EXTREME 3D README For MacOS, Win95, WinNT 3.51, and WinNT 4.0 November, 1996 Thank you for test driving the demo version of Extreme 3D 2. Extreme 3D is the leading 3D tool for creative professionals. This demo version of Extreme 3D includes all the major features of the full product. You can use this demo version to get the feel of Extreme 3D, but you cannot save or export your work. Welcome to Macromedia Extreme 3D! In this document, we’ve included contact information and late-breaking news to supplement the manual and online Help. CONTACTING MACROMEDIA Our internet address is http://www.macromedia.com. You can reach our web site 24-hours-a-day to find the latest product information, product updates, user groups, technical notes, and answers to common questions. WHAT’S NEW For detailed information on new features in this version of Extreme 3D, refer to the What's New section of the online Help system. For examples of the kinds of images and movies you can create with Extreme 3D, see the Gallery Viewer in the Gallery folder on the Extreme 3D CD, or the Gallery in the Extreme 3D section of Macromedia’s web site at http://www.macromedia.com. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Extreme 3D 2 no longer supports 68K Macintosh systems. For additional system requirements, refer to the Introduction chapter of your Using Extreme 3D manual. NOTE: On a Macintosh, Extreme 3D requires that the Modern Memory Manager setting in the Memory Control Panel must be set to On. NOTE FOR USERS OF EXTREME 3D 1.0 Installing Extreme 3D 2.0 does not upgrade Extreme 3D 1.0. If you want to keep Extreme 3D 1.0 on your machine, please install Extreme 3D 2 into a different folder. USING 3D ACCELERATION This version of Extreme 3D supports QuickDraw 3D and Direct3D. If you would like to use these features, read the following section regardless of whether you have the software installed. NOTE: If you have 3D accelerators installed, contact the vendors and/or visit their web sites frequently to make sure you're using the latest drivers. Installing QuickDraw 3D ----------------------- For this release, Extreme 3D requires QuickDraw 3D 1.0.6 or later. If you currently have QuickDraw 3D installed, check the version number. To check the version number of QuickDraw 3D: 1. Open your system folder. 2. In the Extensions folder, locate the file named QuickDraw 3D. 3. Choose Get Info from the system File menu. If you don't have QuickDraw 3D installed, or if you currently have version 1.0.3 or older, install the version of QuickDraw 3D from the Extreme 3D CD. When you have successfully upgraded to the newest QuickDraw 3D, check your extensions folder to see if you have the BOTH of the following files: QuickDraw 3D RAVE1 QuickDraw 3D Accelerator If you find both files, remove the file named QuickDraw 3D Accelerator. It might cause conflicts with the RAVE extension. If you have a QuickDraw 3D accelerator card installed in your machine, check your extensions folder to make sure you have following files: Apple QD3D HW Plug-In Apple QD3D HW Driver If you have purchased a QuickDraw 3D accelerator and these files are not present, contact Apple's technical support staff. NOTE: Turn Virtual Memory off before running Extreme 3D with QuickDraw 3D. Installing Direct3D -------------------- NOTE: Direct3D can be installed in Windows 95 only. Direct3D is included on the Extreme 3D CD. 1. Run the Dxsetup.exe program which is located in the DirectX folder. 2. Click ReInstall DirectX to install Direct3D and the necessary drivers. This is necessary even if you’ve never installed DirectX. 3. After the installation is complete, you will be prompted to restart the machine. Click OK to restart your machine. DirectX and Direct3D should now be installed. To enable the 3D hardware acceleration: 1. Choose Preferences for the Edit menu and select the 3D Acceleration page. 2. Check the Use Dedicated 3D Acceleration Board checkbox. To enable Direct3D and Hardware support: 1. Choose Window Setup from the Window menu. 2. Choose Direct3D as the Interactive Renderer Type. NOTE: If you have trouble with your machine and you suspect that the newly installed drivers are causing problems, you can revert the system to the state before DirectX and the associated drivers were installed by running the Dxsetup program again and clicking the Restore Display Drivers button. OPENING EXISTING EXTREME 3D FILES Extreme 3D 1 files are upwardly compatible with Extreme 3D's new features. Files open without the need for conversion. Some changes to lights and materials, however, may alter aspects of your lighting or materials designs. You might see differences in ambient lights, shadows or mapping. Following are some suggestions for recreating Extreme 3D 1 looks in Extreme 3D 2: Ambient lights There is now a default ambient light in the scene. It can be edited in the Lights browser like any other light. The ambient settings you made in Extreme 3D 1 using Global Effects are automatically stored in this light and can be edited using the Lights browser. Materials no longer have individual Ambient settings to control each material's response