Until Craig has finished his page, rather than leave it empty, I thought I'd make use of the button by adding a Computer Graphics page covering all things that interest me in computer graphics.
At the moment, the page is unfinished, though I'll add to it as and when I can. For now, I'll use it to sing the praises of a new program I have discovered called Organica from an excellent software company called IMPULSE. Some of you will already know all about it, but for those who don't, it's a 3D graphics program which allows you to easily create fantastic rendered images, (see the examples below).
I have the demo version which allows you to create the images, but not save them to disk, so anything you create has to be done in a single session after which you can save the image and then throw it all away. Not ideal, but it does allow you to try out all the features fully while, like me, you are saving up to buy the full version. Anyone got a second hand copy they want to sell?...
As you can see by the above images, Organic makes use of 'blobs' to create the images. Blobs are best described as magnetic shapes made of liquid. As they get close, they attract and stretch out to meet each other. A neat example is in the Star Trek film Undiscovered Country where the Klingons get shot in zero gravity. Their purple blood floats in globules and when two meet, they slowly merge.
Many 3D programs give you one or two blobs to play with, whereas Organica uses nothing else -25 of them! These include spheres, cubes, discs, pie segments, rods, torus shapes and much more besides.
The program uses the standard 4 view system to show you top, front, side and camera view windows. Around the edge of the screen are all the blobs and control buttons. Adding a blob is as easy as selecting it and clicking on one of the window views. The camera view gives an instant rendered view of the object(s) placed.
As you add blobs in close proximity, they merge into each other to produce smooth transitions. The camera view can be changed to display the blobs without their fluid property so you can position them. You can then switch the 'mesh' back on to see the finished product.
The rendering quality can be customised to suit your system. Inevitably, the camera view takes time to render, but the higher the power of your machine, the finer the resolution you can render to without too much delay. On slower machines, the resolution can be set to a lower, and thus faster, rendering setting. On my P200, above medium to high rendering quality takes only a fraction of a second to render.
OK, so you want to try it out yourself? No problem, click here to download your own copy of the demo straight from the IMPULSE home page, (a new browser window will open).
Happy rendering!