Today's sophisticated 3-D software lets you create your own realistic-looking worlds. On the seventh day, don't forget to rest.
David Biedny and Nathan Moody
With the smashing success of its movie, Toy Story, the Pixar/Walt Disney collaboration proved that computer-generated three-dimensional worlds can take on a life of their own. Granted, Toy Story was created using custom Pixar code and rendered on 100 Sun workstations, but Mac 3-D artists need not despair. With a little savvy and the right tools, you too can create many of the effects seen in Toy Story.
The good news is that a wide array of general-purpose 3-D software is now available for the Mac, but picking the right software tools can be a daunting chore, especially for those just getting started. Even expert users looking to expand their existing arsenals may have a hard time deciding which 3-D tools to acquire next. So we've gathered all the packages together and scrutinized their strengths and weaknesses for modeling, rendering, and animation. Not all the packages provide tools for all three tasks, so some users may end up combining packages to complete their 3-D tool sets.
One word to the wise before we begin: If you plan to do any amount of serious 3-D work, get a Power Mac. You'll need all the speed and power you can afford to run these CPU-intensive programs at an acceptable speed. And all the programs reviewed here have been enhanced to take full advantage of the PowerPC processor. Furthermore, Apple's QuickDraw 3D technology, which promises to provide instantaneous shaded previews of your 3-D scenes (a feature previously available only on expensive workstations) works only on Power Macs. It's true that at review time, only two of the packages supported Apple's new technology, but we expect that most, if not all, of the remaining programs will add QuickDraw 3D support in the coming months.
Modeling
The first step in creating a 3-D world is modeling the objects, using a combination of 2-D and 3-D tools, and arranging them into scenes. To assemble complex models, you link groups of shapes into parent-child hierarchies. It's also at this stage that you create textures and apply them to object surfaces. Basic features to look for vary according to your expertise. Novices will want a good selection of premade primitive objects -- pyramids, cylinders, spheres, cubes, and the like -- to help them get started. Most users, no matter what their level of expertise, will want to be able to extrude type to create 3-D logos. And experts will appreciate an advanced set of spline-based drawing tools for creating smooth surfaces, as well as the ability to enter precise numerical parameters for objects.
Tailor-made for hobbyists and 3-D newcomers, Ray Dream's Ray Dream Studio and Specular's Infini-D each offer a complete and accessible tool set for 3-D modeling, rendering, and animation. Each provides a solid selection of primitives. Ray Dream Studio can even help you create more-complex shapes, such as goblets and spirals, with its Modeling Wizard, which prompts you every step of the way as you create your objects. There's also a Scene Wizard for creating instant indoor and outdoor environments.
Infini-D's claim to fame, in addition to an easy-to-use interface, is being one of the first packages to support Apple's QuickDraw 3D technology. QuickDraw 3D lets you experiment freely with your scenes, because you can see the results of your actions in real time rather than having to wait for the software to render the images. For example, as you move a light around in a scene, the effects of the light appear to update in real time.
Novices and experts alike will appreciate Ray Dream Studio's and Infini-D's spline-based drawing tools and the ability to lathe, extrude, and loft objects that both programs provide. Each also has basic tools for linking objects and creating parent-child relationships between them.
Strata's Vision 3d lags behind Infini-D and Ray Dream Studio in modeling prowess. For example, although Vision 3d supports Boolean operations -- which allow you to create complex shapes by adding objects to or subtracting them from one another -- the results of the operations are often compromised by inaccuracies. And although Vision 3d can import EPS outlines to use for extrusions, we encountered problems with compound EPS files, which Infini-D and Ray Dream Studio handled flawlessly. A Vision 3d strength, on the other hand, is its arsenal of drawing tools for creating 2-D shapes to be used for 3-D extrusions.
