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Art of Illusion is a free, open source 3D modelling and rendering studio. Many of its capabilities rival those found in commercial programs. Highlights include subdivision surface based modelling tools, skeleton based animation, and a graphical language for designing procedural textures and materials..

These scene files need to contain some 3-D objects, at least one light so that the objects can be seen and at least one camera, the view from which provides the image.

Complex scenes may contain many hundreds of objects and several lights. Files built for animation may have several cameras between which the view is cut to make for an interesting animation sequence.

3-D objects come in 4 basic flavours: Primitives, triangle meshes, spline meshes, and tubes, all of which are described in detail later in this manual.

Art of Illusion has highly flexible, but easy to use, editors for textures (surface properties such as colour, bumpiness, shininess, transparency etc.) and materials (inner properties for simulating glass, smoke etc.)

Animation of objects within the scene is achieved with a keyframing system including support for skeletons using forward and inverse kinematic animation. Textures can also be animated.

Rendering of the scene file is achieved with a fast raster engine or a high quality raytracer capable of producing photorealistic images. Motion blur, depth of field, Global Illumination and caustic effects are supported.

In addition, Art of Illusion includes a scripting feature allowing the creation of new types of objects and tools amongst virtually unlimited other possibilities via the Beanshell scripting language.

Features:

Object Editor
Art of Illusion provides subdivision surface based modelling tools for creating smooth surfaces from control meshes of arbitrary shape and structure. A powerful set of deformation tools allow you to "sculpt" objects in a natural, intuitive way.

Procedural Texture Editor
One of Art of Illusion's most exceptional features is its procedural texture editor. By "wiring together" blocks which represent different patterns or mathematical functions, you can construct complex procedures in just minutes. A preview of the resulting texture is always visible, and updated continuously as you work.