Programm |
| Plasma 1.0 fĂĽr Windows |
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Hersteller |
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Oberfläche |
| Windows 98/XP/NT | Pentium 500 | 10.08.2002 |
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Gesamtbewertung |
| GUT |
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Gesamteindruck |
| Komplexes Modulations- und Animationswerkzeug für 3D-Lösungen im Web | ||
Programmdesign |
| 3D-Max-Design | GUT | |
Funktionalität |
| alles, was man für gutes 3D benötigt | SEHR GUT | |
Bedienungskomfort |
| komplex, schwierig fĂĽr Einsteiger | BEFRIEDIGEND | |
Internet-Tauglichkeit |
| ganz aufs Internet ausgerichtet in seinem Export. Es gibt aber keine Option fĂĽr irgendeine Interaktion im Bereich von Flash und Internet. | GUT |
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Besonderheiten |
| HAVOK Dynamics Funktionen. | SEHR GUT | |
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Meinung des FLASHERS
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| Mann bekommt mit Plasma viel, kein abgespecktes 3D-Studio MAX, sondern eine eigenes Programm. In der Tat fehlen auch viele Funktion und Möglichkeiten aus dem 3D-Studio MAX. Dennoch
hat man mit Plasma ein ausgefeiltes 3D-Konstruktions- und Animationsprogramm mit vielen Möglichkeiten. Ausgeliefert wird das Programm mit einer CD-ROM und einem sehr dürftigen Handbuch. Eigentliche Interaktivität können Sie nur im Shockwave 3D Format direkt mit Plasma erzeugen. Für Flash-Animationen müssen sie dazu das Ergebnis mit Flash weiter bearbeiten. Plasma liefert lediglich nur den grafischen Anteil, eine fertig gerenderte Keyframe-Animation. Zwar gibt es ein eigenes Importformat für Flash MX, außer, dass die ganze Animation in ein Verzeichnis abgelegt und die Dateigröße optimiert wird, ist kein besonderer Vorteil zu erkennen. Für ein Nachbearbeiten mit Flash ist es äußerst ungünstig, das Gruppen oder Objekte nicht als Symbole, sondern in Keyframes abgelegt werden. Will man z.B. eine Seite eines Würfels mit Flash MX transparent gestalten, das kann Plasma nämlich nicht, dann muss man Keyframe für Keyframe die Eigenschaft der Würfelseite in alle gewünschten Bildern verändern. Wäre die Würfelseite ein Symbol, dann bräuchte man nur das Symbol der Würfelseite einmal ändern. An dieser Stelle bekommt man zusätzlich den Eindruck, das Plasma mehr für Shockwave 3D als für Flash konzipiert wurde Im Shockwaveformat kann man als Benutzer in die Abläufe der Animation aktiv eingreifen. Als Ausgleich für die fehlenden Flash-Interaktivität ist das Renderergebnis von den Ausgabemöglichkeiten, der errechneten Dateigröße und der Ausgabequalität her ausgezeichnet. Es übertrifft den bisherigen Favoriten Swift 3D in der Version 2.0. Man kann behaupten, das Plasma bis heute den besten Flashrenderer anbietet. Erfreulich auch der problemlose Import von 3D-Formaten. WRL-Dateien werden ebenso gelesen wie 3DS-Dateien. Damit kann man auf einen großen Fundus von vorhandenen Objekten zurückgreifen, wenn mann sie selbst nicht entwerfen möchte. Der Export erlaubt das AI, DXF, W3D und WRL-Format. Auf 3DS wird bewusst verzichtet, damit Plasma nicht als 3D-Studio MAX Ersatz fungieren kann. Angenehm ist auch der Softwareschutz. Man bekommt einen Freischaltschlüssel und dann läuft das Programm. Fazit: | ||
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Pressemitteilung aus dem Softwarehaus |
plasma , based on Discreets award-winning 3D technology, is the worlds first professional 3D modeling, animation, and rendering software for creating 2D and 3D web UI elements and general web content.
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Discreet leads the visual effects, editing and animation market with professional artistic tools, integrated products and streamlined workflow. The company offers its solutions to over 150,000 users worldwide, including major broadcast networks, film facilities, games development companies, animation and visual effects production firms, and Internet and multimedia design boutiques. The company has received over 300 awards over the past ten years, including the prestigious twice-awarded Academy Award for Technical Achievement from the Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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- Designer friendly interface – the tools designers use more often are at their fingertips, with a UI more akin to Adobe® Photoshop®/Illustrator® or Macromedia® Flash®
- Macromedia Flash Rendering - with intelligent file linking, shadow support, and improved compression (even over regular Flash!)
