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README.DOC
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R3 ALPHA 3.1 DOC
4/14/93
CONFIDENTIAL -- AUTODESK INC.
(R3PA)
This is the last alpha release of April. Expect the next release
during the week of May 3rd.
The following items are not discussed in the hardcopy
alpha document. Please print this file out and attach
it to your alpha doc for easy reference. This contains
important information!
- There ARE samples included with this release. Inside the
SAMPLES.ZIP file you'll find SAMPLES.DOC. Read through
it... it'll have instructions about what to do with them.
- We've located what was causing the "Can't locate dropdown
code 914" message, and we've eliminated both the cause and
the message. We've also fixed a few of the bugs in Medit
that caused it to crash in the ALPHA 3.0 release.
- Alert: Be careful of IPAS routines and ADI drivers that may
have been compiled with the Watcom compiler. These .exp
files will allocate all available memory within 3DSr3 when
initialized, forcing paging to happen immediately.
- Installed .AI file save from the Shaper. These .AI files
should load into Corel Draw just fine. (please test)
- We've implemented functionality that duplicates a "variable
plane camera" (sometimes called a "perspective-adjusting
camera") for architect-types.
How? We've added an "Enlarge" function, which takes any
subportion of the screen and renders it full-screen.
We've added the command (named for the time being "Render
Blowup") to the Renderer subbranch.
Note that this doesn't really work right with backgrounds:
the whole background is rendered, instead of stretching the
right sub-rectangle out to fill the screen. Its fixable, but
I don't know if its worth it.
Note- by setting a large FOV and enlarging an area away from
the center of the screen, you can get the affect of a
variable plane camera.
- Added the Material Rename command to the Editor. You can
finally rename materials while they're in the scene.
- The problem we had with super-dense particle systems slowing
intolerably down in the A-buffer is fixed. It should
actually be faster than rendering particle systems with the
old 2.0 renderer now. (although it'll still take awhile on
those first few frames, when hundreds of particles
(especially with transparency) are overlaying each other on
a single pixel.
- KF: Implemented Next- & Previous-key functions. ALT-, takes
you to the previous key, and ALT-. takes you to the next
key.
- Fixed some bugs in drag-and-drop of names in Medit that you
might have seen in ALPHA 3.0.
- Fixed a problem in ALPHA 3.0's summed-area table lookup that
cause light & dark areas when you zoomed close to objects.
Summed-area tables ought to be production-worthy by now.
- Added the Super Sample button/feature to Medit. When on,
any pixels that are occupied by a super-sampled material are
put through an 2x4 supersampling filter. It increases
rendering time up the yinyang, but it might sometimes be
necessary to eliminate texture scintillation with tight
bump-mapped surfaces or dense sxp's. We'll be added more
control to do smaller samples to make this go faster soon.
Remember, since you can do texture filtering on a map-by-map
basis, you should try to increase your bump map filtering
percentage before you take the plunge and decide to super-
sample the material!
- In Medit, the ',' and '.' keys can be used to switch between
the active material.
This is incredibly handy if you need to copy a map from one
material to another. Just pick up the map, and while you're
in the middle of the drag operatation, hit the , or . key to
switch materials. Drag the map over to the slot you want in
the new material, and drop it.
- You can now drag-and-drop map names from the bitmap slots to
the ViewImage button. This is an extremely easy way to view
a bitmap that you're using as a material component.
- File Gamma and Video Color Checking for Files is now
working. (Note that gamma is still low-color-res gamma, so
I DO NOT RECOMMEND USING it. Wait till we finish the high-
color-res gamma.)
- To force two-sided rendering from the command line, the
switch /2 should do the trick.
- New 3DS.SET option (as per MF's instructions) that allows
you to specify an RGB value besides 0,0,0 to be your
transparent color for compositing. (it should only work
with RGB0,0,0 and Pseudo-alpha methods).
VP-TRANSPARENT = 0,0,0
- Big convenience item: When you're in a scroller dialog,
pressing ALT + the first letter of the item you're looking
for will scroll the scroller to the start of the items
beginning with that character. Works for A-Z and 0-9.
- The Safe Frame is now available in any Ed/KF viewport.
Fixed bugs in earlier version with coordinate adjustment for
the views using the safe frame.
- Background images are now available in any Ed/KF viewport.
- Added ability to force the mapping icon aspect ratio from a
bitmap file -- Surface/Mapping/Adjust/Bitmap Fit. (yay!)
This makes sure that the mapping icon will apply a texture
map in a 1:1 aspect ratio to the bitmap. Only works
properly with bitmap files which contain aspect ratio
information -- if they don't, it assumes a pixel aspect
ratio of 1.0.
- TGA files are now saved with extra information, including
aspect ratio. This takes advantage of the Targa extended
data area. Other information which is now written: 3DS
program name and version, file creation date. Do we want to
put in the 4 lines of user comments (80 chars each)? You
can see these comments in the Files/View Info dialog.
(Note: We've also added the image filename to the View Info
dialog.)
- You now have the ability to load custom 3DS.SET files from
the command line. (good for debugging ADI drivers, or for
radically changing your system options without hassles)
To use, type 3DSI SET=<filename> and the program will load
the specified file instead of 3DS.SET.
Example: 3DSI SET=FROON.SET. After loading the specified
SET file, 3DS loads the network 3DSNET.SET file.
- You can now have up to 250 map-paths. (If you need more,
there's something wrong with you. This could be expanded, if
we need to, but more than that would REALLY slow down image
file searching.)
In order to accomplish this, the Map Paths button in the
Configure dialog now brings up a dialog with a scroller with
paths and four buttons:
EDIT: When selected, a click on an existing path entry
brings up a file selector, which enables the user to select
a different path.
