Featured Product: Discreet plasma

In the past there hasn’t been a single application dedicated to generic Web 3D content creation as companies such as Discreet, Alias|Wavefront, Newtek and Softimage have had to rely on third party plug-ins and extensions to their 3D software for Flash, Shockwave 3D, Viewpoint or other Web 3D output capabilities. The problem associated with this is that most of Web 3D production is simply adding widgets or elements to spice up websites -- for Web designers who have little interest in 3D, buying an entire package actually built for highend 3D animation and visual effects is not only expensive, but overwhelmingly complex to learn. Discreet identified this issue and the result is plasma – the world’s first full-featured 3D animation package built specifically for Web 3D production.

plasma is based on 3ds max technology in that it is actually a slimmed-down version of 3ds max (Discreet will have you believe otherwise). The interface is slightly different to reflect a more familiar “Photoshop” look with the floating toolbar on the left and the command tabbed panels on the right, though this is completely customizable. Feature-wise, it contains the more widely used tools in 3ds max such as polygonal modeling, Meshsmooth, bones/IK, Skin and Morpher. For rendering, plasma comes with an in-built Flash renderer as well as the Default Scanline Renderer (without advanced features such as motion blur).

One of the biggest highlights of plasma is the capability to export high quality Flash animations. Options in the Render panel include the ability to choose various shading types such as Cartoon, Flat, Gradient and Wireframe shading. Lines can be rendered as outlines, intersections lines, detail lines and submaterial edges. Fills can also be flat or averaged depending on the look that you are after. The big thing going for the plasma Flash renderer is the ability to render shadows from multiple light sources.

A huge workflow enhancement is the Flash MX plug-in that allows you to link plasma and Flash MX together. When exporting a Flash animation in plasma, the bridge plug-in will automatically update the Flash MX libraries so that you don’t need to repeatedly import SWF animations.

At this time, Discreet’s Shockwave 3D exporter is the only solution that supports full character skinning, mesh deformations and weighted vertices. Other exporters only go as far as using rigid-jointed objects, limiting animations to “robotic” movements. Discreet has also included rigid-body Havok dynamics into plasma as Shockwave 3D is able to use the dynamics engine for real-time forces such as gravity and collisions.