Computer and Softwares Tips

First step is to manually measure the Height, Width and Depth of a cigarette box. Measures are Height = 8.5, Width = 5.5 and Depth = 2.2, because we want to keep the right proportions of cigarette box.

You probably will not cut the planes exactly the way you wanted (like in the picture above) but it is the quickest way to do it, so go on and adjust vertices to get better result.

When you adjust newly created vertices ( ones painted yellow in the below picture, one vertex is not showing in picture so be sure to adjust that vertex too) you will get the result showing below.









So that’s it for the modeling part, now we go on for UV mapping.

UV Mapping

Before you go to UV mapping you have to make texture that you will be using for mapping, you can scan the unfolded cigarette box like I did or make the texture in Photoshop or any other tool for image creating and editing.

Now open Hypeshade by pressing Ctrl + Alt + H, create blinn material and for color set file and assign the texture you created or scanned.

Now go to face mode and select the the face as shown on the below picture.










For creating UV for this face we will use planar projection. To do this go to menu Create UV’s -> Planar Mapping Options and in the window shown below in Project From choose Z axis because selected face is perpendicular to Z axis.











Now click the Apply button, be sure not to click on the Project button because Options window will close and you will have open it again for mapping the next face. Now open the UV Texture editor which is located in menu Edit UV’s -> UV Texture Editor, now go to UV Selection by holding the right mouse button and choosing UV. Next thing is to move and scale created UV to corresponding place on the texture. The UV text Editor should look something like the below picture.











Now follow this procedure for remaining faces of your object.

Here is the picture from UV Texture Editor with mapping done.

Animation Plugins

AI.implant
Crowd animation middle ware for computer games.
Compatibility 7

Blast Code
Surface destruction plugin.
Compatibility 7/8.5

Comet Muscle System
Muscle simulation plugin.
Compatibility 7

Comet Smart Blend
Deformation plugin.
Compatibility 7

EMotion FX
Realtime character animation middleware for computer games.
Compatibility 7/8

FaceFX
Lip synchronization middleware for computer games.
Compatibility 7

Craft Director Tools
Plugins for vehicle animation and camera animation. Tanks, helicopters, airplanes, cars, trucks and more. Perfect for architecture fly-throughs and car trafic.
Compatibility 7- 2009(32/64-bit)

Turbo Graphix
Facilitates animation of layered Photoshop .PSD documents within the Maya 3D environment. Doubles as an image optimizer and compressor for real-time applications.
Compatibility 8/8.5/2008(32/64-bit)

Audio Plugin

SoundRenderer
Spatialized audio rendering plugin.
Compatibility 5/6/7

Cloth Plugin

Syflex
Cloth simulator
Compatibility 6/6.5/7

Fluid Plugin

Glu3d
Fluid in real time.
Compatibility 7/8.5

RealFlow
Fluid & Simulation.
Compatibility 7/8.5/2008

Import/Export

Body Studio
Import plugin for Poser characters.
Compatibility 4 - 7

Modeling

NatFX
3D plant modeling plugin.
Compatibility 7

T-Splines
T-Spline plugin.
Compatibility 7/8/8.5

Xfrog
Plant modeling plugin.
Compatibility 6/6.5/7

CurvedSpace
CurvedSpace plugin.
Compatibility 2008

Vertex Chameleon
The ultimate vertex colour toolset for Autodesk Maya.
Compatibility 6.5 - 2008 (32 & 64-bit)

Texturing

UVAutoRatio
Automatically unify UV to polygon surface area ratio across multiple objects
Compatibility 6.5 - 2008 (32 & 64-bit)

Rendering

HDRI-Studio Lighting System
Lighting environments for 3D-models.
Compatibility 7/8/8.5

RenderMan for Maya
Photorealistic Renderer by Pixar.
Compatibility 6/6.5/7/8.5

Turtle
Raytracing renderer.
Compatibility 7/8.5

Maxwell Render
The Light Simulator. Render engine. Multi light. Materials. Photo realistic...
Compatibility 7/8.5

Maya Unlimited
Maya Unlimited version comes with a set of tools not available in the Maya complete version.

Maya Fluid Effects
A realistic fluid simulator (effective for smoke, fire, clouds and explosions, added in Maya 4.5)

Maya Classic Cloth
Cloth simulation to automatically simulate clothing and fabrics moving realistically over an animated character. The Maya Cloth toolset has been upgraded in every version of Maya released after Spider-Man 2. Alias worked with Sony Pictures Imageworks to get Maya Cloth up to scratch for that production, and all those changes have been implemented, although the big studios opted to use third party plugins such as Syflex instead of the (relatively) cumbersome Maya Cloth.

Maya Fur
Animal fur simulation similar to Maya Hair. It can be used to simulate other fur-like objects, such as grass.

Maya Hair
A simulator for realistic-looking human hair implemented using curves and PaintEffects. These are also known as dynamic curves.

Maya Live
A set of motion tracking tools for CG matching to clean plate footage.

Maya nCloth
Added in version 8.5, nCloth is the first implementation of Maya Nucleus, Autodesk's simulation framework. nCloth gives the artist further control of cloth and material simulations.

Scripting and Plugins

In Maya, anything can be connected to anything. E.g. a color intensity of a shader can be used to control the movement of a door opening and closing. To control the node based system of Maya, fully reconfigurable user interface can be scripted with MEL script code which can be dropped onto a shelf to create a new icon that executes that code.

With the release of Maya 8.5 support for the Python scripting language has been included. The current implementation of Python in maya is not fully object oriented though.

Mel scripting

Mel stands for Maya Embedded language and it's a script language similar to C embedded in Maya. Code written in Mel can be executed from the script editor, from the shelves and from drop down menus.

Mel lets the user have more access and more control than the User Interface; some functions of the software and advanced options are only available by using Mel. All maya preferences are maya code so are the drop down menus. This means that it is always possible, with a little digging, to retrieve the mel commands and mel functions that maya calls when you click a specific button of the UI.

Mel is not object oriented, this means it is not possible create classes and methods or functions associated to it as you would in C++ or Python. This however shouldn't be seen as a mere limitation because gives Mel a strong structure making it accessible and easier to understand to Maya users and to first time programmers. Also the linear scripting nature of the language would assist the user in making the most of the maya nodes instead of tempting him/her to make its own objects, as in case of object oriented languages.

Dynamics and Simulation

Maya features a particle system for handling masses like steam and water drops. Dynamic fields allow adding gravity, wind and vortexes, allowing for effects such as blowing leaves or even tornados. Special tools give artists the ability to brush and style particles like hair and fur. This module is a direct evolution of Wavefront Dynamation.

An artist may create rigid body geometric objects which collide automatically without explicit animation, as well as soft body objects which can ripple and bend, like flags and cloth.

Maya effects are built-in programs that make it easy for users to create complex animation effects such as smoke, fire and realistic water effects, with many options and attributes for tuning the results.

Rendering and Render setup

Maya has an open render API, and allows for third party render integration. There is a number of renders supported, here is a list of a few:

• Chaos Group, Vray
• Cebas, FinalRender
• DNA Research, 3Delight
• Illuminate Labs, Turtle
• Indigo Renderer
  
• NextLimit, Maxwell Render
• Nvidia, Gelato
• Mental Images, Mental ray
• Physically Based Rendering, PBRT for Maya (openSource )
• Pixar, RendermanForMaya
• Pixar, Renderman Studio ( which replaces RAT ) and works with PhotoRealistic Renderman
• Sitex Graphics, Air ( With RIB translation software like Liquid or MayaMan )
• Sunflow ( openSource )

In version 8.5 a powerful cloth simulator called "nCloth" was added, allowing users to simulate cloth with control over aspects such as self-collision and interpenetration. The cloth objects can be modified to behave as rigid or soft bodies.


Licensing

Created by Travis Hoffmann. No copyright; is an original work by me and it is free to the public.




