Crystal Clarity
Product Reviews -- Topas v5.11


We begin our reviews with the Crystal Graphics "flagship" product, and to be honest Topas is my 3D tool of choice.

Topas has been called, "The worlds easiest 3D animation software" for good reason. Admittedly I haven't used them all, but I've had the opportunity to use many PC based 3D programs. The learning curve is much easier than other products on the market that deliver similar results.

The documentation with Topas indicates that you can run it on a 386 PC with 8 megs of RAM, but you'd honestly want to do that as much as running Windows 95 on the same PC. It could be done, but would you want to? I have used Topas on the following machine configurations -- DX2/66 16megs RAM, DX4/100 24megs RAM, Pentium 90 with 32 megs, pentium 100 with 64 megs, and a PPro 180 with 64megs of RAM. Needless to say, the Pentium Pro delivered the most agreeable results. But for everyday still modeling (not lengthy animations) I was able to use the DX4/100 happily.

Topas is currently a DOS based program. For the most part I see this as a positive. DOS runs with so much less overhead than Windows 95/NT. You don't have to support all the little gadgets that Microsoft forces upon us, jumping through hoops when we could be using memory and cpu time for modeling and rendering. This isn't to say I wouldn't welcome a Windows based product. There is much to be said in favor of multi-tasking, and other benefits of Windows NT for example. And I've heard (unsupported) rumors that the next version will move this direction.

Topas has a 'windows like' GUI (graphical users interface), but it's operation isn't related to "Windows." Topas has it's tools set in a series of nested menus that become very easy to use very quickly -- this must be what 'intuitive' means. The "build menu" has your building tools, "animation menu" those tools dealing with animation and so on. The most difficult part is remembering all the features that you have available to choose from.

What I like about Topas:

• Topas' rendering engine is superior, very fast, and does superb metals and glass. You can, with transparent objects, set Topas to selectively 'raytrace' them, which gives an incredible speed boost over having to raytrace an entire scene. In my experience Topas delivers the best metals textures in the industry.
• Unified modeling and rendering format. I don't have to hop between multiple programs or windows to make what I want. I can model, apply texture and image maps, and render my scene all from one screen.
• Very easy learning curve. You don't have to read the whole manual before you can get started. With just the information in the tutorial book projects you get a feel for many of the tools, and can go from there. The main manual is useful as a refrence book for only the more complicated manuvers.

There are a couple things that can be seen as shortcomings in Topas.

• It doesn't have IK (inverse kinematics), but does have an 'attachable heirarchy' which provides much the same ability in animation.
• You can only morph between objects of like type and like complexity. Meaning you can't morph directly from a 6 sided box to a 2000 control point human figure.
• Some of the more advanced modeling techniques such as Nurbs and b-patch aren't implemented yet. But who knows what the future holds.

Topas isn't the 'end all, be all' 3D graphics program that we all want, but then I haven't really found one of those yet. It does have all the typical 3D tools you are looking for: modeling, text creation, image/bump/texture/procedural mapping, spline manipulation, keyframe & keyobject animation. Plus some specific features such as setting different screen resolutions for modeling, rendering and animation, the ability to see animation previews in different ways: wireframes, flipbook, and a story board layout.

The list price for Topas, and what you can actually get it for on the street are often very divergent. If you shop around you can find some amazingly good prices. What ever you end up paying, it will be money well spent.

If the future for Topas is as bright as the transition of Flying Fonts from DOS to Windows, then it is a brilliant one indeed.