> Yep, it can. And lots more to go: there's a game engine which really > works AND a whole package with examples & a book (you have to buy THAT > from them but it's worth the price & the engine itself is FREE). Don't > know if Blender can replace RS anywhere soon (I doubt it, because they > rely on polygons and RS on mathematically defined primitives which is > far superior as a modeling toolset) but surely there's a lot of stuff in > Blender RS is still missing so you should consider it as a an ADDITION > to RS. > All the best for 2006 & happy rendering whatever tools you use .... > > from Wolfram
Hi Wolfram : Sorry to edit your post so much . Congrads though for seeing the pot- ential of the Free GPL directive and contributing to it . I have to agree with most of what you say above . I'm just getting to know Blender now and think it's a pretty cool partner app to be running alongside Realsoft , or Max or LW etc . However , the free Personal learning Edition of Maya might also be an app one might find worth check- ing out too . The fluid dynamics of Blender drew me , but I think Maya's stuff is far superior , from what little I've read . Anyway , the bottom line for me is the ability of RS to do so many , many amazing things that it's potential is never-ever going to be real- ised to anywhere nears it's full potential , simply because it's depth is so vast that only a small handful of people are able to grasp it . Put 10 guys in a room with RS and a short animation project and if you have some key guys in there you will accomplish incredible things . RS is awesome but I think it really needs the community to write some more elaborate , in depth articles and tutorials , much along the line of what is happening over in the Blender camp . (this is the part where I sound bitter) . It's great to be able to show the world what you can do with RS , big huge pat's on the back to you people ... but how about throwing the community a bone and telling us HOW you did it , exactly , in step-by-step form . Time and time again we see list geniuses shoot VSL code from the hip and say " it should work , but I don't have RS running in front of me right now " ???? Then wait till you do and then try it, then create the material , then share it (explain it would be nice too) . Zaug has just shared this very cool script with the list , and I know it must have taken him through a very steep learning curve that required a lot of his precious spare time . Fantastic ! Now , if we were to do it the Blender way , Zaug would then write a nice HTML tutorial explaining how he did it , and any other stuff he learned along the way . In fact , doing it the Blender way would probably see Zaug pioneer the 'Scripting' section of an on-line Dynamic manual , like Blender has on their Wiki site (I thought I created a new idea [dynamic manual] but the Blender people have had it for a long time) . So , [rant mode off] perhaps the best thing about Blender , in the end, is for RS people to glimpse at just how great it is to see a community share knowledge , give their time , and not in any kind of haphazard way but in a way where info get's taken in, in an effective manner , with an end result that see's a 3D person constantly upgrading their skill level . There used to be a ton of sharing on this list , not all that long ago, but seems to be almost dead now except for off-topic threads and my late night rants . A logical question might be "what good is an extensive app like RS if the average person doesn't know how to use it ? " There is lot's of info in the manual of course , but so much knowledge has been learned the hard way , over and over again by dozens of people . Better to have one person find the solution or workaround to a problem , then document that solution for the rest of the community . Happy Hanukkah/Clone the Meskanens studio www.niagara.com/~studio www.studiodynamics.net