Shading

Like most 3D programs, Maya includes a number of parameterized shading models to define an object's visual properties, including Lambert, Blinn, Phong, and anisotropic shaders. Depending on which shading model is used, the parameters affect attributes such as the surface's color, reflective properties, and transparency, with the goal of simulating the appearance of real-life materials such as metal, stone, wood, and skin. Shaders can also incorporate bump maps, which create the illusion of surface textures.

Toon Shading

Toon shading creates the look of 2D cel or cartoon animation using 3D modeling and animation software. Elements of the "toon" look include profile lines (outlines), border lines, crease lines, intersection lines, and solid color shading. Combined, these elements recreate the look of traditional animation's "ink and paint" technique, where ink refers to lines and paint refers to shading.

Lighting

In the real world, when light shines on a surface, the parts of the surface facing toward the light source appear illuminated, and the parts of the surface facing away from the light source appear dark. If one object is located between a second object and the light source, the first object casts a shadow onto the second object.

PaintEffects

A component of Maya used to paint brush strokes and particle effects on a 2D canvas or on or between 3D geometry. Paint Effects can be used as a traditional paint program to paint images on a canvas, to paint repeatable textures applied to 3D geometry in scenes, or to paint in 3D space ’’Paint Effects’’integrates 2D painting tools into a 3D rendering environment. Libraries include numerous trees, grasses, and plants which can be painted to 'grow' off the surface of an object.

Mental ray

Native Mental Ray renderer.
Mental ray is a production-quality rendering application developed by mental images (Berlin, Germany). Mental Images was bought in December 2007 by Nvidia. As the name implies, it supports ray tracing to generate images. Its feature set is comparable to that of PhotoRealistic RenderMan, the RenderMan compliant renderer by Pixar, over which it holds certain advantages and disadvantages.

RenderMan for Maya
In 2005, Pixar released RenderMan for Maya renderer which incorporates the full RenderMan Pro Server features into a native Maya plugin. The workflow involves the use of Maya materials converted into RenderMan

MODELING IN MAYA


NURBS, polygons and subdivision surfaces (or SubDivs) are available in Maya.
Polygons are a widely used model medium due to its relative stability and functionality. Polygons are also the bridge between NURBS and SubDivs. NURBS are used mainly for their ready-smooth appearance and they are used in Dynamics because they respond well to deformations.


SubDivs are a combination of both NURBS and polygons. They are ready-smooth and can be manipulated like polygons, providing the artist with an instant representation of a smoothed polygon. Maya's hair cannot be applied to Sub division polygons.


Overview of animation

Keyframe Animation

The model is placed in a starting pose or position, and a keyframe is set. Some frames later, another keyframe is set, and the model is moved as desired. This process is repeated as many times as needed. The animation software interpolates the motion needed to move the model smoothly between the keyframes. What this means is that if the animator keys a box, and moves the box across the room in the next keyframe, when the scene is scrubbed or viewed, the box will glide across the floor instead of jumping from frame to frame. This applies to anything in the scene - moving fingers, eyelids, moving lips, etc.

Nonlinear Animation

After animating a character with keyframes or motion capture, its animation data can be collected into a single, editable sequence. This animation sequence is called an animation clip.
In Maya, there are two types of clip: source clips and regular clips. Maya preserves and protects a character's original animation curves by storing them in source clips. Source clips are not used to animate the characters. Instead, copies or instances of source clips called regular clips are used to animate the characters nonlinearly.

Moving, manipulating, and blending regular clips to produce a smooth series of motions for a character is the basis of nonlinear animation. The tool with which all these aspects of a character's nonlinear animation can be managed is the Trax Editor.

Path Animation

A path animation controls the position and rotation of an object along a curve. An object must first be attached to the curve for it to become a path curve. Motion paths can be generated by animating objects using motion path keys.

Motion Capture Animation

Skeletons

Skeletons are hierarchical, articulated structures that let the animator pose and animate bound models. A skeleton provides a deformable model with a similar underlying structure as the human skeleton gives the human body.

Just like in the human body, the location of joints and the number of joints you add to a skeleton determine how the skeleton's bound model or `body' moves. The process of binding a character to its skeleton is called "Skinning". The process of making a skeleton or bones, refining the joints, using IK or FK, putting handles on the joints so animators can manipulate them, and over all making the model ready for animation is called "Rigging"

Forward Kinematics

Forward Kinematics (FK) is an animation method that involves moving each joint without the restriction of an expected final position. Thus, the 'goal' is to move a joint (or series of joints) as desired, and the final pose is a consequence of those movements. Forward Kinematics is often used for finely-tuned joint movement (such as hands & fingers), as it allows for more complete control over posing.

Inverse Kinematics
The reverse of Forward Kinematics, Inverse Kinematics is a method that involves defining a final pose, and generating joint movement as needed to reach that pose. Thus, the 'goal' is for all joints to be in a final pose, and the individual joint movements are a consequence of getting to that final pose. Joints must have carefully defined limits to their possible motion for Inverse Kinematics to work well, or the joints can end up 'flopping' before reaching the goal pose. Inverse Kinematics is often used for large limb movement (such as walking, reaching, etc.).

Full Body IK Solver

When Alias bought Kaydara, Maya got an upgrade, from Kaydara Motion Builder, with a full body IK solver (FBIK Solver) which simulates real body kinematics. The package comes with a biped and a quadruped FBIK sample.

Maya is a high-end 3D computer graphics and 3D modeling software package originally developed by Alias Systems Corporation, but now owned by Autodesk as part of the Media and Entertainment division.

Autodesk acquired the software in October 2005 upon purchasing Alias. Maya is used in the film and TV industry, as well as for computer and video games, architectural visualization and design.

In 2003, Maya (then owned by Alias|Wavefront) won an Academy Award "for scientific and technical achievement", citing use "on nearly every feature using 3-D computer-generated images."

Overview

Maya is a popular, integrated node-based 3D software suite, evolved from Wavefront Explorer and Alias PowerAnimator using technologies from both. The software is released in two versions: Maya Complete and Maya Unlimited. Maya Personal Learning Edition (PLE) is available at no cost for non-commercial use, although the resulting rendered images are watermarked.

Maya was originally released for the IRIX operating system, and subsequently ported to the Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X operating systems. IRIX support was discontinued after the release of version 6.5. When Autodesk acquired Alias in October 2005, they continued Maya development. The latest version, 2008 (9.0), was released in September 2007.

An important feature of Maya is its openness to third-party software, which can strip the software completely of its standard appearance and, using only the kernel, can transform it into a highly customized version of the software. This feature in itself made Maya appealing to large studios which tend to write custom code for their productions using the provided software development kit.

A Tcl-like cross-platform scripting language called Maya Embedded Language (MEL) is provided not only as a scripting language, but as means to customize Maya's core functionality (much of the environment and tools are written in the language).

Additionally, user interactions are implemented and recorded as MEL scripting code which users can store on a toolbar, allowing animators to add functionality without experience in C or C++ programming and compilers, though that option is provided with the software development kit. Support for Python scripting was added in version 8.5.

The core of Maya itself is written in C++.

Project files, including all geometry and animation data, are stored as sequences of MEL operations which can be optionally saved as a 'human readable' file (.ma, for Maya ASCII), editable in any text editor outside of the Maya environment which allows for a high level of flexibility when working with external tools.

A marking menu is built into larger menu system called Hotbox that provides instant access to a majority of features in Maya at the press of a key.

FEATURES

MAXScript
MAXScript is a built-in scripting language, and can be used to automate repetitive tasks, combine existing functionality in new ways, develop new tools and user interfaces and much more. Plugin modules can be created entirely in MAXscript.

Character Studio
Character Studio was a plugin which since version 4 of Max is now integrated in 3D Studio Max helping user to animate virtual characters. The system works using a character rig or "Biped" which is pre-made and allows the user to adjust the rig to fit the character they will be animating. Dedicated curve editors and motion capture data import tools make Character Studio ideal for character animation. "Biped" objects have other useful features that automated the production of walk cycles and movement paths, as well as secondary motion.

