Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

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different views, all at once or one at a time. If
you want to you can run more than one
main window to give you a number of differeht
views of your scene. To save space, your
toolbox icons are actually pop-up menus
which save further space by doubling up
their functions. This is also a time-saving
feature and one that comes in very handy.
Pop
The - way it works is that if you select one of
up these pop-up options it works using the
defaults set into the program, but if you are
holding down the shift key or using the right
mouse button to pop up the menu, releasing
the mouse button over a pop-up menu item
will open a dialogue window to let you alter
the settings the item will use. For instance, if
you choose the cube item from the 'Create
primitive' pop-up menu, CinematID will
chuck out a cube 200mm across by default
However, if you hold down the shift key
while selecting the cube, you will be presented
with a numeric requester in which to put
the dimensions of your object.
The same principle applies to menu items
as well as the pop-ups, although you are
obviously restricted to using the shift key to
get to the settings requesters as you are
already using the right mouse button to
open the menus in the first place. However,
what is odd is the fact that with all this space
saving, CinemailD still offers you both a disc
primitive and a cylinder object, even though
you could always just extrude the disc.
The same applies for the cube and rectangle
items and it does seem odd that you can
only enter one dimension for a cube (side
length). Okay, so a cube is supposed to have
equal length sides all round, but it would be
more ergonomic to allow the user to enter
all the dimensions of the cube to create
boxes of differing sizes more quickly than
having to scale the cube in different directions
to create the same effect
This is the main problem with Cinema4D
and it also plagues Imagine (to a greater
extent I would say). The way the interface
worts isn't as fluid as it could be, forcing the
user to use an awkward combination of the
mouse and keyboard to achieve what she
nt-eds to. Working with a mouse is great if
"Welcome to the
wonderful world of
Cinema4D - a low-cost
competitor to the likes
of Imagine, Real3D and
LightWave"
0 Since Light wa ve doe sn't come with a
bloke, it's just the ta ble a nd 'tool
you are just starting out with a package -
some people rely solely on their mouse
skills, never touching a keyboard shortcut -
but most people want their work to progress
as speedily as possible, so therefore want to
be able to circumvent the sometimes
lengthy process of moving the mouse to and
Ito to go from the object to the toolbar and
back to the object and so on. Cinema4D has
a number of shortcuts, especially for the
menu items, but needs a method by which
you can select the move, scale and rotate
OFX DEPARTMENT
Just like Imagine, OnemailD can add effects to an actor in its
animation timeline window. This window is very reminiscent
of Imagine's Stage editor but unlike Imagine, its use doesn't
preclude you from doing anything else, Along with the usual
and pretty pedestrian explode effect there are more impressive
ones such as the pulse effect where you can alter the
shape of a range of objects according to a mathematical
formula, such as a sine wave
Objects pulsed in this fashion react in different ways
according to whether you have chosen to include sub-objects
in the wave or not and some pretty interesting results con
develop, especially since you can define a pulse for not only
the size of the object but also its position and direction.
Just like almost every other 3D package I have worked
with, Cinerna4D allows you to morph one object into another,
but again, just like every other 3D package I have used, you
have to make sure that both objects have exactly the same
number of points and edges.
Cinema4D also has two other effects that I have never
seen in a low-end package anywhere, and they ore Vibration
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AMIGA COMPUTING
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1 ROPS DEPT.
Cinema4D has so many ancillary features
that it becomes hard to find the
space to mention them all, but ones to
be noted include the separate ray tracer
which can be run on its own, taking
advantage of all available memory (the
other advantage is that versions of the
ray tracer could be written to take
advantage of a co-processor board like
MacroSystem's DEC Alpha board or
Phase5's Powertip without the need to
convert the entire package). Cinema4D
also has an object converter that will
read a wide variety of objects and convert
for use in Cinema411
functions more easily than by using the
mouse.
But I don't want to give you the idea that
Cinema4D isn't any good. It has some
absolutely superb methods of working
including an object hierarchy similar to that
used by Real3D. In fact, if you have used
)1
,
and Melt. Melt does exactly what you might think and is
actually a bit limited in its uses. You can almost do exactly
what Melt does by stretching your object vertically down to
nothing over the course of your animation, while stretching
it out horizontally to make it look like o puddle is being
created.
Having said that it is nice that CinemailD provides an
option to do this automatically, saving you the trouble. Of
course, it doesn't do any of the funky things that Dynamation
can do like melting your object so that it pours down a tunnel
or splits in two when melted over a knife, but then the only
machines you can perform these feats on is on SO, and if
you've got the money to buy one of those, and Dynamation,
then you won't be interested in Cinema4D anyway.
The lost effect and one I can think of plenty of uses for, is
called Vibrate. This randomly jitters the selected object in
terms of its size, position or rotation over a length of time. The
effect is completely random and the only parameters you
have to enter are for maximum extents of the jitter in either
direction.
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