Vision 3d's more sophisticated and pricier sibling, StudioPro Blitz, is the other package that supports QuickDraw 3D. It allows vertex-level editing, which provides more-exacting control over an object's shape than what you get with Infini-D or Ray Dream Studio. The package also includes intuitive Bezier-curve controls for manipulating object surfaces.
StudioPro Blitz is loaded with features. In fact, it almost tries to do too much, so the quality of its work suffers somewhat. It provides Boolean operations and the Metaballs effect, which lets you create unusual organic shapes by joining spheres that resemble drops of mercury. You'll also find this feature in the top-of-the-line ElectricImage Animation System (EIAS), but StudioPro Blitz's implementation can give you some very unpredictable results. That's because you don't have as much control over the process of joining the spheres as you do with the EIAS -- a much pricier program that's a more suitable choice for 3-D professionals working in production environments.
Byte by Byte's Sculpt 3D and The Valis Group's PixelPutty Solo boast more-advanced modeling features. Each program supports vertex-level editing, as well as Bezier, B-spline, and NURBS (nonuniform rational Bezier splines) curves. Sculpt 3D provides object tessellation -- the ability to reduce or increase the number of polygonal faces of an object -- in addition to Boolean operations. The claim to fame of PixelPutty Solo is its object-editing and deformation tools, which operate in real time.
However, the flip side of each program's power is a steep learning curve. Sculpt 3D makes the learning process particularly tricky with its nonstandard naming conventions. PixelPutty Solo's tools are not as difficult to use as Sculpt 3D's -- you can bend and twist an object by manipulating a single Bezier curve in three dimensions, for example -- although Macintosh aficionados will need to spend time getting used to PixelPutty's UNIX-like interface.
Also offering sophisticated tools but much easier to use than either Sculpt 3D or PixelPutty Solo is Macromedia's Extreme 3D. It provides not only an impressive set of 2-D drawing tools but also some of the most precise spline-based object-manipulation tools we've seen. What makes Extreme 3D so powerful is that it lets you control every object parameter (size, relative and absolute positioning, scale, and rotation) numerically. Extensive twist, taper, and bend tools round out the Extreme 3D modeling arsenal.
VIDI's Presenter Professional offers a comprehensive set of accurate modeling tools geared toward professionals. The power of its Boolean operations is eclipsed only by that of form*Z, and its ModelPro module boasts one of the most intuitive methods we've seen for manipulating objects. Called Digital Clay, it allows you to use spline curves between vertices to pull, stretch, and manipulate shapes with the pointer in much the same way you would model a real lump of clay with your fingers. But the version of Presenter Pro we used came up shorthanded in the software-stability department -- we experienced screen-redraw problems and crashes as we tried to execute complex Boolean operations.
Alias Sketch! is a NURBS-based modeler, which means it provides the ultimate in accurate surface descriptions. That's why it excels at handling curved and organic shapes. Alias Sketch!'s roots in the Silicon Graphics workstation world are evident. The program provides extensive control of an object's vertices, beveling options equaled only by form*Z, extremely flexible object-deformation tools, and the ability to match the perspective of a scanned image to the background on which it's placed.
Without question, autodessys' form*Z delivers the ultimate in object-editing and modeling controls. Its precise tools make it the clear choice for anyone designing 3-D objects according to a detailed set of specifications -- an exotic perfume bottle, for example, that combines numerous asymmetrical shapes. Vertices, segments, polygonal faces, and objects can all be selected and manipulated. Drawing features include line-segment and polygon drawing tools as well as NURBS, B-spline, and Bezier-curve tools. And form*Z boasts the most-powerful Boolean operations of all the packages we reviewed. However, even expert users will need to invest a significant amount of time learning the complexities of the program (the package includes three thick manuals).
