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.