Scene Explorer
Scene Explorer, a tool that provides a hierarchical view of scene data and analysis, facilitates working with more complex scenes. Scene Explorer has the ability to sort, filter, and search a scene by any object type or property (including metadata). Added in 3ds Max 2008, it was the first component to facilitate DotNet managed code in 3ds Max outside of MAXScript.

DWG Import
3ds Max supports both import and linking of DWG files. Improved memory management in 3ds Max 2008 enables larger scenes to be imported with multiple objects.

Texture Assignment/Editing
3ds Max offers operations for creative texture and planar mapping, including tiling, mirroring, decals, angle, rotate, blur, UV stretching, and relaxation; Remove Distortion; Preserve UV; and UV template image export. The texture workflow includes the ability to combine an unlimited number of textures, a material/map browser with support for drag-and-drop assignment, and hierarchies with thumbnails. UV workflow features include Pelt mapping, which defines custom seams and enables users to unfold UVs according to those seams; copy/paste materials, maps and colors; and access to quick mapping types (box, cylindrical, spherical).

General Keyframing
Two keying modes—set key and auto key—offer support for different keyframing workflows.
Fast and intuitive controls for keyframing—including cut, copy, and paste—let the user create animations with ease. Animation trajectories may be viewed and edited directly in the viewport.

Constrained Animation
Objects can be animated along curves with controls for alignment, banking, velocity, smoothness, and looping, and along surfaces with controls for alignment. Weight path-controlled animation between multiple curves, and animate the weight. Objects can be constrained to animate with other objects in many ways—including look at, orientation in different coordinate spaces, and linking at different points in time. These constraints also support animated weighting between more than one target.All resulting constrained animation can be collapsed into standard keyframes for further editing.

Skinning
Either the Skin or Physique modifier may be used to achieve precise control of skeletal deformation, so the character deforms smoothly as joints are moved, even in the most challenging areas, such as shoulders. Skin deformation can be controlled using direct vertex weights, volumes of vertices defined by envelopes, or both.

Capabilities such as weight tables, paintable weights, and saving and loading of weights offer easy editing and proximity-based transfer between models, providing the accuracy and flexibility needed for complicated characters.

The rigid bind skinning option is useful for animating low-polygon models or as a diagnostic tool for regular skeleton animation.
Additional modifiers, such as Skin Wrap and Skin Morph, can be used to drive meshes with other meshes and make targeted weighting adjustments in tricky areas.

Skeletons and Inverse Kinematics (IK)
Characters can be rigged with custom skeletons using 3ds Max bones, IK solvers, and rigging tools.

All animation tools—including expressions, scripts, list controllers, and wiring—can be used along with a set of utilities specific to bones to build rigs of any structure and with custom controls, so animators see only the UI necessary to get their characters animated.

Four plug-in IK solvers ship with 3ds Max: history-independent solver, history-dependent solver, limb solver, and spline IK solver. These powerful solvers reduce the time it takes to create high-quality character animation. The history-independent solver delivers smooth blending between IK and FK animation and uses preferred angles to give animators more control over the positioning of affected bones.

The history-dependent solver can solve within joint limits and is used for machine-like animation. IK limb is a lightweight two-bone solver, optimized for real-time interactivity, ideal for working with a character arm or leg. Spline IK solver provides a flexible animation system with nodes that can be moved anywhere in 3D space. It allows for efficient animation of skeletal chains, such as a character’s spine or tail, and includes easy-to-use twist and roll controls.

Integrated Cloth Solver
In addition to reactor’s cloth modifier, 3ds Max software has an integrated cloth-simulation engine that enables the user to turn almost any 3D object into clothing, or build garments from scratch. Collision solving is fast and accurate even in complex simulations.
Local simulation lets artists drape cloth in real time to set up an initial clothing state before setting animation keys.

Cloth simulations can be used in conjunction with other 3ds Max dynamic forces, such as Space Warps. Multiple independent cloth systems can be animated with their own objects and forces. Cloth deformation data can be cached to the hard drive to allow for nondestructive iterations and to improve playback performance.

Integration with Autodesk Vault
Autodesk Vault plug-in, which ships with 3ds Max, consolidates users’ 3ds Max assets in a single location, enabling them to automatically track files and manage work in progress. Users can easily and safely share, find, and reuse 3ds Max (and design) assets in a large-scale production or visualization environment.

Uses of 3Ds max

Films

Flims worked with 3Ds Max: Battlefield Earth, Black Hawk Down, Blade: Trinity, Cats & Dogs, Die Another Day, Dr. Dolittle 2, Driven, Final Destination 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Hellboy, I, Robot, Jurassic Park, K-19: The Widowmaker, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Lost in Space, Mighty Joe Young, Minority Report,
Mission: Impossible II, Panic Room, Paycheck, Planet of the Apes, Reign of Fire, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, Sin City, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Speed, Spider-Man 3,
Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, Swordfish, The Cathedral, The Core, The Day After Tomorrow, The Green Mile, The Incredibles, The Italian Job, The Last Samurai, The Majestic,
The Matrix Reloaded, The Mummy, The Thirteenth Floor, The Truman Show, Toy Story,
Toy Story 2, Traumschiff Surprise - Periode 1, X-Men, X-Men 2, X-Men 3

Many films have been made using 3ds Max. These films include completely animated movies (such as Disney/Pixar's Toy Story and Toy Story 2). Other films, like 20th Century Fox's I, Robot and X-Men, contain 3ds Max's computer generated graphics alongside live-action acting.

Videogames

Games Developed with 3Ds Max:Act of War: Direct Action, Act of War: High Treason, Area 51 (2005 first-person shooter), Armies of Exigo, Assassin's Creed, Battlefield 1942, Battlefield Vietnam, Beneath, Black & White, Call of Duty, C&C Renegade, C&C3 Tiberium wars, Company of Heroes, Close Combat, Crysis, Darwinia, Darkwatch, Dark Age of Camelot, Dark Sector,
Deus Ex: Invisible War, Diablo II, Dink Smallwood, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, Empire Earth, EyeToy: AntiGrav, Far Cry, F.E.A.R, FlatOut, Forza Motorsport, Ghost Recon, Gears of War, GTA III, Guild Wars, Half-Life, Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Il-2: Sturmovik series, King Kong, Mafia, Mass Effect, Lineage II, The Battle for Middle-earth II, The Lord of the Rings, Max Payne, Medal of Honor, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, Myst III: Exile,
Myst IV: Revelation, Need for Speed, Jade Empire, Pariah, Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones,
Red Faction, Rome: Total War, Serious Sam, Ship Simulator 2006, Ship Simulator Add-On,
Ship Simulator 2008, Splinter Cell, StarCraft, StarCraft II, Star Trek: Hidden Evil, Star Trek: Legacy, Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force, Star Trek: Elite Force II, Star Wars: Empire at War,
Supreme Commander, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Longest Journey, The Matrix: Path of Neo, Tomb Raider, Tomb Raider II, Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, Tomb Raider: Chronicles, Tomb Raider: Legend, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater,
Too Human, True Crime: Streets of LA, True Crime: New York City, Unreal, Unreal Championship, Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2003, Unreal Tournament 2004,
Unreal Tournament 3, Warcraft 3, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War Winter Assault, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War Dark Crusade, Whacked!,
World of Warcraft, X³: Reunion, X²: The Threat

Videogame makers have also used 3ds Max extensively in their area of entertainment. 3ds Max even exports directly into the modeling file type for the video game Quake . . For many other games, like the Trainz Simulator series and the Grand Theft Auto series, there are third-party plug-ins available which can export a model to a file type readable by the game to be modified.

Dynamics

3Ds Max has traditionally come with several basic particle emitters. As of version 8, there are 6 basic particle emitters (not including Particle Flow) exhibiting specific behaviors. Particle View is the primary interface for building and modifying Particle Flow systems. The first event in the system is always a global event, whose contents affect all particles in the system. It has the same name as the Particle Flow source icon. By default, the global event contains a single Render operator that specifies rendering properties for all particles in the system. You can add other operators here to have them act globally, such as Material, Display, and Speed.

