Interactive Presentation

[Wokka]

G'day guys & girls, hope you can help.
One of my clients wants to be able interact with a 3D model (either ArchiCad or C4D, but i'd prefer C4D for quality). It's not just flying around the model etc but he'd like to manipulate materials and colours. The software could be just like QTVR, jumping from spot to spot or fully interactive for movement.
He could use photoshop and (using buffers in C4D) create masking to varie hue/saturation etc but I think realtime movement and colours would be great.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[stefan]

Wirefusion comes to mind.

A cross-platform application that can import 3D-models in VRML format.
It's not free, though.

I have the personal edition + the 3D-importer plugin (both free with 3DWorld Magazine) and the published files are JAVA-applets and work in a browser. I did a quick test and it even ran on a Mac 😉

Check this thread:
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=28960#28960

[Anonymous]

I'd second Rob's suggestion for Macromedia Director (I've been a Director programmer for years). Not only can it import QTVR, it can:

1) Run on Mac and Windows
2) Run via a web page with the Shockwave plugin.
3) Render 3D models, locally or remotely via the web, using the local machine's hardware acceleration, and still be completely interactive. (Latest version 11 supports hardware acceleration of DirectX 9 shaders and physics simulations). For a demo of it's realtime over-the-web capability, go here.
4) Be scripted using Javascript, aswell a Lingo.
5) Natively play MPEG2 DVD video (built in codecs and navigation), so you can create more interactive presentations for playback on a computer. And still provide those same videos for viewing on a standard DVD player.

More info here.

As an example, for the user changing textures, the script attached to the 3D sprite would look something like this:

on mouseWithin(me)
pt = (the mouseLoc) - point(sprite(me.spriteNum).left, sprite(me.spriteNum).top)
md = sprite(me.spriteNum).camera.modelUnderLoc(pt)
-- if there is a model under the cursor, md is now a reference to it.
if (not voidP(md)) then
-- now change the texture:
md.shader.texture = <reference to new texture>
end if
end

Personally, I've never had the need to do any 3D programming in the past. However, since learning AC in the last month, I wish I had more time to look at it. I think a free Shockwave Director-based web viewer for AC models would fill a gap.