ADD: When selected, a click in the scroller list brings up a
file selector. If OK'd, the new path is inserted at the
indicated point in the scrolling list.
MOVE: When selected, a click in the scroller selects a map-
path to be moved, and you can move it to re-prioritize its
position within the map-path search queue. (you probably
won't use this option much, but it's good to have it there
when you need it)
DELETE: When selected, a click in the scroller list prompts
you as to whether or not the indicated path is to be
deleted. The ALT key acts as a modifier to delete all
paths.
The 3DS.SET entry MAP-PATH="D:\PATH" is used to load these
slots. The old MAP-PATHx= lines are recognized, but the
paths are plugged into the list in the order in which the
path statement is encountered in the .SET file. Eventually,
we will eliminate the old-style numbered path statements and
allow only "MAP-PATH=".
Project files: Existing project files will be read properly,
loading in as many map-paths as there are in the file, in
the proper order. New project files use a new chunk
identifier for these paths, so this is NOT backward
compatible. Sorry.
- New automatic map-path feature called "Auto Search Path".
It's completely invisible... no user interface. Here's how
it works:
If you want to store an entire project's worth of stuff
together in one subdirectory (meshes, maps, etc), you can do
that without having to manual assign that directory as a
map-path. The path you load the .3ds or .prj from is added
to the top of the map path list if it's not the current
project or mesh path. Very convenient.
- If you want a shock, hit F11. The screen will be taken up
by a full-screen text editor display, with menu bar, tool
bar, editing area and scroller. The menu bar works (this is
a nifty modification to 3ds -- menu bars in dialogs, if we
want to use them). Select File/Exit to leave the editor.
When complete, the editor will have user-defined additional
dropdowns and an icon toolbar, and will be callable from
IPAS routines. Gee... I wonder what kind of an IPAS routine
could possibly use an editor... Not any of our _current_
types... hmmm... must be something new going on in there.
<g>
- I wanted to supply a sample MEDIT.CUB file (this is the file
that Medit will look for to as a sample when it renders
auto-cubic reflection maps inside of the material editor.
However, I ran out of disk space by about 10K (rats). You
can make one yourself (according to the instructions in the
docs), but if you want to just get my copy from me quickly,
send me an email on Compuserve (76702,413) and I'll shoot it
over to you (the zip file is only 17K).
- Make sure that you read the section in the docs about
rendering quality (this is within introduction in the first
10 pages). Items like the pixel size setting are very
important!
- When assigning a JPEG file as a texture map, you'll have to
manually enter the JPG extension in the wildcard field
(there's no button yet for it). Just type in *.JPG and then
click on another field.
- The TELLME.EXE file referenced in the Alpha docs was removed
from this disk because it wouldn't fit. If you've got it from
the Alpha 3.0 release, keep it. (The beta release will be
a 2-disk set.)
Network rendering:
- Network issues: Things are looking pretty smooth with the
network stuff. This version adds a bunch of cool "machine
crash detection" features.
I've fixed up some of the typos in the 3DSNET.SET file, and
have added an END statement (thank you).
- NET-MACHINE-TYPE=SLAVE now sets the machine up as if it had
been started from the command line as a slave. That is, it
allows running without a hardware key and, when ESC is hit,
it returns to DOS.
- <ANY> now overrides any other machine selections on a queue
item. If you click on ALL, you'll get <ANY> in the queue.
- Network machine-crash timeout detection is working. Here's
what you need to do:
A) Set NET-TIMEOUT-CHECK=ON
B) Make sure all your systems are set to the same time. On
Lantastic, the NET CLOCK \\SERVERNAME should be added to the
STARTNET.BAT file. use this statement on all machines on
the network, using the same server name. This will
automatically set all your machines to the same time at
startup.
When a machine has not squawked in the time period specified
by NET-TIMEOUT (in minutes), that machine is marked as
FAILED, and the frame it was rendering is reassigned to the
next available machine. If it is the only machine in a
single-machine process (without <ANY>), you should delete
the process and restart it.
- Added NET-TIMEOUT=1-60 (default=3) to 3DS.SET. This is the
time, in minutes, that a machine will be allowed to sit
without squawking before it is assumed to have crashed. Any
machine that has not squawked in the specified time is
assumed to be lost, and the frame it was working on is
assigned to the next available machine.
- Added NET-SQUAWK=10-180 (default=60) to 3DS.SET. This is
the interval, in seconds, that a machine waits between
squawks. As a general rule, I'd set NET-SQUAWK to 1/3 of
NET-TIMEOUT, just to give a margin of error. For example,
60 seconds in NET-SQUAWK should have a NET-TIMEOUT of 3
minutes.
- Added NET-TIMEOUT-CHECK=ON/OFF (Default=ON) -- determines
whether the network render will check for machine timeouts.
- Fixed an ALPHA 3.0 problem with Video Post network rendering
-- it no longer leaves net machine in Video Post mode after
a VP render runs.
- Fixed a problem with the MCS being accessed by two machines
at the same time. This only occurred if the MCS wasn't
present, and two machines tried to access it at the same
time -- This is now fixed by an alert when (A) you try to
start a new render or (B) try to edit the queue. You will
be told:
"MCS does not exist. Create it?"
A YES response creates the MCS, then allows you to edit it
or start the render. The mechanism should prevent future
problems.
- Slaves may be taken offline remotely by deleting the .EQP
file for the machine to be taken offline. DEL *.EQP takes
all slaves offline.
- In answer to Jamie's query: If NET-SERVER-PATH doesn't
exist, the images are written to the startup drive. This is
shown as a warning at startup.
[end]