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Conclusions
Models:
The first thing I discovered about
Shockwave 3D is how much more sensitive
it is about it's geometry. Many of
the original materials had to be renamed
or re-mapped and a lot of the geometry
had to be re-grouped. I also had problems
getting the reflection maps to work
correctly, Shockwave doesn't like
exporting a reflection texture on
a simple coloured material.
I definitely prefer the way Cult3D
doesn't require any special modifications
to the original model. There are limitations
to what Cult3D can export, but the
content doesn't need any special setup.
Programming:
Cult3D has a very easy to use drag
and drop interface, making simple
interactions extremely quick to implement.
however, for a project this complicated,
the drag and drop interface tends
to be more of a hindrance than a help.
Logical flow is difficult to manage
and repetitive tasks need to be built
from scratch every time.
Shockwave clearly shines in the programming
department. I initially found that
the drag and drop behaviours were
less than satisfactory. I had to drag,
drop and configure 6-8 behaviours
to create the simple arcball interactivity
available with two clicks in Cult3D.
Instead of using these pre-defined
behaviours I did something not currently
possible in Cult3D, I built my own.
I was able to create my own custom
arcball behaviour, tuned to my own
preferences. I also created functions
to control model animations, material
changes and visual effects. This kind
of customizeable toolset makes it
very easy to streamline multiple projects.
Once these effects were set up all
I had to do was sequence them in the
correct order.
Dynamic Content:
One of the nicest features of Shockwave
is that I was able to split up the
scene content into different 'casts'
that load on demand. As a result the
initial Shockwave download is much
smaller than that of the Cult3D version.
Although Cult3D does allow for dynamic
loading of content, it requires Java
to perform the nescessary error-checking.
Another thing that Shockwave allowed
me to do was to detect what kind of
renderer the end-user has and scale
back the complexity of my effects
to suit . In defense of Cult3D, the
C3D render engine is so much more
powerful than the Shockwave3D renderer
that this kind of end-user optimization
is seldom nescessary.
Flash:
The Flash content for this project
was developed to replace a set of
animated DHTML layers used in the
original Motorola presentation. Reconfiguring
the Cult3D project to communicate
to the Flash file was quick and easy
with the help of a small javascript
function.
The Flash file was modified to work
with Shockwave with a minimum of effort.
I was also able to work on the entire
presentation within the Shockwave
environment, which really helped;
with Cult3D I had to publish content
to work out the interactions between
Cult3D and Flash.
Final comments:
There is no clear winner in this
project from a process point of view.
Both application shine in certain
areas and are limiting in others.
If I had to choose a winner it would
be Cult3D, in the end the model just
looks better. I was able to reliably
use more geometry and higher resolution
textures in Cult3D without a significant
performance lag; I would be much more
confident about putting the Cult3D
version in front of a client than
the Shockwave3D version.
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