The global event also serves as the Particle View representation of the particle system. You can create a new system by duplicating this event, or by adding an Empty Flow or Standard Flow. Conversely, if you clone the Particle Flow icon in a viewport, or add a new PF Source, the new system appears in Particle View as well.

The second event is called the birth event, because it must contain a Birth operator. The Birth operator should exist at the top of the birth event, and in no other place. The default birth event also contains a number of operators that act locally to specify properties of particles while in that event. The default particle system provides a basic global event and birth event that serve as a useful starting point for creating your own system. If you like, you can instead start with an empty system that lets you build a particle system from scratch.

The traditional particle emitters are:
Spray
Snow
Blizzard
PArray
PCloud
Super Spray

Particle Flow is a sophisticated non-linear, event-driven particle system developed by Oleg Bayborodin as one of MAX's seven particle emitters. Unlike most particle systems available in today's 3D packages, Particle Flow allows the user to design the behavior of a particle based on a series of user-defined Events (Procedures) in a streamlined and intuitive GUI called Particle View. Within the Particle View interface, Events are created, which are composed of Operators and/or Tests. Event operators and tests are evaluated from top to bottom, once per every integration step, resulting in control of velocity, shape, size, (and other properties) of particles. Particles can be sent to other events through the use of Tests; special operators which check if any particle meets certain criteria within an event. If a particle passes a test, such as the Age Test in a particular event, it is sent through a wire connecting it to another event, in which other operators and tests can affect its behavior.

3ds Max includes a physics engine, called reactor, originally created by Havok.Reactor can simulate rigid bodies, soft bodies, cloth, gravity, and other forces. Like many physics engines, reactor uses a simplified convex hull, but can be customized to use all vertices, at a cost in processing time.

Rendering

Scanline rendering
The default rendering method in 3DS Max is scanline rendering. Several advanced features have been added to the scanliner over the years, such as global illumination, radiosity, and ray tracing.

Mental ray
Mental ray is a production quality renderer integrated into the later versions of MAX, and is a powerful rendering tool, with bucket rendering, a technique that distributes the rendering burden between several computers efficiently. The 3ds Max version of mental ray also comes with a set of tools that allow a myriad of effects to be created with relative ease.

RenderMan
A third party connection tool to RenderMan pipelines is also available for those that need to integrate Max into Renderman render farms.

V-Ray
A third-party render engine plug-in for 3D Studio MAX. It is widely used, frequently substituting the standard and mental ray renderers which are included bundled with 3ds Max. V-Ray continues to be compatible with older versions of 3ds Max.

Brazil R/S
A third-party high-quality photorealistic rendering system created by SplutterFish, LLC capable of fast ray tracing and global illumination.

FinalRender
Another third-party raytracing render engine created by Cebas. Capable of simulating a wide range of real-world physical phenomena.

Maxwell Render
A third-party photorealistic rendering system created by Next Limit Technologies providing robust materials and highly accurate unbiased rendering.

Polygon modeling

Polygon modeling is more common with game design than any other modeling technique as the very specific control over individual polygons allows for extreme optimization. Usually, the modeller begins with one of the 3ds max primitives, and using such tools as bevel and extrude, adds detail to and refines the model. Versions 4 and up feature the Editable Polygon object, which simplifies most mesh editing operations, and provides subdivision smoothing at customizable levels.

NURBS or Nonuniform rational B-Spline

A more advanced alternative to polygons, it gives a smoothed out surface that eliminates the straight edges of a polygon model. NURBS is a mathematically exact representation of freeform surfaces like those used for car bodies and ship hulls, which can be exactly reproduced at any resolution whenever needed. With NURBS, a smooth sphere can be created with only one face.

The non-uniform property of NURBS brings up an important point. Because they are generated mathematically, NURBS objects have a parameter space in addition to the 3D geometric space in which they are displayed. Specifically, an array of values called knots specifies the extent of influence of each control vertex (CV) on the curve or surface. Knots are invisible in 3D space and you can't manipulate them directly, but occasionally their behavior affects the visible appearance of the NURBS object. This topic mentions those situations. Parameter space is one-dimensional for curves, which have only a single U dimension topologically, even though they exist geometrically in 3D space. Surfaces have two dimensions in parameter space, called U and V.

NURBS curves and surfaces have the important properties of not changing under the standard geometric affine transformations (Transforms), or under perspective projections. The CVs have local control of the object: moving a CV or changing its weight does not affect any part of the object beyond the neighboring CVs. (You can override this property by using the Soft Selection controls.) Also, the control lattice that connects CVs surrounds the surface. This is known as the convex hull property.

Surface tool/Editable patch object

Surface tool was originally a 3rd party plugin, but Kinetix acquired and included this feature since version 3.0. The surface tool is for creating common 3ds max's splines, and then applying a modifier called "surface." This modifier makes a surface from every 3 or 4 vertices in a grid. This is often seen as an alternative to 'Mesh' or 'Nurbs' modeling, as it enables a user to interpolate curved sections with straight geometry (for example a hole through a box shape). Although the surface tool is a useful way to generate parametrically accurate geometry, it lacks the 'surface properties' found in the similar Edit Patch modifier, which enables a user to maintain the original parametric geometry whilst being able to adjust "smoothing groups" between faces.

Predefined primitives

This is a basic method, in which one models something using only boxes, spheres, cones, cylinders and other predefined objects from the list of Predefined Standard Primitives or a list of Predefined Extended Primitives. One may also apply boolean operations, including subtract, cut and connect. For example, one can make two spheres which will work as blobs that will connect with each other. This is called metaballs.

Predefined Standard Primitives list

Box—box produces a rectangular prism. An alternative variation of box is available—entitled cube—which proportionally constrains the length, width and height of the box.
Cylinder—cylinder produces a cylinder.
Torus—torus produces a torus—or a ring—with a circular cross section, sometimes referred to as a doughnut.[citation needed]
Teapot—teapot produces the Utah teapot. Since the teapot is a parametric object, the user can choose which parts of the teapot to display after creation. These parts include the body, handle, spout and lid.
Cone—cone produces round cones—either upright or inverted.
Sphere—sphere produces a full sphere, hemisphere, or other portion of a sphere.
Tube—tube can produce both round and prismatic tubes. The tube is similar to the cylinder with a hole in it.
Pyramid—The pyramid primitive has a square or rectangular base and triangular sides.
Plane—The plane object is a special type of flat polygon mesh that can be enlarged by any amount at render time. The user can specify factors to magnify the size or number of segments, or both. Modifiers such as displace can be added to a plane to simulate a hilly terrain.
Geosphere—GeoSphere produces spheres and hemispheres based on three classes of regular polyhedrons.

Predefined Extended Primitives list

Hedra—produces objects from several families of polyhedra.
ChamferBox—creates a box with beveled or rounded edges.
OilTank—creates a cylinder with convex caps.
Spindle—creates a cylinder with conical caps.
Gengon—creates an extruded, regular-sided polygon with optionally filleted side edges.
Prism—Creates a three-sided prism with independently segmented sides.
Torus knot—creates a complex or knotted torus by drawing 2D curves in the normal planes around a 3D curve. The 3D curve (called the Base Curve) can be either a circle or a torus knot. It can be converted from a torus knot object to a NURBS surface.
ChamferCyl—creates a cylinder with beveled or rounded cap edges.
Capsule—creates a cylinder with hemispherical caps.
L-Ext—creates an extruded L-shaped object.
C-Ext—creates an extruded C-shaped object.
Hose—a flexible object, similar to a spring.

Final Rendered Scene




3Ds max living room render, rendered with V-Ray

3ds Max (formerly 3D Studio MAX) is a full-featured 3D graphics application developed by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. It runs on the Win32 and Win64 platforms. 3ds Max is currently in its eleventh version (as of April 2008) entitled 3ds Max 2009, which adds enhanced support for complex pipelines and work flows.

