3D shading

From WikiCover

On August 7, 2007, Dassault Systemes announced that it has teamed up NVIDIA and mental images to extend sophisticated shader technology to every user in the style and digital mock-up review processes. Wider access to shading tools enables companies to create richer, more detailed simulations that yield higher quality 3D renderings that reflect the real world.

This next-generation of shader functionality in CATIA, ENOVIA AND DELMIA, compliant with NVIDIA CgFX shader technology and OpenGL, offers high-quality rendering to a broad new community of rendering experts to CAD users and technical artists accustomed to working in the DCC world. It enables them to create more realistic simulation renderings in conceptual design that help companies make design changes and modifications early in the process, where they are easy and economical, rather than later in the process. Integration between NVIDIA, mental images and DS V5 products enable users to create shaders for use in CATIA-designed 3D models quickly and simply. It also spans user skill levels from rendering expert to CAD user to technical artists with no programming experience.

NVIDIA FX Composer 2.0 delivers powerful shader editing and integrated shader performance analysis tools, as well as supporting shader libraries, plug-ins, and scripting. mental mill Artist Edition from mental images gives technical artists and designers the ability to create customized shaders for V5 with an intuitive graphical interface that eliminates the need for shader programming.

mental mill is a new shader creation tool for all levels of expertise. A familiar graph editing paradigm allows the creation of complex shaders without programming skills. mental mill is based on MetaSL, a new meta shader language, developed by mental images. Shaders written in MetaSL are independent of platforms and rendering algorithms, with a single shader supporting various hardware and software rendering techniques (e.g., CgFX, HLSL, GLSL, mental ray). mental mill's graphical and interactive editing approach offers a significant productivity gain versus traditional shader creation methods. This enables users with little or no programming skills to generate the most complex shaders and phenomena.