Boxshot 3D Packaging Mockup Software

News

Boxshot 4.9

25 Jun 2015

This update brings some nice new features, like better 3D PDF export and custom UV mapping options. Keep reading to find out more.

New bump mode

You can now choose between the old (normal) bump and the new (offset) bump. The new one works for flat surfaces only and allows you to make things like this:

Compared to the “old” one, this bump simulates relief, so you see shadows and other effects:

However, please note that this is still a fake relief and the shape itself is as flat as before. Some artifacts are possible because of that, but this method works very well for embossing effect.

Also note that this new bump is only supported by “Raytracer 2” rendering engine. You will see nothing with hardware-accelerated preview or with the old RayTracer.

UV mapping options

This one should help those who use external shapes. For ages Boxshot relied on texture coordinates from 3D files, but as some of them come without mapping you ended up with non-textured objects. Now you can apply some basic mappings like planar, box, spherical and cylindrical. See the very bottom of the “Materials” panel at the right.

3D PDF export improvements

Exactly as Origami, Boxshot now allows you to split large textures when exporting to 3D PDF and U3D formats. This gives you nice crisp shapes in Acrobat which doesn’t like large textures.

Other 3D PDF improvements include background color export and lighting scheme customization, again exactly as it was done in Origami.

WebGL export

This one is interesting. We’ve added an experimental option to export scenes to HTML files for WebGL-enabled browsers. Basically, all the modern browsers including mobile ones can handle that. Here’s what it looks like:

Try to rotate it with your mouse as you do it in Boxshot. If you don’t see the shape above - your browser does not support that. The feature is still in beta, so your feedback is more than welcome.

Other improvements

Here is the list of other things that have been improved or fixed:

  • Raytracer 2 has become the main rendering engine, and the old RayTracer is now deprecated. We’re going to completely drop it in version 5;
  • Bump maps are now exported to Collada and OBJ formats;
  • Sphere object has been updated to make it seamless. Mapping was affected a bit, so check your scenes;
  • Background image placement has been fixed in raytracing preview;
  • 7-pages booklet issue has been fixed;
  • Snapshots can be activated by name from scripts;
  • The reflection of semi-transparent images has been fixed;
  • Collada importer improved to handle percent-encoded paths;
  • Augment publisher updated (give it a try if you haven’t done this yet).

That’s a pretty long list, huh :)

Version 5.0?

Not yet. There will be version 4.10 and maybe even 4.11, as we are not yet ready to change the first number. There are some ideas regarding version 5, but you hardly see it in the next few months. Let’s keep version 4 for now :)

Cheers!