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Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.announce From: Conrad_Geiger@NeXT.COM (Conrad Geiger) Subject: PRESS RELEASE: nPOINT Ships Frontface for NEXTSTEP 3.1 Reply-To: info@nPOINT.COM Organization: Next Announcements Approved: sanguish@digifix.com FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact: Jens von der Heide nPOINT, Ltd. 8026 North Washington St. Niles, IL 60714 info@nPOINT.COM +1.708.825.7278 (voice) +1.708.825.7898 (fax) nPOINT, LTD SHIPS Frontface FOR NEXTSTEP Release 3.1 Frontface IS A HIGHLY INTERACTIVE 3-D MODELER FOR NEXTSTEP RELEASE 3.1 THAT USES PIXAR'S DE FACTO INDUSTRY STANDARD RENDERMAN. Niles, July 12, 1993 -- nPOINT, Ltd., announced today that it will begin shipping Frontface, an intuitive and elegant program for generating three-dimensional models for all machines running NEXTSTEP Release 3.1. "Frontface performs extremely well on NEXTSTEP for industry standard Intel machines," said Jens von der Heide, nPOINT's Vice-President of Marketing. "We found the performance and compatibility to be superb. For example, both the NeXT hardware and Intel hardware beat a Quadra 950 in rendering times." Frontface is a high-end 3-D modeler with a full set of features for creating photorealistic images. Objects (primitives, groups, complex surfaces, lights, and cameras) are directly manipulated in any one of Frontface's windows not through a secondary 2-D window. Complex objects such as extrusions, lathes, or skins are also be manipulated directly to create a wide range of surfaces and solids. PostScript Type 1 fonts can instantly be turned into 3-D geometry and placed into a 3-D scene. Anyone familiar with 2-D programs like Adobe's Illustrator will instantly feel at home with the tools available in Frontface. NEXTSTEP's drag and drop feature is exploited to save/retrieve 3-D objects, shaders, cameras, and lights. A hierarchy browser allows the user to effortlessly work with complex groups and single objects. Inspectors allow fine-tuning of object attributes and shading. "Frontface fills an important need for NeXT's desktop publishing customers who have a strong need to manipulate and render 3-D images," said Steven P. Jobs, chairman and CEO of NeXT Computer, Inc. "By creating images with objects, it provides customers with a graphics program that takes full advantage of NEXTSTEP's easy-to-use, powerful software development environment for building advanced applications." Frontface uses Quick RenderMan and PhotoRealistic RenderMan, both included as part of NEXTSTEP Release 3.1, providing a powerful and intuitive means to build beautiful photoreal images. RenderMan data can be stored in a file format called RIB, the RenderMan Interface Bytestream Rendering may done to a RIB file, EPS file, TIFF file or directly to a window so that users may try out different options. Management of multiple rendering jobs is made easy by Frontface's render queue which show the current jobs' status and progress. "Because Frontface imports any structured RIB file as point-editable geometry, Frontface allows a user to seamlessly move their work from other modelers." said Kurt Stephens, nPOINT's president. "We also export to RIB so that users may use them in other application programs." The RenderMan Interface is a software standard for 3-D scene description. It is a series of procedures which transfer the description of a scene to a rendering program. RIB is a platform-independent way to transfer information regarding 3-D scenes. The RenderMan Interface has been adopted by many of the leading computer graphics companies and has become a de facto industry standard. The process of creating an image described by the RenderMan interface is generally completed in two steps. The first is to create a scene in a modeling application such as Frontface, which may include the description of the shape, surface textures, or other characteristics of an object. The second step, is to translate the description into a final image with a renderer like PhotoRealistic RenderMan. Frontface is available directly from nPOINT at the introductory price of $695 until September 1, 1993. Substantial educational discounts are also available. A demonstration copy is available from major NeXT archive sites on the Internet or upon request. nPOINT, Ltd is a privately held company founded in 1991 to bring powerful tools for graphics and publishing to the NEXTSTEP marketplace. For more information, contact Jens von der Heide at nPOINT, Ltd., 8026 N. Washington St., Niles, IL 60714. at +1.708.825.7278 or info@nPOINT.COM. Frontface is a trademark of nPOINT, Ltd. RenderMan and Pixar are registered trademarks of Pixar. Quick RenderMan, PhotoRealistic RenderMan, and RIB are trademarks of Pixar. NeXT and NEXTSTEP are trademarks of NeXT Computer, Inc. All others are Trademarks of their respective companies.
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Marcel Waldvogel and Netfuture.ch.