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Long Term vision for tS materials development
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Long Term vision for tS materials development // Roundtable
Post by W!ZARD // Apr 7, 2006, 1:00am
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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Here's a question for Roman and the Caligarians ;) (or anyone who knows....
(Assuming I've understood what I've been seeing on the forums) tS 7 is eventually intended to incorporate all (or most of) the tools from tS 6.6 into what is being called the Player. The Player uses DX9 shaders which (if I understand correctly) are quite different to the Lightworks shaders we remember from earlier versions (and currently in modeller renders).
Does this mean the eventual aim is to phase out the LW shaders (and renderer) in favour of the DX9 shaders or will some version of the existing tS material editor eventually be incorporated into the player?
I am a huge fan the tS6.6 material editor which is partly behind my query :D .
I understand the link editor provides powerful material editing capabilities but I do not quite grasp whether these are for DX9 shaders only or for LW shaders as well.
Apologies if this is a silly question - I do not yet have my copy of tS7 so I'm trying to 'read between the lines' somewhat. |
Post by e-graffiti // Apr 7, 2006, 3:29am
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e-graffiti
Total Posts: 171
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My understanding of tool migration is that the model view "modelling" tools will be incorporated into the player. The Player is a render like (marketing calls it a "real time display") preview so I dont see the render engines going away. In fact there seems to be a big investment in Vray, sub-surface scattering, HDRI, GI etc.. Which the player does not fully do so I think render engines will be around awhile. With that said many of the DX9 shaders do not render properly in the render engines and many LW shaders do not preview in the DX9 player, so I dont see LW going away immediately (if at all). Regarding the link editor and materials, it is currently used for DX9 shaders (player view) and Super Lightworks shaders (model view for render engine) in tS7. |
Post by DigitalSoapbox // Apr 12, 2006, 2:17pm
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DigitalSoapbox
Total Posts: 71
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I would hope that the Lightworks rendering engine would remain accesible to trueSpace, regardless of version - it's a fantastic rendering engine that has very different strengths & weaknesses than VRay or VirtuaLight.
What I'm really hoping is that the ability to render using more than one renderer at the same time, which in theory should be possible. For example, rendering the scene using VRay, and post-process shaders using Lightworks. Other 3D applications which support multiple rendering engines allow this to a certain extent (3DSMAX, for example), and while I wouldn't expect the ability to choose on a per-object basis which renderer is used, there is no technological reason multiple renderers could not be used for rendering/post-process shaders.
I also wouldn't mind seeing the ability to load in existing .fx shaders for the Player view, considering there's literally thousands available and free GUI-based programs from both ATI & nVidia to develop them, which would be much easier to deal with for those of us who aren't particularly inclined to learning the HLSL language that currently seems to be required to develop new DirectX9-based shaders. As it is, we're already being asked to learn a programming language to fully use the new automation features, and while the supported languages aren't necessarily that difficult to learn - though more documentation, not to mention examples, would be extremely useful, as would some form of GUI-based tool to develop scripts, as is available in Lightwave - learning the currently supported shader development language could take months and months, by which point a NEW version of either trueSpace or DirectX could be made available (as mentioned in another thread in reference to DirectX10).
Of course, we currently only have access to trueSpace 7.0, and future 7.x versions could eliminate my concerns altogether. Considering the huge improvements already in tS7.0 (outside of animation tools) in terms of interface, speed, and usability, I wouldn't be surprised by this at all. |
Post by rj0 // Apr 12, 2006, 4:14pm
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rj0
Total Posts: 167
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I received an email recently from IMSI about upgrading my TurboCAD Pro to version 12 (gotta love IMSI, TurboCAD Pro early upgrades have been $99, period, for as long as I can recall, even when I've skipped versions, and usually with printed manual included). Apparently version 12 of TurboCAD is LWA (LightWorks Archive material) enabled (LightWorks 7.5), which allows one to go to the LightWorks site and download hundreds of high quality materials (metals, ceramics, name brand paint colors, etc.. See http://www.lightworks-user.com/downloads.php).
I'm wondering if trueSpace 7.x is going to also get LWA enabled. Anybody know?
rj |
Post by DigitalSoapbox // Apr 13, 2006, 12:27pm
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DigitalSoapbox
Total Posts: 71
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You're right, Emma, I wouldn't think they'd be getting rid of Lightworks any time soon either (and the additional of LWA support would be a welcome addition, Link Editor or not), but it doesn't hurt to TELL them we'd like it kept, either; it's already been proven if enough of us want changes (being able to expand menus like in tS6.x), they'll make them. I'd assume that also means if we want something to stay the SAME (keeping Lightworks), that would have the same effect. |
Post by splinters // Apr 13, 2006, 1:06pm
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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I'm wondering if trueSpace 7.x is going to also get LWA enabled. Anybody know?
rj
Last I heard it was planned....but not for 7.1..:o |
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