There follows a specification of all new functions and expansions to the new version of CyberMotion 3D-Designer 8.0 program. Detailed descriptions of the functions can be found in the relevant chapters of the online manual. The elimination of minor errors and repairs are not mentioned here.

New features in version 8.0:  

• compact project files - version 8.0 project files are about 50% compacter, thus enabling faster access and up to 30-times faster UNDO/REDO-functions. Of course version 8.0 is upwards compatible so that older files can be used with it but projects saved in version 8.0 can not be used in previous versions.

• Landscapes and planets - the somewhat old fashioned "Fractal Object" dialog was replaced by a thoroughly new designed landscape editor. This landscape editor provides a great preview window with a shaded top view and many functions and filters (crater, terrace, etc.) for the basic generation and the editing of the height fields. By means of special painting tools you can directly "draw" into the preview window to elevate or lower the ground or to smooth eroded slopes, for an instance. In planet mode the landscape net is wrapped around a sphere to create highly detailed meteors or planets. The landscape editor can generate nets up to 2 million facets, but this has to be handled carefully. A minimum of 256MB RAM should be available when topping a million facets, otherwise the constant outsourcing of memory to the hard disk will virtually break down the whole process. However, there is no need at all to generate such big nets because the new landscape objects come along with new multi-layered procedural textures to provide the necessary details. Finally, a visual landscape library facilitates the management of existing and new landscape patterns.

• Background, clouds and atmospheres - The background dialog has been improved too, now providing a bunch of new functions for much more complex atmosphere and cloud models:
  • new multi-layered cloud presentation
  • additional light mode "parallel light = sun" interprets a parallel light source as a sun object that illuminates clouds and is rendered in the atmospheric background of the scene.
  • the three background colors are replaced by a free editable color range. Color ranges can be managed in a visual library.
  • a turbulent flow of clouds can be animated, both in velocity and in wind direction.
  • the atmospheric haze (now with separate color) creeps up in the sky, covering the landscape as well as the low heights at the horizon. Even the sun will be overlaid by the haze, thus creating atmospheric sunsets.
  • complete preview rendering in the dialog providing various grades of quality (scanline, raytracing with and without shadows and antialiasing), two resolutions and several arrangements for the viewing modes (only background, background with plane or complete scene in a panoramic or camera view). You can create a new plane object directly in the background dialog or copy the standard panoramic camera view to the current scene camera.
  • you can load backgrounds from a visual background library or save your own creations to the library.
  • you can switch on the background now in the background dialog as well as via the object selection dialog.

• Light dialog - the dialog now features:
  • also a great preview window with all options described already for the background preview window. You can switch now between the familiar centered lens flare preview to a camera scene preview. With it changes in the light settings are shown immediately in the preview window and adjustments can be made in an instance. The automatic redraw of the preview window can be switched off for complex scenes and preview renderings can be canceled any time by pressing the "ESC" key (if, for example, you forgot to select a lower quality mode when rendering complex landscapes with shadows and antialiasing in the preview window).
  • light objects can be switched on and off in the light dialog as well as in the object selection dialog.
  • the volumetric light effect can be switched on and off separately for each individual spot light in the dialog.
  • visible light objects are described now by an inner radius as well as an outer halo radius.
  • all lens flare effects now also available for the parallel light object.
  • "Sun" mode for parallel light sources. In combination with a clouded sky background the sun illuminates the clouds. The sun is always rendered as a visible disc in the background behind the clouds and its intensity is filtered by the clouds and the atmospheric haze. Furthermore the color range used to produce the sky background can be distorted in direction to the sun thus creating more realistic sky illuminations around the sun.
  • now, only one global intensity parameter controls the intensity of the whole lens flare, with the exception of the lens flare spot intensity.
  • an additional global scale parameter allows the adjustment of the global size of the lens flare effect. once the general shape has been edited via the various effect parameters.
  • the standard parallel light object created on startup for every new scene is automatically set as a sun object. You should switch off this option if you do not intend to produce an outdoor scene.

• Material dialog - extensive improvements have been implemented:
  • - the new preview window offers additional primitive objects as well as a scene preview and a centered preview of the current selected object.
  • - a visual material library facilitates loading from and saving to the comprehensive material library.
  • - additional specular reflection color. The diffuse reflection determines the basic color of an object. Diffuse stands for a regular dull reflection of light, the object appears to be of a constant tone from all views. In contrast to the diffuse reflection the specular reflection represents the amount of mirrored light, i.e. highlights from light sources or mirrored objects in the scene. By specifying a particular color for the specular reflection, a filter function is applied for the mirrored light. With metal surfaces the specular color usually comes close to the diffuse color, resulting, for instance, in golden reflections on a golden surface. Other surfaces reflect the whole light spectrum, resulting, for instance, in white highlights on plastic or varnished surfaces.
  • - the flow direction of waves can be input.
  • - block texture - the "Row Offset" shifts every second block row with a given offset to the side, thus giving the impression of a brick structure.
  • - new projection modes for cylindrical bitmap projection similar to plane projection.
  • - new implementation of the procedural texture pattern distortion. You can choose between linear (faster) or B-Spline-interpolation and define the number of iterations for the fractal distortion.
  • - global scaling of the procedural texture pattern can be applied directly in the material editor as well as via the scale texture function in the viewport windows.
  • - normal distortion now with two additional random distortion modes - "Random" (a random noise distortion ignoring the texture pattern) and "Random & Texture" (a combination of pattern controlled and randomly distortion). You can specify a separate distortion value for each of the 3 object texture axes.
  • - new color range texture. You can define a color range that either covers the whole object or runs repeatedly above the object, similar to colorful stripes. This is an ideal texture for sedimented rock materials.
  • - new fractal noise texture - the basic material setting for rock or landscape textures.
  • - new "terrain" page in the material dialog provides up to three additional landscape texture layers. This texture layers again base upon the fractal noise texture and are applied in dependence on the height and the angle of the slope in a terrain. Thus, for instance, you can apply a ground texture up to a specific height, overlay it with a grass layer and finally add a snow texture layer with the snow gathering only in great heights and on gentle slopes.

• Now, if you scale an object symmetrically, the procedural textures and bitmaps assigned to it are scaled automatically with the object.
• Starfield - the starfield effect can be switched on or off in the starfield editor as well as in the Render Options dialog. In dependence from the picture resolution the total number of stars will be reduced to prevent the stars from flooding the picture in low resolutions.
• Antialiasing - It is only those pixels that deviate in their color-value by a threshold value from that of their neighbors that are subdivided into smaller pixels. Now, this threshold value can be set in the raytracing box. It is also possible to set this value to zero, thus every single pixel will be subdivided into sub-pixels and rendering time increases considerably.
• All angle instruments (light angle of incidence, camera angles, flow directions, etc.) can be set now directly with the mouse simply by clicking into the instrument and dragging the needle to the desired position.
• The automatic creation of circular and elliptical templates for the Sweep Editor was supplemented with an additional X-Offset parameter. With it the shape of the circular template is shifted along the x-axis, thus creating a template for a torus object.
• The reference-point of each rotation or scaling can be input now exactly with the keyboard.
• The Undo/Redo functions are available now by the standard key functions "Ctrl-Z" (UNDO) and "Ctrl-Y" (REDO).