2D and 3D Boolean support including intersection, difference, and union.
• Cluster Center: Allows powerful facial animation.
• DropPoints and SlidePoints: Drop, draw, and move the points of one object so that they conform to the surface of another.
• GC_ConnectTheDots: Rapidly connects tagged vertices of a polygon mesh to those of a reference mesh.
• GC_Displace: Displaces vertices of a polygon mesh using texture color information.
• GC_Polygon Reduction: Performs fast interactive polygon count reduction using less memory.
• General Operations: Animation-based duplication, alignment, bevel, convert, clean-up, fractalize, guided extrude, breakup, local lattice, shrink-wrap, polyskin, edit point/coordinate, freeze, inverse, merge mesh, merge surface, order, plane clipping, rotate, round, scale, subdivision, symmetry, tag, translate zip patches, extrude, skin, revolution, four-sided patches, proportional modeling and offset (border and pipe effects).
• Geometry Types: Face, polygon, patch, NURBS, bezier/linear/cardinal/free-form/ B-spline/NURBS curves.
• Instantiation: Create duplicates without adding geometry to the scene.
• Mesh Selection Tools: Mesh selection tools for selecting groups of polygons using new types of criteria such as distance from plane and concavity.
• Meta-Clay: Density-based modeling for organic, sculptured objects.
• Text: Full TrueType support, (20-font library included).
• Polygonal Operations: Polygon as object, 3-point planar constraint, assignable centroid reference, multiple polygon select, rounding, extrusion, revolution.
• Polygonal Modeling: Low level polygon modeling tools, part of an extensive mesh modeler.
• Polygon Reduction: True interactive polygon reduction system, including selection control for tagged vertices/selected polygons, and options for surface attribute preservation (materials, vertex colors, UV texture coordinates, etc.) Batch mode available
• Relational Modeling: Establish a permanent relationship between an object and its source operator (extrusion, revolution, skin, 4-sided, zip surfaces, extract, inverse, trim NURBS, and project on NURBS).
• ShrinkWrap: Wrap low-density NURBS surface over arbitrary meshes with full texture preservation.
• Smooth: Reduces noise and smoothes polygonal mesh objects, which is particularly useful for scanned data.

ANIMATION

• General Animation

• Animation Editors: Function curve (fcurve), dopesheet (including animation sequencing), spreadsheet.
• Animation Sequencer: High-level interface to animation through the dopesheet. Load, save, and manipulate 'Actions' (groups of function curves).
• Audio Track: Mix dual audio tracks with independent volume control, while synchronizing with animation
• Basic Controls: Explicit path, f-curves, keyframing, lattices, shape, motion capture.
• Constraints: Position, orientation, direction, bounding plane, tangency to animation path, camera/object up vector, normal to polygon surface, object to cluster, cluster to object, 3-point planar, 2-point linear.
• Deformations: Premier deformation tools allow modification of an object's shape over time, including clusters, control point, effector, patch, spline, vertex, curve, surface, and lattice.
• Dynamics: Collision, density, elasticity, fan, friction, force, gravity, kinetic/static roughness, mass, nail, wind.
• Expressions: Define relationships between objects. Modify existing function curves or channel input/output.
• MakeMovie: Combines rendered Softimage .pic files with an audio file to create a .mov (IRIX) or .avi (Windows NT) file, in addition it provides file compression for both formats.
• Q-Stretch: Automatic "squash and stretch" deformation based on speed and acceleration.
• Shape, Cluster and Lattice: High-level animation control in the action and f-curve tracks of the dopesheet, manage the nuances of geometry manipulation.
• Sound Support: Dopesheet-level support for sound files.

• Character Tools

• 2D and 3D Inverse and Forward Kinematics: Including specification of angle and rotation limits.
• Export envelope and skeleton data: GameFilter allows preservation of the skeleton and weights assigned to the envelope to be filtered and then exported in the dotXSI file format.
• Flexible Envelopes: Automated weighting of vertices.
• ModifyWeights: Allows easy editing and assignment of envelope weights for complex models and skeletons, showing individual vertex weights even when multiple vertices are selected.
• Resolution-Independent Envelope Tools: Copy/paste weight maps between envelopes of varying resolution, or across boundaries.
• Rigid Envelopes: Transformation-based envelopes.
• Skeleton Generalization: Use models as skeleton hierarchies.
• Skin: Automatic/local/global/weighted.
• Standard Skeletons: 19 and 55 Degree-of-Freedom Skeletons included in the interface.
• Surface Continuity Manager: Maintains continuity between NURBS surfaces so that they always appear smooth when animated.
• Weighted Envelopes: Automated weighting of vertices. Skeletal memory is maintained when a new skin is applied. Envelope weights editing tools show weight information per vertex, and allow multiple envelopes to be edited in a single session.