- Macromedia Shockwave®3D exporter - with advanced character animation (deformation, skin/bones) and Havoks Shockwave 3D dynamics support
- Built on stable, production-proven 3D architecture
- 3ds max™ integration – load .max files into plasma, to bring existing 3D content to the most popular web formats. Also load plasmas Flash and Shockwave 3D support into 3ds max, for 3ds max artists wanting plasma functionality.
Website design and online content creation have traditionally been split into two distinctly
different groups – website design has shifted significantly towards the use of Macromedias Flash format and authoring system, with some latter adoption of their Shockwave 3D format for power users versed with Director and Lingo.
Enter plasma, a 3D website UI and content creation tool built from the same core technology as 3ds max. The same powerful toolset that enabled veteran animators to
create amazing art for films and broadcast design is now available for 2D artists who have never used 3D before – all wrapped in a friendlier interface and housing the best tools for making Flash and Shockwave 3D UI and content.
THE TOOLBOX
The first component is the Toolbox think of this as your creation and navigation tool for the
plasma environment. Youll probably recognize the layout from other design creation tools such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and Macromedia Dreamweaver.
Herein youll find Transform Tools (move/rotate/scale/pivot points), Creation Tools (Primitives/Splines/Text/ Cameras/Lights), Materials & Rendering and Viewport Navigation (Zoom/Pan/Rotate View).
To discover more options, simply hold down those buttons with the mark on the bottom right corner.
THE MENU BAR
Other tools youll use regularly exist in the top Menu Bar ( Here youll find more advanced elements such as Particle Systems, Booleans, IK tools, Groups, and access to Track View, Dynamics, MAXscript, and the Browser. Many of these are advanced features,
which are worth exploring fully.
THE COMMAND PANEL
Undoubtedly one of the most powerful components of plasma, the Command Panel has several distinct functions:
· The Modifier Panel
Also called the Modifier Stack, this tab not only allows for different Modifiers to be
applied to an object (or objects), it also retains as much of the creation history of an object as you choose – that way you can get back to original parameters even though many modifiers may have been applied. This approach is unique to plasma in the web 3D market and gives artists unparalleled flexibility in retaining parametric control over their objects
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The Hierarchy Panel
Lets you directly edit an objects Pivot Point and advanced controls for manipulating Transforms
· The Motion Panel
A great way to deal with keyframe and trajectory information per object – includes ability to assign controllers and edit tangency on keyframes without entering the Track View.
Youll find that once you create an object, its parameters will become available in the Command Panel – simply have the object selected. To apply Modifiers from the Command Panel, use the Drop-Down List
TRACK VIEW
The Track View is an extremely powerful function curve editor that gives you powerful
flexibility in dealing with animation data. It can exist as its own window, or can be docked in a viewport to allow you to interactively tweak animation data and see the resulting affects directly in the viewports.
The Track View is accessible through the Animation Menu in the Menu Bar, and enables users to see animation represented as easy-to-manipulate curves. The Track View can be used as a simple curve editor or for advanced tasks such as combining keyframe
data with Fractal Noise patterns for adding a random element to the final animation.
THE MATERIAL EDITOR
This gives you an easy to navigate interface for designing the surface properties of your scene objects. Materials can be dropped interactively onto objects, and bitmaps and other image types can be layered, blended, combined, color corrected, and even mixed
with procedural textures.
RENDERING A FILE FOR FLASH
The Flash renderer in plasma allows you to output directly to Flash. plasma provides a preview of the final rendered file as it will appear in a browser. plasma has dynamic linking to Flash MX for automatic updates to Flash MX libraries with the .swfv file format.
OUTPUTTING A FILE TO DIRECTOR 8.5 SHOCKWAVE 3D
You can take that same asset you created in plasma and rendered to Flash and, then also output it to Macromedia Director™to add different effects, interactivity and style.
THE BROWSER
Drag and drop textures, scene files, and virtually any plasma
asset, directly from your hard drive or even over the web. Simply launch the browser from the Utilities dropdown in the Menu Bar, and start exploring! Whether youre using a sample texture or needing something from your London Office, the Browser can help you interactively manage and apply elements directly from within the plasma interface.
What is plasma?
Discreets new plasma™ software places professional, production-proven 3D tools into the hands of designers. plasma houses the most comprehensive web rendering and exporting tools available in any 3D software package. In particular, plasma offers impressive integration with design standards such as Macromedia® Flash and
Macromedia Director Shockwave® 3D. Built specifically to provide 3D tools for 2D artists, plasma makes the creation of 2D and 3D UI and web elements easier than ever before.
Who uses plasma?
plasma software is built for web designers who need to create compelling, advanced web UI or navigation elements.
What is so good about plasma software for web designers?
