Maximum CD 1998 November/maximum-cd-1998-11.iso/Truespace 4/Data/PROGRAM/README.TXT

Text File | 1998-09-04 | 5.5 KB | 159 lines

Caligari trueSpace4 Trial version

 SETUP
 -----
Simply double click on the Setup.exe file to start the setup
program.

 TRIAL VERSION HAS INTENTIONAL LIMITATION
 ----------------------------------------
Every 25th face of the object is not rendered - this of course causes
holes in the surface of the object but the user is warned about that in
advance.

 DIRECX6 & OpenGL NOT INCLUDED
 -----------------------------
This Trial version does not include DX6 or OpenGL.  You must install them
from another source if you do not already have them.

 TASK TUTORIALS AND DEMO SCENES
 ------------------------------
Do not forget to run Task Tutorials and Tool Guides to learn about
the program.  You can start Task Tutorials from the Help menu in
trueSpace4 or from the shortcut in your Start menu.  There are
two task tutorials for trueSpace4.  However, before running
these task tutorials, we strongly recommend the following settings:

1.  Enable D3D Hardware Acceleration Mode.
2.  Enable Textured Ground.
3.  Change your resolution to 1024x768.

We would like to thank the many artists who have contributed to
our gallery.  Unfortunately, we couldn't fit everyone's artwork on
the CD, but you are welcome to visit the gallery on our Web site at:

    http://www.caligari.com


 KNOWN PROBLEMS
 --------------

SHADERS
-------
1. Shaders animation:

In the end of each animated sequence of the material should be "paint over"
used to set material animation keyframe, even if animated textures and
autorecord are on.

E.g. if sequence of numbered files needs to be animated,
the order is:
1. Set anim checkbox on and load first texture
2. Use paint over
3. Set last keyframe in the sequence
4. Use paint over

#4 seems to be redundant if keyframe is set using another way (e.g. motion
animation)


2. Animated numbered files don't work in layered shaders (AVI files work)


NURBS
-----
1. Nurbs cannot undo.


LIMITATIONS IN RENDERING ENGINE
-------------------------------

1. Global rendering effects (foreground, background, lens flares) are not
animated.  Lens flares cannot be assigned per light.

2. Composite frames of motion blur or depth of field are not displayed on
screen - they are stored to the resulting file though.

3. Reusing a stored radiosity lwr file requires the original scene file (used
to generate this radiosity file) to be loaded prior to any rendering or
further radiosity simulation.

4. Area rendering doesn't support supersampling for antialiasing.

5. Shadow mapped shadows may cause artifacts on the surface of the object - in
order to get rid of these increase the shadow map size, increase the
shadowmap sharpness or use supersampling (2x,3x,4x).

6. Granite shader of tS3 is not supported, wood shader is significantly
simplified.

7. Wireframe and hidden surface render does not save to file.


FILE FORMATS
------------
1. tS4 doesn't export texture mapping UV coordinates when exporting objects
to 3DS format.


Running Simultaneously:  D3D / OpenGL
--------------------------------------
1.  There is a problem running both D3D and OpenGL simultaneously on some
machines featuring Permedia 2 based cards. The problem is caused mostly by
OpenGL allocating video memory which is later on needed for D3D to run. In
order to solve this problem we propose following scenario:
The default version of tS4 (file ts4.exe) supports both OpenGL and D3D.
However there is a chance that D3D will refuse to run (switching to 3DR) in
resolution 1024x768 or higher on 8MByte Permedia 2 based graphics cards. If
this situation happens and you need D3D for your work follow these steps:
- delete (or even better rename) calogl.dll file (located in trueSpace main
directory)
- start trueSpace by running ts4d3d.exe

After these steps it will be possible to run D3D even in high resolution
modes (up to modes supported by the amount of memory on the graphics card)
but you may experience problems running OpenGL (missing refreshes of OpenGl
views, possibility of crashes when closing OpenGL views, no support for
OpenGL hardware acceleration...)

Also please note that there is a possibility to run both OpenGL and D3D
simultaneously. However, if you have main view in D3D mode and a small one
in OpenGL (or the other way round) you may experience refresh problems
especially when moving the small view...

Collision detection
-------------------
1. If new objects are added to the existing scene by precise collision
detection enabled, then tS crashes as a new scene is loaded.
2. Collision detection can sometimes cause crashes or it may disable some object
manipulation. If you experience this, then disable collision detection.

Widgets
-------
1. If an orthogonal view is used together with 3D widgets then the Z coordinate
of the widget will be computed too far so the widget (3D menu) may not be visible.
This happens mainly when the View widget is used and a texture grid is turned on.
To move the widget closer, gradually move the whole scene.

Other
-----
1. If the inspect button in the toolbar is atop and object tool is active
then if material is changed and any inactive object in the scene is clicked
then current material is changed to that one used for object clicked.
2. Configuration of all shaders is not stored for the later session, only
for the current shaders.
3. Area render to file can sometimes cause tS freeze after it finishes rendering.
4. Undo of local multiple point move on planar object sometimes fails to restore
original position of vertices.