• Channels Motion Capture/Control

• Channel drivers: Mouse, microphone, dial box (SGI only), Space Ball (SGI only), Polhemus 3Space, Ultratrak, Fastrak, Ascension, Flock of Birds, SuperFluo, Motion Analysis, Acclaim, Acclaim Skeleton, Monkey, Biovision, Megellan, MIDI (able to access all sliders, switches, pitchbender), MS Joystick.
• Data Input Devices: Permit prototyping behavior and animating using input devices (e.g. MIDI, magnetic, visual or mechanical MOCAP).
• Extensive MOCAP Library: Covers a wide range of movements in five categories: dance, fights, sports, generic, tutorials.
• Output Channels: Export animation for events triggering, external robotics, MIDI, sound or motion camera rig control.

Tools

Supported Formats
3D Studio Converter: Export/Import.
Geometry Formats: dotXSI, 3D Studio (objects, animation, and textures), IGES, DXF, OBJ (including UV support).

Image Formats: Artisan, Alias/Wavefront, Aurora, Everest, RGB, RGBA, SGI, Targa, Targa 16-bit, TIFF, PIC, Vertigo, YUV, AVI (Windows NT only), DIP (Windows NT only), JPEG, GIF, IFL, DMP, FLC, FLI, CEL, KODAK Cineon (FIDO) Format.

Render File Formats: Softimage, SGI, PostScript (line rendering only), Zpic (both Softimage and mental images).

Softimage Formats: dotXSI file import and export, with savable dialogue presets.

XSI Viewer Tools

The SOFTIMAGE|3D dotXSI file format (v.3.0) allows the ASCII import and export of characters, models, and animation for complete customizability of any game development pipeline. The dotXSI file format supports meshes, hierarchies, skeletons, 2D IK chains, animation constraints, Hermite spline function curves, envelope weights (also on NURBS surfaces), custom effect and user data. XSI Viewer Tools are a suite of tools aimed at providing a robust, professional art pipeline for games and interactive media development. It consists of several elements:

XSI Export / XSI Import
supplied as standard with SOFTIMAGE|3D. Permit the importing and exporting of dotXSI files.

XSI Viewer
On-target reference viewers that allow the preview and validation of dotXSI files. Visualize dotXSI files on many different supported platforms (Win32 OGL, Win98 D3D, Win98 OGL, and coming soon in 2000, Sony PlayStation2, and SEGA Dreamcast.) XSI Viewer is free and publicly available, providing a minimum of support for dotXSI files.

XSI Viewer SDK
plug dotXSI support into your own products, customize the file format, and write plug-ins for the previewing tools (The XSI platform offers support for embedded middleware components at authoring, file format and previewing levels). Available under special license

SOFTIMAGE XSI FTK
The Softimage XSI FTK (File Transfer Kit) toolkit allows for simple, rapid implementation of the Softimage dot XSI v.3.0. File format. Facilitates the integration of high-end 3-D animation packages such as SOFTIMAGE 3D and serves as a conduit for the flexible dot XSI file format. This toolkit includes dotXSI file I/O library and header files and source code for sample applications.

System Requirements

Operating System:
Windows: NT version 4.0 (Service Pack 4 or later)
Linux: Red Had 6.2 or later and Xfree 4.01

Hardware:

Windows: Workstation with an Intel Pentium or Digital Alpha processor

License Server:
FLEXlm version 6.1f installed on a computer that is accessible from your workstation. This version of FLEXlm can be installed during the Setup program

Available hard-disk space:
Windows: 190 megabytes (MB) (Intel); 235 MB (Alpha)
Linux: 300 MB
RAM: 64 MB (recommended minimum)
Swap space: 200 to 300 MB

Display resolution: 1024 x 768, 1280 x 1024, 1600 x 1024 (SGI Visual Workstation for windows only), or 1600 x 1200 (Note: For 1600 x 1024, set the SI_SCREENRES environment variable to SI_1600 x 1024 for maximum horizontal display.)

CD-ROM drive: Access to a CD-ROM drive to install content from the Database CD
Mouse: 3-button mouse
Web Browser: A web browser is required to view the Online Library and Irix and Linus Online Help files.
Recommended: An Internet connection for filling out the license requests form on the Softimage home page. You can also print and fax license requests. A backup device, such as a DAT, 1/4" tape drive, removable hard disk, or CD-R/CD-RW

Additional Windows Requirements:
TCP/IP Service protocol must be installed on both client and server computers.
Hardware key (dongle): The blue-green Sentinel hardware key attached to the parallel port of each computer designated as a FLEXlm server (provided in the SOFTIMAGE 3D package)
Graphics card: A Windows Hardware Quality Labs-certified hardware OpenGL accelerator board with a minimum of 8 MB RAM is recommended for optimum performance. Graphics-card drivers should be multi-thread safe. For more information about hardware requirements, go to softimage.com.

Additional Linux Requirements:
Graphics card: For information about supported graphics cards, go to softimage.com