| What
was the inspiration behind PShelf? It's quite
a different concept to the usual texture plug-ins.
Pshelf collections are the
solution to many issues we had as professionals
working in very time-pressured environments.
Firstly, "texture" collections
- libraries of photographs - are long established
in 3D and have their place, but they're only the
first step in creating a finished surface. No-one
was offering ready-to-render professional surface
collections for LightWavers, so we felt we should
give it a go.
We also wanted a system that
was plug-in-free, because plug-in-based surfaces
can cause problems in collaborative environments
where different people work on different spec
LightWave installations. Our collections work
with the base system.
Finally, I think a lot of
LightWavers would like to build up a library of
re-usable base surfaces but they have problems
managing their image maps and other assets from
project to project - there's no way of embedding
them into presets. We tackled this problem by
writing the Pshelf Manager app which makes moving
all the assets associated with our collections
a piece of cake. It also provides useful information
about each surface and grows as people obtain
new collections. It's such a beautiful solution
to surfacing that we often feel a tear welling
in our primitive worm eyes!
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