Design 3D CX 8 Mac Upgrade x64 Upgrade (Standard License)
New in the x64 Release
Metal Interactive Rendering
Faster and more crisp, Metal rendering gives you an important new option for interactive rendering. Apple’s Metal interactive model rendering goes beyond OpenGL and offers super fast model rendering that takes maximum advantage of your Mac’s hardware. Wireframe is clean and precise. Huge models can be navigated with speeds not seen before. Metal will be your new go-to model view rendering.
64-Bit Everywhere
The x64 release supports all the advantages of 64-bit in all areas of the application – beyond just rendering. More memory for models. Faster access for textures. Increased speed and responsiveness in all areas of the software. 64-bit brings advantages you’ll use everyday.
Speed and Power on the Latest Chips
Design 3D CX x64 release takes full advantage of your Intel or Apple M-Series Silicon based Mac. The speed, memory access, metal rendering and more are now available to you with the power of 64-bit.
Crisp Revised UI
The user interface has been updated to support high resolution monitors to provide clean, crisp icons, text and other elements to improve the overall experience.
Hundreds of Updates and Fixes for a New Foundation
The foundation of Design 3D CX is greatly improved with this new release, setting the stage for the future of the application.
Features and Updates in Previous Releases
Stage Model
Stage Model makes it easy to take your models and stage them in one of the nearly 30 professionally created templates in as few as 2 clicks.
Embree Raycasting Technology by Intel®
Embree speeds up rendering by up to 200%-500% – and in some cases even as much as 800%. Embree also allows the renderer to delve deeper into your images to refine edges with greater accuracy.
Stage Model
Stage Model makes it easy to take your models and stage them in one of the nearly 30 professionally created templates in as few as 2 clicks.
Rendering Features
64-BIT Rendering / Memory
Design 3D 8.0 can access massive amounts of memory during rendering.
Render Gamma Control
The gamma function shifts pixel intensity values in a way that more closely approximates the way humans perceive light. This creates more realistic lighting and makes lighting a scene easier. Linear gamma tends to be more contrasted, with areas near light sources that can be over exposed, and areas of the scene that are under exposed.
High Precision Floating-Point Color Output (OpenEXR)
Renderings can be saved in OpenEXR format which stores high precision color information. Among its features is the ability to save parts of a rendering that far exceed the white point. In both 8 and 16-bit color white is always white and no intensities beyond it are available for editing once saved.
High Precision Integer Color Output (16-bit)
16-bit color avoids gradient banding problems common to 8-bit per channel color. With 16-bit integer color each channel contains 65,536 value steps, whereas 8-bit contains only 256 steps per channel.
New Anti-Aliasing Filter mechanism
A new anti-aliasing mechanism allows the renderer to produce sharper or softer pixel filtering for aliased geometry and textures. Three presets (sharp, medium, soft) allow for easy access to these filters. Very nuanced settings can be accessed to manually adjust the anti-aliasing system.
Faster Rendering of 7.5 Files
Design 3D 8.0 provides improved rendering performance when compared to version 7.5.
LiveRay, Rapid Scene/Object Raytraced Preview
LiveRay allows for quick tests in any modeling or scene window (including camera windows) with a fast raytraced overlay. This helps to visualize complex material setups that aren’t visible with the standard OpenGL display. LiveRay also allows for rapid lighting visualizations without having to invoke the standard render mechanism.
Image Brightness Controls During Rendering
A rendering can be image adjusted during the render process. This is most useful for adjusting the overall brightness (or lack thereof) for a rendering. This helps to make fine-tuned adjustments to an image without needing to change lights or materials, or to stop a rendering to make these changes.
Soft Shadows for Global Lights
Global lights can now cast soft shadows by setting the ‘Size in Angular Diameter’ parameter. This is very useful for realistic lighting, especially when using the Sun & Sky function.
Spherical Camera
A new spherical type allows easy creation of spherical HDRI images from any existing scene. These can be saved as floating-point EXR files and then used in the Lightdome to provide lighting.
Texture Dialog Enhancements
Directly Import AI/PDF Files in the Material Dialog
Native vector source files for textures can be imported directly into a material channel. This helps to bypass generating intermediate files from a source file.
Built-In Common Texture Maps
The materials dialog has general- purpose bitmaps like masks, normal maps, anisotropic reflection maps and color maps.
Improved OpenGL
Better Interactive Lighting
Working interactively with models is easier now. Instead of needing to place many global lights around a scene, a single color can be placed in the Lightdome to provide even lighting. Models that have metallic surfaces (or surfaces with no diffuse component) are also fully illuminated, whereas those would appear as black in 7.5.
