3DStudio release 3.0
--------------------

New features
------------

=============================================================================

This information was released Tuesday, August 3, 1993 at 12:01 pm PDT.

3D Studio(R) Release 3 Touts Workstation-Quality Rendering and Speed

Major Upgrade Offers Network Rendering Function With Distributed Processing
Capabilities

ANAHEIM, Calif., August 3, 1993 -- The Multimedia Division of Autodesk, Inc.
today announced Autodesk 3D Studio(R) Release 3, a major upgrade of its award-
winning 3D modeling, rendering and animation software for 386/486-based PCs.
Targeting professionals in all segments of the videography market, as well as
CAD professionals, 3D Studio Release 3 software boasts significant improvements
to rendering quality and speed among its 200 new features.  In addition, a
network rendering capability now enables Release 3 customers to achieve
rendering speeds previously attainable only through expensive workstation-based
solutions.

"In less than three years, 3D Studio has captured more than two thirds of the
market for photorealistic visualization and professional animation on the PC.
With Release 3, we further address the two key areas where PC-based solutions
have traditionally fallen short of workstations -- rendering speed and image
quality," said Jack Strange, director of marketing for Autodesk's Multimedia
Division.  "Specifically, the new network rendering support will enable us to
capitalize on the 90 million Intel-based systems out there, half of which are on
networks, and leverage 3D Studio into the uppermost echelons of video
production."

According to Robi Roncarelli, author of the Roncarelli Report on Computer
Animation, 3D Studio has captured the lion's share of the 3D animation market on
the PC.  "In addition to growing its dominant portion of the PC-based market to
56.5 percent in 1992, 3D Studio also vaulted into the top market share position
across all professional platforms: PC, Macintosh and workstations inclusive,"
said Roncarelli.

New Release 3 Features

Network Rendering

The new network rendering function is Netbios-independent, meaning it will run
on any PC-based local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN), including
the new Windows NT(R) from Microsoft.  As many as 9,999 nodes can be accessed
simultaneously, to render any number of images.  Node assign?ment can be
automatic (to any available machine), or specific machines can be assigned to
particular rendering tasks.  Increasing or decreasing the number of machines
during the rendering process is also automated.

"Rendering speed can never be 'fast enough' for videography and CAD
professionals," said Bob Bennett, senior product manager for 3D Studio.  "In
Release 3, we've increased overall rendering speed by as much as 40 percent on a
single PC.  More importantly, the rendering performance of 3D Studio Release 3
on a network is virtually unlimited; users can harness the power of every
machine on a LAN or WAN, and there is no additional per-node cost," said
Bennett.

Workstation-Quality Rendering

3D Studio Release 3 also includes rendering capabilities commonly associated
with workstation-based solutions.  New rendering features include:

- All renderings are computed in a 64-bit super Truecolor dis?play space,
resulting in a more subtle defini?tion of colors and shades

- Anti-aliasing capabilities in 3D Studio Release 3 are greatly improved, with
the introduction of a new analytical image data processor, a sophisticated
capability not found in any other PC-based software

- A new display and rendering gamma correction ensures that all colors in
Release 3 appear as intended, on any display device

Productivity Enhancements

"As with the previous release of 3D Studio, Release 3 is a direct response to
the requests of our customers," said Bennett.  "The many productivity
enhancements in Release 3 further cement 3D Studio as the preferred animation
tool for professionals whose time is money."  Many of the existing functions in
3D Studio have been redesigned and/or expanded in Release 3, resulting in
greater useability.  Improvements include:

- An expanded Materials Editor that enables new techniques for combining and
layering bitmaps

- Adjustable "video-safe" frame control

- "Render Region" allows rendering of a selectable portion of the screen, in any
viewport

- DPMI-compliant, 3D Studio Release 3 can be run under Windows(TM) as an MS-
DOS(R) application

