So, here's an open question to plug-in developers, to put this forum vehicle to the test...
Of all of these concepts (camera matrix, focal length, lighting positions and properties, layer matrices, etc.), what would be the bare minimum feature set you would need in an API in order to do something interesting with 3D?
The absolute bare minimum for creating 3D effects is ( I agree with Matt on this ):
- Camera
- Transform matrix
- Focal length/aperture/field of view (enough for lens definition)
What would you need in order to do more advanced 3D effects?
- Lights
- Type (spot, point, etc.)
- Color/intensity
- Any other light-specific parameters (cone angle, falloff, shadow-values, etc.)
- 3D Layers
- Transform matrix
- Size (width/height)
- Layer Name or other way for a user to identify a particular 3D layer to us
I agree with Matt that this would come down to recreate the whole 3D world in the plugins code, which should actually be the job of the host (FCP/Motion). The other method would be to be able to "insert" 3D objects into Motion's/FCP's world. But I guess that would be a little bit too much of a request.
The above absolute bare minimum would great to see that in the first dot release.