3D Paint and Paint 3D

A long time back, there used to be a company called Silicon Graphics who invented a technology called IRIS GL with a graphics hardware called Reality Engine. The main application, Alias. For the first time designers could interactively manipulate models, with textures, environment maps, etc. The Alias Studio tools contained a package called 3D Paint. As the name suggested, it allowed designers to paint details on a base surface model. This allowed rapid iterations of design graphic elements without having to resort to model intricate details.

The only problem was the price. It was exorbitantly expensive. SGI hardware with Reality Engine graphics and Alias Studio Tools would cost around Rs.2 crores. Please be reminded that this was more than 25 years back. We had to justify the cost by working in shifts.

Fast forward to the present. Silicon Graphics is no more! But the legacy lives on. IRIS GL has morphed to OpenGL and now to Vulkan. I believe that most of Direct 3D development resulted from the Fahrenheit API. But with WebGL, the underlying low level API does not matter any more.

With the Creators Update, Microsoft has bundled two new software packages. View 3d and Paint 3D for free!

View 3D is one of the best 3D viewers available, interms of its simplicity and interactivity. Many different polygonal model types can be imported into the application. Image based lighting, frosted relections, shadows, textures etc.. all for free!

The other one is Paint 3D .. similar features and more as comapred to 3D Paint... All for free!

Calling all Designers and Creators .. If you haven't discovered Paint 3d and View 3d, give it a try today.

PS: Please do send me old screenshots of SGI workstation and Alias Studio.