The original 3D Studio product was created for the DOS platform by the Yost Group and published by Autodesk. After 3D Studio Release 4, the product was rewritten for the Windows NT platform, and originally named "3D Studio MAX." This version was also originally created by the Yost Group. It was released by Kinetix, which was at that time Autodesk's division of media and entertainment. Autodesk purchased the product at the second release mark of the 3D Studio MAX version and internalized development entirely over the next two releases. Later, the product name was changed to "3ds max" (all lower case) to better comply with the naming conventions of Discreet, a Montreal-based software company which Autodesk had purchased. At release 8, the product was again branded with the Autodesk logo, and the name was again changed to "3ds Max" (upper and lower case). At release 2009, product name changed to "Autodesk 3ds Max".

Overview

3Ds Max is the most widely-used off the shelf 3D animation program by content creation professionals according to the Roncarelli report. It has strong modeling capabilities, a flexible plugin architecture and a long heritage on the Microsoft Windows platform. It is mostly used by video game developers, TV commercial studios and architectural visualization studios. It is also used for movie effects and movie pre-visualization.

In addition to its modeling and animation tools, the latest version of 3ds Max also features advanced shaders (such as ambient occlusion and subsurface scattering), dynamic simulation, particle systems, radiosity, normal map creation and rendering, global illumination, an intuitive and fully-customizable user interface, and its own scripting language. There is also a plethora of specialized renderer plugins that can be bought separately, such as V-Ray, Brazil r/s , Maxwell Render, and finalRender.

Color management

Windows Vista features Windows Color System (WCS), a platform for color management. Its goal is to obtain color consistency across various software and hardware, including cameras, monitors, printers and scanners. Different devices interpret the same colors differently, according to their software and hardware configurations. As a result, they must be properly calibrated to reproduce colors consistently across different devices. WCS aims to make this process of color calibration automatic and transparent, as an evolution of ICC Color Profiles.

Windows Color System is based on a completely new Color Infrastructure and Translation Engine (CITE). It is backed up by a new color processing pipeline that supports bit-depths more than 32 bits per pixel, multiple color channels (more than 3), alternative color spaces and high dynamic range coloring, using a technology named Kyuanos developed by Canon. The color processing pipeline allows device developers to add their own gamut mapping algorithm into the pipeline to customize the color response of the device. The new pipeline also uses floating point calculations to minimize round-off losses, which are inherent in integer processing. Once the color pipeline finishes processing the colors, the CITE engine applies a color transform according to a color profile, specific to a device to ensure the output color matches to what is expected.

WCS features explicit support for LCD as well as CRT monitors, projectors, printers, and other imaging devices and provides customized support for each. WCS uses color profiles according to the CIE Color Appearance Model recommendation (CIECAM02), defined using XML, to define how the color representation actually translates to a visible color. ICC V4 color profiles are also supported. Windows Photo Gallery and Photo Viewer, Windows Imaging Component, the HD Photo format, XPS print path and XPS documents all support color management.

Mobile computing

Some significant changes have been made to Windows Vista for mobile computing.

Power management

In Windows Vista, a Sleep power state replaces Standby mode and is active by default. When chosen, this new Sleep mode saves information from the computer's memory to the hibernation file on disk, but instead of turning off the computer, it simultaneously enters Standby mode. If power is lost during Sleep mode, the system resumes from the existing hibernate image on disk. On a laptop, after the specified amount of time, it shuts down (hibernates). Sleep mode, thus, offers the benefits of fast suspend and resume when in Standby mode and relatively faster resuming and reliability when resuming from hibernation instead of a complete reboot, in case of power loss.

Also, in earlier Windows versions, drivers sometimes prevented Windows from entering or reliably resuming from a power-saving state. This problem has been solved in Windows Vista. Applications can disable sleep idle timers when needed such as when burning discs or recording media. Away mode, which is not a power plan by itself but a feature, automatically turns off displays, video rendering and sound but keeps the computer working when the user is away from the computer. Optionally, it can also switch to sleep mode. Advanced power settings can be configured using the Control Panel. Power settings are also configurable through Group Policy.

The battery icon in the notification area has been improved to let the user more easily select a "Power plan". "Presentation Settings", through the Transient Multimon Manager (TMM), allow saving of display preferences when an external display such as a projector or external monitor is connected. The setting can be restored when the same device is re-connected later. Presentation settings are available only on mobile computers.

Beginning with Windows Vista Service Pack 1, the operating system can turn off periodic VSync interrupt counting of CPU when the screen is not being refreshed from new graphics or mouse activity. This can result in significant energy savings

Other mobility enhancements

Windows Mobility Center is a new control panel available only on mobile computers that centralizes relevant information and configuration. It is extensible so that hardware manufacturers can add further capabilities to control other features specific to their hardware.

Windows Mobile Device Center centralizes management of external mobile devices. It includes a basic RNDIS driver to make simple connections to mobile devices. For complete functionality including synchronization of tasks, calendar data, contacts, email etc. with Microsoft Office Outlook, a driver needs to be downloaded. Synchronization with Windows Mail, Windows Calendar or Windows Contacts is not supported. Whenever a Windows Mobile device is connected, the Mobile Device Center pane pops up giving options to manage media and other files on the device, as well as control their settings.

A new Windows Portable Devices API has been introduced to communicate with attached media and all portable devices such as mobile phones, portable media players, PDAs etc.

Sync Center is a centralized location which provides an organized summary view of any sync partnership users have created for synchronizing data and files, such as mobile devices, network syncing (offline files), portable media devices and so on. While the earlier promised ability to automatically synchronize files among computers using peer-to-peer technology is not included, a powertoy, SyncToy, is available that supports synchronizing local and network files.

Windows SideShow is a new technology that lets Windows Vista drive a small external display that is built into the outside of a mobile PC's lid. The display can be updated with a number of different kinds of information, such as contacts, maps, calendar, and email. This can then be consulted while the mobile PC is otherwise powered down.

All the features from Windows XP Tablet PC Edition have been included. New features include gestures and pen flicks. There is intrinsic support for handwriting and ink, via the Ink Analysis API. A new control, the InkCanvas is made available by the API to add ink support to applications. Ink support can not only recognize handwriting and formatting, but also hand-drawn shapes which are converted to vector-graphics, rendered as the shape that was intended to be drawn.

An update for Windows XP Tablet PC Edition containing Ink Analysis and StylusInput API support is also available. Support for touchscreens is also included.

Graphics

Desktop Window Manager (DWM)

The Desktop Window Manager is the new windowing system which handles the drawing of all content to the screen. Instead of windows drawing directly to the video card's memory buffers, contents are instead rendered to back-buffers (technically Direct3D surfaces), which are then arranged in the appropriate Z-order, then displayed to the user. This drawing method uses significantly more video memory than the traditional window-drawing method used in previous versions of Windows, which only required enough memory to contain the composite of all currently visible windows at any given time. With the entire contents of windows being stored in video memory, a user can move windows around the screen smoothly, without having "tearing" artifacts be visible while the operating system asks applications to redraw the newly visible parts of their windows. Other features new to Windows Vista such as live thumbnail window previews and Flip 3D are implemented through the DWM.

DirectX

Windows Vista includes a new version of Direct3D, called Direct3D 10. It adds scheduling and memory virtualization capabilities to the graphics subsystem and foregoes the current DirectX practice of using "capability bits" to indicate which features are active on the current hardware. Instead, Direct3D 10 defines a minimum standard of hardware capabilities which must be supported for a display system to be "Direct3D 10 compatible". Microsoft's goal is to create an environment for developers and designers where they can be assured that the input they provide will be rendered in exactly the same fashion on all supported graphics cards. This has been a recurring problem with the DirectX 9 model, where different video cards have produced different results, thus requiring fixes keyed to specific cards to be produced by developers.

