Description
The ultimate 3D software was created for graphic and rich media designers using Adobe Flash and Microsoft Expression Blend. Swift 3D is the only 3D software which allows you to integrate directly with Flash through the Swift 3D File Importer and SmartLayer Technology and export to Microsoft XAML. Swift 3D's toolset and interface are the best solution to anyone who wants to create 3D content effortless and quickly, while providing a full set of advanced tools to grow into. Swift 3D is powerful, easy-to-use 3D software which gives high-quality results for an unbeatable price.
With its massive browser penetration and excellent handling of vectors, bitmaps, audio and video, Flash is the designers choice for maximum-impact web publishing.
The secret of the programs success has always been its ability to take 3D objects and animations and to output them out as high quality Flash movies (Illustrator AI/EPS and SVG formats are also supported). The key to this is the programs RAViX III rendering engine (unchanged in this release) which takes both the scenes geometry and lighting into account as it recreates the scene as vector-based frames. Its a delicate balancing act between output quality and file size but, with fill options varying from a single averaged colour per object through to linear gradients for every polygon, all bases are covered. And with advanced features, such as support for shadows, reflections, transparency and highlights, and the ability to export these as separate layers for import into Macromedia Flash, Swift 3Ds results and workflow integration are excellent.
* High quality vector rendering remains central.
Swift 3Ds output capabilities arent in doubt, but first you need a 3D model or animation to output. Originally the programs aspirations here were basic providing everything you needed to create a spinning logo for example, but little more. Over time though, Electric Rain has gradually enhanced Swift 3Ds capabilities with features such as extrusion and lathe-based modeling, support for advanced materials, camera-based animation and bitmap-based rendering. With version 4, Electric Rain is looking to turn Swift 3D into a full-fledged 3D modeling application.
Building blocks like these can be useful, but they are no replacement for direct hands-on modeling power and this is the area where Swift 3D 4 has seen most improvement. The existing Extrusion Editor and Lathe Editor have both been given minor tweaks but the biggest change is the addition of an entirely new editing tool: the Advanced Modeler. This presents an existing object, or a primitive that you add from scratch such as a sphere or plane, as an editable polygonal mesh. You then select the vertices, edges or faces that you want to work with and transform them using a combination of the interactive Move, Scale, Rotate and Extrude tools along with a range of commands for aligning, mirroring, flattening, welding, subdividing and so on. Particularly powerful are the soft selection capability and the ability to smooth and round surfaces both of which are important for creating more organic and natural shapes.
* The focus in version 4 is on advanced modeling.
As well as controlling the form of your objects, the Advanced Modeler has another important role to play when it comes to controlling their formatting. By defining a surface group, you can then set whether lines should be rendered in that area or not. You can also apply separate materials and bitmaps to this surface groups; say to produce a cube with different colored faces. And when applying bitmaps you can use the Move, Scale and Rotate tools to precisely control your texture mapping. In fact Swift 3D 4s bitmap handling is generally better all round and now includes support for importing textured 3DS files as well as textured display in the viewports. Its important to remember though that for most Flash output youll end up converting these bitmap textures to vectors so the final appearance will only be a very crude approximation.
With modeling and formatting taken care of, its time to bring your scene to life. Again Electric Rain has enhanced the presets available in Swift 3D 4s Gallery providing a range of professionally-designed lighting schemes and new fly-by, deformation and path-based animations to drop onto your model. For more animation control you can also now animate objects along a custom Bezier path and easily set a camera to follow the object.
Of course all new power is welcome and Swift 3D 4 is a stronger program than version 3, but Im not convinced that the average user will actually take advantage of such advanced functionality. In fact I cant help feeling that many will actually end up making more regular use of the currently bundled version of Swift 3D Xpress. This offers all the rendering power of the RAViX III engine along with basic extrusion and drag-and-drop based bevels, materials, lighting and even animations and it does so directly from the Macromedia Flash MX/2004s stage returning the results as an embedded movie clip.
More to the point, those users that do invest their time and effort in trying to get to grips with Swift 3Ds more advanced functionality will still keep hitting basic limitations, such as the difficulty of trying to arrange a scene involving more than a couple of objects. Ultimately Swift 3D 4 demonstrates that trying to graft an advanced 3D modeling application onto a dedicated vector renderer is a much harder task than starting off with a dedicated modeler and grafting on vector rendering. In fact Electric Rain recognizes as much by producing its own RAViX-based rendering plug-ins for 3ds max and Lightwave and licensing the technology to other 3D developers such as Eovia.
