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| Product Tour |
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A simple feature list
does not do justice to all that Surpasses
has to offer. Therefore you will find here a series of demonstration
videos that highlight the most important aspects of Surpasses
functionality!
Note that many videos show FPrime from Worley
Labs. FPrime is separate product and it's not part of
Surpasses. |
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Surpasses integrates into Lightwave
Layout seamlessly. All Your modifications and pass switching
are immediately visible in openGL and in rendering. You can
watch Your scene changing with a click of a button! If You
have FPrime this is even more fun! |
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Static Passes are extremely easy
to use. No setup is required. Simply create new Static Pass
and You're ready to go. Take a look how easy it is to create
alternative scene "states" with static passes! |
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This is the scene we
are starting from. |
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A pass with
some of the objects hidden from rendering. The example takes
advantage of Surpasses Item Presets system. "Hidden"
preset is applied to unwanted objects with a single click. |
SPS_Static1.avi,
DivX 465KB |
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Separate Key Light from
other lights in scene. Perfect for precise light adjusting.
Not to mention Your preview renderings will come up faster!
Example uses "Disabled" light preset to turn lights
off. |
SPS_Static2.avi,
DivX 790KB |
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This is how You create
Mattes pass with just a few clicks using the same techniques
as in videos above. |
SPS_Static3.avi,
DivX 1.1MB |
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| Dynamic Passes are real
Surpasses power. They are perfect when You need flexibility
and control. They are also recommended in scenes with large
number of items (animation rigs come to mind). Dynamic Passes
are empty by default. You decide which scene items and properties
will be included in them. Dynamic Pass can modify a single element
or the whole scene. |
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| Setup Mode |
| Adding and removing items
from dynamic passes is terribly easy. Thanks to the Setup
Mode You can manage items from within viewports! Items
not added to pass are automatically considered excluded and
they are disabled from both openGL and rendering. This way You
can isolate any item set within seconds. |
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Video shows adding/removing
items operations in dynamic pass. In Setup Mode, objects excluded
from pass are displayed as grey wireframes so You can still
pick them up. As soon as You leave Setup Mode they disappear
and are hardlocked against selection or any modification (which
is shown at the end of the video). |
SPS_SetupMode.avi,
DivX 1MB |
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| Item Blending Modes |
| Item Blending Modes allow
for extreme freedom in setting dynamic passes up. There are
4 blending modes: Normal (default), Additive, Substractive and
Overlay. They are pretty much equivalents to similar modes one
can find in bitmap editing applications. |
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Video shows an example
of a very simple dynamic pass containing 3 balls that have their
color changed to orange and display to wireframe. See how different
effects You can achieve by simply changing Item Blending Modes.
Video demonstrates Normal, Additive and Substractive Modes. |
SPS_Blend.avi,
DivX 670KB |
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| Scene Independent Dynamic
Passes |
Using Affect
All and Affect Hierarchy options
You can even create passes that are completely scene independent!
Take a look at videos showing loading dynamic pass presets
to 3 different scenes. Notice how passes adjust automatically! |
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FakeZ
is a preset faking ZBuffer render channel by changing all scene
objects to black mattes and setting up a Linear Fog. Depth range
can be tweaked using Fog Minimum and Maximum Distance options. |
SPS_FakeZ.avi,
DivX 1.7MB |
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Sketch
fakes Modeler's Sketch Display Mode. It's useful to see mesh
details when scene lighting makes them hide in a shadow. Another
example could be checking mesh deformation while animating. |
SPS_Sketch.avi,
DivX 1.7MB |
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| Any pass can be made
sticky. In short, sticky pass remains selected even if You select
another pass. This is very useful if You want to combine multiple
passes together. |
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Sample scene has 3 passes
isolating various parts of the temple object. Sketch pass is
overlayed over them by setting it to Sticky and using Overlay
Items Blending Mode. In this mode properties of items (from
Sketch in this case) are overlayed only on active items from
pass underneath. Video also shows editing Columns pass with
Sketch still on top! |
SPS_Sticky.avi,
DivX 2MB |
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| Surpasses really shines
when it comes to scene organisation and improving workflow.
Take a look at a few examples that change normally tedious,
slow operations into interactive and simple tasks. |
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This is very large and
slowly refreshing scene (over million polys). It can be quite
painfull to work with. With Surpasses, You can cut it into smaller
pieces, each one containing different set of items. This way
You get higher refresh speed and be able to focus on the desired
part of scene easily. Setting things up will not take more then
a couple of minutes (and half of the time is waiting for LW
to refresh openGL ;). |
SPS_Viz.avi,
DivX 1.6MB |
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If rendering a shot
requires You to have multiple copies of scene objects with different
surfaces on them You would typically create separate scene for
each objects set. It's quite a bit of work to set it up. And
it's not very flexible either, any change in one scene needs
to be applied to others as well. With Surpasses, it all can
be single scene with object sets separated on passes. See how
flexible Your scenes can be with Surpasses. |
SPS_Multiset.avi,
DivX 580KB |
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This example shows multiple
render settings and objects Render SubPatch Levels in one scene.
There is High Quality pass for final image output and Preview
Quality one for quick previews. Difference in rendering time
speaks for itself - almost 2 minutes compared to 5 seconds.
Talk about workflow boost. |
SPS_PrevQ.avi,
DivX 750KB |
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Surpasses even comes
in handy in character animation. These are examples of 2 rigs
created with ACS4. Lowres
objects are used for animation while highres ones for previewing
the work. Normally, You would need to show/hide objects and
rig controls manually. Rather slow workflow... With Surpasses,
it's just a click of a mouse to go from "animating"
state with lowres mesh and all rig controls visible to "preview"
state with all but highres models hidden. |
SPS_ACS4.avi,
DivX 1.5MB |
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A Pass can contain any number
of items. Objects, Lights and Cameras are supported. |
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Each item in pass
can have a set of properties modified. For example You can
change object to be Unseen by Camera, Light to have different
intensity or disable Motion Blur for Camera. |
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Surpasses provides
tools for quick and easy item properties managment. |
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Apart from
loading Item Presets, video demonstrates Item Properties Copy,
Paste and Reset commands. Using shortcuts for these commands
boosts workflow even further. |
SPS_ItmProps.avi,
DivX 1.6MB |
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Surpasses supports
nearly 40 Lightwave scene properties! They are normally scattered
among several panels in Lightwave but Surpasses gives You
immediate access to all of them from a single location (Scene
Tab in Main Surpasses Panel). |
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Video shows
changing a few scene properties in a Static Pass. Surpasses
controls are synchronised with Lightwave controls so You are
free to change settings using ones or the others. |
SPS_ScnProps.avi,
DivX 1.3MB |
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Setting up channels
like Specular or Diffuse Shading is extremely easy. Simply
select channels You want to be saved during rendering and
export the scene using Splitting. Surpasses supports all channels
that You can save with standard Lightwave's Render Buffer
Export Image Filter plugin. |
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A quick
setup of a few channels. Video also shows Splitting in action. |
SPS_Channels.avi,
DivX 1.2MB |
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