According to Microsoft, Direct3D 10 will be able to display some graphics up to 8 times faster than DirectX 9.0c because of the new improved Windows Display Driver Model. In addition, Direct3D 10 incorporates Microsoft's High Level Shader Language 4.0. However, Direct3D 10 is not backward compatible like prior versions of DirectX. The same game will not be compatible with both Direct3D 10 and Direct3D 9 or below. Games would need to be developed for both APIs, one version for Direct3D 9 and below if targeting Windows versions prior to Windows Vista and another version using Direct3D 10 if targeting only Windows Vista. Windows Vista does, however, contain a backward compatible Direct3D 9 implementation.

In Windows Vista, only Direct3D features an overhaul. The DirectX SDK mentions that most of the other APIs have been deprecated. Direct Input and Direct Play have been deprecated and some of their components removed Direct Sound and therefore, Direct Music lack hardware abstraction and are emulated in software. The Direct Music kernel mode synthesizer that supplies the Direct Music components with a high-resolution timer has been removed.

Imaging

Windows Imaging Component (WIC) is a new extensible imaging framework that allows applications supporting the framework to automatically get support of installed codecs for graphics file formats. Windows Presentation Foundation applications also automatically support the installed image codecs. Third party developers can write their own image codecs for their specific image file formats. By default, Windows Vista ships with the JPEG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, BMP and HD Photo codecs. Codecs for RAW image formats used generally by high-end digital cameras are also supported in this manner. Windows Explorer, Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Photo Gallery Viewer are based on this new framework and can thus view and export images in any format for which the necessary codecs are installed.

HD Photo (previously known as Windows Media Photo) is a photographic still image file format, that is introduced with Windows Vista. It supports features such as high dynamic range imaging, lossy as well as lossless compression, up to 32-bpp fixed or floating point representation, transparency, RGB, CMYK and n-channel color spaces, Radiance RGBE, embedded ICC color profiles, multiple images per file and support for Exif and XMP metadata formats. It is the preferred image format for XPS documents.

Windows Media Center

Media Center in Windows Vista, available in the Home Premium and Ultimate editions, has been upgraded significantly, including a considerable overhaul of the user interface. Each button in the main menu, which contains sections such as "Music", "Videos", and "TV", gets encased in a box when selected, and for each selection, a submenu comes up, extending horizontally. When any of the options is selected, the entries for each are presented in a grid-like structure, with each item being identified by album art, if its an audio file, or a thumbnail image if it is a picture, a video or a TV recording, and other related options, such as different views for the music collection if "Music" is selected, extend horizontally along the top of the grid. Similarly, other items are identified by suggestive artwork. The grid displaying the items is also extended horizontally, and the selected item is enlarged compared to the rest. Other features of Windows Media Center includes:
Support for two dual-tuner cards
Native DVD/MPEG-2 support
Addition of Movies and DVD button which lists all the movies on the hard drive and DVD.
Tasks button that provides access to jobs such as setting up and configuring a media center extender device.
Any video playing is overlaid on the background of the user interface, if the UI is navigated while the video is still playing.
Support for high-definition (HD) content, and CableCARD support.
Uses the .NET 2.0 CLR

Internet Information Services 7

Windows Vista includes Internet Information Services (IIS) version 7, which has been refactored into a modular architecture, with integrated .NET extensibility. Instead of a monolithic server which features all services, IIS 7 has a core web server engine, and modules offering specific functionality can be added to the engine to enable its features. Writing extensions to IIS 7 using ISAPI has been deprecated in favor of the module API. Much of IIS's own functionality is built on this API, and as such, developers will have much more control over a request process than was possible in prior versions.

A significant change from previous versions of IIS is that all web server configuration information is stored solely in XML configuration files, instead of in the metabase. The server has a global configuration file that provides defaults, and each virtual web's document root (and any subdirectory thereof) may contain a web.config containing settings that augment or override the defaults. Changes to these files take effect immediately. This marks a significant departure from previous versions whereby web interfaces, or machine administrator access, was required to change simple settings such as default document, active modules, and security/authentication.

Security and safety

Windows Vista a more secure operating system than its predecessors. Internally, Microsoft adopted a "Secure Development Lifecycle" with the underlying ethos of, "Secure by design, secure by default, secure in deployment". New code for Windows Vista was developed with the SDL methodology, and all existing code was reviewed and refactored to improve security.

Some of the most significant and most discussed security features included with Windows Vista include User Account Control, Kernel Patch Protection, BitLocker Drive Encryption, Mandatory Integrity Control, Digital Rights Management, TCP/IP stack security improvements, Address Space Layout Randomization and the EFS and cryptography improvements. Additionally, Windows Vista includes a range of parental controls, which give owners of a computer a set of tools to limit what other accounts on a computer can do, and an improved Windows Firewall which supports both inbound and outbound packet filtering, IPv6 connection filtering and more detailed configurable rules and policies.

Management and administration

Windows Vista contains a range of new technologies and features that are intended to help network administrators and power users better manage their systems. Notable changes include a complete replacement of the "Windows Setup" process based on Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE), completely rewritten image-based deployment mechanisms, a significantly improved Task Scheduler, a revamped eventing infrastructure, GUI recovery tools, support for per-application Remote Desktop sessions, new diagnostic, health monitoring and system administration tools, and a range of new Group Policy settings covering many of the new features.

New and Upgraded Vista Applications

Windows Mail
Windows Mail replaces Outlook Express, the email client in previous Windows versions. It has the Phishing Filter like IE7 and a Bayesian junk mail filtering, which is updated monthly via Windows Update. Also, e-mail messages are now stored as individual files rather than in a binary database to reduce frequent corruption and make messages searchable in real-time. Backing up and restoring account setup information, configuration and mail store is now made easier. It does however omit some features of Outlook Express , such as a "Block sender" for Usenet access. Windows Mail is itself being replaced with Windows Live Mail.

Windows Contacts
A new unified contact and personal information management application, replaces Windows Address Book (WAB). It is based on a new XML based file format where each contact appears as an individual .contact file, and features extensibility APIs for integration with other applications. It can store custom information related to contacts, including display pictures. The legacy *.wab format and the open standard *.vcf (vCard) and *.csv (Comma separated values) file formats are also supported.

Windows Calendar
The new calendar application that is included in Windows Vista. It supports the popular iCalendar format as well as sharing, subscribing and publishing of calendars on WebDAV-enabled web servers and network shares.

Windows Fax and Scan
Windows Fax and Scan is an integrated faxing and scanning application. With this users can send and receive faxes, fax or email scanned documents and forward faxes as email attachments from the computer. It replaces (or enhances) the 'Fax Services' component which was available as an optional component in Windows XP. It is available by default in the Ultimate edition and is also available in the Business and Enterprise editions. By connecting a scanner and a fax-capable modem to the computer, users can preview documents before scanning them and can choose to directly fax or email the scanned documents. The user interface resembles that of 'Windows Mail' with preview pane, tree views etc.

Windows Meeting Space
Windows Meeting Space, the replacement for NetMeeting, is a peer-to-peer (p2p) collaboration application. Users can share applications (or their entire desktop) with other users on the local network, or over the Internet. Windows Meeting Space allows sharing of the desktop with other co-workers, distribution and collaborative editing of documents, and passing notes to other participants. Windows Meeting Space automatically finds other users using People Near Me, a technology that uses WS-Discovery to see other users on a local network.

Paint
Paint has new features such as a crop function and the undo limit has been raised from 3 to 10.

Wordpad
WordPad now supports the Text Services Framework, using which Windows Speech Recognition is implemented. Therefore, it is possible to dictate text in WordPad, and similar other applications which support RichEdit.

Sound Recorder
Sound Recorder has been rewritten and now supports recording clips of any length and saving them as WMA. However, saving to WAV format is not supported except in the N editions of Windows Vista.

Snipping Tool
Snipping Tool, first introduced in Experience Pack for Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, is a screen-capture tool that allows for taking screen shots (called snips) of windows, rectangular areas, or free-form areas. Snips can then be annotated, saved (as an image file or HTML page), or e-mailed.

