This is a PRE-Alpha release. The main objective of the DR2 release is to give developers early access to the new APIs, in particular the triMesh. The triMesh is a new geometry which is targeted for optimal performance.
For this release, optimal performance through the trimesh primitive can only be obtained IF and ONLY IF your model has the following characteristics:
- Vertex normals must be present
- Triangle normals must be present (there can be no other face attributes)
- vertex interpolation must be on
- backface removal must be off
Second best settings:
- Triangle normals must be present (there can be no other face attributes)
- flat shading
When released, performance will be optimal for other cases as well.
Additionally, you will notice that for certain combinations of attributes, the performance for the existing Mesh primitive is slower at this time, as compared with the performance in v.1.0.6. This will improve by the final release.
NURB patches are not working on this release.
Lastly, the new API calls are not yet final. The next major seed will be at the Alpha stage, with final APIs.
Changes from DR1:
-pixmap markers are now enabled
-trimesh I/O is now enabled
-file references are enabled
-UV picking info is now returned
-updated 3D Viewer
-updated RAVE
-textures I/O works for Windows 95 and NT
-bug fixes
What's missing:
- Windows DrawContext (use pixmap for now)
- unknown object preservation across applications in 3DMF
- extensibility calls (most of the API related to extensibility is available)
- performance optimizations
If you run into any problems, contact DEVSUPPORT@applelink.apple.com, attention Ricks Evans. Please mention that you are running with QuickDraw 3D DR2.
There is a mailing list dealing with QuickDraw 3D issues. To subscribe, send a message to quickdraw-3d@macos.apple.com, with subscribe as the subject and content.