I went to a fair today: Office '99. It covered everthing from furniture, to
cash registers, to computers, to software (my favorite). I just saw the box
to 3D Studio MAX for the first time in my life. I understand why Lance likes
it so much. I also got a chance to play with 3DS VIZ 3 and MAX 3 for about
an hour. I got a headache. Everything was great, I was even running it on a
500MHz PIII, so the rendering was sweet, but my work felt imprecise. Placing
everything by mouse is quite annoying to someone who types everything
precisely and mathematically in POV script. I know _of_ MAXscript, but I
don't know how to do it. All in all, MAX 3 has a very nice interface, and
lotsa stuff we only dream of in POV-Ray, so it's cool, very cool, especially
because of the fast rendering, although the ocasional faceting annoyed me.

They're having a presentation tommorow which will cover MAX 3 and all the
new stuff it has. I found out that it will cost me $500 to learn MAX from
the people at that stand, since they are the only Autodesk Certified
Trainers in Panama. I'm not too sure on that being such a wise investment.
They had examples of their students work posted on the walls. Blech! They
need to stress texturing and lighting.

I noticed another sad fact: 95% of the people there only cared about VIZ
because of its architechtural capabilities. Naturally, they were even more
interested in Autocad. It seems most people here do architechture-3D, that's
why I've never heard of them. They say that only a few publicitarias
(commercial graphics boutiques?) use MAX, plus national TV.

I mentioned POV-Ray. Everyone there has heard _of_ it. My attempts to
explain more about it resulted in instant boredom and ingnoring from the
'nice' people. As soon as a I returned to 3D Studio, they had my full
attention again.


PS: Every other stand had a pretty blonde lady with a miniskirt and a tight
t-shirt and a nice smile. They really made the fair a complete experience.
=}

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