| Q&A |
 Marc
Miller
Holomatix,
10th may 2005 |
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"The
editor gives precise control over the way in which the
incoming light is reflected by a given material channel,
using the colour and reflection blur controls."
<
Blaze 3D Studio in action |
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| Q1 |
Please
give a brief presentation of Holomatix. |
| A1 |
Holomatix
develops software for editing and display of high quality real-time
3D content. Our plug-in free platform, Blaze, is recognized
by many as the best in class web 3D solution, having been production
proven on hundreds of high profile websites.
In April, we announced the general release of our flagship product,
Blaze 3D Studio, and re-launched www.holomatix.com.
With this event, we are 100% focused on knocking down the hurdles
associated with getting your 3D content looking beautiful on
the web. |
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| Q2 |
Holomatix
has recently released Blaze 3D Studio. What are the basics of
Blaze 3D Studio? |
| A2 |
Blaze
3D Studio contains all the tools you need to create realistic
looking 3D content, bring it into your Flash presentations (if
you so desire), and publish it to the web without any plug-ins.
It is easy to use, and is complimentary to popular 3D packages
and Flash.
Blaze 3D Studio is primarily an application where you can work
with materials and textures of your 3d model and apply high
dynamic range lighting. Once you’ve brought the 3d model
to life, you can compress your geometry and textures, integrate
it with Flash, and publish it out to your desired format (web,
projector, video, PowerPoint). |
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| Q3 |
Can
you describe the workflow? Is it possible to import 3D models
from popular 3D modelling packages? |
| A3 |
In
order to get going in Blaze, the first step is to import a 3D
model from a 3D modelling package. You then need to set up your
lighting environment in which the object or scene will be viewed.
You can either use a pre-defined Holomatix environment, or create
your own from HDR images. You can then assign various parts
of the 3D model to have different finishes (ie. chrome, rubber,
glass, plastic, etc). Texture adjustments can also be made with
the package if so desired. Blaze supports support hierarchal
and skeletal animations, as well as blend shapes.
Once you’ve got it looking the way you want, you can then
optimize it for web publishing by taking advantage of state
of the art geometry and adjustable texture compression. Getting
realistic 3D content on the web with Blaze is that simple.
For extended presentations, Blaze 3D Studio can also be used
to publish true 3D Flash presentations. To create a 3D Flash
application, the 3D model can be brought into Flash as a MovieClip.
You have complete programmatic control over the scripting and
animation of the model from within Flash via ActionScript, so
the 3D animation possibilities are virtually unlimited. You
can use Blaze for anything ranging from database driven customization
tools to 3D games and simulators.
The workflow of Blaze has been designed to extend the functionality
of the software you already work with, and minimize the need
to learn new development paradigms. |
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| Q4 |
What
are the main material parameters that can be adjusted in Blaze
3D Studio? (Does it support multi-texturing, bump mapping, reflections?) |
| A4 |
3D
models in Blaze are illuminated by high dynamic range lighting
environments. The editor gives precise control over the way
in which the incoming light is reflected by a given material
channel, using the colour and reflection blur controls. For
more complex materials, (such as car paint) up to 4 of these
channels may be superimposed. These finished materials will
apply to areas on a model (a set of triangles), or can be applied
using a texture map that can blend between materials on a per-pixel
basis. This per-pixel material technique is an example of a
shader. Blaze supports a growing number of these, including
bump mapping and per-pixel transparency. |
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| Q5 |
What
are links between Flash and Blaze 3D Studio? How do they
work together? |
| A5 |
The
3D content published from Blaze 3D Studio is output as a .swf
file, and this .swf file can be loaded into a MovieClip in Flash
like any other .swf file using the .loadMovie command. Once
you’ve loaded in the 3D .swf file, you can control it
programmatically with ActionScript in Flash.
When you have finished creating your application, it is necessary
to deploy the presentation in the Blaze player, which exists
as both a Java applet and a 250k plug-in, for optional fallback
usage in rare cases where a JVM is not present. The Blaze player
contains both a Flash player and the 3d rendering engine. |
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| Q6 |
How can
Blaze technology offer such nice looking rendering? Is it 100%
software engine? |
| A6 |
From
our perspective, the #1 benefit of Blaze has to be the high
quality rendering. Blaze contains an industry leading software
renderer that offers up high quality anisotropic texture filtering,
smooth edged geometry, and tightly integrated texture and geometry
anti-aliasing for physically correct results.
In addition, Blaze supports arbitrary high dynamic range lighting
environments and flexible and realistic representation of complex
surface reflectance properties.
You won’t be rendering out million polygon models in Blaze
just yet, but with a bit of intelligent polygonization it is
possible to render out geometrically precise, complex real-time
models to nearly photographic quality. |
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| Q7 |
Will
Blaze 3D Studio be affordable for web agencies, 3D artists? |
| A7 |
Blaze
is totally affordable for artists and agencies and we can’t
wait to see what people will do with it.
Blaze is free for non-commercial use (including educational)
and commercial evaluation.
Annual commercial licenses for Blaze 3D Studio may be purchased
at a rate of £995 per workstation per year. In addition,
we also offer our customers optional support contracts.
There are no restrictions upon where you may deploy the content
that is published with a licensed version of Blaze 3D Studio. |
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| Q8 |
Does
Holomatix sell commercial licenses on an annual basis? |
| A8 |
Purchasing
Blaze 3D Studio is a one-time purchase, entitling users to free
upgrades within the same major version of Blaze 3D Studio. There
are no further licensing or subscription fees to pay once you
have purchased Blaze 3D Studio. |
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