Why is EQUINOX-3D better?
As our artist said: "all engineers should be forced to use the software they write".
I use EQX many hours a day and there is no need to force me!
Powerful CAD/CAM features, 3D printing and laser-cutting support.
Universal rendering API that allows full modeling on any renderer and fully integrated Cg renderer with a quality that closely matches the ray-tracer:*
- HDR texture support and HDR rendering output
- Super fast importance-sampled HDR environment light support.
- Hardware-accelerated shadows with an unlimited number of light sources
- Reflection and refraction cube mapping with fresnel term
- Code generator that can automatically create billions of variations per shader type from the user interface settings!
No need for hand-coding Cg shaders or for using external programs that break the artist's workflow.
"Installation-free" package (just download/unpack and run) for both Linux and Mac: "It's so nice to have an application that installs so easily under Linux!"
-- Paul Unterweiser, PMU Interactive Design
Clean, easy to use and fast user-interface (UI). EQUINOX-3D is often called "the free modeler with by far the best UI".
Fast and memory-efficient design. For example: EQUINOX-3D starts up in ~1 second, with about 100 plugins loaded(**) Try this with other modelers!
Future-proof core design:
Other modeler companies eventually end up with unmanageable code, need to throw out their product and start from scratch every few years to keep up with advances in 3D graphics.
EQUINOX-3D has been built on a heavily runtime-typed "evolvable" core since the 1990s.
There was never a need to redesign it from scratch in the many years it has been under development.
EQUINOX-3D is more like a "3D operating system" than a monolythic application (over 90% of it is plugins), which allows for adding anything from an integrated renderer to a new modeling tool-kit, as plugins.
For example, it took about half an hour to "turn" EQX into an XML schema viewer. You can also turn it into a Solar system simulator. See projects.
Camera "fly-to" feature for all view-modes (3D, schematics, animation etc.). After me showing off this feature for years, it was partially copied (3D view only) in the latest version of Maya. The sincerest form of flattery, I guess...
Programmable texture-mappers: just like programmable shaders, per-pixel custom texture-mappers allow you to use your own texture mapping algorithms.
This allows for things like special environment-map projections (e.g. mirror-sphere mapper) and custom, or even character-specific mappers, such as a "dragon" texture-mapper.
Full high dynamic range texture and rendering support with exposure control and direct support for angle-maps, mirror-sphere maps etc.
Universal, unlimited undo/redo infrastructure with support for multiple, independent operations at each undo/redo step.
Plugin-manager: allows you to change, re-compile and reload plugins without restarting EQUINOX-3D.
EQUINOX-3D uses , Cg and GLSL for advanced shaders
* This feature requires at an NVidia FX5700 or better graphics card.
** Might be more on slower harddisks or CPUs.
Awards and testimonials
"Equinox is by far the best implementation of this idea.
Very nicely implemented, and a Lighting TD's dream"
-- independent posting on CGtalk.com, referring to the integrated ray-tracer
"Your product "EQUINOX-3D 0.9.0" has been tested by the Softpedia labs...
We are impressed with the quality of your product and encourage you to keep this high standards in the future."
-- The Softpedia Team
EQUINOX-3D is referred to at 3dlinks.com. It's a great source of information for 3D on Linux.