Electric Image's pricey ElectricImage Animation System, best known for its feature-rich animator and broadcast-quality rendered effects, lacks a dedicated modeler. However, it offers a good selection of premade scalable objects you can manipulate with the system's deformation tools, as well as the Mr. Blobby plug-in, for Metaball modeling. To help compensate for its lack of full-blown modeling tools, the EIAS can directly import more 3-D-model formats than any other Mac program. And it handles very large models that would choke many of the other packages reviewed here, an important consideration for professional animators and producers. However, you need lots of RAM -- the system requires at least 32 MB for big projects.
Rendering
When the design of your 3-D scene is complete, you're ready to render the scene. The rendering process captures the view you've specified, complete with the objects you've modeled, the colors and textures you've applied to them, and the lighting. Think of rendering as taking a snapshot. If you decide you want a different view of your scene, simply move the camera's viewpoint and rerender the image. We've included our discussion of textures in this section, because it's your final rendering that brings out the full effect of the textures, even though you apply them during the modeling process.
Important features to look for in a renderer are the types of lighting a package provides, anti-aliasing quality, the rendering modes supported, and the control you have over the lighting. Wireframe, the most basic rendering mode, displays a detailed transparent polygonal view of an object. Flat-shading mode adds elemental color and opacity to wire frames. Gouraud mode smoothes out surface shading and renders basic textures. Phong mode ups the ante for smoothness and texture detail. Ray tracing, the most advanced mode, simulates the way light interacts with objects in a scene, providing shadows, transparency, and refractivity. Once your scene is rendered, you can print it or open it in another program.
Ray Dream Studio has powerful yet intuitive controls for creating procedural textures that simulate marble, wood, and other organic materials. One special feature only Ray Dream Studio has is the ability to combine these textures within any given channel. Channels affect object characteristics such as shininess, roughness, reflectiveness, and glow. By combining textures within channels, you can create complex-looking surfaces, such as a fuzzy tennis ball with seams.
Infini-D also offers excellent texture-mapping controls. You can layer an unlimited number of images and textures to create custom surface compositions. Mapping modes let you control how layers interact, using blending, transparency, and masking. You can even use alpha channels for sharp compositing of one layer onto another. Infini-D's surface special effects -- Wave Map, Bump Map, and Corrosion Map -- can be animated as well as edited. A special feature is the ability to generate shadows in Phong mode, so you get great-looking results without having to wait for ray tracing.
Both Ray Dream Studio and Infini-D support Gouraud, Phong, and ray-trace rendering, but Ray Dream Studio is the only program available that doesn't require a floating-point unit for ray tracing, which makes it a good choice for owners of less powerful Macs. Infini-D boasts the ability to generate QuickTime VR panorama files -- 3-D scenes in which you can spin the camera in real time.
Vision 3d and StudioPro Blitz surpass the lower-end packages in terms of rendering quality. StudioPro Blitz can render shadows in Phong mode, and its ray-tracing quality is outstanding. Like Infini-D, the program can render QuickTime VR panorama files.
Sculpt 3D's texture handling is unlike that of any other 3-D application: Each face of an object can have its own texture. But Sculpt 3D's cryptic interface can make it difficult for even expert users to tap the program's power. Complex curve controls for defining surface parameters such as reflection coefficients, specular characteristics, and diffuse color equations are particularly confusing. However, Sculpt 3D features some of the highest-quality rendering available on the Macintosh -- the realistic-looking shadows it produces are particularly impressive.
PixelPutty Solo is probably best used as a source for organic models and not as a final rendering tool. The current version offers basic shaded rendered views and good support for MacRenderMan, but the program lacks extensive texture support. An upcoming release will address these shortcomings by adding a high-quality Phong renderer and improved texture controls.
Extreme 3D offers a workable set of built-in textures and good control over surface characteristics. An Extreme 3D strength is its excellent lighting controls, which let you create very realistic scenes. The program doesn't support ray tracing, but it does provide a speedy Phong renderer that produces excellent results. Gone is the MacRenderMan support found in earlier Macromedia 3-D products.