- Automatic checking and color correction for "legal" NTSC and PAL colors

Beta Site Reaction

Beta sites for 3D Studio Release 3 have expressed considerable satisfaction with
the latest generation of the product.  Among those to comment on their initial
experiences with Release 3:

Trilobyte, Inc.  Robert Stein III, lead staff artist on Trilobyte's "7th Guest"
CD-ROM title and the upcoming sequel "The 11th Hour," is very pleased with the
new lighting effects in Release 3, particularly the ability of spotlights to
project still or animated color bitmaps.  "In 'The 11th Hour,' the setting is a
dark mansion where the only real light source will be a flashlight beam
controlled by the player; I'm using a black and white texture map in a projected
spotlight to simulate the radial design of a real flashlight," said Stein.  "By
placing the texture map inside the projected spotlight instead of overlaying it
in the video post portion of the program as I would have previously, I can make
the shadow-rings of the flashlight bend around walls, furniture and other
objects, just like a real flashlight beam.  The effect is extremely convincing."

"I'm very excited by the prospect of so many new features, a lot of which are
not available in other packages.  Almost daily I find myself creating an effect
that only 3D Studio Release 3 can produce; it's a tremendous improvement to an
already excellent product," Stein stated.

Tim Forcade, Forcade & Associates Tim Forcade is a leading computer graphics
industry consultant, as well as president of design firm Forcade & Associates.
"3D Studio's Release 3 beta demonstrates this product's commitment to providing
frequent and outstanding major upgrades," said Forcade.  "New features such as
its redesigned Materials Editor, improved render quality, enhanced lighting
control and Network Rendering add sophistication and flexibility while refining
the process of producing professional quality 3D images and animations on a PC."

System Requirements

Autodesk 3D Studio Release 3 software runs on IBM(R) or Compaq(R) 386/486-based
computers or 100-percent compatibles equipped with MS-DOS 3.3 or later, 8
megabytes of RAM, a hard disk, a Super VGA device, a math co-processor and a
Microsoft(R) or SummaSketch(R)-compatible pointing device.

Pricing and Availability

Autodesk 3D Studio Release 3 software will begin shipping in the third quarter
of 1993, at a suggested list price of US$2,995 (US domestic only) through
Authorized Autodesk Multimedia Dealers.  Customers who purchase Release 2 of 3D
Studio between now and the ship date of Release 3 will receive a free upgrade to
Release 3 upon its availability.  Certain restrictions may apply.  Current
owners of Autodesk 3D Studio (Release 1 or 2) will be able to upgrade to Release
3 for US$497.  For more information, please call Autodesk toll free at (800)
879-4233 or enter GO ASOFT on CompuServe(R).

Autodesk Inc. develops, markets and supports a family of design automation
software products, as well as professional scientific and multimedia software
for personal computers and workstations.  Headquartered in Sausalito,
California, Autodesk is the world's leading supplier of desktop CAD software.
Autodesk shares are traded on NASDAQ under the symbol ACAD.

=============================================================================
New features in Autodesk 3D Studio Release 3
8/1/93
(preliminary)

Note: We've distilled the new features down for this list without describing
each individual new button and command. There are between 200-210 features on
this list, but if we were to count each little enhancement separately, there
would be well over 270 new features. A more extensive features list is included
in the 3DSr3 reference manual.

Global

* The default resolution of the main user interface is now 800x600, and the
default Materials Editor resolution is 640x480.

* For operation on 640x480 devices (such as laptop computers), the user
interface can run in a special "small-font" mode.

* Built-in display drivers for all popular video cards (based on Vibrant
Graphics driver technology) are available for all program modules, eliminating
the need for ADI drivers in most cases.

* Flic drivers are loadable, instead of being limited to VESA playback only.

* Settable defaults for Tension, Continuity, Bias controls in the Keyframer.

* User-assignable function keys.

* Object selectors and merge dialogs now include "pattern matching" controls for
wildcard selection.

* On-line, context-sensitive help system.

