This is the README for WireFrame.1.2.N.b.tar.gz [Download] [Browse] [Up]
Howdy. WireFrame is a limited virtual reality/3D modeler consisting of 3D wireframe (vector drawings) objects in a 3D space. It's not quite finished yet, but is interactive now, and quite cool. It's in colour too, so you'll benefit from seeing it like that on a colour monitor, and suffer slower redraw times too... ***** IMPORTANT ************************************************* Raytracer Output is in ppm format. You'll need Lennart Lovstrand's ImageViewer to view it. If you don't have ImageViewer set up as a default for ppm THEN DO NOT RAYTRACE!!!! It'll open up the images in Edit! (Yuck). Right now it is possible to perform multiple raytracing jobs locally, but ONLY ONE PARALLEL JOB!!! If you do two distributed jobs, then they WILL overwrite each other. Well, they may, I don't really know since I didn't write the raytracer :-). ***** IMPORTANT ************************************************* As well, William Heelan has written a distributed raytracer for the NeXT. The parallel part is still in proof-of-concept mode, and may take LOTS of hard disk space in /tmp when running (ESP. for large images). The default is for single-machine mode. If you want to run in distributed mode, you need to have a list of remote hosts in the file WireFrame.app/remotes. You can maintain and add/subtract from this list through a hosts panel in the application, accessable under "Actions" of the main menu. You can only raytrace Light, Spheres and Planes at the moment, but we'll add more functionality in time. Raytracer output is in ppm format. You'll need a special viewer for that, and hopefully you've gotten ImageViewer from the archives to view this. DON'T FORGET TO INCLUDE LIGHT IN YOUR SCENE!!! I can't go on more about the Raytracer, because I'm too tired now, but I did try to make the interface as good as I could (for the short term). Right now the raytracing terms are a little technical, and I plan to change that. ******************************************************************* To install: From the command line type tar fvx WireFrame1.1.tar open WireFrame1.1.README & open WireFrame1.1.pkg & open WF_Worlds+Info.pkg & And then press "Install" in the installer for both packages. Alternatively, use a program such as Opener or UnTar by double clicking the icon for WireFrame1.1.tar, and then double click the icons for the .pkg files. SYNOPSIS Changes from 1.1: 1) Added a wireframe inspector, allowing for dynamic changes to the wire frame. 2) Linked in the ray tracer written by William Heelan. Ray Tracer features: Raytracing of spheres and planes Distribution of raytracing across a network of NeXT machines Transparency 3) Added fields to the .wireframe discription: "Author" "Info" "Index Of Refraction" "Specular Reflectance" "Diffusive Reflectance" "Specular Transmittance" "Diffusive Transmittance" "Specular Reflective Power" 4) Jump To feature allows you to move any wireframe to any position, and allows you to move yourself to any position. 5) The rotate around selection feature now works properly. As well you can set the origin of rotation arbitrarily. 6) Added a hosts inspector that allows you to modify the list of remote hosts for distributed ray tracing 7) You can now set the background colour to be anything. 8) Made the default save, save to binary. The ascii version was just too flaky, but you can still read and write both versions, and can even intermix binary and ascii wireframes in worlds. 9) Added rotation around arbitrary centers. May be a little strange getting the hang of it though. 10) Added a "jump to center" that allows you to enter an arbitrary point which o move the viewer, or an object. Changes from 1.0: 1) Fixed a bug pointed out by Todd Nathan. If you drag in the Instance browser past the end of the browser you'd crash every time. 2) Todd Nathan made a nice little tutorial on making wireframes by hand. I touched it up a bit and included it into the distribution. 3) Everything is now set up for installation by the installer. The .world files won't be read unless you install WireFrame in ~/Apps or /LocalApps, etc. The installer does this for you now. 4) As well, the installer puts the .world files and the manual into ~/Library/WireFrame 5) Double clicking on a .world package will now start WireFrame and load the world into the WireView. I just added this a couple of seconds ago, so I don't know if it's entirely debugged... Changes from the old WireFrame0.6: 1) Dynamic deletion of wireframes 2) selection of individual wireframes 4) transformation of selected wireframes 5) .world directories. These are just directories full of .wireframe files. WireFrame1.0 recognizes these as a grouping of wireframes 6) read/write of .world directories 7) I built an editor, but it sucked so I disabled it. If you are daring, you can extract the interface and undisable it. It really sucks though. 8) I've added a couple of new objects (Octagon, something else too...) 9) A quick print feature (doesn't work too well). Future directions: 1) This will be an animation package. It will send output of a scene to a raytracer, and give a shaded representation of the scene in TIFF format. 2) I'm in the process of building a scripting engine. This will allow you to record a passage through the 3D world you've created, and play it back as a movie. 3) Better controls. I don't like what I have, there's just too many things to press. For the scripting, I'll build something like a flight simulator's controls. 4) Animated wireframes. These will allow a set of wireframes to describe several frames of an object. Thus when a wireframe moves, it'll animate... 5) Grouping of wireframes into a single wireframe would be good. 6) I'm going to build a cool game out of all this one day... 7) A better editor is on the way... If you have ANY ideas, or interesting worlds/wireframes, send them to me! - darcy samurai@cs.mcgill.ca darcy@solutions.ca
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Netfuture.ch.