Like Infini-D, Presenter Professional allows you to layer multiple textures on a single object. However, you don't get the level of control Infini-D provides. For example, you can't define the amplitude of bump maps, so the depth of texture grooves generally remains the same. Presenter Pro supports ray tracing as well as output to MacRenderMan, and it boasts a number of esoteric features you won't find anywhere else. The program can produce autostereogram images (repeating patterns that hide a 3-D image), stereoscopic images (double images designed to be viewed through a stereoscope), and red-blue offset stereo images (images to be viewed with red-and-blue 3-D glasses).
Alias Sketch! features one of the best renderers on the Macintosh. With full ray-tracing support, it produces exquisite images with wonderful soft shadows, excellent reflection and refraction effects, and more. From within a single dialog box, you can precisely position bitmapped textures and preview the results. One notable drawback, however, is Alias Sketch!'s lack of procedural textures.
form*Z has basic rendering capabilities. If you need more power, you can opt to get the $1,995 RenderZone add-on, which offers more-sophisticated capabilities as well as an editor for modifying surface parameters. RenderZone works its rendering magic by using Gouraud, Phong, and ray-tracing modes and is one of the fastest ray tracers in its price range.
The king of rendering on the Macintosh is the ElectricImage Animation System. Despite its lack of support for ray tracing, its rendered images appear cleaner, richer, and more realistic than those produced by anything else on the Macintosh. In addition to rendering soft shadows, it provides excellent control over motion-blur effects and offers the most complete selection of surface controls of any Macintosh renderer as well as detailed feedback on the rendering process. Also noteworthy are video interlacing (crucial for professional video output), atmospheric effects, radiating-glow and ray effects from lights, and the ability to save rendering time by tweaking the anti-aliasing settings for a specific scene. And the EIAS' renderer is the fastest of all those reviewed here. An added bonus for production environments is the EIAS' new Renderama network rendering system, which speeds jobs by distributing them among Macintoshes and Silicon Graphics workstations.
Animation
Animation tools add motion to your 3-D scenes. In addition to animating objects, several packages let you animate other aspects of a scene, such as the color of the lighting or object surfaces. Some programs provide morphing tools as well.
One of the most essential tools for animation is the timeline, which lets you see the state of every element in your scene over time. It displays the keyframes that show when and how elements change -- for example, an object's position or the color of a light. You set the keyframes for your animation, and the software creates the in-between frames. A key differentiating factor among animation packages is the number of parameters you can change over time. Obviously, the more parameters you can change, the more sophisticated your animations will be. In addition, directly editable motion paths give you lots of control over how an object moves through a scene.
Ray Dream Studio boasts a set of well-designed animation tools. A timeline with keyframes provides exacting and intuitive controls over camera attributes as well as object animation. Although the program doesn't let you edit motion paths, it does offer a basic implementation of Inverse Kinematics (IK), a crucial feature for character animation. With Inverse Kinematics, you can link objects hierarchically, specifying how they will move in relation to each other. For example, if you created a chain with Ray Dream Studio, moving one link of the chain would cause the other links to move as well.
Like Ray Dream Studio, Infini-D specializes in animation tools that are easy to use, but Infini-D's are somewhat more powerful than Ray Dream Studio's. You can animate object position, rotation, scale, center-point, and surface parameters over time as well as morph between dissimilar shapes. Infini-D also provides Bezier curves -- familiar tools to anyone who's used FreeHand or Illustrator -- that let you control the velocity of changes in an object's position and rotation. The beauty of Bezier-based controls is that they let you vary speed in a nonlinear fashion, so an object can speed up, slow down, and then speed up again. Other useful features include directly editable motion paths and a red line that appears between keyframes when Infini-D spots a problem -- for example, when an object's velocity won't take it the distance it must travel in a set time. Animation assistants automate keyframe placement and help generate special effects, including Spin, Reverse, Mirror, Explode, Auto-Bank, and Align to Motion.
