[3DA#29 cover facsimile] 3D Artist #29 Online Supplement

> Published July 1997, 40 pages.
> Issue Status: this is the current issue until about mid-October 1997. It shipped on 31 July.
> Supplement page status:
Page completed 12 June 1997
RayMax first look text attached 25 Sept. 1997
[ Contents | Cover | Errata ]
Cover Story: The cover image is by Cecilia Ziemer. She writes, "Tranquility Station" began in MetaCreations Ray Dream Studio 4 (RDS) as a 1930s-style, aliens-waiting-for-a-train scene. Then the crowd gathered and all the available software tools came out.
___ Esquid (upper right) is a headless MetaCreations Poser 2 body with left arm modified and feet distorted in RDS, and with eye stalks and kilt modeled in Kinetix 3D Studio Max. The head, briefcase, and spinners were modeled in RDS. His materials are RDS shaders, except for the plaid, which is a MetaCreations Painter map made tileable in Adobe Photoshop.
___ Orange Guy is a Poser head distorted in RDS with Radical FX Spherical Morph. The headpiece, eyes, mantle, and most of the tentacles were done in RDS, and all materials are RDS procedurals. The mantle and the two curled tentacle ends, however, were modified using Max.
___ Snoot is two RDS spheres plus distorted parts of a dismembered (ouch!) Poser skeleton, which provided parts for hands, arms, feet, legs, and the "snoot." The face, eyes, and carpet bag are RDS freeform models. Head and body materials are a mixed procedural shader and map.
___ Floor, rails, excess baggage, and pillars are RDS freeform objects. The signs were created in Adobe Illustrator. There are two lights: a low bulb light at the left, and a Rayflect light cone with a slight turbulence setting. The passing Trans-Lunar Elevated is two Max cylinders with three directional lights inside and three omni lights outside. It was rendered in 3DS Max with motion blur and brought into RDS as a backdrop for the scene, which (finally!) was rendered in RDS.

The artist notes that almost all the RDS work was done on PowerMac, but she pretty much used both the PowerMac and an Intergraph P6-200 interchangeably to do the Photoshop, Detailer, and Poser work. She reports that this mixing of platforms went rather smoothly except for some complications with bringing 3DS Max into the equation, but one doesn't normally think of the $3,495 Max as a modeling solution for the $449 RDS. (Nor for the $249 Poser, but that's what Sanford Kennedy shows on pages 20-21 of the same issue!)
___ Previously, Cecilia Ziemer did the nautiloids and trilobites cover for 3DA#23 with RDS. You can reach her at <ziemer@batnet.com>.

[ Contents | Cover | Errata ]

Table of Contents

All review text related to plug-ins and dedicated utilities for LightWave 3D and 3D Studio Max will be posted here as part of our third-party resource listings. Other reviews and all how-to articles, with few rare exceptions, are not posted. To get those, please see our Back Issues page for how to purchase the issue.

Page
 Title
 Author
 Description
3D Artist Reports
8 3 for VRML 2 Alex Kiriako First looks at RealiMation Space Time Editor [ full text - coming], Hyperwire, and Internet 3D Space Builder
10 AutoCAD r14
3D Studio Viz 		Gary Dohanish Reviews
14 A Look at LightWave 3D 5.5 David Hopkins First look (Taming The Wave column)
15 Speed Razor Mach III 3.51 David Hopkins Real world nonlinear editing with v3.5 and 3.51.
16 TrueSpace 3.0 Joel Bellucci Review (with tS3 metaballs how-to on facing page)
16 DeBabelizer Pro 4.0 Alex Kiriako First look
32 StudioPro 2.0 John B. Crane First look
32 Animation Master 5.0 Michael Caputo First look
33 Rhino Paul Muns First look
35 RayMax Alex Kiriako First look [full text]
Low-Res + Games + 3D Authoring
8 3 for VRML 2 Alex Kiriako [jump]
18 A Low-Res Character Aaron Shi Modeling a U.S. Marine with 3D Studio Max r1 and 4D Paint for prerendered game animation.
19 Custom Tools
Part 1 of 2 		Andrey Zmievski An introduction to creating your own 3DS Max plug-ins for game and other production work.
26 Capturing Real World Textures Andy Anderson Tips on putting the "photo" into photorealistic textures and low-polygon-count models.
Putting Poser to Work
6 Cover Story Cecilia Ziemer [jump]
20 Poserboards Sanford Kennedy Using Poser 2 for storyboarding or, if your pain threshhold is high, doing the whole story in Poser itself.
22 Using Poser with LightWave Mike Beals Poser 2 for generating human meshes with modifications in LW3D 5. Also comments about use with 3DS Max r1.
23 Using Sculptor with Poser Sanford Kennedy Sculptor for creating new heads and other objects to use in Poser 2.
More How-To!
17 Manatees & Metaballs Joel Bellucci At last, organic modeling in trueSpace 3 (reviewed by the author on the facing page) with the new metaball feature.
28 Block It In Robert Stein III Taking a cue from traditional art to progressively build 3D scenes and details in a methodical manner. Although a short piece, this is one of the most important articles 3D Artist has run in six years. It could change everything about how you approach a new project.
30 Building Your Own Alpha Workstation
Part 1 of 2 		Peter Plantec Introduction to assembling your own powerful Alpha-based workstation from a preassembled bare-bones box.
40 Using Type Objects in RDS John B. Crane Getting the desired results with a major Ray Dream scene and big 3D type elements.
Columns
6 Editorial Space Bill Allen We didn't plan to run a Poser focus, but it came in, anyway!
14 Taming The Wave David Hopkins Tough-loving look at LightWave 3D 5.5. And Speed Razor Mach III 3.51 "makes the cut."
Tricks & Tips
6 Contents Page Story Bill Allen How the opening 2-1/2 minutes of Men In Black was done with six 500MHz Alphas in a home overlooking Albuquerque, N.M. One of those frames is this issue's Contents Page image.
28 Bidirectional Position Links Michael Koch In 3DS Max r1's IK, you can have it both ways!
Departments
35, 37 Business Card Ads Lots of colorful messages about services and products.
38-39 Classified Ads Employment, schools and training, 3D Swap Meet, and more!
36 Contacts For info about products mentioned in this issue.
6 Contents Page Story Every issue's Contents Page has an image, and every image has a story.
6 Errata Corrections and updates for previous issues.
6 Cover Story The making of this issue's cover.
7 Masthead Many details about 3D Artist.

[ Contents | Cover | Errata ]
Errata & additional info:

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