FWIW -- the 3D layer in Photoshop CS3 is garbage, IMO.

Paula refers to some of the issues in her review, but I'll expand on them.

Basically, Photoshop's 3D layer is a very poorly implemented Open GL-like render, without any of the speed of hardware accelerated GL. Dead slow, even on some modest sized models.

Its astonishing to me that Adobe would release such a poor 3D implementation . . .  It is only theoretically useful to a 3D textue painter, who works in Photoshop, and wants  some way of lining up his maps and UV coordinates.

Adobe could have gone and licensed FPrime from Worley, or something like that . . . would have been very, very useful, and worth the upgrade fee. But they didn't, and its not.