Contact: Vesa Meskanen
Realsoft Graphics
15th November 2004
info@realsoft.com
http://www.realsoft.com
|
Contact: Vesa Meskanen Realsoft Graphics 15th November 2004 info@realsoft.com http://www.realsoft.com |
|
Realsoft Graphics has now started shipping a new version 5 of its Realsoft3D software package. Realsoft3D is a professional modeling, rendering and animation software tool for production of high quality, photorealistic computer graphics.
The first v5 release covers the Windows operating systems. New versions for other supported platforms (Linux, SGI Irix, Mac OSX) will be released in the near future.
The new product version improves overall performance of the software and introduces a collection of hot new features, such as hair rendering, a post shading system and a solution for shared management of large rendering networks.
The new release is aimed at strengthening Realsoft3D’s position as an extensive solution for 3D production with the best price/performance ratio of all mid range and high-end 3D graphics packages. With a new educational pricing policy, which allows free sub licensing to students, Realsoft aggressively challenges other software vendors in the tightly competitive 3D marketplace.
"We developed the new version for 2 years. Almost all areas of the software got new features and speed optimizations" explains Vesa Meskanen, a founder and managing director of Realsoft Graphics. "Hair rendering is probably the most awaited single new feature."
"It is also interesting to see how the customers will take advantage of the new network rendering features. The new system, PRS (=Public Rendering Service), makes configuring large shared render farms easy. People who add their idle computers to a render farm do not have to be aware of the users of the network. We have made everything as easy as possible: it takes a single mouse click to hook a computer in. The system recovers from errors, so turning a render server off or taking it back into your personal use is quite as easy and safe. PRS opens new possibilities in our friendly, co-operative user community".
"Another example of powerful new functionality is the conversion of shading language based textures into a real time OpenGL preview. Realsoft3D is a hybrid modeler: the program combines polygons, metaballs, mathematically defined shapes, subdivision and NURBS surfaces. Texturing is often not based on simple vertex UVs and bitmaps. In this framework, real-time visualization of shaders is a real challenge. The new version does this using a gradual refinement method, which first gives immediate feedback to the user by rendering a rough estimate. The next round sharpens the preview, and so on, until the final quality is achieved. The nice thing is that the preview computation is done as a background thread: the user can continue working, modify the scene and add new objects to it. You can actually see a how texture spreads over a surface while you edit it!"
- Version 5 includes the most accurate hair rendering solution on the market: hairs interact with global illumination, fur details can be examined with a magnifying glass and characters can safely dive under water
- Radically improved UV editing toolkit featuring a new, object hierarchy based UV object, which lets you split model geometry into an arbitrary number of overlapping or separate surface areas. UV objects layer locally and efficiently an unlimited number of textures, shaders and vertex channels.
- Improved animation interface based on the construction stack approach. The playback window is now loaded with useful functionality for basic animation editing. The choreography editor has also taken a major leap forward, now providing an efficient interface for more advanced animation control.
- A post shading system is included. The user can change reflection intensity and color, specular highlights, shadow smoothness and other shading components without going through the time consuming ray tracing phase. The post shading system is open and new object/light source/shader specific controls can be hooked in.
- Automatic, hierarchical, dynamically expandable render network management. Users can, at any time, hook in and out rendering servers and all CPU power becomes automatically used. Unlimited cross-platform compatible network rendering is included in the standard package - there is no extra license cost involved.
- Testimonials from world-class 3D artists indicate that the Subdivision Surface Modeler of Realsoft3D is a leading solution on the market. Version 5 introduces a collection of new power tools, which perform frequently needed SDS modeling steps with maximal efficiency.
- Hundreds of speed optimizations and productivity increasing features, such as undo for all data libraries, general project cleanup (purge) tools, a new painting based edit handle selection, etc.
More information about the new features is available in the V5 readme file.
The list price of the Windows version is 750 USD/600 EUR/415 GPB+VAT. Unix versions cost 200 EUR. A competitive upgrade is available from other 3D packages at 500 USD/400 EUR/275 GPB. The upgrade from the previous version costs 150 EUR. Up to 75% educational discounts available. For more information, visit www.realsoft.com/shop.