Magnifier Accessibility Tool
The Magnifier accessibility tool uses WPF, which in turn uses vector images to render the content. As a result, the rendered magnified image is sharp and not pixelated.However, this applies only to WPF applications. Non-WPF applications are still magnified the traditional way. Microsoft has also released a Magnification API to allow assistive technology applications to use the Magnifier engine.

Windows Photo Gallery
Windows Photo Gallery, a photo and video library management application. It can import from digital cameras, tag and rate individual pictures including custom metadata. It also allows basic editing of images, such as adjusting color and exposure, resizing, cropping, red-eye reduction and printing. Slideshows, with pan, fade and other effects, can also be created, and burnt to DVD. It allows custom metadata to be added to images and videos, and enables searching by the attributes. It also supports RAW images natively and can open and organize any image format for which image codecs are installed in the Windows Imaging Component. Images and videos may be viewed in the Windows Photo Gallery Viewer with options to zoom, pan and losslessly rotate images, pause or play videos, and bring up the Info pane to view and edit metadata about a photo or video. ICC V4 color profiles embedded in images are also supported. The Photo Print Wizard has been improved to offer a lot of customizability.

Windows Movie Maker
Windows Movie Maker supports smooth Direct3D-based effects and transitions, editing and outputting HD video, importing recorded DVR-MS format videos, as well as burning the output movie on a CD. In Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate editions, it can output video to Windows DVD Maker for creating DVD-Video discs. New effects and transitions have been added. All Windows Vista Movie Maker versions require pixel shader hardware support.
Windows DVD Maker, a DVD creation application. Applications can also pass an XML file to DVD maker for authoring and burning.

Games
Minesweeper, Solitaire, Hearts, FreeCell and Spider Solitaire have been updated and rewritten to take advantage of Windows Vista's new graphics capabilities. Also included are new games, namely, Purble Place, Chess Titans and Mahjong Titans. InkBall, a game previously available only with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, has been included and can also be played using a mouse. Pinball has been dropped. As of the consumer launch of 30th January 2007, users of the Ultimate edition of Windows Vista can also download Texas Hold 'Em Poker as an Ultimate Extra.

Windows Internet Explorer 7
Windows Vista includes the latest version of Internet Explorer, which adds support for tabbed browsing, Atom, RSS, internationalized domain names, a search box, a phishing filter, an anti-spoofing URL engine, fine-grained control over ActiveX add-ons, thumbnails of all open tabs in a single window (called Quick Tabs), page zoom, and tab groups. Tab groups make it possible to open a folder of Favorites in tabs with a single click. Importing bookmarks and cookies from other web browsers is also supported. Additionally, there is now proper support for PNG images with transparency as well as improvements and fixes to CSS and HTML rendering. The Windows RSS Platform offers native RSS support, with developer APIs.

On Windows Vista, Internet Explorer operates in a special "Protected Mode", which runs the browser in a security sandbox that has no access to the rest of the operating system or file system, except the Temporary Internet Files folder. This feature aims to mitigate problems whereby newly-discovered flaws in the browser (or in ActiveX controls hosted inside it) allowed hackers to subversively install software on the user's computer (typically spyware).

Windows Media Player 11
Windows Media Player 11, which is also available on Windows XP, features a fully revamped interface. Windows Media Player 11 in Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate Editions natively supports playback of HD DVD. Specifically, Windows Vista supports the MMC-5 commands, the driver commands for the AACS content protection scheme, as well as the UDF file system. Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate Editions also natively include the VC-1 and the MPEG-2 video decoders, as well as the Dolby Digital (AC-3) 5.1 audio decoder. H.264 video and other multichannel surround sound audio standards still require third party decoders.[16][17] Blu-ray Disc playback also requires third-party components to be installed. The Media Library is now presented without the category trees which were prominent in the earlier versions. Rather, on selecting the category in the left pane, the contents appear on the right, in a graphical manner with thumbnails—a stark departure from textual presentation of information. Search has been upgraded to be much faster.

Other features of Windows Media Player 11 include

Stacking
Stacking allows graphical viewing of how many albums exist in a specific category of music. The pile appears larger as the category contains more albums.

Media Sharing
Media Sharing - which allows one to share their Media library and make it accessible to other PCs running Windows Vista, Xbox 360, or networked Media Receivers.

Word Wheel
Searches and displays results as characters are being entered, without waiting for Enter key to be hit. Results are refined based on further characters that are typed.
CD Burning - CD burning now shows a graphical bar showing how much space will be used on the disc.

URGE
The new music store from Microsoft and MTV networks is integrated with the player. As of October 28, 2007, the URGE service was discontinued when it merged with Rhapsody; the link in WMP11 remains but is no longer functional. In order to use Rhapsody, a separate download is required.

Global Status
Global status shows a broad overview of what the player is doing. The information presented include status information regarding buffering, ripping, burning and synchronization.
RSS feed support through the integrated feed store that comes with Internet Explorer 7.

Windows Media Player 11 for Windows Vista is a super set of features of what is in the version for previous Windows versions.

Windows Vista (formerly codenamed Longhorn) has many new features compared with previous Microsoft Windows versions, covering most aspects of the operating system.

Requirements

Microsoft has listed the following requirements for what they call a Vista Premium Ready PC. A PC that meets or exceeds these requirements will be able to use the new Aero technologies.
a 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB of system memory
a Direct3D 9 compatible graphics processor with a Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) driver, Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware, and a minimum of 128 MB of Video RAM
40 GB hard drive with 15 GB free space
DVD-ROM Drive
audio output and Internet access

Windows Aero

Windows Aero is the graphical user interface and the default theme in most editions of Windows Vista, an operating system released by Microsoft in November 2006. It is also available in Windows Server 2008, which was released on February 27, 2008. Its name is a backronym for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective and Open. Intended to be a cleaner, more powerful, more efficient and more aesthetically pleasing user interface than the previously used theme (Luna), it includes new transparencies, live thumbnails, live icons, animations and eye candy. Aero also encompasses a set of user interface design guidelines for Microsoft Windows.

Windows Explorer

Windows Explorer is an application that is part of the Microsoft Windows operating system since Windows 95 that runs on top of the Windows operating system and provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file systems, though is not strictly essential to the running of a Windows computer. It is the component of the operating system that presents the user interface on the monitor and enables the user to control the computer. It is sometimes referred to as the Windows GUI shell, or simply “Explorer”.

Icons

Icons in Windows Vista are visually more realistic than illustrative. Icons are scalable in size up to 256 x 256 (64 KB). Required icon sizes are 16 x 16, 32 x 32, and 256 x 256. Optional sizes are 24 x 24, 48 x 48, 64 x 64, 96 x 96, and 128 x 128. Document icons show the actual document contents and several media types are distinguished by icon overlays (video, audio, photos). The icons can be zoomed in and out using a gradual slider or by holding down the Ctrl key and using the mouse scroll wheel. To optimize and reduce the size of large icons, icons may be stored as compressed PNGs. To maintain backward compatibility with earlier versions of Windows, only larger sized icons can use lossless PNG compression.

File operations

In Windows Vista, when moving or copying files, Windows Explorer displays the full source and destination path, size and number of items and the transfer speed in megabytes per second (MB/s). If a conflict or error is encountered, it does not terminate the copy, move or delete operation. Rather, the file is skipped and the rest of the files processed. At the end of the operation, the errors are presented to the user with resolution options (if available). If two files have the same name, an option is available to rename the file; in previous versions of Windows, the only options were to either replace the destination file or cancel the process. The user can also choose to apply the same action to the further conflicts, if any.

