[rescue] Using you SGIs: Wings3D

[Joshua D Boyd]

Wings3D.  It is a new modeller for unix and windows and macosx.  It is
a knock of Nendo basically (which is basically a much updated for of
the old S-Geometry package).  See http://www.wings3d.com/

I said a few days ago I'd post my thoughts of this package running on
linux (it is supposed to run just fine on SGI also, but I don't have
one handy).  

Installing the package is a pain in the butt.  First, the debian
packages for erlang (the language it is written in) don't work with
esdl (no debian packages available).  Custom installing erlang went
fine (hopefully it would go fine on Irix).  esdl then wouldn't finish
compiling, but I determined that it was failing in the doc building
stage, and that nothing important came later.  After installing esdl,
wings compiled just fine.

Starting wings is a pain.  The command to do so is:  erl -pa \
/usr/local/lib/erlang/lib/esdl-0.91.0415/ebin \
/usr/local/src/wings-0.96/ebin/ -run wings_start start_halt

Anyway, now that it is running, it works really smoothly.  It performs
as advertised, and I really like it.  Soon I'll have to post some
pictures.  However, also as advertised, it completely lacks texturing
tools.  I think this isn't such a big deal, but you might think
otherwise.  Also, I haven't yet figured out how to load reference
images.  Perhaps it isn't allowed.  That would be a real bummer if
so.

Anyway, if you see a value for polygon modelling, or subdivision
surface modelling, it is probably worth the install trouble.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd