Stars of Shareware: Raytrace & Morphing/SOS-RAYTRACE.ISO/programm/3dstudio/ipas/optimize.txt

Text File | 1994-05-01 | 5.7 KB | 114 lines

                      OPTIMIZE PXP -- DEMO VERSION
                       Copyright 1994 Rolf Berteig
                          For Yost Group, Inc.


OPTIMIZE is  a PXP that lets you view and interactively flip surface
normals and increase or decrease the complexity of a mesh object either
through tessellation or face reduction. It also lets you embed (store)
different complexities of the object (along with text notes) within the
object's data structure. These can then be selected at rendering time by
MESHRES (an AXP that ships with OPTIMIZE), so you can quickly
switch the resolution of your mesh complexity, depending on your
rendering needs.  Additionally, this speeds up redraws in the keyframer
and editor up to 100x, because you can represent very complex objects
(such as topographic meshes) with simple, yet accurate, stand-ins.

This demo version lets you view the effects of optimization and
tessellation in the viewport of the OPTIMIZE dialog box, but doesn't let
you apply the effects to the object itself, or embed or extract
optimization data. Nevertheless, you can see the before/after reduction
in the face and vertex count, and you can view the object in both
wireframe and Gouraud shading within OPTIMIZE, so you can see the effect
of the optimization on a shaded surface.

OPTIMIZE uses a fast-shading viewport that requires a newer version of
the Vibrant drivers than those that shipped with the initial release of
3D Studio.  If you're using the shipping Vibrant version 1.0.0, you'll
need to update your VIB3DS.VLM file to 1.0.1, 1.0.2, etc.  Here's how to
tell which version of the Vibrant drivers you're using:

Run 3D Studio by typing 3DS VIBCFG.

Result:  A Vibrant copyright notice appears, along with a version number
and date.  If the version number is 1.0.0, you have the original release
that needs to be updated.  If the version number is higher, it doesn't
need to be updated.  If you need to update, log onto the ASOFT forum on
Compuserve and browse for VIB3DS.ZIP.  That file will contain a new
VIB3DS.VLM and VIBRANT.RES, which you should install over your
1.0.0 files.  If you don't do this, graphics performance in OPTIMIZE will
be quite slow.

Once the new Vibrant drivers are installed, and in Render ON mode, the
fast-shading viewport can push 40-50,000 Gouraud-shaded polygons per
second on a Pentium 66Mhz machine with a fast PCI-bus graphics card.

Here's how to use OPTIMIZE:

*   Install D-OPTM_I.PXP in your 3ds/process directory.

*   In the 3D Editor, load a scene containing mesh objects you want to
    optimize.

*   Use the PXP Loader in the Programs menu to select OPTIMIZE,
    displaying the OPTIMIZE viewport after the copyright screen.

*   Click on Pick Object to select an object. (If you have selected
    faces, you can turn on the Selected option to affect only the
    selected faces.)

*   Click on the Optimize button while watching the vertex- and face-
    count readout below the viewport. After the optimization is
    completed, you'll see the before and after results.

*   You can render the image in a shaded mode by clicking on the Render
    button. To turn on high-speed interactive shading, turn on the On
    option below the Render button. To change the shading mode
    (Flat,Gouraud, Shaded Wire), shift-click on the Render button.

*   The viewport control icons should be fairly intuitive. When you
    select an orthographic view, such as Top, as soon as you rotate the
    view, the User button becomes active. If you click on the User
    button, the view is reset to the default User angle. The Zoom is a
    "smart zoom." That is, click and move the mouse horizontally, and the
    view zooms where you clicked.

The amount of optimization depends on the value in the Angle field. Low
angle values produce less optimization, but come closer to maintaining
the shape of the original mesh. The Bias setting is designed to avoid
thin, triangular faces, and the range is between 0 and 1. As you increase
Bias, thin, sliver faces are avoided more and more. Values above 0.5
usually result in no optimization at all.

Preserve Materials and Protect Material Boundaries are used to avoid
losing individual materials, or the material boundaries during
optimization. For example, when Protect material Boundaries is on, and
you optimize an object with two or more materials assigned, the edges
forming the borders between the materials are not altered.

The "Face Normals" section lets you display and flip face normals. Turn
on the Show option to see the normals as blue vectors. The "Normal
Scale" field affects the length of the normals (which are relative to the
area of their face). When the Flip Normals button is on, click on a blue
vector to flip that normal. "Unify Object" works the same as in the 3D
Editor, except that, if you have the "Selected" option on, you can unify
selected faces instead of the whole object.

The controls in the "Faces" area let you tessellate the object (or the
selected faces). Click to turn on the Tessellate option. The level of
tessellation is specified by the numbered buttons at right. The Tension
slider works the same as the Edge Tension slider in the 3D Editor. Auto
Edge works the same as in the 3D Editor.

The Text Editor button at the top of the dialog box takes you to the 3D
Studio text editor, which includes a new Embed icon. This lets you write
up any textual comments you want and then embed them in the selected
object by clicking on the Embed icon. When you exit the text editor, you
return to the OPTIMIZE dialog box.

Both the Disk#6 and Disk#7 IPAS3 collections come with 120-page heavily-
illustrated manuals, tutorials, and example files.

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