Monday, 5 June 2017

Adobe Felix

I've spent some time recently with Adobe's latest 3D app, called Felix... what I like about it is that it's being made for graphic designers, not engineers... which means it has a simpler, more intuitive interface for creative professionals.

I've used plenty of 3D software over the years, Strata3D being my most favourite and recently Photoshop CC's built-in 3D tools however I've found Felix very easy to use. So far my testing has been limited to importing models made from Photoshop, apply materials and rendering as Felix doesn't have modelling built-in (and may not have in future builds) but it is, very, very good. So good that I find it's rendering engine much better than Photoshop's. So now I transfer projects to Felix for rendering, freeing up Photoshop for other projects (a render job in Photoshop locks the entire app until it is finished).

The pic below is a rendering of a marble, it's a combination of a revolved object that's been twisted and distorted, then placed inside a sphere. I didn't bother adding materials, I just exported the 3D objects (in .obj format which is what Felix requires), once imported successfully I did some camera controls tweaking then applying Felix's built-in materials (glass mainly) and hey-presto! A rendered 3D marble... which, I have to say, I loved collecting when I was a kid!