A: WorldBuilder 4 is for presale. The first orders will be shipped on August 1st. Check our BUY section.

A: Check here

A: 3DS, DXF, OBJ, Vista Pro DEM, USGS DEM, VUE, LWO, LWS, MOT, AWB Poly Mesh, AWB Animation, AWB Archive.

A: 3DS, VRML, DXF, LWO, LWS, MOT, AWB Animation, AWB Archive.

A: BMP, JPG, Targa (*.tga), TIFF (*.tif, *.tiff), Compuserve GIF, Maya and Amiga IFF (support for Maya z-buffer), RGB, Macintosh PICT, Autodesk CEL, Autodesk FLIC, AVI, WB Z-buffer (*.zbf)

A: Intel Pentium (Celeron, Xeon), AMD Athlon (Duron) or compatible processor 600 Mhz or above, 256 Mb of RAM, 300 Mb on a hard drive is minimal. Production level system is Dual processor CPU 1.5 GHz, 1 Gb of RAM, 1 Gb on hard drive.

A: Any project or object created in WB version 2.x can be loaded and used in version 3.2, i.e. it is completely backward compatible with respect to file formats. The appearance of the landscape surface, water and some other objects may be slightly different.

A: For the list of new features please take a look here.

A: Examples of some artwork done with WB3 are posted in our constantly updated galleries. Check them out here: Image gallery, Users gallery. Also take a look in our Links section for other sites that have WorldBuilder artwork online.

A: WorldBuilder Pro supports animation, camera movement and has a full CD of additional plants. Also it supports network rendering, and the Rosetta Communicator plug-ins. The Rosetta Communicator plug-ins allow seamless integration between WorldBuilder Pro and other 3D packages such as LightWave 3D and 3ds max.

A: Yes: WorldBuilder 4 supports Lightwave 6 and up. WorldBuilder Pro users can order the Rosetta Communicator LWWB to make Lightwave 7.5 and WorldBuilder 4 integration even easier.

A: Yes. WB 4 includes the full set of import/export and compositing plug-ins for professional work with Maya 3.x. Currently, we are working on the communication plug-in for Maya with the same functionality as it is for 3ds max.

A: Yes, via supported 3D file formats. We are considering making specific plug-ins for Softimage XSI and Cinema 4D.

A: It can act almost like a plug-in, but WB is a stand-alone program with unprecedented capabilities for communicating with MAX through the special plug-in bundled with the Professional Version or purchased separately.

A: A special footprint feature adjusts landscape surfaces under models to make landscape surfaces fit perfectly.
To apply footprint select Landscape --> Skin --> Add Property --> Footprints in Area --> OK.
Footprints in Area modifier is designed to make an illusion of the interaction of landscape and objects lying on it. It can be used to simulate drifts of sand or snow around stones in deserts, or sites of plowed dirt around trees in parks.

A: Preparing shadows is a common practice in WB.
Generally, you have to make two render passes in order for your scene to display them.

1. Make sure that "generate first frame" is set for shadows in all light sources.
   
2. Render the scene. Note that the "Generate Map" radio will automatically change to "Generate Never".
   
3. You can now render you scene as many times as you want without recalculating shadows.

A: WorldBuilder uses skeleton lines to specify thelandscape surface. Skeletons give full control over the surface and allow the adding of exact features at precise locations with ease. Also, skeletons give comprehensive and compact representation of the terrain geometry. Skeletons are reusable. The WorldBuilder CD contains a large library with ready-to-use landscape forms.
Skeleton-based surfaces can also be modified by applying different procedures like water erosion, profiling by gray-scale map or mesh-based footprints. Footprints are especially useful for merging architecture with landscape. Finally, real-world elevation data can be imported via DEM files.

A: It's very likely that the WB scene is significantly larger than Maya scene.

Follow these steps to make them visible:

1. Increase the "Far Clip Plane" parameter of viewports where you want to see the imported objects by a high value (100000);
   topShape->"Camera Attributes"->"Far Clip Plane";
2. Move those viewports to a sufficient distance (increase translate) so that the imported objects locate at their visible parts.
   top->"Transform Attributes"->"Translate";
3. Increase the "Orthographic Width" parameter (2000) for the parallel viewports
   topShape->"Orthographic Views"->"Orthographic Width";
4. Set the scaling of imported objects to high value (100). This will affect only the view of cameras and light sources, not their functionalities
   camera1->"Transform Attributes"->"Scale";

You can partially automate these operations by editing the "AWBAnimImport.mel" script.

A: You will need to re-install your 3ds max Communicator plug-in. Once you have re-installed the plug-in, it should function normally.

A: Yes! The best way is to run the MAX-WB communication plug-in and get a view of your MAX models in the WorldBuilder camera window. All cameras, lights, meshes, their animation and even shadows and reflections from MAX will be automatically updated in WorldBuilder. The final rendering can also be performed using the communication plug-in (the simplest way), or by regular z-buffer composing (for the best quality).

A: The current version of WorldBuilder works with MAX 3.x, MAX 4.x, MAX 5.x and MAX 6. It will support all future versions of 3ds max as soon as they are on the market.

A: Yes, but a better way to use the full power of WorldBuilder is to export only a few reference objects and use them in MAX to make models and animation. Final composing of these models with the environment can be done using MAX-WB communication or z-buffer composing.

A: There are at least two ways. If the animation already exists, the best way is to adjust the landscape surface is under the character. In MAX, make a mesh along the character path and export it to WorldBuilder. Use the footprint feature to apply this mesh to the landscape surface.

Another way is to make a road in WorldBuilder (set the road skeleton width to zero, if you don’t want to change the surface geometry). Export the road to MAX and use the road mesh as a reference surface for your future animation.