More difficult too for professionals like me who have to create something commercial within hours of installing the application. If a program takes a month to learn, that's a month wasted.

Before my introduction to Ray Dream Studio I was a user of Macromedia's excellent Extreme 3D. This is an easy program to learn from simply using it - the manual is far too technical. If E3D had ray tracing, it would be a constant friend - its integration with Freehand and its dramatic lighting effects make it a great tool for illustration. But it doesn't have ray tracing and that is a huge minus point.

Ray Dream Studio comes in three flavors. The most recently launched is Ray Dream 3D, an entry point for beginners. At the top of the list is Ray Dream Studio, and in the middle there is Ray Dream Designer, identical to its big brother in everything except animation and a few extensions which have to be bought as extras. My advice would be to avoid Designer and go for either of the other two products. For the small difference in price, you might as well have the added animation features.

I came to Ray Dream Studio via the Designer route, bundled as it was with Fractal Detailer. Bereft of manual, RDD sat unused on my hard disk until I eventually bought the full product to see how the damn thing worked. As with E3D, the manual was fairly incomprehensible. Speaking as someone who rarely, if ever, reads a manual, I have to say that for 3D apps a basic perusal of the manual and completion of the tutorial is a must. So it's with some surprise that I can report Ray Dream Studio 5 has a much improved manual, a lot shorter, too - even though it deals with far more complex issues such as animation, particle effects and mesh modeling.

Despite the often atrocious spelling and diabolical grammar (did nobody proof the thing before it went to print?) it is an easy read and remarkably bereft of needless technical issues and math’s.

Modeling in RDS 5 is a breeze, though rather different to E3D in that profiles become sweep paths and as such the whole world view has to change. I'm still getting used to the rather back-to-front way of looking at objects I want to model, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. In E3D, if I wanted to model something I would generally draw half a profile in Freehand and lathe it. End of story. In RDD I have to think more in terms of cross sections, which is actually more realistic. Thinking back to technical drawing lessons at school, I had to go through exactly the same perception change and when the light finally dawned, it was a true revelation.

Another thing which is confusing, though not as acceptable, is the way RDS treats the three dimensions, X Y and Z. In math’s and the 'real world', X is assumed to be the axis running left to right, Y runs up and down, and Z runs backwards and forwards. Not in RDS. Here, Z is 'Yaw' and takes the traditional place of Y. Other aeronautical terms abound, with 'pitch' and 'roll' being used instead of conventional terms. This quirk soon becomes irritating and I find myself constantly having to remind myself what is what. This idea should have been dropped for this release.

The textures in RDS are excellent, although I haven't yet had time to get to grips with the mechanics. It seems every 3D app treats textures differently and if, as I do, you swap between Bryce and RDS, the change of culture is like a whirlwind tour of Europe - fascinating but confusing.

Talking of textures, the integration of RDS with Detailer is particularly exciting. It is something I haven't yet had time to explore fully, and which needs time, patience and disk space. A downloadable (but not free) plug-in provides further integration with Poser, making the trio of RDS, Detailer and Poser an unbeatable addition to any illustrator's electronic toolbox. Add Painter to the equation and you begin to see why Fractal were making a name for themselves. The merger with Metacreations offers much, though how RDS sits alongside the latter company's recently acquired Infini-D is uncertain (the launch of Ray Dream 3D, though, suggests that Ray Dream may be promoted as an entry level app, with Infini-D becoming the 'professional' tool. Just my theory, you understand).

Rendering in RDS is often slow. I never use anything other than ray tracing, which is probably not ideal - particularly for early test renders. Ray Dream offers several modes for rendering including the intriguing LiveStyles from ThinkFish (which recently merged with Viewpoint Datalabs). These offer the option of rendering in 'natural' styles so that pictures look like ink washes, cartoons or paintings. Sadly, the reality doesn't quite live up to the promise; my experiments always look less than convincing, although I admit I haven't tried producing an animation which might be slightly more effective.

RDS comes with extensions from third party developers. Previously these had to be bought as extras. Now, however, you can fill your scenes with particle effects such as fire, fountains, clouds and volumetric fog. You can also indulge in post rendering effects such as light cones, lens flare, glows and more. As all these effects can be animated over time, their potential is immense. Now, at last, you can perform Boolean operations to combine primitives and models into simpler or more complex objects. I have to say, however, that I found the Boolean command buggy. Note also that in the official release, this operation requires the use of a password. This is a bug which can be corrected with a patch downloadable from Metacreations' website.

Ray Dream's animation controls are simple and take very little learning. The addition of physical effects such as spinning, gravity and bouncing, together with the ability to have objects detect collision, helps ensure that animation’s look as realistic as possible. For added effect, there is a selection of 'deformers' which allow you to suck objects into black holes and down plug-holes, explode, dissolve and shatter. These allow complex animation’s, but also very simple and useful ones too - I have already produced Quicktime movies of various company logos doing interesting (but quick to produce) things for presentations and so on. Like the Page Curl in KPT, it will probably become something of a cliché, but while the novelty's still there, what the hell?

Finally, the welcome arrival of a mesh modeller means that finer manipulation of models can be achieved. It's a strange way of modeling, but once you've got used to it the potential is enormous. Suddenly, the Star Wars special edition loses its mystery. Jabba the Hutt now lives in my computer.

Wrap all this up with a CD crammed full of models and textures, and you have a rather nice package.

All in all, Ray Dream Studio is an excellent program for beginners, amateurs and seasoned professionals alike. It isn't too expensive and compares favorably with 'serious' tools such as Infini-D and new kid on the block, Cinema 4D. Whether you want to produce simple 3D objects, complex scenes, small animation’s or Babylon 5-type battle sequences (okay, maybe a bit adventurous!) Ray Dream Studio 5 is certainly worth looking at.

It is buggy and temperamental at times, the interface can get very cluttered, and the manual needs a spell check, but other than that it is a very friendly, easy-to-learn program.
Recommended.

Jonathan Baldwin