* Runs in a DOS box under Microsoft Windows (includes Windows desktop icon).

* Multitasking renderer when run under OS/2.

* Notes can be appended to Targa files for reference.

* File Information command shows bitmap size, date of creation, gamma, color
depth, aspect ratio, compression status, custom notes, etc. If the file's not a
bitmap, it shows, size, time, and date.

* Scene Information dialog shows complete information about every aspect of the
scene.

* IPAS PXP loader for loading an infinite number of PXPs in one session.

* File Rename function for renaming DOS files from within 3DS.

* Configuration dialogs are accessible directly from rendering dialog now.

* Rendering-in-progress dialogs have been redesigned to make it easier to see
rendering status.

* Built-in display device support for all popular display cards.

* More data is included on the CD-ROM World-Building Toolkit.

* Mouse buttons can be reversed for left-handed people.

* Automatic project archiving of geometry and texture maps using PKZIP.

* Project files can be merged into scenes as well as 3DS files.

* The elapsed time of the last rendered image is kept for reference in the
Current Status dialog.

* New VTR ADI drivers are included.

* All scrolling name dialogs have speed-keys that take you to the first letter
of that name.

* 3DS.SET configuration files can be loaded via the command line for different
configurations.

* 250 map-paths are now available, and there's an interactive map- path editor
for configuration.

* Map-paths can be created on-the-fly by automatically searching the geometry
subdirectory.


Networked Renderer


* Completely user-transparent networked renderer.

* Any machine on the network can be a workstation or a slave at any time, and
the network dynamically adapts to changes automatically.

* Network slaves can be powered up without hardware locks, with 9999 machines
per network.

* Each network machine has a unique name and ID, and generates a log file that
can be viewed from any other machine.

* Machines can be automatically excluded from network rendering processes.

* Network rendering can output to local or server drives.

* Automatic machine "life-sign" detection will reallocate a machine that has
gone to sleep.

* A visual, interactive Network Queue Manager is available for re- arranging
network process order, starting and stopping processes, viewing log files, etc.

* Network machine assignment can be automatic (to any available machine), or
specific machines can be assigned to particular processes.

* The Network Queue Manager can even be used on a one-machine system to
automatically manage lists of rendering projects.

* Log files can be saved as .DAT files for importing into spreadsheets for
generating billing information and network usage statistics.


General Renderer


* Motion blur with assignable shutter speed and blur amount.

* Workstation-quality 100% analytical antialiasing... 8x finer antialiasing
shading than R2, even on nearly-horizontal and nearly-vertical lines.

* Antialiasing is much simplified. Only ON and OFF modes now.

* Automatic checking and color correction for "legal" NTSC and PAL colors.

* 64-bit Super Truecolor color system incorporates display and rendering gamma
correction for accurate colors on any output device.

* Built-in VESA support for rendering.

* Coplanar faces are automatically detected and deleted to make CAD models
easier to deal with.

* New controls for aspect ratio preservation of background files.

* Render Region allows rendering of a selectable quadrilateral region in any
viewport.

* Render Object allows rendering of a selected object in any viewport.

* A new transparency method simulates colored filters in a physically-correct
way.

* Multiple cameras can each have their own atmosphere ranges independently.

* Render Blowup allows an architects variable perspective camera to be
simulated.

* Render Last automatically renders the last-selected scene with one button.

* "Ground-hugging" layered fog is available for moody atmospheric effects.

* Opacity maps and transparency control ray-traced shadow density accurately,
providing transparent shadows.

* JPEG files are supported with variable compression.

* BMP files are supported (b/w, 16 color/grey, 256 color/grey, truecolor).

* The Disk-to-VTR function has been enhanced with centering & resizing controls.

* The 8-bit color fitting algorithm has been improved for VGA images and flics.

* There are new command line rendering options (although command line rendering
has basically been made obsolete by the networked renderer).

* Custom palettes can be automatically derived from .fli/.flc, .gif, and .cel
files.

