vector output?

[budd]

what about a vector output - like mrs contour shaders or even better a swf exporter? - I dunno if its already been included with the new release or anyones mentioned it before but there you go!

[Da_elf]

i dont think there are any vector output plugins are there? there is a swf output but its more like just an image sequence in an swf file than a vector file. probably if you use a toon shader or something then output that and use corel trace or someother line - vector tracing plugins then you can probably pull it off. not sure though. sounds complicated if its a complex anim

[Dynedain]

Try looking at Plasma from discreet. It can take 3dsmax stuff and render out to swf.

[Da_elf]

does it really create vector art though? or just images shaded to look like 2d with outlines then compiles the swf from the image sequence? as far as file size goes a vector art swf is way smaller than a pixel image swf

[s7en]

Here's my tuppence worth...

I haven't used Plasma, but a few of years ago (Max R3 era) I had the opportunity to do a bit of R&D to find the best 3d max to .swf plugin, and tested vecta3d, digimation illustrate and swift 3d. All these could output true vector art in both adobe illustrator and .swf formats.

The quality and filesize of these products differed wildly, but swift 3d won out, providing the best looking quality of 2d rendering, AND had the smallest filesize.

Here's a very old test anim i did with it: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/elvis/images/fish.swf Not a great example, but it is only 25K

sven

[J_Bug]

Did a few tests myself a few years ago and between Vecta3D and Illustrate I chose Vecta3D but never got to test swift.

Here are some of the more interesting tests

www.dtoxx.com/J_Bug/ref68_2.swf

www.dtoxx.com/J_Bug/VVR_10.swf

--Jon

[s7en]

Thanks J_Bug,

That brought back memories - by strange coincidence the project i was testing the plugins with also involved an unfolding box (hence the cube fish).

Nice jet BTW

Did you have to do any clean up or optimising in flash after rendering the animations? Cos that was another problem I came across when I was testing the plugins, and again, i think swift 3d required little or no cleanup work compared with the other two.

[J_Bug]

Yeah tons of cleanup and all the shading was painted in flash.

I'll have to try swift next time

budd: so are these examples what you were talking about or is there something more to how mr handles it?

--Jon