AC3D is an easy-to-use, powerful and affordable 3D modelling package. Perfectly suited to creating in-game objects and characters AC3D contains the following features:

New For Version 6.4

Texture updating - AC3D 6.4 watches for any changes made to the texture-file, and will reload any changed images. This saves time and really speeds up fine-tuning of textures when edited in an external image editor - see your changes instantly in 3D!

AC3D's Texture Coordinate Editor has been enhanced with a number of useful features. As well as specifying a dimension for a new (blank) texture, you can now copy a texture map (pre-cropped) directly to the system clipboard - ready to paste into your image editor. Zoom controls have been added so you can easily view your texture mapping over the original 100% size texture image.

Design new clothes for your Second Life avatars - Feel like designing a new look for your SL avatar? AC3D can help you decide what to wear! Simply load one of the AC3D models provided with AC3D 6.4 (access the avatar folder from File->Open or File->Object-library). Edit the provided textures with your favorite image-editor and AC3D will (with its new texture-update facility - see above) instantly give you a preview of what it will look like in SL. Save yourself both time and upload fees.

BAS relief / height-mapping - AC3D 6.4 comes with SuperColdMilk's excellent Bas-relief plugin which allows you to create heightmaps from 2D image data. Simply create any shape (e.g. a rectangle) texture it with menu Object->Texture->Load-texture and then select the Tools->Bas-relief-from-texture. This will generate a new mesh from the image data which can then be rescaled as desired.

Custom Axis rotation - The rotate widget in AC3D's control-panel has been upgraded so that it can handle custom axis 'C'. Now you can select two vertices (e.g. a line or two vertices along the edge of a model), press "Set axis" and any future rotates with the + or - buttons will rotate the selection around the axis defined by the two vertices. Great for moving an aileron around a wing edge.

Other Changes

• Sandio 3D mouse support
• Locked objects can now be shown in full 3D (or wireframe as before) - see advanced settings
• Improved DDS loading
• Improved PNG support
• New Milkshape exporter from TFPsoft which uses the AC3D hierarchy to produce a skeleton
• ATI NMF exporter: turn your high-resolution model into a normal map for a low-resolution model. Works well with ATI's NormalMapper
• New Milkshape exporter from TFPsoft which uses the AC3D hierarchy to produce a skeleton

Feature Summary

• Simple, intuitive 'click and drag' user interface
• Truetype font 2D and 3D text generator
• Integrated graphical texture coordinate editor
• Fast subdivision surface modeling
• Many 3D file formats supported

Specification

• Fast real-time OpenGL graphics views (2D and 3D)
• Multipoint polygon and line editing down to vertex level
• No polygon limits
• Extrusion and surface revolution
• Software development kit and plugin interface
• Fast and memory efficient, compact program binary
• Built-in fast OpenGL 3D renderer with adjustable field-of-view - instantly see results of your actions in 3D. Spin the model or switch into 'walk mode' for Quake-style control
• Edit at different granularity - groups, objects, surfaces, vertices
• Full polygon editing. e.g create a sphere and easily move the points (vertices) to deform the shape
• Create and edit multi-point polygons and lines - not just triangles
• Manipulate individual surfaces
• insert/remove vertices
• make holes
• spike
• spline
• bevel
• triangulate
• flip
• subdivide
• Texture mapping support with real-time rendering
• Texture/background image file formats supported:
• GIF
• JPG
• PNG
• BMP
• DDS
• PPM
• TGA (Targa)
• TIF
• Graphical Texture Coordinate Editor (UV Mapper)
• Assemble surfaces into new objects
• 4 views - 3 orthographic and one 3D. All at once or individually
• Named objects can be searched for within a scene
• Navigate/Zoom around the 2d views with cursor keys and other single key presses
• Hierarchical view window
• Hide/unhide objects for easier/faster editing of complicated scenes
• Headlight and up to 7 other positionable lights
• 24-bit colour palette with adjustable diffuse; ambient; emissive; specular; shininess and transparency
• Adjustable 2D and 3D grid guide lines with grid-snap function
• Create new surfaces/objects around any selection (Convex hull)
• Configurable to use external renderers such as Povray and BMRT - just select Tools->Render to start.
• Multi platform program - AC3D file format compatible across platformsAttach URLs to objects for use in VRML files
• Attach string data to objects to be used as scripting in Dive or special directives for POV or renderman
• Supports many output/input formats including:
• 3D-studio 3DS
• Lightwave LWO
• Alias triangle
• DXF
• VRML1 and 2 and Inventor
• Povray
• Renderman RIB
• Triangles
• Direct X
• Milkshape
• Quake 3 bsp
• MD2
• Wavefront OBJ
• OFF
• stl (ascii)
• sof (airfoil)
• SMF
• T3D
• LDRAW .ldr (Lego)
• Extrude and revolve 2D lines to make 3D shapes
• scale a selection to a specific size
• flip a selection (mirror) about X, Y or Z axis
• Remove duplicate vertices and surfaces ('optimize')
• Simple documented file formats allow easy conversion from other forms of data - ideal for visualizing your own data in 3D.
• Developer SDK

Requirements

• Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4, 2000, XP or Linux x86
• Pentium 120 (or equiv) minimum
• 64 MB RAM minimum
• 10 MB free hard disk space
• preferable, but not necessary - 3D accelerated video card with OpenGL drivers