StudioPro Blitz's keyframe-based tools work well for simple animations, but we encountered problems with keyframes that sometimes didn't appear where expected. Animation assistants for special effects (Explode, Shatter, Atomize, and Warp) are dynamic and fun, but the results aren't as sophisticated as those you get with the EIAS's true particle effects. With the exception of these animation assistants and effects, Vision 3d's animation capabilities are comparable to StudioPro Blitz's.
A good choice for character animation is PixelPutty Solo. The program's best animation feature is its simple but effective implementation of Inverse Kinematics. The program supports a limitless number of hierarchical links -- you can even add variable object deformations to the hierarchy to create complex interactions among different effects, such as simultaneous twisting and bending. But what makes PixelPutty Solo's Inverse Kinematics feature a true standout is the way it moves the skin covering linked objects, as well as the objects themselves, which makes for very realistic animations. An important animation feature that's missing, however, is an event timeline.
Presenter Professional's animation tools are not integrated with its modeling module, which makes the animation process more awkward and time-consuming than with integrated programs. However, Presenter Pro provides several special tools. By giving objects mass and weight, for example, you can create animations that take into account real-world forces such as gravity. The program's audio capabilities are also noteworthy. You can assign sounds to objects and set up virtual microphones in your scene to record the sound of an object as it moves through the scene. The result is akin to the Doppler effect -- the pitch of a sound changes as an object moves toward and then away from the microphone.
Extreme 3D offers not only a well-designed and full-featured timeline but also object tracking for lights as well as objects. That means you can point a light at an object and have it automatically follow the object as the object moves around in the scene. You can also edit motion paths and animate procedural textures.
For top-notch, professional-level animation tools, no program can match the ElectricImage Animation System. The EIAS is a time-based system that uses keyframes. What sets it apart is the ability to animate the deformation of simple objects into complex shapes. Spline-based tools for editing motion paths and velocity graphs provide the ultimate in control.
Advanced motion-blur effects surpass anything else available on the Mac and make moving objects more realistic-looking than those in any other package reviewed here. And no discussion of the EIAS would be complete without mentioning the incredible selection of animatable special effects and the ability to synchronize motion with sound. The EIAS is the only 3-D-animation package that displays soundtracks as waveform images on an EIAS timeline.
Also worth mentioning is the new Vibe feature, which lets you use the system's Randomize, Jolt, and Spring tools to add bumps and vibrations to an animation path or to a color channel in an animation sequence. The extensive controls you have over motion parameters are impressive. Also, the EIAS' Inverse Kinematics feature is exemplary. It features parameters such as viscosity and gravity. You can apply several constraints to an IK chain, an ability that's crucial for advanced character animation, and specify any combination of rotating and sliding joints. Sculpt 3D also offers path-based motion, but because only the camera can be animated, the program is limited to creating fly-throughs of 3-D scenes.
The Bottom Line
So which 3-D package is right for you? If you've never worked in three dimensions before and you don't require the production-level features of the high-end packages, Ray Dream Studio is an excellent value that combines a modeler, renderer, and animator in one package. Helpful wizards and the ability to run on low-end Macs make it even more attractive for first-time buyers. If you're looking for slightly more advanced features, Infini-D and Extreme 3D are both good all-in-one choices. With its directly editable motion paths and unlimited texture layers, Infini-D one-ups Ray Dream Studio. Extreme 3D, with its intuitive interface and the most-powerful modeling tools in its price range, lets you precisely control just about any object characteristic you can think of. Professionals who require the ultimate in quality and precision can't go wrong with the potent combination of form*Z for modeling and the ElectricImage Animation System for rendering, animation, and broadcast-quality special effects.
David Biedny is a bleeding-edge multimedia producer, artist, and educator living in a radiosity-rendered reality. Nathan Moody is a San Francisco-based multimedia artist and illustrator.
Alias Sketch! $695 MR Advanced spline-based modeler. Excellent rendering quality. Lacks procedural textures and animation tools.
