- deals with polygons, bezier curves and surfaces and spheres.
- real-time manipulation of bezier surfaces and sphere of unique easiness, with full control over the U and V parameters for shading.
- real-time operations with all the tools, no preview!
- scene editor is not separated from object editor, thanks to the working speed of TopModel: you can always see what you're doing!
- a unique easiness of use allowing a full control over operations.
- a powerful navigating tool.
- object points and control points of surfaces always editable, also on the whole scene: you can work on complete objects and with parts on them at the same times!
- classic tools to move, rotate, magnify, copy, delete, group and ungroup objects.
- up to 16 paths, each composed by up to 10 bezier-curves used in copy, extrusion or deformation tool.
- copy tool, working via steps (in rotation and in movement) or along a multi-bezier path (with an optional "normal to path" feature to follow the path direction).
- professional sweep tool (with control over altitude, envelope on current plane and envelope on current axis).
- professional extrusion tool on a multi-bezier path (with control over altitude, envelope and bevelling).
- deformation tool (with control over torsion, envelope on the current plane and altitude).
- magnetic tool with control parameters.
- simmetry tool useful during many drag operations.
- two real-time lattice deformations using:
a bounding-box cube (trilinear deformation tool: ie. the perspective tool in ArtWork working in 3D);
a bezier-volume (bezier's volume distorsion with a powerful control on objects, allowing also a non-linear internal expansion; similar to the moulding tool in Artwork working in 3D)
- texture mapping (one texture/objects, on a plane, on a cylinder or on a sphere) with or without mask applied in real-time.
- bitmap textures up to 32bpp in all the formats recognised by !ChangeFSI. References of used textures in the saved file.
- subdivison tool, to split objects in smaller units.
- space out, align and pack objects tool for better control.
- join and split points tool to create nets of objects (and to reduce the number of points).
- possibility to set (and recall) up to 64 named views.
- up to 2048 named groups.
- up to 1024 light sources of any type and colour plus a front light and an ambiental light.
- object-oriented management of materials and colours with industry-standard presetting.
- material creation window with real-time calculated preview on three different objects.
- real-time user-defined grid visible and active both in axonometric or perspective mode, rotating with viewpoint.
- support for Draw, Paint, Targa, Illusionist, Render Bender II, Fems, VRML, Amiga GEO, DXF, 3DStudio, PovRay, Imagine, Envisage, X3D and LightWave file formats also trought external filters.
- import spritefiles. TopModel will create one polygon for each pixel in the source image. Drag sprite while pressing shift to create altitude maps, mountains, landscapes or bas-relief from coloured sprites.
- import drawfiles (you can choose if to load bezier curves as they are or linearize paths).
- an easy to read and modify ascii file format for your own load/creation routine plus a binary one to speed up load operations.
- sets of external tools to create particular objects (shells, mathematic functions and so on...).
- several library of drag'n drop objects to use whenever you want.
- highly optimized hand-written ARM code for speed!
- multitask! works on any RISC-OS 3.xx system with any processor (from ARM2 to StrongArm)
- TopModel uses the Gemini graphic engine which has the following features:
- Works on any Acorn processor, from ARM2 to StrongArm.
- Phong's illumination model and support for Cook&Torrance's one.
- Wireframe, flat, Gouraud and Phong shading modes.
- Shaded wireframe, for high-speed illuminated rendering; this display style was originally created by Sincronia and introduced in TopModel from its very first versions.
- Up to 1024 light sources of any type (sun, point, spot) and colour, all recalculated real-time.
- Phisical-based material models (ambient, diffusion, reflection RGB, transparency RGB and refractive index).
- Full Z-buffer (in any view mode), with a T-Buffer for a correct rendering of transparencies.
- Real-time parametrized fog and haze.
- Texture, chrome and bump mapping. Gemini supports also several techniques superposed.
- Lens-flares effects.
- Several camera models.
- Normal and VR navigation modes.
- Scene is calculated at 96bits per pixel and then reduced using a real-time Floyd/Steinberg error diffusion algorithm.
- New enhanced radiosity view mode that deals with real-time soft shadows and light diffusion.
- Possibility to place an image (in any format) in the background; it can follow the rotation of the view (like a VRQuickTime).
- Direct import of VRML files (up to 40 nested Separator nodes, support for recursive nested
DEF-USE nodes, gestion of lights and navigation nodes).
- Support for animation: hierarchic objects management and a "Gemini_Transformation" call to
