Art Of Illusion is a 3D modeling, animation and rendering program. It is written completely in Java, so it can run on as many different types of computer as possible. Using Art Of Illusion, you can ‘render’ (create) images in formats such as JPEG, PNG and TIFF, as well as videos in QuickTime format. Using further tools other video formats such as MPEG and DivX can also be produced.
Modeling in AOI (Art Of Illusion) is performed using meshes. While the basic support within AOI is generic, the built in tools all work with triangle meshes. Quad and ‘ngon’ meshes are more recently supported with a plugin, the PolyMesh editor.
Textures and materials are well supported, with linear and procedural, 2D and 3D textures, and linear and procedural materials. There are visual editors for all texture and material types, and you can create a procedure or texture by simply dragging connections between logic modules.
All renderers in AOI are plugins, with the standard distribution containing a polygon (raster) renderer, and a raytracer renderer. Further renderer plugins are also available. All renderers can be used to create both single images and animation videos. The AOI raytracer is both powerful and fast, proving that compute-intensive code written in Java does not necessarily suffer a performance penalty when compared to C or C++ code.
The AOI raytracer is multi-threaded to take advantage of multiple CPUs, and supports adaptive antialiasing, multiple Global Illumination options including photon-mapping, ambient occlusion, and Monte-Carlo, and various processing options such as transparency, depth of field, caustics, etc.
The AOI plugin architecture allows users and 3rd parties to create new functionality without needing to modify the base code. AOI comes with a version-aware plugin manager (SPManager) which enables you to download and install plugins and scripts from central repositories, just by clicking a few buttons.
The AOI scripting interface allows users to automate tasks, create new tools and even new object types without having to compile or package code. Scripts are written in a Java syntax, and are executed using the open source ‘Beanshell’ engine.
There is an excellent and up-to-date manual available online; a range of tutorials covering the basic my-first-model (an hourglass), to complex modeling, animation, lighting techniques, and even script and plugin writing.
The AOI community uses a number of forums to provide help to new users and discuss techniques, features, problems, and future directions. In addition, an active Wiki documents news and new features on an ongoing basis.
If you like designing 3D objects and bringing a picture to life, then you should try Art of Illusion!

What's New in This Release:
· Textures and Materials window lets you reorder textures and materials
· Color chooser window now displays gradient bars
· Java Media Framework is no longer required to save Quicktime movies
· A few new textures and materials in the library
· A few bug fixes and minor UI improvements