AROS & Gallium3D

The AROS Research Operating System has started a bounty for Gallium 3D. What is Gallium 3D? It is a standard way to get hardware assisted 3D graphic acceleration and shading into an operating system. The success of this bounty will make the AROS version of Aladdin 4D even better for customers. We wish the AROS community well on achieving this port and will be adding funds to the Gallium 3D bounty very soon. You can donate to the bounty using the link below.

Gallium 3D AROS Bounty

Have You Purchased Aladdin 4D Recently?

Have you purchased Aladdin 4D from December 17th, 2007 - January 17th, 2008? If so please contact us via the Aladdin 4D forums. Since your such a recent customer we would like to offer you a substantial upgrade on the next version of A4D. The forums can be accessed via the following link below.

Aladdin 4D Forums

Wait or Wave?

A potential customer called us today and asked should they wait for a new version of Aladdin 4D for Windows or should they buy LightWave 3D? We told them they should most definitely buy LightWave 3D ASAP. Never plan projects on unreleased software when you have an immediate need. LightWave 3D 9.3 represents years and years of refinements and upgrades. It does things Aladdin 4D can't even dream of since it has gone so long without an upgrade. LightWave 3D has many many features not present in Aladdin 4D since they are very different products. LW 3D is aimed at high-end users needing cutting edge features. People use LightWave 3D in their daily jobs doing feature film, video game graphics/animations & print production. Aladdin 4D is aimed at beginners and hobbyists. Also, we are not focused on the Windows version of Aladdin 4D, in fact it will be the last port that is completed. Please support NewTek if your looking for a professional high-end 3D animation package. It will be one of the most exciting pieces of software you'll ever buy.

8 Heads Are Better Than One.

Apple recently made their high end Mac Pro standard with 8 CPU Cores. A machine with 8 Cores has been available for some time but now all Mac Pros have this. The Mhz race is over and programming methodologies are changing. Just as the Amiga taught the industry that architectures are more elegant when custom chips are used along with the CPU. Multi core central processing units with complementary GPU rendered graphics will change the 3D animation industry. Since Aladdin 4D has not been updated for a while and is not a monolithic code base we can take advantage of these new ways of thinking.

Amiga, What a Cool Computer

The Amiga Computer Platform is what Aladdin 4D was originally created for. Many say it is the computer that launched the modern gaming industry. Many of the current game developers were formed or perfected their craft on the Amiga. Affordable Desktop Video & 3D Animation software also began life on this system.

Many of these tools are still around today on Windows & OS X. LightWave 3D, Cinema 4D, Video Toaster, DiscreetFX, TrueSpace, Digital Juice to name a few. We just wanted to say thanks Amiga for making the magic happen. If your an old Amiga fan or just want to give the platform and some of it's great retro software a try the Italian company Cloanto makes an Amiga Virtual Machine that allows this.

Aladdin 4D Copy Protection

We want to go over the new proposed copy protection scheme in future versions of Aladdin 4D. Will it be dongle based? Will it be DRM based? Will it be look up a word in the manual based. The answer is .....drum roll....

None of the above! In fact Aladdin 4D will have no copy protection of any kind. The CEO of DiscreetFX still remembers days long gone on the Amiga platform. He would buy a new cool game and it would have disk based copy protection and word lookup manual based copy protection on the same title! The pirated versions of the same game would have no copy protection at all. So the pirate got a better and more functional version of the software even though they did not pay for it. He vowed that is not the way he would run a company. It may be a decision we later regret but the new version will have no form copy protection at all. What will go hand in hand with this though is you the customer don't give away copies of your purchased software. Aladdin's future depends on you the customer being honest. It is a critical time to be honest and support Aladdin 4D because it is going through the pain staking process of being revived after a long slumber. Updating and porting it to many platforms is a big task but with your support and help it will succeed.

Sexy Lightwaves

A few have asked if the plan for Aladdin 4D is to compete with other 3D animation programs that were also born on the Amiga platform like LightWave 3D or Cinema 4D. This is not the plan though. LightWave 3D 9.3 is a very advanced 3D application that has been developing and maturing for many many years. In fact, DiscreetFX uses it in house for animating many of our digital video effects. Our plan instead for Aladdin 4D is to attract new users that are intimidated by 3D software and give them a low cost easy to use package to ease them into 3D. In fact we will give them $50 towards the purchase of LightWave 3D if they buy it within one year of buying the new version of Aladdin 4D. Aladdin 4D will get them started and LightWave can help them get a job. We are also exploring making Aladdin 4D a LightWave plug-in.