Rating: Acceptable (3 of 5 mice)
PixelPutty Solo $399 MRA Powerful modeling tools for the price. UNIX-like interface. Lacks advanced rendering and animation features.
Rating: Acceptable (3 of 5 mice)
Presenter Professional $1,995 MRA Professional-level modeling tools. 3-D-sound animation. Animation tools not integrated with modeler.
Rating: Acceptable (3 of 5 mice)
Sculpt 3D $499 MR Excellent modeling and rendering tools. No animation besides fly-throughs. Steep learning curve.
Rating: Acceptable (3 of 5 mice)
Vision 3d $695 MRA Low-end version of StudioPro Blitz. Not as powerful as comparably priced packages.
Rating: Acceptable (3 of 5 mice)
* List price.
M=modeling R=rendering A=animation
Listing Is Alphabetical Within Groups of Equal Mouse Ratings.
Directory of 3-D Software
Alias Sketch!
Alias/Wavefront
Lindon, UT
800-447-2542
801-431-4045 (fax)
http://www.alias.com/
ElectricImage Animation System
Electric Image
Pasadena, CA
818-577-1627
818-577-2426 (fax)
http://stingray.cac.psu.edu/~eias/
Extreme 3D
Macromedia
San Francisco, CA
800-326-2128
415-252-2000
415-626-0554
http://www.macromedia.com/
form*Z
auto*des*sys
Colombus, OH
614-488-8838
614-488-0848 (fax)
formz@aol.com
Infini-D
Specular International
Amherst, MA
800-433-7732
413-253-3100
413-253-0540 (fax)
http://www.specular.com/
PixelPutty Solo
The Valis Group
Tiburon, CA
800-825-4704
415-435-5404
415-435-9862 (fax)
valisgroup@aol.com
Presenter Professional
Visual Information Development
Monrovia, CA
818-358-3936
818-358-4766
vidisales@aol.com
Ray Dream Studio
Ray Dream
Mountain View, CA
800-846-0111
415-960-0768
415-960-1198 (fax)
http://www.raydream.com/
Sculpt 3D
Byte by Byte
Austin, TX
512-305-0360
512-305-0371
http://bytebybyte.com/
StudioPro Blitz
Strata
St. George, UT
800-787-2823
801-628-5218
801-628-9756 (fax)
http://www.strata3d.com/
Vision 3d
Strata
St. George, UT
800-787-2823
801-628-5218
801-628-9756 (fax)
http://www.strata3d.com/
Ray Dream Studio's Wizards step you through a variety of 3-D tasks, which makes the program a good choice for hobbyists and 3-D newcomers.
Powerful Boolean operations let you combine objects in complex ways. Shown in this form*Z screen are the results of performing three Boolean operations on a box and a sphere -- clockwise from the two objects are the results of an intersection, a difference, and a union.
PixelPutty Solo's implementation of Inverse Kinematics is especially powerful. Not only do the linked objects in a chain move in relation to one another but the skin covering the chain also moves, which makes the program a good choice for realistic-looking character animation.
For professional-level animation tools, no other program for the Macintosh comes close to the ElectricImage Animation System. Even special effects are animatable. The system's Mr. Nitro plug-in, used for creating the series of frames shown here, is one of the most powerful animated special-effects generators for the Macintosh. Based on a slew of parameters you set -- including gravity, direction, turbulence, and fragment shape -- it explodes objects into either tiny dustlike particles or giant pieces of glass.
Lighting controls play a major role in creating realistic-looking 3-D scenes. In this streetlight image created with Macromedia's Extreme 3D (left), the artist was able to simulate a smoky effect in the lighting by adjusting the program's turbulence and dustiness controls. A special feature of Strata's StudioPro Blitz is its powerful Raydiosity rendering mode, which produces near-photo-realistic shadowing and lighting effects, as in the image shown here (right), using calculations based on the energy sources in a scene.
