Attached Link: http://www.horus3D.com

Interesting. Looks like DAZ Studio will have some competition...

did you look at the date on the news page., last update on news was 11-11-2003, 7 months ago

Hmmm wonder if they're still working on it. Looks interesting.

It says Free Basic Version, but there's no download link...

They say that the download link will be posted when the free Beta version is ready for release. I hadn't noticed that the last update was that long ago, but as we all know that's not necessarily a sign of doom for such an ambitious project, especially considering that the staff is small. I'll see if I can contact the creators over the weekend to ensure that this is still happening.

Is PZ3 an open source file format? Maybe they couldn't get CL to allow redistribution rights of import/export capability of the native Poser file format, or maybe CL wanted too much money to license the format. That might put the breaks on a project like that very quickly. But I'm not sure about the PZ3 usage clauses anyway, just a mere speculation.

Pz3, text file format.

"Pz3, text file format." Oooopss. LOL. :-P

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Hmm - did I miss something? I only see some render-tests from their render-engine... Nice, but where is the rest? Any (at least one) screenshot from the UI would be helpful to build an opinion. Sorry, but this is (at the moment) no contender... :-( If they update their site and show some more stuff...

O ye of little faith... :-) I just sent them an e-mail requesting any news on the status of the project. I'll report back, perhaps in a new thread if it takes awhile to get a response. I'm keeping my fingers crossed because Horus sounds very promising, assuming it will eventually manifest.

I just got an rather lengthy email from the programmers. May I post it here?

Message edited on: 07/10/2004 17:50

You should probably ask them. If they give permission, I doubt anyone else will object.

Thanks..I have already wrote them back asking for such permission.

I'd sure like to read it :-)

Thank you for your e-mail and your interest in our Horus3D software. Yes, you're right: our basic Horus3D software will be for free. We're still working on it, so that's the reason why there is still no download-section. But we will launch the downloadable beta test-version at the end of this year. Unfortunately we don't have the time at the moment to update our website. But we will as soon as possible. Now I try to give you a short overview of our Horus3D-Project. Horus3D will be a competitive product to Poser from Curious Labs. Our renderer is still under construction but it looks like it will be very fast! Our concept is to give away our basic software for free. This basic version consists of our own horus-renderer, import of Poser PZ3 and Wavefront OBJ files, editing the imported scenes, changing material settings, and saving your work in our own horus file format (which is oganized more intelligent as the Poser format and has a better compression rate). May be there will be some more features in the basic version, but this isn't quiet sure at the moment. But there will be much more funcionality that can be bought on demand. We call it modules. Modules will have a moderate pricing, so that you can just buy those features (in form of the modules) you need. So what are these modules? They can be very diffenrent and can be easily integrated into the Horus basic software. Following modules are planned and are partly under development: * Material module: advanced material stuff, like procedural textures, translucent materials, skin reflection models, hair reflection models and so on. * Hair module: realistic hair with highly optimized physics (especially for animations) and different parameters like stiffness, curlyness, wet/dry-factor etc. * Cloth module: Here you can dress up your figures like in a boutique. Many parameters will be available to make clothes look and behave realistically. * Pose module: Here you will find different preset poses, that you can use as is. But you can of course modify everything you want. Important is, that you can for example say "Grab that cup" and Horus will do the rest for you. So your figure will try to grab the cup if it's possible. Or you can say "sit down" and your character will try to sit down on whatever is beneath it. This is very helpful for animations. There are much more modules, but it's not clear how they will be defined in detail. So I think it's better you wait until we have more information about it. But the above mentioned modules will be available at the beginning of 2005. Our principle is, that you can use our software with a few settings. Without a bunch of parameters and every parameter with a different value range (like Poser). You should reach your goal easily and convenient. But if you want to control every detail, ok. This is possible too. ;-) Again: Sorry, that we didn't update the site of Horus3D since 1831 ;-), but we will do it in July (I swear). And, for all those who thought we gave up: no, we're still working on it. Very hard and with all the power we've got. But even programmers need a holiday! ;-) Thanx for your interest, have a good time and feel free to visit our site again. Best regards, Robby

Hi Helen! Many thanks for your "good-luck" wishes. Yes, and you're right when you say that the gods (of 3D graphics) should keep an eye on us! ;-)) We are a group of people with a lot of experience in software programming. Especially in 3D programming. One of our guys has studied physics and he is the one who does all the physical modelling and makes the "long hair blows in the warm summer wind"-effects possible. :-)) However, we have realized big projects (like Brockhaus Multimedial 3D-Atlas), we don't have any PR-manager or something like that. The only way we will try to spread our software to the people out there is via the internet. So, to answer your question: YES, YES, YES!! Do share my email with your friends! This is the only possibility for us to make this product known. We've decided, not to pump a lot of money into PR stuff or other ways of sales promotion. We save this money, so we can make lower prices for our modules. Pricing for the modules will be in the range between 50 and 200 Euros. Exact price depends on the complexitiy of the module and the time it took to be developed. Ok. Now I should go on programming again! ;-) I hope you will spread the news about our project. :-)) Hope to hear from you again, yours Robby.