* "Super Black" control allows luminance keying of video for postproduction
applications.


Lighting


* New ray-traced light source perfectly (and efficiently) simulates a
shadow-casting sun in any size scene.

* Ambient light is now keyframable.

* Omni and spotlights have controllable falloff over distance.

* Individual objects can be "excluded" from the effect of any omni or spotlight
for precise control.

* Spotlights can project still or animated colored bitmaps to simulate slide or
film projectors.

* Spotlights can be circular or rectangular.

* Omni and spotlight strength can be positively multiplied into super-hot lights
or negatively multipled into negative lights that subtract light from an area.

* Rectangular spotlights can be automatically fit to the aspect ratio of a
bitmap.

* Rectangular spotlights have "barn doors" for adjusting their aspect ratio and
creating slit light effects.

* Spotlights can be "rolled" for animated rotating light effects.

* Spotlight's hotspot/falloff automatically adjust together now when you bump
one into the other.

* New hybrid spotlight/omnilight that provides omnidirection illumination but
with local shadows.

* Default lighting values (for ambient, omni and spot) are user- definable.

* Spotlights can be dollyed like cameras.

* Lights can be automatically repositioned to make a highlight from the current
view.

* New viewport type shows the view from the spotlight for visual light placement
control.

* Objects shadow-casting attributes can be set so that objects can selectively
cast shadows or receive shadows (have shadows cast on themselves).


Modeling tools


* 2D Boolean operations for union, intersection, subtraction of bezier shapes in
the Shaper.

* .AI files can be saved from the shaper and loaded into other drawing packages.

* Splines in the shaper can be "frozen now for tracing and reference.

* Selection sets in the shaper can be inverted.

* "Fence" selection tool has been added to the Shaper and Editor for
polygon-based selection sets.

* Circle selection tool has been added to the Shaper and Editor.

* Automatic polygon connection tool in the Shaper turns two polygons into one.

* Ability to "break" spline segments in the Shaper.

* Refinement control to non-destructively add spline points to bezier shapes in
the Shaper and Lofter.

* New Path adjustment commands (scale, skew, mirror) in the Lofter.

* Automatic vertex welding in the Lofter for eliminating "core" verticies.

* Display/Freeze is sensitive to selection sets.

* Objects can be precisely arrayed in linear and radial patterns.

* The "cone" primitive has new parameters.

* Selection tools can be used in the Camera view.

* Selections are dramatically sped up.

* Smoothing group(s) can be acquired from a specific face for easy smoothing
diagnostics.

* The Mapping branch has been rearranged for convenience.

* Mapping icons can be automatically snapped to the center of objects.

* Planar mapping icons can acquire the precise aspect ratio of a bitmap.


* Any mapping icon can be snapped to the exact extent of an object.

* Transformation matrix reset control to automatically rebuild default object
states.

* Materials can be renamed from within the Editor.

* 64 object colors are used in the Editor for modeling clarification and object
manipulation.

* Object color palettes can be user-defined.

* Object colors can be used as selection sets, so there are now 64 selection
sets.

* Visible edges can be defined automatically based on edge angle thresholds.

* Local axis alignment function has been expanded.

* Angle snap is implement for the user view rotation control.

* Background images are allowed in any viewport now (not just the camera's).

* Video Safe frames are allowed in any viewport now (not just the camera's).

* 3D Booleans are greatly optimized, so models complexity is greatly reduced.

* DXF export had been expanded to optionally save material colors as AutoCAD
layers.


Keyframer


* "Clip animation" macros can be applied from object hierarchies to completely
different object hierarchies, without regard to object name or structure.

* There is now a "delete range of keys" command within the Track Info dialog.

* Object motion blur for eliminating temporal aliasing is extremely fast, and
available on an object-by-object basis for flexibility.

* Camera "Perspective" command dynamically changes perspective while maintaining
the scene framing by shifting the FOV and dollying the camera simultaneously.
Can be used for stills or animation.