to the Ambient light. Use the new luminosity property in any material to control the effect of ambient light on a per-material basis. Spotlights Extreme 3D 1.0 files containing spotlights that use dust fall off read into Extreme 3D 2 with the Use Dust Fall Off check box unchecked. To render these spotlights correctly, open the Light editor for each such spotlight and check the Use Dust Fall Off check box. Shadows Some shadows may look different. Use the new Shadow Resolution control in Distant lights or Spotlights to approximate, or improve, the look of shadows created in Extreme 3D 1. Fog In Extreme 3D 1 the fog color was added to the background color or image. Extreme 3D 2 handles layers of transparency better, but this makes the version 1 functionality impossible. In Extreme 3D 2, if the fog transparency is not pure white, the fog is assumed to be completely opaque. This is because the background is infinitely far away, and even a little opacity becomes opaque if it is thick enough. When the transparency is pure white, the fog color is added to the background (as it was in Extreme 3D 1). This is done separately for each color channel R, G, and B. So if blue is 1.0 (255) but the others are less than that, just the blue channel of the background will be visible behind the fog. It is recommend that you do not use fog with an orthographic view. If you have an Extreme 3D 1 file that used fog in orthographic perspective, you must choose a different perspective. You might also need to increase the Fog Depth value in order for your file to render in Extreme 3D 2 as it did in Extreme 3D 1. Mapping types All objects now have a default mapping type. For objects using texture maps, the default mapping style is intrinsic; for all others it is projective. For example, if you apply an Organic Magic material to an object, its default mapping style is projective, creating a solid material look. If you change your mind and apply a Mondo Map material to the object, its default mapping style is intrinsic, mapping the texture map to the object's surface. Solid materials, such as Organic Magic and Tiles, can now be used either as solid materials or like texture maps. To use a solid material like a texture map, change the object's mapping type to intrinsic in the Objects browser. Because solid materials in Extreme 3D 1 didn't pay attention to the mapping type set for an object, some solid materials in existing files might look different in Extreme 3D 2. Objects with solid materials that were saved in Extreme 3D 1 with a mapping type other than projective can be corrected by explicitly setting the objects' mapping type to projective in Extreme 3D 2. To change the object's mapping type, select it and go to the Info page of the Objects browser. Alpha options for mapping The existence of surface alpha option works differently. In Extreme 3D 2, areas outside the map use the surface color and its properties. If the tile flag is set, or if the map covers the whole object, the existence of surface alpha option looks the same in Extreme 3D 2 as in Extreme 3D 1. Mapping of endcaps Mapping of endcaps is improved in Extreme 3D 2. This means that some Extreme 3D 1 files might not display texture maps in version 2 as they did in version 1. You can use the Texture Placement tool to adjust the mapping. This will be especially necessary for tiled texture maps. Mapping improvements The algorithm for creating bumps in the mondo map material has changed. Bumps look more realistic in Extreme 3D 2. f a bump appears to be less obvious, you can increase them to get the bumps to match their look in Extreme 3D 1.0. A Stripes pattern on a spherical object or a Cubic pattern on a cube object will appear as a solid color until you change the offset value. Also, because the cylindrical pattern of stripes relies heavily on the number of polygons on a drawing, it may appear chunky if the number of polygons is low. To smooth out the stripes, increase the number of polygons. The way that the organic magic material calculates bumps and pattern and bump transitions has been improved. Extreme 3D 1 files that use the organic magic material will look different in Extreme 3D 2. You can adjust the material settings to re-create the look achieved using Extreme 3D 1. Gamma correction and pre-multiplied alpha In Extreme 3D 1 all files were saved by default using pre- multiplied alpha and no Gamma correction. Extreme 3D 1 files are imported with these settings. VRML and 3DMF INFORMATION When working with VRML or 3DMF, keep the following information in mind: 3DMF export Texture map placement for 3DMF export is limited to Export Polygons or twice simplified objects. Views exported with 3DMF from Extreme 3D might not give expected results in QuickDraw-aware applications such as SimpleText. It is recommended that you do not to use the Export View option when exporting from Extreme 3D to 3DMF. 3DMF import If you choose Fit to Window on an imported 3DMF file and no objects appear, you can usually assume the objects in the 3DMF file are not supported by, and therefore not translated into, Extreme 3D. 3DMF import from