3D is more than just a design choice; it is now an integral part of the website experience. With advanced integration between plasma and Macromedias leading creation and authoring tools, Flash and Director, plasma facilitates far more sophisticated online design.
What are the system requirements for plasma?
Minimum System Requirements include:
Microsoft® Windows® 2000 (recommended) or Windows 98
Intel® or AMD®-compatible processor at 300 MHz minimum (dual Pentium® 4 or AMD Althon® system recommended) 128MB RAM and 300MB swap space minimum
(256MB RAM and 1GB swap space recommended)
Graphics card supporting 1024 x 768 x 16-bit color (OpenGL and Direct3D hardware acceleration supported; 24-bit color, 3D graphics accelerator preferred)
Windows®-compliant pointing device (optimized for Microsoft Intellimouse™)
CD-ROM drive
Optional: sound card and speakers, cabling for TCP/IP-compliant network, video I/O devices, joystick, midi-instruments.
Network rendering not supported under Windows 98
Is plasma just 3ds max™ lite?
Although plasma leverages Discreets core 3D technology, plasma is not a "lite" version of 3ds max
. Its feature set is designed to address the specific needs of the web 3D market, with specific optimizations to output 3D content for online use. 3ds max will remain focused on 3D content creation for the Film, Broadcast, Games, and Visualization markets.
Whats in plasma?
plasma is created specifically with web-related output in mind – this list outlines those
features available in plasma which do not exist in 3ds max.
Macromedia® Flash® Integration and Rendering: Simply the best Flash renderer on the market, plasmas Flash Renderer includes unparalleled connectivity with Macromedias Flash authoring environment – Intersecting Shadows, Cartoon Shading, Banding Control, Linear and Radial Fill Animation, Flash MX library support and superior flash output compression.
Macromedia® Director® Shockwave 3D:plasma also houses industry-leading connectivity with Shockwave 3D and Macromedia Director. plasmas Shockwave 3D support also includes 3ds max native Skin and Bones for character animation and deformation, and Havoks Dynamics as supported by Shockwave
Streamlined User Interface:plasmas interface is built with the web designer in mind –
with an interface more akin to other (non-3D) standard Web Design tools, plasma has a shorter learning curve than traditional 3D software, with the tools you need the most available right at your fingers in an easy to navigate environment.
Would 3ds max users doing Web Production need plasma?
Yes. Because plasma houses the greatest web-centric toolset currently available, 3ds max
users who build the most compelling web designs and content can bring plasma softwares Flash and Shockwave 3D rendering functionality into 3ds max software and render their 3ds max scenes for the web. 3ds max users can now take any 3D content and re-purpose it for the web with more control over the final Flash or Shockwave 3D output.
What are the advantages of plasma over Mayas RTK?
You do not need to use another Discreet software product to utilize plasma, whereas Mayas RTK requires a copy of Maya to operate it. In addition, plasma is priced affordably for a web-design tool while the Maya software and RTK cost well over US$3,000. Furthermore, plasma is not attempting to enter the authoring space – it instead works with industry-standard authoring environments such as Macromedias
Flash and Director.
What are the advantages of plasma over similarly priced competitive 3D packages such as Cinema 4d or Caligari Truespace?
plasma comes complete with production-proven 3D power. Built upon the same modeling, animation, texturing and lighting technology that has worked in countless films, commercials, games, industrial & mechanical design, and web projects, plasma is
virtually the first mature toolset to appear at this price-point. In fact, plasma maintains levels of quality and operability associated with tools traditionally sold at a much higher price. plasma is also built specifically as a web production tool, whereas various traditional prosumer tools are created as generic 3D packages with web functionality.
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s there a plan to release plasma for Mac® OS X or Linux?
At this time, no official announcements have been made with respect to releasing plasma on Mac OS X or Linux.
What is Discreets relationship with Macromedia with respect to plasma?
Discreet and Macromedia work together to deliver a dependable bridge between
Macromedias authoring and playback solutions and Discreets leading 3D content creation tools – so developers and artists can in turn deliver the highest quality output. plasma softwares integration, file sharing, and product cross-compatibilities expand opportunities to fully implement 3D on the web, in a scaleable format and at minimum bandwidth to the ubiquitous players: Shockwave 3D and Flash.
Isnt 3ds max software a web-focused tool?
3ds max is still considered a leader in the web production world, based on its extensive advanced feature set, and certainly remains a major player in that space. However, plasma is a much more accessible solution, meeting the expectations of traditional web designers
Discreet is a division of Autodesk, Inc. Discreet, 3ds max, and plasma are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc./Autodesk Canada Inc., in the U.S.A. and/or other countries. Havok is a trademark of Telekinesys Research Limited or its affiliates in the United States and/or in other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. ©Copyright 2002 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.
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