EQUINOX-3D 0.9.0 review
DownloadEQUINOX-3D is the 3D modeler with the fastest, fully integrated ray-tracer.
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EQUINOX-3D is the 3D modeler with the fastest, fully integrated ray-tracer. Because "rasterization is so 20th century(TM)"
Here are some key features of "EQUINOX 3D":
Super-fast renderer, the first fully integrated interactive ray-tracer in a modeler!
Fully integrated Cg renderer with a quality that closely matches the ray-tracer:
- HDR texture support and HDR rendering output
- Unlimited number of lights with hardware-accelerated shadows
- Reflection and refraction cube mapping with fresnel term
- Code generator that can automatically create billions of variations per shader type from the user interface settings!
No need for hand-coding Cg shaders or for using external programs that break the artist's workflow.
(this feature requires at least an NVidia FX5700 or equivalent graphics card. FX6800 or 7800 recommended)
"Installation-free" packages (just download/unpack and run) for both Linux and Mac:
"It's -so- nice to have an application that installs -so easily- under Linux!"
-- Paul Unterweiser, PMU Interactive Design
Clean, easy to use and fast user-interface (UI). EQUINOX-3D is often called "the free modeler with by far the best UI".
Very fast and memory-efficient design. For example: thanks to some design decisions and development techniques, EQUINOX-3D starts up in ~1 second with about 75 plugins loaded(*)
Try that with other modelers!
Way ahead of the curve and future-proof core design:
Other modeler companies eventually end up with unmanageable code, need to throw out their product and start from scratch every few years to keep up with advances in 3D graphics.
EQUINOX-3D on the other hand is built on a heavily runtime-typed "evolvable" core.
There was never a need to (re)start from scratch in the ~14 years it's been under development!
EQUINOX-3D is more like a "3D operating system" than a monolythic application (over 90% of it is plugins), which allows for adding anything from an integrated renderer to a new modeling tool-kit as a plugin!
For example, it took about half an hour to "turn" EQX into an XML schema viewer. You can also turn it into a Solar system simulator. See projects.
Plugin-manager: allows you to change, re-compile and reload plugins without restarting EQUINOX-3D.
Multiple Geometries allowed on transform nodes (much fewer nodes needed to group things, resulting in cleaner/more efficient hierarchies)(**).
True texture and material sharing: unlike in most other 3D packages, texture-mapping is stored on the geometries, not with the texture (no need for 'cloning' textured materials and keeping them in sync manually just because you want to map a texture differently on a different object).
Universal, unlimited undo/redo infrastructure
Camera "fly-to" feature for all view-modes (3D, schematics, animation etc.). After me showing off this feature for years, it was partially copied (3D view only) in the latest version of Maya.
The sincerest form of flattery, I guess...
Fully programmable texture-mappers: just like programmable shaders, per-pixel custom texture-mappers allow you to use your own texture mapping algorithms, fully integrated into EQUINOX-3D. This allows for things like easy direct support for multiple environment-map projections to custom character-specific texture mappers.
Full high dynamic range image support (texture) and rendering with sophisticated exposure control and direct support for angle-maps, mirror-sphere maps etc.
EQUINOX-3D uses , Cg and GLSL for advanced shaders.
What's New:
The long-awaited Mac OS-X version is available!
Greatly improved Cg renderer:
The built-in code-generator is capable of automatically generating billions(!) of highly optimized shader variations, depending on he user settings (number of textures, normal maps etc.).
All without you having to program Cg shaders!
More texture blending modes
Normal maps can be mimpapped
Unlimited number of lights with (hardware-accelerated) shadows *
Fast HDR (high dynamic range) rendering *
HDR texture support *
Reflection and refraction cubemap support:
Direct support for tangent-space and object-space normal maps.
Improved material editor.
"I" key sets the interest point to point on surface under mouse pointer. Very handy!
Undo works for reorienting IK joints and moving effectors
IK effectors can be animated
Construction history saved for Revolve, Extrude and Skin tools in COLLADA.
Construction history cloned when duplicating objects.
All Spline and Spline segment attributes are saved in COLLADA.
(Spline)Faces are saved/restored from COLLADA files.
Face holes can be deleted.
Improved file-selection boxes with options and double-click (finally) working
* Requires an NVidia FX6600 or better graphics card.
Requirements:
X11 started before application program.
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