Software Review: Frame Forge 3D Studio 2, Pg. 4

Both Chris and I had some additional suggestions we'd love to see in a future version of this software, whether that be 2.5 or 3.

Chris' Additional Suggestions for Options in the Next Version:

1. An option where the user can cycle through poses in addition to the standard click and pick.
2. In the green room, I'd like to see the capability of cycling through control points with the mouse wheel and modifying the rotations axes via the old "\click-drag +key" method.
   In English: I.E.: ALT key = Y-axis, CTRL Key = X-axis, SHIFT Key = Z-axis. (Ask any CAD user how useful this is.)
3. Adding an environmental object category where users could pick such naturally occurring entities as smoke, flame, wind, rain, snow, explosions(?) etc. Maybe an expansion package where we could add visual effects filters to help add to the overall feel of a shot? (users could blue tint scenes like in The Matrix, Donnie Darko, and pretty much anything)
4. And, finally, wouldn't it be great to have the capabilities to port your storyboard frames directly into a 3D program (Maya, 3D Studio) as keyframes? Think about being able to create your static storyboard, and blocking for an animated feature simultaneously!

Jeremy's Additional Suggestions for Options in the Next Version:

1. More specific body customization, with more options than just a man's general 'fat-ness' or a woman's general 'bustiness' or 'heaviness.'
2. The ability to create relationships between more than two people or more than one person and an object, which would help with fight scenes, couples in vehicles, and a variety of other useful relational setups.
3. The ability to percolate multiple changes to multiple actors or objects through a scene at once, as well as the ability to remove all decals from actors in a scene to start with a clean slate. This would help speed up scene alterations with different actors and would allow you to get rid of place-holder decals when you've got the appropriate skins for actors midway through the storyboarding process.

Performance
In the official release version, the relationship bugs from the Beta version seem to have been fixed. I have to say that it is quite handy to be able to have a predefined snap-to capability in a 3D environment. I was also happy to notice the addition of muzzle flashes to the gunnery. It makes a nice representation that the firearms are actually being discharged rather than merely being pointed at a target.

I too found the overall performance of the release version of FF3DS2 to be quite good, with some rather odd exceptions (which will be mentioned later). The smoothness of behavior, the options of movement, and the simplicity of design make FF3DS2 a very powerful program.

There were a few issues with the performance that needed to be straightened out.

For example, one issue I noticed is that the sports equipment didn't seem to have any sort of onboard relationships intact for the child actors; When attempting to have a boy hold a baseball bat, I was only successful in getting the bat to stand on his head. So essentially, the user will have to define their own relationships which is pretty simple to do, but still a bit of a pain to have to set up in the first place, when these relationships are in place for adults.

A second issue comes in the form 'clipping' that results from a lack of surface contact between your actors' bodies and other objects (which was also an issue in FF3DS). Because of this, you can easily stick an actor's foot into the floor or through a bed, which is pretty annoying. There's an option to 'disable collision checking' when it comes from other actors for setting up relationships, so it's too bad that they didn't give you the option for 'collision reaction' for how a character's body reacts to it's environment. Being able to have hands and feet conform to floors and walls when you move limbs up against them would be very helpful.

A third issue, which was present in the first program and is more annoying in the sequel because of how much other stuff has been improved, is the inability to resize actors without losing all their relationships. For example, the FF3DS2 height for all men is 5' 9.6". If you change that height to 6' 4" to represent an actor of that height, all of the male relationship options go right out the window. The reason this is occurring is because the program is basing relationships on height and limb distance, rather than on joints. In the world of create-your-own-character video games, this problem was assisted by creating algorithms that defined relationships by proximity of joints, rather than distance from the ground.

Use of a joint system wouldn't be perfect, because bigger people have bigger limbs and smaller people have smaller limbs, which would, of course, lead to lots of clipping issues. However, if they would keep the basic joint connections for the relationships in place, then the individual designer could fine tune things as needed. That's a lot simpler than having to start from scratch if you make the 'mistake' of casting someone who's 6'6" in a film.

The final issue comes down to refining the decal system. The ability of the decal system is great, but right now it's prone to bugs like having one person's hair color extend to another person nearby, or having a 'skin' or decal vanish in the green room. Along with fixing these bugs, they'll need to come up with more robust abilities for controlling where decals are placed on clothing and skin, to help eliminate the hit or miss method that's currently in place.

Value
While it may seem like we've brought up a number of problems with this program, the reality is, as we mentioned at the beginning of this review, there's just no way you could make a program as complex as this and not have issues. The fact that there are as few as there are speaks volumes to Innoventive's hard work and persistence.

This is a program that can allow you to come up with a truly amazing visual look for your film, which is even more crucial in a micro-film world where we tend to have to shoot as fast as possible during production. By being able to set up your scenes, set up your camera, and map out where the coolest shots are going to come from, you can end up with a truly professional looking film. And because you'll know exactly where your cameraman is going to set up and where you need your actors in relationship to the camera, you can shave a good amount of time off your actual shooting schedule.

In addition to getting the program and the updates that Innoventive provides, the users of FF3DS have always had a huge propensity for creating a large amount of content and posting it on the FF3DS bulletin board.

With all that in mind, this is a program that is well worth the $400 that is being charged for it.

Overall Comment
An amazing weapon for any low- or no-budget filmmaker, Frame Forge 3D Studio 2 is an impressive program. It's not done growing or evolving yet, but it's already at a place to shave hours and hours of production and 'meandering' time off your shoots. With a company that seems dedicated to perpetual improvement and enthusiastic user mods readily available, FrameForge 3D Studio 2 might be one of the best $400 purchases you make for yourself as a filmmaker.