Rendering in a Browser: F_BOX Picture Shooter

Normally, when I’m running a rendering program, I shut down all the rest. See you later, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Microsoft Word! As much as I like having you around, I can’t afford to have my CPU’s attention divided. I need all of its horsepower—and then some—to calculate the ray bounces in my scene.

But what if you can render on someone else’s machine? That’s exactly what Mackevision‘s F_BOX Picture Shooter allows you to do. No installation, no download, no client app. All you need is a secure log-in and a password (and the latest version of Flash, because that’s what the program uses to send and receive instructions from your machine).

Once you logged in, you get access to Picture Shooter’s simple, intuitive interface. You can move your 3D object in the XYZ axes using directional arrows or rotate it around using a circular arrow. The program comes with some preloaded scenes and back plates, but you can search for more and load your own too.

Camera controls work the same way. You can grab and move your camera around the object to get instant perspective updates. The ray-trace engine is off, by default. But if you’d like to work in a program window with ray-traced objects, you can turn on the engine with a single click. Now, remember, you’re using someone else’s machine—Mackevision’s remote server cluster, far more powerful than an average desktop—so your local machine won’t become sluggish when you turn on ray-tracing.

Once you’re happy with your composition, you may go into the Order Picture window to specify the resolution, format, and delivery method you’d like (most will probably choose email). Then you can go back to doing whatever you were doing before on your local machine, whether perfecting an assembly or chatting on Facebook (most likely the latter). Since your scene is being rendered on Mackevision’s server, your local CPU remains free.

Picture Shooter is a program primarily targeted at those who need to create high-resolution still images. Nevertheless, it comes with some basic animation functions so you can create, for example, an animated walk-around a specific 3D model. It doesn’t, however, come with a material library you can use to drag and drop textures and colors onto your 3D object.

The application may ideally be used by manufacturers who need to churn out multiple versions of the same product, say, six color variations of the same luxury vehicle model. In this case, the account holder may preload the vehicle model with a range of colors possible, then start generating still images using Picture Shooter. The account holder may also provide trusted digital artists with the necessary credentials to generate images.

For more, watch the video clip below.