* Full-scene motion blur for "blurry" special effects is also available.

* Previews can be done in Box mode for extremely fast speed.

* Previews can be made in any resolution supported by your graphics device.

* "Hide keys" are now available to control invisibility for objects on a
keyframe basis.

* Pivot points can be automatically snapped to the center of objects.

* The "Replace Mesh" command allows individual objects within a scene to be
replaced.

* Fields can now be interpolated for every frame or every nth frame.

* Surface materials can be morphed (ie, transparent plastic morphs to solid
metal).

* IPAS attributes for particle systems can be assigned within the Keyframer.

* Master objects can be deleted from within the Keyframer.

* Camera viewport clipping has been optimized.

* Spotlight "roll" function can be animated.

* Ambient light is keyframable.

* Dummy objects can now be renamed.

* New "Object Snapshot" command takes a model in any state in the Keyframer and
puts a copy of it in the editor. Allows morphing to be used as a modeling tool,
and allows effects such as hierarchy animation simulation.

* Next and previous keyframes can be automatically accessed with single
keystrokes.

* Enhanced Disk-to-VTR functionality for output flic files quickly.

* Video Post keying color and pseudo-alpha color are both user definable.

* Sub-screen-sized bitmaps can now be brought into Video Post and positioned
anywhere on the screen without rescaling.

* Any bitmap can be rescaled to any size within Video Post.

* Bitmaps can be automatically aligned along nine axes within Video Post.

* Compositing of multiple bitmaps has been made 300% faster.

* More status information is available for transition lengths within Video Post.

* Alpha channels can be inverted within Video Post to make negative mattes for
each layer.

* Transitions can be inverted automatically.

* Each bitmap within Video Post can use a unique gamma value.


Materials Editor


* Materials Editor runs in 640x480 mode using built-in screen drivers.

* The Medit screen supports 15-bit, 16-bit, and 24-bit displays.

* The Current Material name is editable.

* The Medit current material can be made current in the Editor automatically.

* The space bar and Enter key force a render of the current material.

* Dropdown options have been moved to an on-screen panel for quick access.

* Antialiasing can be turned ON or OFF in Medit for double-speed sample
rendering time.

* A backlight can be turned on in Medit to show the effect of lighting glancing
angles.

* Render Last function in Medit lets you render the last Keyframer or Editor
scene from within Medit.

* Medit settings can be cleared with a button.

* Maps and settings can now be copied from one material to another.

* Ambient light settings in the materials editor are customizable.

* Auto-Put function automatically puts your current Medit material to your
scene.

* Wireframe mode is now a modifier for Flat, Gouraud, Phong, and Metal modes.
Allows texture-mapped wireframe materials, metallic wireframes, etc.

* Wireframe objects can now have wires in real "world unit" scale, meaning that
if you get closer to the wires, they get bigger, as if they were true geometry.

* Wireframe mode has adjustable wire thickness on a material-by- material basis.

* A metallic mode provides metallic properties based on true dialectric physical
attributes.

* The default material can be user-customized.

* Transparency Falloff and Reflection Blur controls have been moved onto the
main user interface.

* Phong shininess has been modified with many new features, including variable
highlight intensity and size sliders.

* Highlights graphs are drawn in a real-time display as highlight controls are
modified.

* NTSC/PAL video color checking is available in Medit for proofing legal colors.

* Self-illumination is now adjustable from 0-100%, instead of just being on or
off.

* Bitmap names can be dragged and dropped into View File and File Info buttons
for instant viewing or statistics about a file.

* The alpha channel of a bitmap can be test-viewed independantly of its RGB
channel.


Texture mapping


* New "Box Mapping" parameter allows automatic assignment of 6 different texture
maps to any object so that it can be completely texture mapped without having to
assign mapping coordinates.

