Dissapointed by SWIFT3D

[zabber]

Recently purchased SWIFT3D plugin fo LW. I was expecting to get great results rendering simple 3d objects out to flash movies as pure vectors. (I want them as vectors and not bitmapped). The results have been crap so far. There are huge polys that are either missing or distorted when i import the swfs into Flash 8. Expected better. Any suggestions. It also takes forever to render. Hours in some cases. grrrr. Kinda makes me wish I had saved my money.

[IRML]

could you do cell shaded renders from LW and then convert them to vectors in flash? I haven't worked with flashmx since v5 so I'm a little hazy

[zabber]

I haven't tried that. i will though. thanks for the tip. I am trying to save time, and thought I had found a solution. The reason I need vectors is to create the illusion of the z axis in flash. I want visitors to be able to "fly into the site" to exlplore. The illusion of z axis is created with relative sizes and a "z sort" code. Vectors size without pixelaization. Thanks again for the tip.

[lunarcamel]

If you want to upload your file I'll take a look - I have had great results with this plugin - it just takes some experimentation and learning how to model specifically for this renderer.

[Capt Lightwave]

Make sure that you do as SWIFT says...only 3 or 4 point polygons....

[Stooch]

yeah i have swift as well, really dissapointed with it too.

[theo]

Yeah- I have not been real happy with Swift either unless you are happy with pretty simple results or have a very simple sequence.

Wildform flix is not a bad way to go- this soft has its limitations as well.

I don't about the latest build of Flash but I know most of the previous ones which I own do not allow for a batch vectorization processes.

You might want to check out a vectorizer that can batch process. I think Magictracer can and I know there is a stunning vectorizer called Silheoutte that also batch processes.

Obviously you will have to have render sequences for batch processing.

[DS613]

Here is a quick example of a simple animation using Swift 3D Plugin and importing into flash 8 the file is 65k and I can use optimaze to get it to around 35k

www.elderdragon.com/room.html
Click on the fire to replay the animations

I have been happy with the results, I would suggest reading all the help files while you render you will pick up some nice tips.

the lightwave plugin version 3.0 only supports 3 sided polys ( make sure you tripple everything before you render. ( I know version 4.5 Swift 3D supports 4 points but this isnt the plugin for lightwave)

Hope this information helps

Happy Rendering

GET RID OF THE DONGLE I HATE IT!!!!!!

[DS613]

That is not correct, it can render 4 point polys, as long as they are planar.


My mistake... Howerver, I still have problems with polys that are 4 points and I get much better results if I tripple everything before I render.

[Speedmonk42]

Any updates or new experiences with Swift from the above posters?

I need to render people in a pose in LW and rotate them 360deg. The resulting movie is to be loaded into flash 24 frames each.

I am using trans PNG's right now. The problem is the transparent part is still clickable in the onPress function. This confuses people when they try to click on something and start draggin the person instead.

My solution is to vectorize the people, making only the body clickable.

Doing this manually is not really an option as it would be thousands of frames.

[SCS5]

I also got Swift a while ago...
A) you DO need to triple the polys. It says this in the Swift Manual!
B) Swift is useless if yo have even a slightly complex model.
C) I confirmed the complex model issues with the swift people directly! They said that their software was making a HUGE useless file for the web because that's "just the way it works"
D) All the file was, was a logo for by old company!
It just said Media Central, with an oval behind it and a beveled edge.....NOT very complex!!
E) Sift 3D.....Bye, Bye:thumbsdow

[Speedmonk42]

Well I think they are out of luck for now.

That is a cool piece of code, I learned something, thanks!!!

However, currently I advance the frame of the clip with left/right keys.

I think to utilize this I would need to add/destroy a new bitmap every time the user hits those keys to rotate the object. There are two sets of 24 frames for every person. Body and shirt color the user can change.

I guess with the onterframe I would disable its onPress function when over alpha, and reassign it when not.... maybe....

Thanks that is a big help. I will figure out a way to use it.

:)

[redlum]

Are any of you who have good luck with Swift using Lightwave 9? My company is about to purchase the upgrade. thanks.

[SCS5]

Send them (the Swift people) a test file.. and get it back to check file size for the web..The files it generated for my companies uses were useless!!
BIG waist of money .............IMHO