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NewTek’s new 3D Arsenal makes 3D possible for NLEs

At the opening of every episode of the hit TV show Lost, silver 3D letters of the show’s name slowly come at the screen and rotate while eerie sounds play in the background. The letters have an excellent effect, perfectly setting the mood for the show. But the animation is not complex – in fact, it is probably better that it is not.

It is for uses like this that NewTek created 3D Arsenal, which came out around a month ago (although I’m fairly certain that Lost was not made with this program). The relatively cheap product, priced at $495, allows non-linear editors to make their own 3D logos, movements, and easily integrate simple 3D into their work.

The Logo for 3D Arsenal was also made in the program, and you can use it as a template.

I got a chance to use 3D Arsenal through a friend. The experience was quite fun.

3D Arsenal, and the 3D Arsenal Creation Theater, is heavily based on its 750 templates. The idea, in many cases, it to “paint by numbers”: there’ll be a neat animation, like pictures spinning around in a 3D circle, and all you have to do is assign images to those pictures. In the demo that they post on the website, they use pictures of cars, and it looks like a professional car ad. The best part is that it only takes seconds.

3D text animation is also exceedingly simple with 3D Arsenal. You just write what you want, and it easily becomes text. Animating it is as easy as assigning it to a template.

The fact that it is heavily based on templates is a little limiting. I tried to approach the program as if I had no knowledge of 3D animating, as is their target market. Although it does come with a pretty functional version of Lightwave, with the one-hour of instructional information they provide you, you wouldn’t be able to master it. (On the other hand, the fact that you can pick up the core of the tool in only an hour is a major benefit to the tool, especially for its target audience).

Most of the templates are amazing, but some come across as kind of amateur. They are the sorts of things you might see on television for a local used car dealer. But those are only in the minority. The rest look very professional, like something you might see coming out of a major car manufacturer.

The Arsenal also works seamlessly with all the important non-linear editing programs, like Adobe Premiere. This really helped out a lot when I was messing around with it, since I am very comfortable in Premiere, as I’m sure most NLEs would be.

This is another move in the overall movement towards democratization in DCC. The idea is to make products so that every idiot can make 3D as easily as pros. Like most efforts to make these tools easier, this is good, but of course nobody will mistake work that comes out of 3D Arsenal for Pixar (err, Disney?) studio work. At $500, it’s a good buy – and it’s the only thing of its kind out there for NLEs.

Last Week’s DCC News in Brief

Virtual Reality

Fakespace Systems recently announced it has been awarded the contract to upgrade the C6, a six-sided virtual reality room at Iowa State University's Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC). Fakespace will apply the latest generation of stereoscopic projection technology to create an environment supporting the display of simulations generated by a cluster-based computing system at a resolution of 100 million pixels. [ Read more...]


3D Programs

Luxology, LLC announced the immediate availability of modo 201, its innovative 3D modeling, painting and rendering software built on the ultra clean modo code base. modo 201 combines significant modeling advancements with cutting-edge 3D painting and rendering technologies in a modern workflow customized to enhance productivity for 3D artists working in game development, film visual effects, video production, graphic arts and design visualization. modo 201 is available for immediate download from Luxology at modo3d.com or can be purchased from selected resellers. [ Read more...]

Strata, the company adding a new dimension to the designer's toolset, announced the release of Strata Foto 3D, the professional tool for converting still images into a high quality-fully textured 3D mesh. [ Read more...]

Strata also announced it has released Strata Live 3D. [ Read more...]


High quality DVD Players

Anchor Bay Technologies, Inc. (ABT), a leading supplier of system and semiconductor video processing ASICs is pleased to announce that its ABT1010 Precision Video Scaling™ Technology has been selected by Arcam for use in their new DiVA DV137, 1080p upscaling universal DVD player. With the official launch of their Video Reference Series (VRS) brand recently announced to the advanced digital TV market, Anchor Bay now provides equipment manufacturers and end customers a diverse set of video processing solutions. [ Read more...]


3D PDFs

A real revolution in the industrial field, the French editor VB2S' software allows manufacturers to reuse and to optimize their 3D data so as to make interactive 3D presentations for their Adobe PDF documents. Subdo is a new generation solution for interactive 3D communication which aims to extend the numerical production line to all the actors in the product lifecycle. [ Read more...]


3D Graphics Processors

NVIDIA Corporation, the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, announced it is demonstrating a variety of technologies and products at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) for Microsoft Corp's next-generation operating system, Windows Vista, being held this week in Seattle, WA. [ Read more...]

Members of the Microsoft Development Network (MSDN®) looking for graphics with superior performance, a rich feature set and rock-solid stability when using Windows Vista™, will be able to select ATI Technologies Inc. Catalyst drivers which are shipping in the box with Microsoft's Beta 2 release. [ Read more...]

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-- Jacob Heller, DCCCafe.com Contributing Editor.

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