elsa offers a special driver for 3d studio max and viz. the optimization of the elsa driver lets you reach higher display speeds and thus is indispensable for the elsa synergy 2000.

    3d studio max and viz are powerful applications for modeling, rendering, visualizing and animating 3d objects. the software package includes two standard graphics drivers to be used alternatively with differing performance characteristics—a heidi driver (software z buffer/szb), and an opengl api driver (for hardware acceleration).

    elsa is the only manufacturer of graphics boards to have developed an optimized solution to increase user productivity and fully exploit existing performance reserves: elsa maxtreme is a special driver for 3d studio max/viz which makes the most of the special features of the elsa gloria and elsa synergy graphics boards. it offers many improvements over standard drivers and thus considerable increases in performance and productivity when used with these applications.

    features and benefits

    by developing a driver tailored to 3d studio max and 3d studio viz, elsa's software developers have laid the foundation for further optimization and new functions which will be available only in elsa gloria and elsa synergy graphics accelerators in the future.

    by using elsa maxtreme, many effects which would otherwise not be visible until the final video-rendering stage can be displayed during the creative phase in “working view”. these include:

    a) transparency: normally, transparent objects are displayed in 3d studio max/viz by stippled “clouds” of varying densities (“stippled” or “screen door” process). this shows, to an extent, whether an object is transparent or not and how translucent it is. even so, the visual impression it gives is not one of a transparent object. elsa maxtreme allows you to select:

    1 whether transparent objects are at all displayed in a transparent way (non-transparent display of transparent objects is, of course, particularly fast);

    2 whether to use the standard method described above;

    3 whether transparent objects are actually displayed as transparent, i.e. by blending the transparent object's color with the color of the objects located behind them.

    a further improvement is spatial sorting of transparent objects before they are displayed ('sorted blending') which gives a perfect impression of transparency even where there are any number of transparent objects in the scene.

    b) fog: normally, no fogging is displayed in 'working view' mode. however, elsa maxtreme also supports 3d studio's standard fogging. this means that at an early stage one gets a realistic impression of a fogged scene. animated too, of course.

    installation

    1 ensure that 3d studio max/viz has not been started.

    2 insert the elsa synergy 2000 cd into the cd-rom drive and start the setup.exe program from the directory '[your cd drive, normally d]:\apps\maxtreme'.

    the program guides you through each step of the installation. read the instructions carefully, and answer and confirm each of the questions.

    further information on this special driver can be found in the readme.txt file in the directory on the elsa synergy 2000 cd.