With its massive browser penetration and excellent handling of vectors, bitmaps, audio and video, Flash is the designers choice for maximum-impact web publishing.
The secret of the programs success has always been its ability to take 3D objects and animations and to output them out as high quality Flash movies (Illustrator AI/EPS and SVG formats are also supported). The key to this is the programs RAViX III rendering engine (unchanged in this release) which takes both the scenes geometry and lighting into account as it recreates the scene as vector-based frames. Its a delicate balancing act between output quality and file size but, with fill options varying from a single averaged colour per object through to linear gradients for every polygon, all bases are covered. And with advanced features, such as support for shadows, reflections, transparency and highlights, and the ability to export these as separate layers for import into Macromedia Flash, Swift 3Ds results and workflow integration are excellent.
* High quality vector rendering remains central.
Swift 3Ds output capabilities arent in doubt, but first you need a 3D model or animation to output. Originally the programs aspirations here were basic providing everything you needed to create a spinning logo for example, but little more. Over time though, Electric Rain has gradually enhanced Swift 3Ds capabilities with features such as extrusion and lathe-based modeling, support for advanced materials, camera-based animation and bitmap-based rendering. With version 4, Electric Rain is looking to turn Swift 3D into a full-fledged 3D modeling application.
Building blocks like these can be useful, but they are no replacement for direct hands-on modeling power and this is the area where Swift 3D 4 has seen most improvement. The existing Extrusion Editor and Lathe Editor have both been given minor tweaks but the biggest change is the addition of an entirely new editing tool: the Advanced Modeler. This presents an existing object, or a primitive that you add from scratch such as a sphere or plane, as an editable polygonal mesh. You then select the vertices, edges or faces that you want to work with and transform them using a combination of the interactive Move, Scale, Rotate and Extrude tools along with a range of commands for aligning, mirroring, flattening, welding, subdividing and so on. Particularly powerful are the soft selection capability and the ability to smooth and round surfaces both of which are important for creating more organic and natural shapes.
* The focus in version 4 is on advanced modeling.
As well as controlling the form of your objects, the Advanced Modeler has another important role to play when it comes to controlling their formatting. By defining a surface group, you can then set whether lines should be rendered in that area or not. You can also apply separate materials and bitmaps to this surface groups; say to produce a cube with different colored faces. And when applying bitmaps you can use the Move, Scale and Rotate tools to precisely control your texture mapping. In fact Swift 3D 4s bitmap handling is generally better all round and now includes support for importing textured 3DS files as well as textured display in the viewports. Its important to remember though that for most Flash output youll end up converting these bitmap textures to vectors so the final appearance will only be a very crude approximation.
With modeling and formatting taken care of, its time to bring your scene to life. Again Electric Rain has enhanced the presets available in Swift 3D 4s Gallery providing a range of professionally-designed lighting schemes and new fly-by, deformation and path-based animations to drop onto your model. For more animation control you can also now animate objects along a custom Bezier path and easily set a camera to follow the object.
Of course all new power is welcome and Swift 3D 4 is a stronger program than version 3, but Im not convinced that the average user will actually take advantage of such advanced functionality. In fact I cant help feeling that many will actually end up making more regular use of the currently bundled version of Swift 3D Xpress. This offers all the rendering power of the RAViX III engine along with basic extrusion and drag-and-drop based bevels, materials, lighting and even animations and it does so directly from the Macromedia Flash MX/2004s stage returning the results as an embedded movie clip.
More to the point, those users that do invest their time and effort in trying to get to grips with Swift 3Ds more advanced functionality will still keep hitting basic limitations, such as the difficulty of trying to arrange a scene involving more than a couple of objects. Ultimately Swift 3D 4 demonstrates that trying to graft an advanced 3D modeling application onto a dedicated vector renderer is a much harder task than starting off with a dedicated modeler and grafting on vector rendering. In fact Electric Rain recognizes as much by producing its own RAViX-based rendering plug-ins for 3ds max and Lightwave and licensing the technology to other 3D developers such as Eovia.