Can I ask for clarification, ad V3 seems to be here soon?

[gordonrobb]

I don't want to sound like I'm not interested in V3. I may not be able to afford to get it, but I think new development in a product is essential.

However!

Can I ask for clarification on what will happen with the 2 most interesting features that were shown in fantastic promotional videos for V2, that we have never really had full implementation of?

Edge Rounding and Displacements.

Edge Rounding has never worked as the teasers suggested it would. In lightwave, or any of my objects, it is simply useless and does nothing but make the object looks worse. If I am wrong, and lots of people are getting great use out of this feature, then I apologise. But for me, it was an exciting feature that I have never been given.

Displacement. In general, for simple objects, especially planes, this works a treat. Sure it was a bit limited by only using images, but the Lightwave developer got round that. It is a great feature. However, for anything more than the most simple shapes, it is mostly useless for objects from ZBrush (which is what I want to use it for). The shift parameter (which is supposed to be the thing that allows you to make 50% grey the zero displacement point) does not work without tearing geometry. Again, it is possible I am doing something wrong, and other's are using displacement from ZBRush, with lots of both positive and negative displacement, and getting it to work. If so, I apologise and would love to know how they are going it.

So in summary, great job coming up with some exciting features for V3. If I can afford it, I will most likely buy it. However, can you just confirm, that development of V2's advertised features, especially the two I mentioned that do not work fully, is now not going to happen?

Sorry, for the negative tone in this email. I'm just a little miffed with a suggestion someone (not an OTOY person I must add) gave me that these features will work in V3. Meaning I have to pay for another upgrade to get features I have already paid for.

[Yambo]

Round edges! Round edges! Round edges!

[abstrax]

There will be no major changes in v2 anymore on which we have been working on for more than 1.5 years. The way how displacement mapping and rounded edges work right now, can't be improved much anymore. I.e. all the limitations they currently have, won't go away by just tweaking. The only way we can improve things significantly is by implementing different algorithms or at least modifying large parts of the current implementation. Obviously that will require a significantly amount of work and we plan to look into them again, but that won't be part of version 2.

We didn't break the functionality during the v2 development it's just that it is limited and you always had the possibility to check functionality via the demo version before you buy/upgrade. If the new functionality doesn't suit your needs, then don't buy/upgrade. It's not that we don't want things to work perfectly in all situations it's just very hard to do and you always end up with compromises.