* New "Face Mapping" control automatically fits bitmaps to each face of the
model without the need to assign mapping coordinates (ie, cube mapping,
icosohedron mapping, etc.). This can be used to create a
pseudo-hidden-line-removal mode.

* Multiple texture maps can be blended or layered (i.e., decals can be layered
on top of other textures).

* Specular mapping allows colors to be mapped to just the specular highlight.

* Shininess mapping allows mapping to control shininess/dullness at the
sub-material level.

* Self-illuminated mapping allows mapping to control the self- illuminated
quality of an object.

* Bump mapping quality has been improved dramatically.

* All mapping types can be composited together with masks for each mapping type.
The intensity values in the mask modify the mapping image.

* Individual maps and masks within materials can be either tiled, decaled, or
both.

* When decaled, the compositing matte can be derived from either the alpha
channel or a key color.

* Individual maps and masks within materials can be mirrored to create
automatically tiling versions.

* Individual maps and masks can be inverted into "negative" versions of
themselves.

* Individual maps and masks can be created from either the RGB or Alpha
component of a bitmap.

* Texture maps can be colorized by applying color gradients to their lumanence
channel.

* Texture maps can be RGB-tinted... allowing saturation reduction of maps (the
key to photorealistic materials) or easy psychedelic color effects.

* Each individual map and mask can have its own texture filtering amount.

* Summed-Area-Table texture filtering provides perfect photorealistic texture
effects (completely eliminating texture scintillation), in addition to the
original/default Pyramidal filtering type.

* Individual maps and masks within materials can have their own UV scaling,
offset, and rotation.

* Bitmap names can be copied to other mapping slots and the View Image button
via "drag-and-drop" control, and they can be copied to other materials also.

* Bitmap names can be dragged and dropped into an "Information Box" that shows
relevant specs about size, bit-depth, etc.

* Reflection maps now use an "adaptive blur" technique that conforms to surface
topology.

* Automatic reflection maps can be visualized in Medit via user- defined default
environments.

* Flat-mirror reflections are now optimized so that they only take up required
RAM for pixel coverage.

IPAS

* Loadable and Saveable IPAS parameter files so that settings from one object
can be used for another one.

* Expanded AXP interface allows objects to use other objects as input
parameters. This allows: flocking particles (particles that know about each
other), skeletal animation, collision detection, gravity, friction, free-form
deformations, constraints,etc.

* SXP's now support parametric solid texture antialiasing.

* SXP's can be automatically-scaled with the object's bounding box.

* SXP's can generate alpha channels procedurally, as well as RGB color.

* New IPAS type... BXP (Bitmap eXternal Processes). These are automatic file
filters that hook into 3D Studio's load/save/info routines for infinitely
extendable image file types (i.e. PhotoCD, PIC, IFF, PCX, etc.).

* New IPAS type... KXP (Keyframer eXternal Processes). These are processes which
create keyframer transformations and generate keyframes.

* KXP's can read and write all keyframe information, making it possible to
implement file filters to get motion control data into the system, and to bring
3DS data out of the system for external motion control devices.

* IXP's can now create and/or modify the alpha channel within Video Post.

* IPAS routines now have access to all of the 3D Studio drawing code, making it
possible to create very complex user interfaces inside of IPAS. For example,
paint programs, patch and nurbs modelers are all implentable as interactive IPAS
routines now.

* There is a text-editor built into the program that can be called from IPAS
routines, enabling motion scripting and other complex interactions with external
processes. The text-editor can also be used to edit 3DS.SET and .IFL files.

* New IPAS routines that ship with 3DSr3 include: TUBER.AXP (skeletal animation
for tubular objects), HAND.AXP (skeletal animation for cartoon hands), CCUBE.SXP
(color cube shader that automatically scales with the object), STUCCO.SXP (all-
purpose antialiased stucco, also useful for making paint blistering effects),
CHECKS.BXP (interactive 4-color checkerboard texture- map editor), etc.

<<END OF DOC>>