StrataPro 1.75+ Specular and Roughness values are not retained when importing a file that was exported from StrataPro 1.75+ and imported into Extreme 3D as 3DMF. You must adjust the Specular and Roughness values manually in Extreme 3D’s Material browser. ASCII format files Extreme 3D 2 only supports 3DMF version 1.0 models. However, models saved as ASCII format files in previous versions of 3DMF can be often be read into Extreme 3D 2 if you first change the version number in the header to read 1_0 and save the file. Performance tips Large 3DMF files take a long time to import. Files saved in ASCII format take longer than those saved in binary format. A file composed of surface objects is much smaller and imports much faster than the same model composed of polygons. Double-byte and upper-ASCII characters Currently, VRML browsers and Internet URLs do not support double-byte (for example, Japanese) or upper-ASCII characters (characters above ASCII value 126, including accented characters). It is recommended that you use Roman characters only for any text appearing in the Inline, Anchor, or Texture URL fields, as well as the Title and Info fields in the VRML export dialog box. If your browser does not display the objects you exported to VRML format, check to make sure any URL you entered is valid. Some browsers can't read objects which have invalid URLs; others can fail. Additionally, for users of Japanese systems, note that Extreme 3D does not recognize the Yen symbol as a backslash. This means that in order for Texture or Inline URLs to work, they cannot be in a path (with backslashes), but instead must be in the same location as the VRML export. VRML browser information Use the following URL to find a VRML browser or read about the features of the browser you are using. http://www.sdsc.edu/vrml/browsers.html NOTE: Macromedia does not maintain or monitor this site for the accuracy or timeliness of information it contains. FREEHAND COMPATIBILITY INFORMATION Extreme 3D does not support extended type styles, such as underlined or italic, that are available in FreeHand. Vertical positioning of text might be off between the platforms if there isn’t an ATM to ATM mapping but instead an ATM to TrueType mapping. EPS exported from FreeHand doesn’t support text, FreeHand exports only the bounding boxes. PICT files exported from Extreme 3D will import into FreeHand as many separate one-pixel-tall objects. A workaround is to use another format such as TIFF, JPEG, or Targa. Another workaround is to first import the PICT file into xRes and then export. Drag and drop on the Macintosh from FreeHand to Extreme 3D will not work properly with any other than the first document opened in Extreme 3D. If this happens, save your work, then quit and relaunch the Extreme 3D application. RENDERING INFORMATION Lights and shadows from spotlights pass through objects that have zero depth. To correct this, either increase the shadow resolution, or give the object depth. Opening multiple scene files when the internal renderer in Window Setup is set to QuickDraw 3D might result in an out of memory error. To avoid this problem, increase the memory partition for Extreme 3D 2. Using QuickDraw 3D or Direct3D hardware or software acceleration for network rendering produces unpredictable results. Use the internal renderer when network rendering interactive render tests. For maximum rendering performance, select all objects and decrease the Interactive slider setting in the Adaptive Smoothing dialog box. This results in fewer polygons being generated and should improve performance. Using the Projection tool and then using the 3D Trim tool on an object might cause the specular highlight of the object to look rather chunky. To avoid this you can change the angle of the object, or increase the number of faces before using the Projection tool. Setting the spotlight shadow fuzziness below 1.0 will cause the resulting shadow to look streaky. Set the fuzziness to 1.0 or above to render correctly. When using the Standard Alpha Channel Output option in the Final Render Setup dialog, be sure to use a black background for your scene. This will prevent a non-black background color from affecting antialiased pixels. A number of materials look different from the internal renderer when rendered with the Direct3D or QuickDraw 3D renderers. Use the following guide to help you predict the effects you will get from Extreme 3D materials rendered by Direct3D or QuickDraw 3D: Chrome+Glass: Gets its color by averaging all the pixels in the environment map. Marble: Uses color band 1's color. Mondo Map and Generic + Texture: If the texture map is selected and Composite Over Color is not selected from the Alpha Use Selector, the texture map defines the surface color. When Composite Over Color is selected from the Alpha Use Selector, the surface color is a combination of the constant color chip and the texture map. The color chip defines the color of the object outside the texture map. Organic Magic, Scratched Metal, Stripes, and Tiles: Use the first material color. MAIL INFORMATION Some email applications add a number to the