Clearly, we were in the presence of Greatness. A copy of the much worshipped and more coveted 3ds max 8 – one of, if not the greatest legends of 3D software-was amongst us, and I was the Chosen One. In the tradition that all us Ones must follow, I have chronicled my adventures here.
Day 1: Features Galore
It’s finally here! I’m gushing with an enthusiasm that Nature only bestows upon five-year-olds. Installing 3dsmax 8 from the DVD is extremely simple. And in no time, I find myself staring at the new version in joy and wonderment. As I survey the user interface, it reaffirms one of the things I have admired in Discreet/Autodesk all these years-no matter which version of 3ds max you’ve worked on before, migrating to the latest version is no more difficult than installing it; it looks the same! No bothering with new buttons cropping up unexpectedly-just start and begin creating. Ingenious.
Day 7
I approach the new ‘Hair and Fur’ plugin with considerable apprehension. Working with hair has always been a recurring nightmare for me; how do I know that this isn’t going to be another?
I was wrong, diary. This is the easiest it’s ever been to create hair in 3ds max; I can comb it, cut it, clump it, grow it… and apparently crash it, too. Let me try that again. Ah, it didn’t crash this time. A moody plugin, I guess.
Day 13
Today, I shall finally be able to properly texture my 3D teddy bear. Instead of spending long, tedious hours with the UVW mapper ensuring that everything is just so, I can now use the new Pelt mapping feature. It’s like I ripped my teddy apart, painted on its skin as if it were a flat piece of paper, and then put it back together again. Fantastic! It’ll be on to bigger, better animals for me now.
Day 22
Virtual characters look silly without their clothes, and I must brace myself for the daunting task of modelling the said clothing. But wait, what’s this? It appears I can draw pieces of clothing and ‘sew’ them together! Now that can’t be accurate… why, it is!! All I have to do is draw the pieces of cloth and use the Garment Maker to decide how to sew them up. Turn to the new Cloth modifier, and voila! A brand new pair of underg… err… trousers for my character. I can now get this cloth to behave as if it were silk or even starched cotton!
Day 26
Ah, the varicolured Character Studio biped… a fun little guy to start building a human model with, but the poor chap couldn’t turn a doorknob until now. I helped him along his way by adding a new Twist link to his elbow and now he can rotate his wrist without moving his elbow-much more like us, in the real world.
Day 28
I was shocked to learn today that the Mental Ray renderer, which now comes bundled with 3ds max, used to cost more than 3ds max itself at one time! And no wonder, too. I used it to render a scene and it simulated real-life lighting right down to the red glow that my big red beach ball cast on the white floor.
Day 30
My demo expires today; the good times are over. In a few hours, I shall be greeted with a dreaded “Your trial period is over. You must purchase this software to continue.” To paraphrase a favourite character, all I can say is, “they has taken it from us, Preciousss; and we wants it back!”
Day 1: Features Galore
It’s finally here! I’m gushing with an enthusiasm that Nature only bestows upon five-year-olds. Installing 3dsmax 8 from the DVD is extremely simple. And in no time, I find myself staring at the new version in joy and wonderment. As I survey the user interface, it reaffirms one of the things I have admired in Discreet/Autodesk all these years-no matter which version of 3ds max you’ve worked on before, migrating to the latest version is no more difficult than installing it; it looks the same! No bothering with new buttons cropping up unexpectedly-just start and begin creating. Ingenious.
Day 7
I approach the new ‘Hair and Fur’ plugin with considerable apprehension. Working with hair has always been a recurring nightmare for me; how do I know that this isn’t going to be another?
I was wrong, diary. This is the easiest it’s ever been to create hair in 3ds max; I can comb it, cut it, clump it, grow it… and apparently crash it, too. Let me try that again. Ah, it didn’t crash this time. A moody plugin, I guess.
Day 13
Today, I shall finally be able to properly texture my 3D teddy bear. Instead of spending long, tedious hours with the UVW mapper ensuring that everything is just so, I can now use the new Pelt mapping feature. It’s like I ripped my teddy apart, painted on its skin as if it were a flat piece of paper, and then put it back together again. Fantastic! It’ll be on to bigger, better animals for me now.
Day 22
Virtual characters look silly without their clothes, and I must brace myself for the daunting task of modelling the said clothing. But wait, what’s this? It appears I can draw pieces of clothing and ‘sew’ them together! Now that can’t be accurate… why, it is!! All I have to do is draw the pieces of cloth and use the Garment Maker to decide how to sew them up. Turn to the new Cloth modifier, and voila! A brand new pair of underg… err… trousers for my character. I can now get this cloth to behave as if it were silk or even starched cotton!
Day 26
Ah, the varicolured Character Studio biped… a fun little guy to start building a human model with, but the poor chap couldn’t turn a doorknob until now. I helped him along his way by adding a new Twist link to his elbow and now he can rotate his wrist without moving his elbow-much more like us, in the real world.
Day 28
I was shocked to learn today that the Mental Ray renderer, which now comes bundled with 3ds max, used to cost more than 3ds max itself at one time! And no wonder, too. I used it to render a scene and it simulated real-life lighting right down to the red glow that my big red beach ball cast on the white floor.
Day 30
My demo expires today; the good times are over. In a few hours, I shall be greeted with a dreaded “Your trial period is over. You must purchase this software to continue.” To paraphrase a favourite character, all I can say is, “they has taken it from us, Preciousss; and we wants it back!”