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Light ROM 3 - Disc 2.iso
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1995-08-24
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########################################################################
# #
# Dust's SMOOTH-Operator - a new dimension of polygon-rendering #
# #
########################################################################
CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. A smooth-operator
3. Usage of Dust2.2's smooth-commands
4. Additional notes
5. Author
1. Introduction
--------------------------------------------------------------------
This manual is written to give you an overview about Dust's
powerfull smooth-operator. Because I wrote this text while
rendering the supplied frames I inserted a FAQ-like section
which desribes and solves all problems I got.
The objects are taken from various PD-archieves and are very
different. This was important to get a real overview.
Polygon-renderers (such as Imagine or Lightwave) use phong-shading
to create an illusion of a smooth object-surface. This is very
fast and memory-friendly way. But often if you render organic or other
smooth structures you can see the ugly edges which where not
interpolated.
Mesh-renderers (such as Real3D) use spline-curves to build the
complete object - there are no edges or triangles.
But I think that this way is too slow and requires too much memory
to be efficient.
Therefore I searched for a compromise.
2. A smooth-operator
--------------------------------------------------------------------
History:
A friend who bought Real3D 3.0 let me render some scenes.
The results where pretty - but I had to wait upto one hour
for every frame on a A4000.
After converting the meshes using my "mesh2tddd" I rendered
the whole scene in about 3 hours using Imagine (60 frames).
The results where not as good as Real3D's - but good enough.
Idea:
What about interpolating the edges using splines
and rendering the objects using Phong-shading ?
Result:
The results are pretty ! Now you can render your old
polygon-objects in a higher quality. Because the faces
become splitted you will need some more memory and
some more time (That's clear.)
One more advantage is the fact that you have to smooth
the object using Dust ONCE.
3. Usage of Dust2.2's smooth-commands
--------------------------------------------------------------------
At first you need Dust2.2, a registered version is recommended
because of the 72-face-limit of the demo-version.
In the best case you load your object, smooth it by typing
"smooth" and save it. But there can occur some problems:
(suppose your object is loaded into layer 1)
-after "smooth(1)": the boundary zone is distorted
Try it again with the "noHalveSegs"-option: "smooth(1,nohalvesegs)"
-after "smooth(1,nohalvesegs)": the boundary zone is distorted
Try it again with the "smoothinner"-operator which
doesn't change the boundary-zone: "smoothinner(1)"
-after "smooth(1)" or "smoothinner(1)": there are some
parts which are distorted (This can happen if you joined
some different objects):
a) use the "smoothsg"-operator which only smooths the
specified subgroup (if there is one)
b) split your object and use the "smoothinner"-operator
on the parts, join the smoothed parts, merge the result
-Dust aborts with a "too much faces"-error. There is limit
of 8192 faces because Imagine has a limit of 32767 faces:
Try to split your object into components, group them later
-You get some distorted faces after trying all options mentioned
bellow
Set the parameter MAXANGLE to a smaller value. MAXANGLE specifies
the largest angle between two neighbour-edges which are taken
to build a spline-curve. If the angle between the edges is too high
the points will be interpolated linear or using one-side-segments.
Note: Maybe it would be faster for you to drag the errorous
points by hand. This is done in Imagine's perspective-editor
in about one minute.
4. Addional notes
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1. This is an important note: This manual is NOT intended to
be a campain against Real3D. Real3D is a very nice piece
of software (shrink-wrapping, boolean operators, CSG,
physical effects, ONLINE-MANUAL FOR PROGRAMMERS !, ...)
But I think we "who growed up with polygons" can't
change our "philosophy". You must start with Real3D
and can't "upgrade" from Imagine. (This is only my personal
opinion.)
2. The supplied examples are structured in the following way:
every drawer contains the source-object, the Dust-script
creating the smooth object, and a picture comparing
the two objects.
I used the same scene to render both objects.
All frames where rendered using Imagine3.1 in about 1 minute
at only 40 Mhz.
Note: 1. Some of the more complicated objects may have some small
errors (distorted faces). Normally I would drag the
points to correct them (1 minute-job). But I wanted
to render all objects in an unchanged state to demonstrate
the features of the smooth-operator.
2. The results are pretty, aren't they ?
3. All icons are NewIcons, of course.
5. The author
--------------------------------------------------------------------
To get registered for Dust2.2 send ($25/25DM and your EMail-address)
or ($30/30) to:
Andreas Maschke
Zenkerstra▀e 5
06108 Halle/Saale
Germany
Phone: ++49 (0)345/5170331
EMail: epgbc@cluster1.urz.Uni-Halle.DE
You can find Dust2.2 in the Aminet now.
Note: If I get lots of response I will try to make the
smooth-operator faster.
25 August 1995