Requirments for SimLab Composer 9

[Alex]

Here are some ideas:

Basic HDR Editor

It would be cool to have a basic HDR Editor to
a) edit / move some lights
b) mabye gradients
c) and / or sample lights

multilayer material
+1 on the multilayer material like carbon texture and carbon bump (depth) with glass coat

Multiple Shots
Idea: I prepare e.g. 5 Camerashots and then automatically render the images one after the other.
I haven't tried it with animation but it might already work with one camera each set to only one frame

Texture rotation / mirroring
Sometimes the texture is rotated wrong or is mirrored. The UV-settings rotation was only one direction or did not work properly. So i used photoshop to turn the texture.

Camera Animation in VR Desktop mode / export
I really like the quality of the implemented unreal engine. It would be great to have a camera motion in VR or some option for Animation in VR Desktop Mode-Quality. It looks decent and you have the result immediately compared to the actual animation rendering.

Different HDR / Skies in VR
Is it possible to change the sky for the VR mode? If not this would be a great addition.

Material Names
Sometimes the material names disappear and I have to click on "Icon-Size" to see the names again. - more of a fix

Cloudy Materials
Materials with "light depth factor" like silikon rubber which absorb light a few mm or are kind of translucent if the object is thin enough.

That is my long wishlist Thank you Simlab for your open ear and your great product & fair pricing

Best regards
Alex

[SimLab]

I am truly thankful for all the great suggestions, please keep them coming, those are of great value to us.
Those great suggestions is what will shape SimLab Composer 9 and beyond.

But you know, we will not be able to accommodate all those requests, so I think it is right to inform you how do we pick features for SimLab Composer 9 or 9.1

We focus on three things:
1- Number of users that can benefit from the feature, features that are general and beneficial to a large number of users , get done faster.
2- How difficult and time consuming it is to implement the feature, we have a limited pool of great developers, so we need to make the best of our developers, we can not do all the big projects, we need to pick the important ones.
3- Alignment with the release , while we try to push all technologies in SimLab Composer we make sure in each release to provide value for users, and features which complete value for users are pushed based on the release.

Soon I will ask for some clarification on features not very clear to us.

Ashraf

[ntxdave]

Thanks for this update. Although I am struggling with some features, I think Composer is a great tool.

I would like to be able to produce the same quality of output with WebGL, 3D PDF, and VR as I do with the render tool. I have produced some really nice quality renders (IMHO) but cannot come very close in the other formats.

[ntxdave]

Although SimLab already provides interactivity, I would like to see the ability to add clickable spots and more elaborate popups (like the message box) like in Sketchfab and 3DVista. Both of these products allow you to add the links that follow objects as you rotate, pan and etc. 3DVista also provides very nice popups when you click on one of the links. Neither of these require a "template" (although there are times when the template can be very useful - such as the WebGL page).

[Shanrein]

1) Spring and compression animation capabilities. I think one of the important things to remember is there are still lots of demand for using 3D programs for animation. I would like to see a few more options for animating mechanisms.

2) More tutorials!!! I searched forever trying to find a tutorial that discusses the director record and found absolutely nothing, and the same with the forum. The forum is extremely time consuming and doesn't often provide legitimate answer as everyone is asking the same thing. So it leaves lots of questions unanswered.

[Shanrein]

Another request is to be able to scale an object using the scale tool (3) to transform the scale free hand, like you can scale a vector object in illustrator. Is that possible? I find using the scale tool by playing around with the unit of 1.000 is very difficult and annoying. I find I have to guess over and over again to which number it might be to try and get the scale right which makes scaling very time consuming. It makes it very difficult to match one object size to another.

Also, make the scale unit in inches for feet as right now 1.000 makes no sense, is it a percentage of the size? 1.000 = 100%/

[Theodvs26]

Hello Simlab and everybody,

all are great requests.
I have more focus on animation.
1) smoother fade out of a part when you animate to hide. or at least the option of how you want to fade it out.( how many frames the transition will take for example)
2)In simulation when it is saved and exported to animation, the solid assemblies you might have made to be also the assembly that is shown in animation timeline. Now if i choose 20 parts in simulation and make one solid and simulate a movement when i go back to animation i see 20 parts movement keys. it fills up the screen and is difficult if you want to animate others
3) the animation timeline bar to be unattached of the slider of the frames. if i jump back and forth with the slider , the bar jumps to the beginning( frame 0-200 shown for example) always, whereas i want to see frame 600-800

Thanks a lot, keep up the good work!

[Shanrein]

File > Save should should hold all information applied to project

When I save a project I believe that all information applied to the project will be there when I open it up, but simlab does not do this. When I open up a saved project half of the materials applied have been lost and then replaced by a default grey. This is extremely annoying and time consuming as I have to place all the materials to the objects again and again. All other programs save everything to the project when the project is saved. Simlab support said to package it, however I shouldn't have to package it every time I want to step away from my desk. I've also had the same occurrence even with a packaged file.

[formdes]

Hi,

I would like a way to remember the windows layout. When I am animating I like to have a small model window and big timeline. It would be great if Simlab could remember the onscreen position of the different windows.

[formdes]

Working on an animation so will post as I think of stuff.

I have a series of steps that I am animating. I have components turning on and off throughout the full animation. I have the various configurations saved as scenes. I name the scenes relative to the time period in the animation, ie scene 0-120 is the scene state between frames 0 and 120, you get the picture. It would be nice if the animation 'from-to' range could be saved in the scene; ie when i change scene the time block in the animation also changes.
Thanks.