3D animation is the hot ticket in multimedia, film, video, web site, business, advertising, and game design. As John Lasseter, Toy Story Director, recently said, "There's unlimited potential for profit in 3D computer animation. And besides. it looks really cool." With its Directional 3D Sound on the Digital SoundStage, VIDI's Presenter 3D makes 3D even cooler. Because the real world swirls with motion and abounds with sound, we should expect no less from 3D virtual worlds. Capabilities to create such virtual worlds were formerly the domain of large studios that had access to expensive and proprietary 3D systems and could afford to hire the computer wizards and experienced 3D graphic artists and animators needed to use such systems. VIDI had the vision to create a Digital SoundStage environment that provides the 3D modeling, animation and sound capabilities needed to create realistic virtual worlds and produce effects that follow the laws of physics for motion and sound. Here you could easily and inexpensively produce effects similar to those used in the production of movies like Jurassic Park, Toy Story, Independence Day, and Fly Away Home.


The Digital SoundStage

Presenter 3D's breakthrough Digital SoundStage technology provides a virtual production studio, sound stage and on-location shoot, all in one product. VIDI has made it possible for multimedia, game, web site, and broadcast producers to simulate the real pre-production and production world in a way not possible with any other 3D animation product. Where other products support sound and live action as post-effects, Presenter 3D provides the ability to simultaneously control and sync multiple cameras, lighting, sound, film projection, and 3D animation. The Digital SoundStage ability to pull sound, pictures, and animation together makes this the tool to use for building the virtual worlds of your imagination and puts the Macintosh at the forefront of the game, multimedia, video, film, business presentation, web site, and graphic design markets.

Presenter 3D provides a natural 3D audio and motion plug-in environment that's synced seamlessly to a fully animated 3D environment and limited only by your imagination. Directional 3D Sound(tm) audio capabilities are implemented through the use of directional and omni-directional 3D microphones. This makes generating sound effects like the "Doppler Effect" a snap. Multi-Target Morphing is used for facial, character, and surface morphing and when used with sound, lip syncing is easy and effective to do. RealPhysics(tm) offers object dynamics like Gravity, Collision Detection, Elasticity, Attraction, Jiggle, Mass, Momentum, Torque, Smooth Spline Motion Path, Harmonic Motion, and Wind effects. Use the KineMagics(tm) plug-in Animators for Flocking, Tracking, and Linking. These animators can be applied in combination to produce a cumulative effect. As an application example, if a single goose was duplicated to create a flock, you could apply just two targets to the wings to create the natural fluid motion of the wings beating. Add the Flocking plug-in to the folder containing the flock to simulate the loose formation that birds normally fly in. With sound automatically applied to each wing beat and a spline path defined, you could have a flock of geese flying similar to the effect created for the movie Fly Away Home . The entire effect is automatically created without any keyframing or tedious movement of model parts in far less time and for much less expense. Top it all off with the best interface to Pixar's RenderMan­the same rendering technology used in the making of Disney's Toy Story.


Surrounded by Directional 3D Sound

Imagine a train speeding toward you, its whistle screaming; a bullet grazes your head-Zing!; a herd of buffalo stampedes across the prairie and shakes the ground. What these scenarios have in common is the element of sound that becomes louder as objects whiz onto the screen and fades away as visuals disappear.

Presenter 3D is the first program that gives sound the elements of distance, velocity, and direction. The ability to place directional and omni-directional 3D microphones and sound effects precisely within its Digital SoundStage environment produces lifelike sound effects that add depth, feel and richness to multimedia, game, film and video production. The result is a three-dimensional surround sound that envelopes the viewer, adding an extraordinary sense of realism to the visual presentation. They can be assigned a sensitivity level, range, and a directional cone with sound falloff, and they can also be animated. Sounds that are farther off are faint. As they approach, they become louder. If they are moving fast as they pass the 3D microphones, they are altered by the Doppler shift (which changes the pitch of a sound as it moves toward or away from the listener). The microphones can play into the right, left or mono audio channels to simulate sounds coming from different parts of a scene. This enables you to create visual and audio cues that are synchronized with the actual motion produced. Using a train moving from right to left as an example, you simultaneously hear and see the train faintly off your right. As the train approaches, the sound increases in volume and pitch until it passes before you, and then both sound and train fade off to the left.

Presenter 3D's Directional 3D Sound offering makes it easy and productive to create animations and realistic sound effects-without the costly on-location recording or painstaking audio post-production. This is a capability currently not seen in any other product. Most sound used in 2D and 3D graphics is actually two-dimensional. Like PacMan chomping across the screen, the noise never gets closer or farther away and there is no sense of velocity or position. Presenter 3D's Directional 3D Sound enhances the computer and video arcade game experience and the home and business interactive multimedia experience. If you close your eyes, the sound seems to come form directly in front of your face. With Presenter 3D, when you close your eyes, you can actually imagine a jet roaring overhead, then disappearing into the distance. While at first this seems like a special effect, once you are used to it, other kinds of sound seem flat and unnatural.