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Originally posted by Evil Penguin:
**Is Strata pro worth it? Not just for ships.
Is Animation Master good? What kind of stuff can it do?
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I bought it, in one of the cheap upgrade deals from base that they keep coming up with.
I don't know why people keep on comparing Vision to Strata3d (the predecessor to base). 3d has tonnes more tools than Vision, and is much, much faster. This is largely because it runs on OpenGL rather than 3dmf (for Vision 5) or the proprietary renderer (for Vision 4). Some of the 3d enhancements were blurring and focussing, metaballs, properly implemented sweeping, multi-angle lathing, caustics and multi-texturing. The multi-texturing alone is worth it.
As far as Pro is concerned, if you can afford it and not really miss the cash, then it's definitely worth it. However, it isn't quite a standalone package - you will need Photoshop or an equivalent for image editing, Poser if you want to work with human figures, and, as someone else mentioned, nothing really touches Bryce for landscapes.
The really nice features that make Pro worth it are the additional procedural textures, plus some nice booleans and a few other cool tools. As far as the modelling is concerned, don't buy Pro if that's all you want - there are free versions of Pixels3d out there which have more powerful modelling. It's in the area of texturing and rendering that StrataPro really excels.
Oh, and Flash for the web, with the new version. I've not upgraded yet, as I don't do a lot of web design.
The other thing you might want to think about is developing a library of dirt, rust and grime. DVGarage sells a CD of these kind of textures, but you can make your own with a digital camera or even a decent scanner. They add far more realism than any number of extra features.
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