A diverse 3D computer graphics package, Specular International's Infini-D is the forefather to MetaCreation's Carrara. Features like distributed rendering and unique SplineForm modeling system set it apart from other packages available on the Macintosh.
Specular Infini-D users, a fanatical band of loyalists, have been waiting with bated breath for version 4.0 of this popular 3D animation program. Well, it’s here, and although version 4.0 still doesn’t have some of the features that fens have long been asking for — notably, inverse kinematics and motion blur — it’s still a very solid release, with several pleasant surprises.
Infini-D’s interface has been significantly revamped. Most tools are now on a toolbar above the work area. Object settings, such as textures, deformations, and constraints, are controlled by a series of command tabs on a large floater that parks to the left of the work area. New users will find it easier to get started, and Infini-D veterans won’t have any trouble once they get used to finding the Get Image function on the Surface floater instead of in a dialog box.
Infini-D 4.0 is positioned for the digital video market, and specifically as the 3D tool of choice for Adobe After Effects users. There’s support for field rendering and the nonsquare pixels used in the pro-level D1 video format. Sound support is another new feature geared specifically to video production. You now can import a soundtrack right into the sequencer and see its waveform while you animate, making it possible to precisely synchronize movement and sound direcdy within the program. Previously, you had to time the sound with a waveform editor such as SoundEdit and write down the notations before you began.
Infini-D 4.0’s new particle animation tools, the easiest to use of any particle animation system on the Mac, allows full collision-detection with any object in the scene — an important feature for realistic particle movement. Glowing sparks from a firecracker bounce off nearby surfaces, just as they would in real life. Unfortunately, Infini-D’s particles can be only points, lines, and single polygons. The ability to have any object be a particle would greatly increase the range of possible effects.
The coolest new feature is Reflex, which lets you apply After Effects filters, including third-party plug-ins, to any object in a scene. You can, for example, apply Reflex filters to give individual objects a fuzzy edge. Filters also can be animated, with nearly as much control as After Effects allows. Meets that once required alpha channel compositing in After Effects can now be performed right in Infini-D 4.0.
Camera and light animation has also been greatly improved. To animate a complex camera move in Infini-D 3-5, you had to deal with a hard-to- control mess of event-marks and velocity graphs to keep the camera pointing in the right direction. Now, any camera or spot light can point continuously at a “target” object no matter how the camera or object moves. The result? Smooth moves in far less time.
New visible lighting capabilities, including glowing light cones and points, have been added to Infini-D’s already outstanding lens flares. A new light type, tube lights, is great for fluorescent fixtures, laser beams, and light sabers.
Infini-D’s renderer also has been updated. The phong renderer now includes soft shadows and reflectivity. You’ll probably never need to go to the raytracer except when rendering objects with Booleans, which render correcdy only in raytraced views.
Final renders are now done in a separate window instead of in the scene views, as in earlier versions. The new renderer looks much like the Backbumer network rendering add-on. Although the new rendering module does not yet support network rendering (no doubt there will be a fix in the future), the new render window also gives more useful statistics about the render, including an estimate of the full render time.
As for performance, Specular boasts that the new renderer is up to three times faster than the old one. But our tests showed that in some situations, Infini-D 3.5’s renderer is actually faster. Render speed is the one area in which Infini-D appears to be falling behind the competition; the company urgently needs to address this problem.
Infini-D animators have been waiting for an easier way to deform objects within a scene without having to create morphing eventmarks in the modeling workshop. In Infini-D 4.0, any object in a scene can be deformed with a variety of deformer tools, ranging from twist and bend to sine waves. Deformations have their own track in the sequencer and can affect all or part of an object. In the workshop, Infini-D now can triangulate an object (turn it in to polygons). You then can take the object into the new Vertex Editor, where you can manipulate it point by point. This gives much greater control over the surface of an object.
As welcome as they are, these tools are not as well integrated as they should be. Child objects do not deform with parents, so if you bend the wrist of a character, the fingers don’t follow. Splineform objects can still be morphed normally, but Vertex-edited objects cannot. Also, deformations and morphing are not controlled by velocity graphs, making it hard to achieve proper timing for movements. By the way, one of my pet peeves about the program has not yet been addressed — velocity graphs are still in modal dialogs instead of nonmodal floaters. They should be part of the sequencer.
Without a doubt, though, this Infini-D is the most capable and useful yet. And with competitors sometimes diverging radically, and wrong-headedly, from Apple interface standards (listening, Newtek?), Infini-D still looks and works like a real Macintosh program. That’s refreshing all by itself.
Anzovin, Raf. (July 1997). Infini-D 4.0. MacAddict. (pgs. 60-61).
The .sit is a folder archive that came from a full CD copy. This is not an ISO, but it works fine.
If you don't want all the CD stuff just grab the Installer.
MetaTools, Inc.
Applications
out of 10 (1 vote)
98 / 
2017-09-04 / 
350fd4cda25f5005ae9e33ee16cd9e398bd9f29e / 
/ 
Infini-D_4.0_Installer.sit
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
SheepShaver
