RadTime's 3dFilm 2002: compositing in 3D - Technology - Software Review - Brief Article - Evaluation

Post, July, 2002 by Randall Simpson

At NAB this year, I passed by a small booth where my eyes were attracted to what I thought was yet another 3D modeling program. On closer inspection, my curiosity was piqued when I found that instead of 3D modeling, it was in fact a true 3D compositing software that allows for compositing and animation of 3D objects and 2D elements together along with audio files -- all in inside true 3D space. 3dFilm 2002 is being developed by a small company called RadTime. This company is run by the same people who created the nonlinear editing software that eventually became Discreet Edit. After taking a closer look at 3dFilm, I'm convinced it's unlike anything else on the market right now, and establishes what I believe will be the future direction that all compositing tools will have to go to keep competitive.

WHAT IS REAL 3D?

I am a strong supporter of After Effects 5.5, and recently reviewed this software for the May 2002 issue of Post. AE 5.5 is an elegant tool that uses z-space for complex compositing effects. 2D objects can be animated and manipulated in z-space by making them a 3D layer. By using third-party plug-ins in After Effects, 3D objects can be created, composited, and animated. The use of z-space is a very powerful tool in AE, but it does have some limitations. 3D objects are composited as a layer and ultimately treated in a 2D planar fashion. For example, when arcing a camera around to the side of a 3D layer in After Effects, that layer will 'disappear' when viewed directly from the side because the object is really composited as a 2D plane. AE began as a 2D compositing tool using layers, and recently added z-space manipulations to create 3D style effects of 2D planar layers.

In 3dFilm, a completely different approach is taken. From the beginning, the environment is real 3D. 3D objects contain actual 3D geometry data, and so they appear "3D," no matter what angle you view them from and no matter how you manipulate them. The software treats the elements of a composition as objects and not layers as in After Effects, In 3dFilm, media files are 2D planar objects in 3D space. 3D objects can pass through a 2D object such as a full motion video file, and the lighting on that 3D object will also light a 2D object or cast any shadows onto any object.

3DFILM COMPOSITING

To understand the differences between 3dFilm and AE 5.5, I chose a simple animation and composition involving a 3D computer monitor. I wanted this 3D model to have a 2D plane of motion video composted on its screen. I also wanted to do a simple 360-degree arcing move of my camera, Finally, I wanted this to be backlit by a single spotlight. While this type of composite is quite possible in AE 5.5, it's not simple. It involves the creation of the monitor using third-party software and applying motion tracking of the 2D plane of motion video on the 3D monitor layer. In 3dFilm, the model of the monitor was completely created out of out the 3D modeling tools available with the program. No third-party software was needed to create the 3D computer monitor.

The composite of the 2D motion video was extremely simple to accomplish. The media file was imported, rotated and sized to match the screen position, then the 3D computer and media file were put into a common group together. This grouping function is a powerful way 3dFilm easily links together. Because they were grouped together as objects in true 3D space, as the monitor rotated, so did the 2D media file. I set a few keyframes for my camera as it arced around both of them and the composite was complete.

THE POWER BEHIND 3DFILM

3dFilm uses the power of the Pentium 4 processor combined with the latest in OpenGL and DirectX accelerated graphics. Along with that, the folks at RadTime have written custom code to give it even more powerful lighting effects and the ability to display alpha information realistically in 3D space. The RadTime Enhanced lighting engine is true "per pixel" lighting with up to 100 visible lights per scene. Lights can shine through transparent sections of a media layer onto other media layers or 3D objects. Using its proprietary 3D-Alpha technology, 3dFilm can accurately show correct transparency from any camera angle, even with overlapping and intersecting media layers. Most remarkable is that it can do all this in realtime, at as much as 100 frames per second.

3D MODELING AND KEYING

RadTime actually has a family of products that integrate together. 3DFilm is the core software used for compositing and animation. An add-on to that is 3D ModelMaker, which is a very nice b-spline 3D modeler and was used to make the computer model I mentioned earlier. They also have a KeyingPak with HyperMatte technology, which allows for some incredibly clean chroma keying in realtime, Both of these add-ons integrate completely inside of 3dFilm. All three can be purchased together as a bundle called 3dFilm ProSuite 2002.

BUGS AND FIXES

I tested 3DFilm on fairly unremarkable 2GHz P4 system with a 64MB Nvidia chipset graphics card. RadTime specifically recommends using Nvidia. I did experience a few bugs and crashes of the software. Most of them were solved when I downloaded the latest video drivers from Nvidia Other minor problems were not so easily solved, but RadTime took great interest in them, and I suspect may have them fixed by the time this article goes to print. Generally speaking 3DFilm is a very stable and powerful tool.