More on this one.
I've now had time to test out some of the functionality. This really is a must-have unless you already have a big-bucks 3d program.
Some of the key benefits over earlier free versions:
i) UV mapping -- really inexcusable before, now present, better texture options overall
ii) import/export to 3ds among others
iii) much better extrusion and lathing controls
iv) lighting effects, including lens flare
v) volumetric fog effects, plus atmosphere and gravity
vi) fast scanline renderer, v high quality ray-tracing render
vii) caustics -- much more realistic
viii) vastly improved interface -- much faster, everything is now in scene
ix) antimatter and collision
Strata 3d only comes with a few textures, but it will happily load all your Vision 4 textures, and you can play with bitmaps to your hearts content. No procedurals are included -- you can buy these and other elements separately. However, the procedurals in Vision were only of limited use.
Warp and lofting are not included, nor are the paint-style renderings, so don't ditch your earlier version if you had it. The path extrude now works well, but the booleans have gone (not that they ever worked). There is also no particle morph -- but, well, who needed it?
All in all, this has as much functionality as earlier versions of Studio Pro when the sometimes bundled, sometimes purchased extra tools are left out.
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M A R T I N T U R N E R
