From: Jack Palevich <Jack_Palevich@Taligent.com>
Subject: Re: Mac 3-D animation programs
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A78771D6F701C1FC@kip-58.taligent.com>
X-Xxdate: Sat, 23 Jan 93 22:06:14 GMT
Organization: Taligent, Inc.
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d14
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 05:59:53 GMT

In article <2B522188.7605@news.service.uci.edu> Dan Harkless,
dan@cafws2.eng.uci.edu writes:
>	Can anybody tell me about 3-D animation programs for the Mac or point
>me to a good source of information?  I used to love making 2-D
animations on
>my old //e, and I'm going to be buying a Mac fairly soon, and I want one 
>that'll be able to run the appropriate software.  For instance, will a
IIvx
>cut it?  Or do you _need_ a Quadra?  If so, is a Quadra 700 sufficient? 
I
>want to get the cheapest Mac possible that will suit my needs.  I'd like
to
>do 3-D animation with objects made out of polygons that can be rotated
and
>translated in relation to each other, with good camera-positioning
facilities
>and smooth frame-rate.  I'm not as interested in photo-realistic shading
and
>shadows.  I would be overjoyed if anyone could provide me with some
info...

Here's how I rate the three programs I've used enough to form an opinion
on:

SwivelMan-3D Pro ($600)
Speed: Very fast.
User Interface: Excelent interactive shaded 3D. You can click and move
the shaded 3D objects directly, rather than using the wire-frame version.
Kind of peculiar in other respects.
Modeling: Polygons.
Rendering: Wire, Flat, Garoud, Phong with shadows, and Renderman. Poor
shader support in built-in rendererer. Can't take advantage of advanced
Renderman features.
Animation: Crude key-frame.
Pros: Best hierarchy editor of all time. Seeing things in 3D makes a big
difference!
Cons: Written a long time ago in FORTH, and never really improved since
then. Doesn't support B&W screens. Doesn't take advantage of large
monitors.

Infini-D 2.0 ($700)
Speed: Medium.
UI: Very Mac-like and well thought out. Many cool features like
bookmarks, publish & subscribe,e tc.
Modleing: Polygons.
Rendering: Wire, Flat, Garoud, Phong with shadows, and Ray Tracing. Nice
textures. No Renderman support.
Animation: Time-line based animation on per object basis.
Pros: These guys know graphics, and they know how to write a Macintosh
program. Very nice UI.
Cons: The hierarchy editor is not as intuitive as Swivel 3D.

PlayMation ($300).
Speed: Medium.
UI: Poor. An Amiga port. 5 Seperate programs. Poor undo.
Modleing: Spline surfaces. (This is better than Polygons)
Rendering: Wire-frame, ray tracing. No Renderman support.
Animation: VERY NICE animation. Curve based. Can control heirarchy,
deform surfaces on a per-control-point basis, and warp an object using a
representative "spine". Can use animations as a subroutine to make it
easier to script a show.
Pros: By far the best animation support of any exisiting Mac program.
Nice incremental re-draw in modeling module. Comes with lots of very nice
models (horse, head, ship, plane, etc.). Comes with 10 sample animations.
Comes with a video of an animation "Joy Ride" done with the system. Also
runs on Amiga and Windows machines.
Cons: Awful UI. Switching between modules is a drag. Weird Amiga-centric
manual. CRASHES if run from a disk other than the startup disk. CRASHES
in renderer after rendering <n> frames, where <n> depends upon the
complexity of the animation. (And, for the sample "Desert" animation, <n>
is less than 1. :-( ) Only supports 320 x 200 x 8-bit output (which is
fine for QuickTime, but not good enough for video.)

Summary:

If you want to do character animation, PlayMation is probably the best,
despite its limitations. Since this program has just recently appeared on
the Macintosh, the numerous bugs might be fixable. (But I don't have much
hope about the interface -- it's a direct copy of the interface on other
platforms.)

Hardware:

Any '030 or '040 Mac will be fast enough for the interactive modeling and
animation phases of any of these 3D programs. Once you render, though,
you'll wish you had the fastest machine money can buy. I think the Quadra
is 2-4 times faster than the IIci at rendering. (For comparison to the PC
world, most people think a Quadra is about as fast as a 33Mhz 486DX2.)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps