What's in the box Digital Elements Inc.'s
WorldBuilder 4 comes with a 2 disk DVD case(an installation
disk and a library disk), a paper manual a tutorial disk and a
reference sheet. [I think the spring bound manual is not the best
choice because mine is already starting to fall apart].
Installation goes smoothly without problems, and be sure to
download the The
Poser plugin. New Features in WB 4
- New Verdant Plant Mechanic plants support
- 3ds max 7 support
- Verdant Plants
- Redesigned and improved libraries
- New Material Editor
- New Grayscale Editor
- New Interface
- Improved Light and Shadow
- Better clouds, grass, plants
- Improved road wizards
- Full documentation and tutorials The Interface
WorldBuilder 4 has a new improved interface; the toolbar button can
be resized, the major toolbars can be undocked and repositioned.
You can also save screen space by using the toggle buttons on the
bottom of the screen, these open or close some of the editors and
toolbars of WorldBuilder.
In the above screen grab you can see the location of some of the
most important WorldBuilder menus and toolbars. The scene tree
gives an overview of all the objects, which are in the scene. In
the properties tree you can see all the properties of that specific
object, and in the properties panel you can adjust the values of
that specific property. The library window from the previous
version is gone. It's now accessible from the menu toolbar or can
be opened/closed with the toggle button on the bottom of the
screen. There's a perspective view where once the library window
was, and this makes the layout look more like the 3DS Max
interface. There are also toggle buttons for a new landscape
painter, material editor and curve editor. Landscapes and
areas WorldBuilder 4 has a great way to shape landscapes
exactly the way you want them, using skeleton lines. Just draw the
shapes in one of the viewport windows, hit the "make skin" button,
and WorldBuilder produces a mesh surface for the landscape by
draping a flexible skin over the skeleton lines. You can also use
the new landscape painter to draw your own custom landscape and/or
use procedural landscape deformations like footprints and erosion
models. DEM files can also be used to create landscapes by
importing them. The possibility of using areas on landscapes is a
very powerful feature of WorldBuilder, just draw an area in one of
the viewports and fill it with grass, trees, stones, or flipboards
from the library.
Materials and Water There's a new material editor included
in WorldBuilder 4, although this editor doesn't add much to the old
way of using materials in WB, it's handy to have it all in one
window though. There are a lot of possibilities to use with
materials like textures, bumping, different photometry options,
displacement, use of fractal textures, masks and compound
materials.
Material in area, is a very nice feature to create patches or
paths on your landscape, just draw the area on the landscape and
use "material in area" to fill the area with your own custom
material or one from the library. WorldBuilder has many advanced
features for the use of water; you can create lakes, oceans, rivers
and waterfalls and use waves, surfs or ripples. There are also
advanced materials or dynamics like "wake trace" or "surf on sea".
Light and shadows Good lighting is very important in every
3D scene, in WorldBuilder 4 you can choose between parallel lights,
spot lights or point lights. Every light can have more shadowmaps
with adjustable size, range or bias. You can open up a shadowview
in the perspective viewport of every light and zoom in on the area
where you want detailed shadows to appear. The volume light filter
can be used with the different lights to create light beams(There
are a lot of great examples of this feature ine Renderosity
WorldBuilder gallery, or the Digital Element site). Skies and
Clouds You can create compound skies with altostratus or
separate cumulonimbus clouds in any shape and with lots of
different settings. WorldBuilder worlds can have rain, snow and
rainbows in them. I think the sky system of WorldBuilder is one of
the things that can be approved, other landcape packages can do
better more realistic skies then WorldBuilder. Advanced
features The professional version of WorldBuilder 4 has
communication plugins for well known packages like 3DS Max, Maya
and Lightwave. Using these communicators gives you the advantage to
render the landscape in WorldBuilder and other objects in a
different package, this way you can use all the features of both
packages without losing any detail. WorldBuilder connects with the
other package and both render their own scene, WorldBuilder uses
buffers to compose both images together. Incremental design is a
very powerful feature of WorldBuilder, which can be used to create
a complicated scene step by step. Parts of the scene can be saved
to the z-buffer, and more renderings of these complicated parts can
be prevented by using incremental design. This way you can try
different settings with other objects without having to render the
complicated part over and over again. Almost any setting of objects
or materials can be animated in WorldBuilder. You can have drifting
clouds, trees and grass blowing in the wind, objects floating in
the river, waves, ripples, growing landscapes and animated cameras
and lights. Poser Pro Pack objects can be imported directly
(including animation) in WorldBuilder using the poser plugin.
WorldBuilder 4.1 has support for verdant plants, the new verdant
plants are very detailed and can have many adjustable parameters
like variation, wind animation and other programmed settings. Take
a look on the Digital Elements Inc. site for more information on
Verdant plant mechanic and new verdant plants. Libraries
WorldBuilder 4 comes with many libraries like; plants, grass,
stones, skeletonlines, materials, skies, clouds, flipboards, and
architecture. You can drag and drop a library item in your scene,
or create your own library with plants or objects. WorldBuilder
Knowledge Module Volume One There's also a knowledge module
available for WorldBuilder 4, this module consists of 9 lessons (in
avi format), 5 projects and 2 new verdant plants. The first 8
lessons of the module covers all basic information like; interface,
cameras, terrains, lights, areas, materials, water and skies you
need to start with WorldBuilder 4. Lesson 9 called "project notes"
covers the making of a complex WorldBuilder scene, and the use of
incremental design, lighting, importing models, skies and use of
materials. The lessons are in windows avi format with narration,
which is clearly spoken. The information provided in the knowledge
module is basic information for the new WorldBuilder user, if you
know the basics already, this module wont teach you new
WorldBuilder techniques. More modules with advanced techniques are
planned for the future. Conclusion The Pros
- WorldBuilder 4 is a very complete software package, with all
the tools you need to create a realistic 3D landscape.
- Working with areas and plants, and/or materials in areas, is
one of the best features of WorldBuilder.
- The new verdant plants look amazing and are a great addition to
WorldBuilder
- There are a lot of extras included like libraries and
tutorials.
- This version seems more stable than the previous versions.
The Cons
- I hope they come up with a more advanced material editor next
time, because using complex materials in WorldBuilder can be a bit
of a pain.
- If you are going into the more advanced features of
WorldBuilder, it will take a lot of time and patience to learn
them.
- The WorldBuilder sky and material system can be approved, if
you compare it to other landscape packages on the market.
Digital Elements Inc.s WorldBuilder 4
 A special "thank you" to contributing columnist, artist,
Alfons [Alfons Blom], for taking time out of his
busy schedule as Renderositys WorldBuilder Moderator. We invite
you to view Alfons Gallery August 1,
2005 |
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