You know, I was thinking about this very topic recently. Perhaps 3d design programs are no longer on the right track on how they create scenes. At one point I understood how games didn't compete because they had light and shadow maps pre-rendered. But now, they do light and shadows in real-time.

The things in these games look fantastic. Look at Half-Life2 or Doom. On high high end systems you get things that look as good as what Vue can do but at 60 frames per second. The new add on for halflife even does hdri lighting. They do all this AND all the other things like AI and physics. Imagine being able to grabe a pile of boxes, throw them against a wall and let real physics decide how they lay there.

Now I know, when you get down to the nitty gritty and if you went in close you will really see how it isn't as good. But the point is, it looks almost as good and doing it fast. Take one oblivion scene. Any scene. Most are lower than what Vue can do, but make a simple scene in Vue. How long would it take to render? 5 minutes? 3 minutes? The game does it in 1 second! Now I am not saying it is a completely fair comparison, but there is some middle ground here.

As said above, perhaps these 3d programs need to really start taking advantage of what these vid cards can really offer more than opengl viewports. I think if the idea of how game engines work is combined with how 3d programs work would create an awesome program.

Ofcourse I have no idea how any of this works, so I may be way off. :)

Message edited on: 03/09/2006 11:50

Message edited on: 03/09/2006 11:52