Lightwave Vs Discreet Plasma (SWF export)

[Hassene]

Greetings to all,
I posted this question in the Cinema 4D forum, and got a suggestion to repost it here to seek more advice. I added notes between (( )).


((Message1))
I am in the process of evaluating some 3d tools to make a purchase decision. I decided to post my question asking for your help in deciding the software to choose, since I am new to the 3d world.

The company I work for develops software that optimizes and monitors servers and networks (to have more control and lower their maintenance cost). Which means, we always need to explain to our customers how our software works. We do this using presentations and animated diagrams containing computers, servers, wires…

I usually use Flash to do all that, but we recently thought about getting a 3d tool that will allow us to get better looking and more informative presentations. The main requirement for the new 3D tool is to have the ability to export to SWF (Flash) file which is very easy to deliver to our customers over the internet, and also insert them into our website. Also, I would like to make sure that after exporting to swf, the presentation will not loose a lot of its quality and details.

I would consider any other "web supported" file format you may suggest.

I did some research, and now I am down to 2 tools: Discreet Plasma, and Cinema 4D ((now, I no longer consider C4D, but instead Lightwave as some users suggested to me)).

I would really appreciate it if you can advise me about C4D and its ability to perform that type of output I need. Also, it would be really helpful if you could send me some sample files that you may have exported from C4D to SWF.

Thank you very much in advance, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely


((Message 2))
((after receiving some replies suggesting using lightwave and the Swift Plugin))

the Lightwave option sounds interesting, but I recently bought Swift 3D (the standalone software) and tried it, when I insert like 5 or 7 objects on the scene, Swift gets really slow in a way that I can’t continue with the project. So I had to return it back to erain. I also noticed that Swift does not have those advanced tools that Lightwave and others have.

I’m not sure what quality the Swift3DLW2 plugin gives (I already have bad experience with Swift standalone software!).

I learned that there is a plug-in for LW that exports to Shockwave which is good, but I’m not sure about its quality either. I think the edges of objects in a Shockwave file look always fuzzy and “pixelised”… is there any way how to produce anti-aliased edges in shochwave?

Does LW allow you to add a voice over in a presentation/animation? (like Flash for example)


((thank you in advance, and hope to hear from you soon))

Sincerely,
Hassene
((you can take a look at this sample presentation we make:
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/zehii/vwp2?.tok=bcUizsRBPpO9EqlX&.dir=/&.dnm=Presentation.swf&.src=bc ))

[Rich]

First off I don't know if I can answer all of your questions but I am also as of recently been trying to use Lightwave to create swf's for my new website. I have found an alternative to swift3d that is cheaper and seems to create great results. It's called flicker. The advantage to flicker over swift3d is the fact that it uses Lightwaves render engine for rendering. Swift3d just uses Lightwave for object information and then uses its own render engine to create the swf file. The advantage that flicker has is since it uses Lightwaves render engine it can export textures over your objects and swift3d can't do this. Plus flicker is about $95 cheaper. Check out flicker at http://www.thirdwishsoftware.com/ before you make up your mind.

[xsimple]

Take a look at Camtasia Studio.

It's is incredibly easy to use, exports to flash, records animation and its fairly cheap too.

[mdoyle]

I have also used swift 3d stand alone package and I wasn't impressed at all. You don't have that much modelling capabilities and it can be pretty tricky to use. I use both swiftlw2 and the shockwave format in exporting with lightwave and can get great results with both.

For flicker, I have not used, but have seen some of the movies created from it, and they are not bad, but I feel they are sometimes lower quality and take longer to export. The advantage however which is does have is that you can export texures (but if it is for downloading from the web it can be quite big in file size) and more types of shading.

Exporting to shockwave, unfortunately you will get the fuzzy lines no matter which package you use to export from. However they are not as obvious if you have textured backgrounds or alot in the scene. Basic shapes with just the colours on them seem to look worse in my opinion. You can programme director to get rid of the antialiasing but it is very tough on the processor and grinds even good pc's to a halt.

To compare plasma and lightwave is a hard one. I know plasma exports with havoc and such like but you can just programme that once you are in director anyway. Exporting from plasma and lighwave to flash is much the same and I don't seem to notice much of a difference. If it is a choice between these 2 I would get the demo's and see which is easiest for you to learn and pick up quickly. I have always preferred lightave because I find it easy to model and I think it follows logically in what you need to do. But it really depends on your preference.

Lightwave is also more expensive than plasma but you can't render effects and realistic images with plasma.

So overall I would say go with lightwave, you can achieve the same results in the end as you would with plasma plus you have the option later to create realistic and great renders of your scenes.

if money is a big factor (and you don't want to do anything other than swf or w3d) then plasma would be the best i suppose, but go for lightwave if you can.

[MikeFrHoweTx]

Hi Hessene,
Just noticed you thread and if you ever come back here? These are my methods and analysis of 3d SWF export tools for Flash (I’m a not Director owner).
Most 3D(so called) Flash-SWF export tools and formats, really export SWF files with rendered non-optimized low-texture-detail serial 2d images (like the Sprite method, 3d actionScript engines are presently simple). Also you cannot apply individual object actions with these SWF export files as they are grouped. You only need a great 3d program (like LW) that exports 32bit TGA files (or proper PNG, LW6.5(7?) does NOT). In my attempts to return to KISS-philosophy (Keep It Simple Stupid) r/t complexity that increases project time, most of my methods are as follows:

1. Render 1 object (or 1-frame) at a time in Layout using f11 (must manually set light flares to 0%)
2. Save as 32 TGA files, import into Aura2 (or PS)/edit/optimize, then export as 32 bit (alpha) PNG. **note: FlashMX or Fireworks MX cannot read TGA files and the LW PNG export messes up Flares etc.
3. Import into FlashMX PNG files, make them movies so you can use fade, motion tween and duplicate to keep file size down and realism up.

Also if you try to incorporate AVI’s of Mov files Flash degrades them OR they increase your SWF size compared to NLE exports (if no dynamic calls); Use actionScript getURL method, with iframes as target (for persistence interface) or popups.
Regards. Mike