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Real 3D, the facts What is Real 3D all about? Well, it is not an easy question, but I will try to answer. Real 3D is a modelling and animation package which is able to produce highly photorealistic images and animation, at high speed and low cost.
Its highly configurable user interface and built in programming language, RPL (Real 3D Programming Language, based on fourth), makes it a vary unique package over most of the competition. For example, if you need a particle system which isn't by default supported, you can make your own animation rules, based on common laws of physics.
As you can see from the image above, it can even have its own interface. And no compiling has to be done. Its hierarchical orientation is also unique and very thoroughly done. If you can see an object in the select window, you can animate it. Everything is a kind of object, meaning that a texture map can be animated separately from the object(s) it is attached to. It is possible to let different forces apply to different textures and their object.
Object types When it comes to object types there are three main categories; visibles, structures, and controls. Visibles Visible solids covers objects such as spheres, cylinders, cutted cone sector etc. These are made with a technique called CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry), which is based on mathematics. These types of object are extremely suited for Boolean Operations. Further, this makes it possible to do an animation where a hole is being drilled into another object. Imagine the following problem; you have just made a complex object, consisting of thousand of subobjects, and you want to cut this in half, to reveal what is inside. All you have to do is set the 'And' attributte for the object, and place an inverted rectangle inside, which defines how the object is cutted. To to a slicing animation, all you have to do is move this rectangle. Try doing this with a polygonal tool.
The picture above shows all the standard CSG objects, and compound tools (those who place CSGs) you will find in Real 3D.	Compound tools are tools that will help you place lots of CSGs automatically. Compound tools include rectangular and circular tubes, conical tubes, rounded polygons and more. A conical tube may concist of cutted cones with spheres in between. Surface visibles are used where visible solids are inadequate. There are three types, polygonal, phong, and b-spline. Square and triangle polygons are supported for polygonal and phong surfaces. With b-spline surfaces, you are able to produce very smooth, yet detailed surfaces with a very low point count. There are many ways of defining a surface, such as rotate, swinging, extruding, build from cross section, build from 2D picture, fill volume, fractal tree, and fractal landscape. All of which can be controlled from RPL, including the fractal generators; see a bush evolve into a great pinetree. Some new ones have also surfaced from generous users, such as the rail tool. The image below shows the three surface types; polygon, phong, and b-spline.

Structures
The main structure objects are levels, which are a kind of directory to put other objects or structures in, to produce a hierarchy. Groups are references to one or more points in a surface or control curve Links whose purpose is to create a link to any other object somewhere else in the hierarchy), Methods (which are structures which contains animation information).
The image on the right shows a selectwindow. The (A) denotes that this level is an AND level, i.e. a boolean operation takes place here. The object that is being cut is inside the meshparts.1 level. The cutting objects are shown with (!) in the name. The -brassmetal(T) is a link to a material in a completely different location. The reason for this is that the brass is also shaded by an animated texture that doesn't follow the mainbody(A) movement. The *bumpys(T)* is a level where I have lots of textures that applies to this object. The blackscope(T) are direct textures.
Note: Structures covers items in the select window which is not directly visible in the output, but all of them can be animated, meaning that one object can be animated in either with several ways in sequence, at the same time, or combined. This also mean that a whole animation can be animated. Through the use of links, the objects being animated, can be animated indirectly if you should want it.

Controls
Controls covers objects such as curves, attributtes, lights, cameras, coordinate systems, and animation parameters.
There are many types of curves, such as polygonal and b-spline, both open and closed. Several methods are available for placing a b-spline curve; polygon will place the polygonal control curve of the b-spline, knot-point will generate a bspline where the curve will go through the points defined, and curve will make b-spline the same way as polygonal, with the difference that it will extend all the way to the endpoints.

The picture above shows the effect of Depth Of Field. Also, it shows how photorealistic shadows can be recreated using light planes.

There are five different kind of lights available. Point, spot, cylindrical, line, and plane. Line and plane light can take a long time to render, but the results are truly amazing. All types have three types of illumination falloffs; to inifity, which is a non- linear falloff, local, which is linear to a user-defined distance, and no fading, which are equally strong no matter the distance.

It is possible to have lots of cameras, each one consisting of two different objects; the viewpoint and the aimpoint. These can naturally be animated separately, which gives the ability to produce even the most advanced camera movement imaginable. Each camera can have individual viewing angles and depth of field, and also be attached to a specific view window if wanted.

Editing

No package would be complete without the ability to change or modify objects after creation, and this package is of course no exception. There are four main modification types; modify properties, modify linear, modify non-linear, and some very special modification types.

Properties

When you modify a property of an object, you are usually presented with some sort of requester asking for keyboard input. There are many types of properties, some of which are listed below.

Standard attributtes, such as name, color, attributtes, fade (opacity), tags (defining non-default attributtes and parameters), and a rather good (although not too intuitive) geometric property for CSG objects. The picture below is an example of what can be achieved with the same basic object (top left), in this case a cutted ellipse segment just by varying its geometric properties. Keep in mind that this object is defined mathematically, and not using conventional polygons. geometry

Physical attributtes, such as velocity, spin, center of gravity, mass, surface friction, and rebound energy. Also possible to override the preset collision accuracy for any specific object.

Specific attributtes, such as those for light, those for the skeleton system, and a lot for freeform surfaces and curves.

Linear modifications

These include what one would expect to find, such as moving, sizing, stretching, rotating, and more. There are also hundreds of bending combinations in local, global, endpoint, and linear modes, with either moving or sizing applied, in two or three dimensions, or in radial mode. Also, three kinds of circular bending are available. This is a lot, in fact there are so many to choose from, that one can find it difficult to apply the correct one at any given situation. Some trial and error is neccecary for the newcomer. However, the manual provides some examples on how they work.

Non-linear modifications

These modification types can only be applied to freeform surfaces, and include move, size, stretch, rotate, and twist, with the following curves as the modification parameter curve; parabola, linear, circle, sine, and curve. Curve modification needs some explanation. This actually uses an animation method, the transform method, as the parameter for how the modification get applied to the object. This method uses two parameters, one time axis (or coordinate system), and one user defined curve (or surface). This is one of the most advanced modification features I have found in any program - remember that this is a low-cost package.

Special modifications

Shrinking is a process in which the object is pushed towards other objects, leaving the impression of dents in the object (normally a freeform surface) from the objects it was shrinked (pushed) against. This effect can also be animated; imagine a character leaving footprints in the sands as he moves across a sandy beach. Or a snake under a rug, where the rug get back to the original after the snake has passed.

Reflect will position the object in such a way that its reflection will be visible at the surface you click, at that position. Great for positioning lightsources, giving the user the control over where the hightlights will appear on the surface.

Inverse and forward kinematics will allows the effect of pulling (inverse) a finger on a skeleton object in such a way that the rest of the skeleton is modified/rotated as well. Or you can rotate (forward) a skeleton joint about its previous joint.

I will add information about animation, rendering, and materials next time I bother to update my page :-)

Personal - Real 3D - Other
About Real 3D - Feature List - Gallery - Download - Utilities - Helpdesk

Real 3D, the facts

What is Real 3D all about?

Object types

Visibles