Electric Image Animation System - пакет для создания трехмерной анимации, включающий большой комплекс анимационных средств, спецэффекты, инструментарий для работы со звуком и генератор шрифтов с настраиваемыми параметрами. В данной программе имеется возможность импорта свыше тридцати различных форматов моделей. Пакет также поддерживает работу с иерархическими объектами и средствами инверсной кинематики. Инструменты обладают превосходными возможностями для работы с анимацией персонажей. По заявлению разработчиков рендер EIAS – самый быстрый и простой на Земле, а интерфейс программы наиболее интуитивный из всех 3D пакетов.

Некоторые особенности программы:
- Быстрый и качественный рендеринг
- Возможность многократной отмены действий в программе,
- Дополнительные настройки текстурирования,
- Многофункциональное контекстное меню,
- Поддержка экспорта в формат Maya *.ma,
- Трассировка объемной прозрачности,
- Возможность просчета эффекта подповерхностного рассеивания,
- Подповерхностное объемное рассеяние света,
- И многое другое

Возможности программы:
- Monte-Carlo Global Illumination with Image-based lighting.
- Render to layered PSD files, compatible with both Photoshop and After Effects.
- Render to RPF files, compatible with After Effects and Combustion.
- Area Lights and Light Objects.
- Exceptionally fast Photon Mapping.
- HDRI and EXR input support throughout the application.
- Super-fast blurry reflections.
- Fast and accurate Caustics.
- Ray-Traced Volume Transparency.
- Ray-Traced Shadow Transmission (otherwise known as Subsurface Scattering).
- Light graphs, providing an easy way to light complex scenes.
- Buffer Shadows, Ray Traced shadows, both soft and razor sharp.
- Blisteringly fast "Phong" rendering mode for accelerated speed.
- Intuitive, high-quality motion-blurring abilities.
- Unlimited nodes for network rendering making EIAS, in our opinion, the cheapest high-end 3D application.
- Shaders, EIAS comes packed with dozens of procedural shaders for many effects, from scratches and home-made noise patterns to camouflage and wood.

Market Positioning
The existing customer base for EIAS favors it for its fast renderer, its high output quality, and its camera mapping features. The tool set lends itself particularly well to hard-surface animation/rendering and other forms of non-organic tasks. It is most popular with architects and visual effects artists for TV and film.

EIAS's primary competitors in the integrated 3D package space are Autodesk with Maya and 3D Studio Max, Avid with Softimage|XSI, Maxon with Cinema 4D, and Newtek with Lightwave 3D.

Components
The Electric Image Animation System is not a single program, but rather a suite of several programs designed to work together. Each of the primary programs handles a particular part of the production workflow:

Animator
Animator is the EIAS animation program. It can directly import 3D models in the Lightwave, 3D Studio, AutoCAD, Maya, and Electric Image FACT formats. (See also the Transporter section below.) In addition to animating models, Animator allows you to set up rendering settings. It efficiently supports the animation of very geometrically complex projects.

Camera
Camera is the EIAS rendering program, known for its speed and high image quality. Шt supports ray tracing, Phong shading, scanline rendering, anti-aliasing, motion blur, caustics, radiosity, and global illumination. Camera outputs to Quicktime and EI's own Image format. The latter is directly supported by Adobe After Effects and Adobe Photoshop.

Renderama
Renderama and Renderama Slave compose EIAS's distributed network rendering system. It allows for the rendering of a project to be distributed over a network's computers (i.e., for the formation of a render farm). It supports both single and multiprocessor computers, taking advantage of all available processors to distribute the workload. It also supports rendering across platforms (e.g., Windows, Mac OS 9, and Mac OS X).

Transporter
Transporter is a standalone program for converting 3D models from one file format to another. Primarily, it exists for importing models in formats that the other EIAS tools cannot import directly, and for exporting models to other formats. For instance, in EIAS version 6.5, Animator supports five of the most popular model input formats, while Transporter supports 29 formats. Transporter can export a model in one of 14 different formats, most usefully the Electric Image FACT format preferred by the other EIAS components.

Modeler
Modeler saves its files in Electric Image's "FACT" file format for importing into Animator (see above). It supports ACIS modeling, "UberNurbs" (EIAS' subdivision surfaces modeling technology), LAWS (based on parametric formulas) as well as Boolean operations and other modern modeling tools.

Modeler last shipped in Electric Image Universe 5.0. As a result, users of EIAS 5.5 and newer use a third-party modeler instead. As of this writing, Electric Image recommends Nevercenter Silo for this purpose. Form-Z from auto-des-sys is also popularly used as a companion for EIAS.

Rendering
EIAS boasts perhaps the fastest rendering engine on the planet: "Camera". Mind-bogglingly, it does this at the same time as producing the very highest quality output it is possible to get. No anti-aliasing artifacts here!

System requirements
* Windows: Win XP/Vista,
* 1GHz or faster processor,
* 1GB of RAM,
* 32-bit 3D Graphics card with at least 256MB of memory,
* USB Port

Update: 2009
Platforms: Windows: Win XP/Vista
Languages: English
Developer: eitechnologygroup.com
The program is registered
Size: 56.09 Mb