filename of Extreme 3D files when they are attached as documents, making them unreadable. By manually removing these numbers from the filename, you can open these Extreme 3D 2 files. Do not use upper ASCII characters when naming textures used in a scene if you plan to send the Extreme 3D file through email. If the Send command is unavailable, you might not have your email application configured properly. Contact your Network Administrator. GENERAL INFORMATION Extreme 3D 2 doesn't prevent a file on the network from being opened by two different computers at the same time. To prevent version conflicts, copy shared files locally before making changes. If you use a Macintosh-style file naming convention on graphics files on Windows, you might see incorrectly associated icons. You can manually re-associate the correct icon to make these files readable. Linking particle systems to other objects can produce unpredictable results. As a general rule, it is best to create any links and animation for a particle system before changing any of its particle system values. The limit for Create Array to successfully create objects and be able to select them with Select All is 7x7x7 or 343 total objects. The Use Whole Words box in the Find dialog finds objects by their full names rather than by a single whole word. In Windows, to preview the Generic+Texture material with a texture map, you must do one of the following: 1. After loading the texture map in the material, uncheck the Use Texture Map box, recheck it and click Preview 2. Click OK after loading the texture map to return to the Materials browser. 3. Before clicking on the texture map in the Material Editor to change the texture map, click the Use Texture Map checkbox. The Preset materials under Grooves, Lines, and Tiger have different settings than the images in the Gallery. To achieve a similar effect, use the Materials browser to adjust the Turbulence to 0.1 and the Turbulence Scale to 0.1 for those materials after adding them to the scene. If lights or shadows bleed through an object, you can either make the object thicker, or increase the size of the shadow resolution. WINDOWS 95 FEATURES Extreme 3D supports all standard Windows 95 features. Of special note are: Right mouse button support Right mouse button support on an object-by-object basis. The application title bar, application and scene file icons, browser title bars, score tracks, workspace, selected objects, and edit fields all provide appropriate menu choices when clicked with the right mouse button. While an animation is playing, you can right mouse click for animation options. Clipboard paste Clipboard paste is supported for all import formats. Clipboard paste is also supported for FreeHand 7 objects. Drag & drop You can drag any of the import file formats into the Extreme 3D workspace. As is standard, files must be written with appropriate extensions. Drag and drop of FreeHand 7 objects to Extreme 3D workspace is also supported. Recent file list The File menu now lists the most recently open files below the Send command. Long file names Extreme 3D now supports long file names and Universal Naming Convention paths. Mail The Send mail feature lets you mail Extreme 3D files from any machine with internet mail support. Uninstall The Windows 95 Control Panel's Add & Remove Software Programs application can now fully uninstall Extreme 3D 2. Extreme 3D 2 as an OLE 2.0 server Extreme 3D files can be embedded in standard OLE Windows object containers. Double-click the Extreme 3D server in the client application to launch Extreme 3D and edit the embedded model. When Extreme 3D is in OLE server mode, Network Rendering is unavailable, only one open scene at a time is available, and the Update Document, and Exit and Return menus become available. For more information about OLE see your Microsoft OLE 2.0 documentation. NOTE: Extreme 3D uses the current render on Exit and Return. For highest quality embedded Extreme 3D models, perform a Final Render to Screen before passing the model information to the client. NOTE: Extreme 3D 2 does not support QuickTime for Windows. DOCUMENTATION AND HELP SYSTEM CORRECTIONS Using Extreme 3D Page 129: When using the keyboard to navigate in the World browser only the Up and Down keys work on Macintosh systems. Help system Exit and Return topic: Available when the Exit and Return menu item appears on the File menu when using Extreme 3D as an OLE server. This Help topic should include the note: "Exit and Return does not prompt you to save changes. Changes to the Extreme 3D file are made automatically on Exit and Return." To render a scene using network rendering topic: This Help topic should include the note: "Unique file names should be used when naming Network Rendering Jobs." To edit the defining geometry of a metaform topic: Step 3 of this Help topic should be changed to the following: "Choose Render style from the Objects menu, then choose Bounding Box or Wireframe. This exposes the control points and the defining profiles of the metaform." Copyright 1996, 1997 Macromedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.