When renaming a file (when extensions are being displayed), Explorer only highlights the filename without selecting the extension

Start menu

In Windows Vista, the Start Menu has undergone some significant changes. One of the chief additions is a Search box, where users may begin typing immediately. The contents of the Start menu itself are indexed and searchable, besides the global search index. If indexing is turned on, the search box returns results on-the-fly as users type into it. This allows launching applications relatively quickly than navigating to the shortcut through cascading menus. The Start menu search also doubles as the Run command from previous versions of Windows; simply typing any command will execute it. The Run command can also be added separately to the right column in the Start menu.

Windows Flip and Flip 3D

For all Vista Premium Ready PCs, when using Alt+Tab to switch between open windows, a preview of each open window appears instead of just the program icon. In addition, Windows Flip 3D enables users to flip through a cascading stack of their open windows using the mouse scroll wheel. Windows can be stacked and rotated in 3D to provide views of all of them simultaneously. (The keyboard shortcuts are Win+Tab, which makes Flip 3D disappear after releasing, Ctrl+Win+Tab, which keeps Flip 3D visible after releasing, and Shift+Win+Tab to flip through open windows backward). The window buttons on the taskbar show a thumbnail image of the window, when the mouse hovers over the button.

Other shell improvements

> It is now possible to install and select non-English languages on a per-user basis which transforms the entire shell user interface and applications into Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese or Spanish from the next login. This feature is only available in the Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista.

> JPEG files can be natively set as the desktop wallpaper without using Active Desktop (which is no longer supported). Also, the aspect ratio of images is maintained properly while applying them as the desktop wallpaper.

> A new feature known as Previous Versions can revert the contents of any file to an arbitrary point in the past from the file's Properties. The Previous Versions feature utilizes Shadow Copy, a storage backup technology introduced in Windows Server 2003.

> Dialog boxes also display their status on the taskbar. Previously, only windows showed their status on the taskbar.

Windows Sidebar

Windows Sidebar is a new panel which can be placed on either the left or the right-hand side of the screen where a user can place Desktop Gadgets, which are small applets designed for a specialized purpose (such as displaying the weather or sports scores). The gadgets can also be placed on other parts of the desktop, if desired, by dragging. By default, Windows Vista ships with thirteen gadgets: Calculator, Clock, CPU Meter, Currency Conversion, Feed Viewer, Feed Watcher, Notes, Number Puzzle, Picture Puzzle, Recycle Bin, Slide Show, Stocks, and an egg timer. Additional gadgets are published at Microsoft's web site, which offers both Microsoft-created and user-submitted gadgets in a gallery.

Windows Vista (pronounced /ˈvɪstə/) is a line of operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, Tablet PCs, and media center PCs. Prior to its announcement on July 22, 2005, Windows Vista was known by its codename Longhorn.Development was completed on November 8, 2006; over the following three months it was released in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers, and retail channels. On January 30, 2007, it was released worldwide,and was made available for purchase and download from Microsoft's website.The release of Windows Vista came more than five years after the introduction of its predecessor, Windows XP, the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft Windows.

Windows Vista contains many changes and new features, including an updated graphical user interface and visual style dubbed Windows Aero, improved searching features, new multimedia creation tools such as Windows DVD Maker, and redesigned networking, audio, print, and display sub-systems. Vista also aims to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network, using peer-to-peer technology to simplify sharing files and digital media between computers and devices. Windows Vista includes version 3.0 of the .NET Framework, which aims to make it significantly easier for software developers to write applications than with the traditional Windows API.

Microsoft's primary stated objective with Windows Vista, however, has been to improve the state of security in the Windows operating system.One common criticism of Windows XP and its predecessors has been their commonly exploited security vulnerabilities and overall susceptibility to malware, viruses and buffer overflows. In light of this, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates announced in early 2002 a company-wide "Trustworthy Computing initiative" which aims to incorporate security work into every aspect of software development at the company. Microsoft stated that it prioritized improving the security of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 above finishing Windows Vista, thus delaying its completion.

While these new features and security improvements have garnered positive reviews, Vista has also been the target of much criticism and negative press. Criticism of Windows Vista has targeted high system requirements, its more restrictive licensing terms, the inclusion of a number of new digital rights management technologies aimed at restricting the copying of protected digital media, lack of compatibility with certain pre-Vista hardware and software, and the number of authorization prompts for User Account Control. As a result of these and other issues, Vista has seen adoption and satisfaction rates lower than Windows XP.

Windows XP is a family of 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, and media centers. The name "XP" stands for eXPerience.Windows XP is the successor to both Windows 2000 Professional and Windows Me, and is the first consumer-oriented operating system produced by Microsoft to be built on the Windows NT kernel (version 5.1) and architecture. Windows XP was first released on October 25, 2001, and over 400 million copies were in use in January 2006, according to an estimate in that month by an IDC analyst.It is succeeded by Windows Vista, which was released to volume license customers on November 8, 2006, and worldwide to the general public on January 30, 2007. Direct OEM and retail sales of Windows XP ceased on June 30, 2008, although it is still possible to obtain Windows XP from System Builders(smaller OEMs who sell assembled computers) until January 31, 2009 or by purchasing Windows Vista Ultimate or Business and then downgrading to Windows XP.

The most common editions of the operating system are Windows XP Home Edition, which is targeted at home users, and Windows XP Professional, which offers additional features such as support for Windows Server domains and two physical processors, and is targeted at power users, business and enterprise clients. Windows XP Media Center Edition has additional multimedia features enhancing the ability to record and watch TV shows, view DVD movies, and listen to music. Windows XP Tablet PC Edition is designed to run ink-aware applications built using the Tablet PC platform. Two separate 64-bit versions of Windows XP were also released, Windows XP 64-bit Edition for IA-64 (Itanium) processors and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition for x86-64. There is also Windows XP Embedded, a componentized version of the Windows XP Professional, and editions for specific markets such as Windows XP Starter Edition.

Windows XP is known for its improved stability and efficiency over the 9x versions of Microsoft Windows.It presents a significantly redesigned graphical user interface, a change Microsoft promoted as more user-friendly than previous versions of Windows. New software management capabilities were introduced to avoid the "DLL hell" that plagued older consumer-oriented 9x versions of Windows.It is also the first version of Windows to use product activation to combat software piracy, a restriction that did not sit well with some users and privacy advocates. Windows XP has also been criticized by some users for security vulnerabilities, tight integration of applications such as Internet Explorer 6 and Windows Media Player, and for aspects of its default user interface. Later versions with Service Pack 2, and Internet Explorer 7 addressed some of these concerns.

Programming languages provide various ways of specifying programs for computers to run. Unlike natural languages, programming languages are designed to permit no ambiguity and to be concise. They are purely written languages and are often difficult to read aloud. They are generally either translated into machine language by a compiler or an assembler before being run, or translated directly at run time by an interpreter. Sometimes programs are executed by a hybrid method of the two techniques. There are thousands of different programming languages—some intended to be general purpose, others useful only for highly specialized applications.

Lists of Programming Languages
Timeline of programming languages
Categorical list of programming languages
Generational list of programming languages
Alphabetical list of programming languages
Non-English-based programming languages

Commonly used Assembly languages
An assembly language is a low-level language for programming computers. It implements a symbolic representation of the numeric machine codes and other constants needed to program a particular CPU architecture.
ARM, MIPS, x86

Commonly used High level languages
A high-level programming language is a programming language that, in comparison to low-level programming languages, may be English-like, more abstract, easier to use, or more portable across platforms.
BASIC, C, C++, C#, COBOL, Fortran, Java, Lisp, Pascal

Commonly used Scripting languages
A scripting language, script language or extension language, is a programming language that controls a software application. "Scripts" are often treated as distinct from "programs", which execute independently from any other application. At the same time they are distinct from the core code of the application, which is usually written in a different language, and by being accessible to the end user they enable the behavior of the application to be adapted to the user's needs. Scripts are often, but not always, interpreted from the source code or "semi-compiled" to bytecode which is interpreted, unlike the applications they are associated with, which are traditionally compiled to native machine code for the system on which they run. Scripting languages are nearly always embedded in the application with which they are associated.
Bourne script, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP, Perl

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