N-World

N-World

Nichimen N-World 3.1 geometry editor
Developer(s)	Nichimen Graphics Inc.
Stable release	3.2 / January 1999
Operating system	IRIX
Type	3D computer graphics
License	Proprietary

N-World was a professional 3D graphics package available on Silicon Graphics workstations in the late 1990s. Intended primarily for video game content creation, it offered polygon modeling tools, 2D/3D paint, scripting, color reduction, and exporters for several popular game consoles.

History

N-World's origins can be traced back to Symbolics, a computer manufacturer notable for producing LISP-based systems in the 1980s. Among the software packages available for Symbolics computers was S-Graphics, a 3D animation suite that included modules for polygon modeling, dynamics, paint, and rendering (S-Geometry, S-Dynamics, S-Paint, and S-Render, respectively). In 1992, Japanese trading company Nichimen Corporation purchased the rights to S-Graphics, ported it to Silicon Graphics IRIX, and marketed it as N-World.

N-World retained the LISP-based foundations of its predecessor, but was targeted at interactive content producers, offering features useful for game developers.

N-World was superseded by Mirai in 1999, currently available from Izware.

Features

The N-World package, like its predecessor S-Graphics, was divided into several components:

• N-Geometry: 3D polygon-based modeling tools, including smoothing, "magnet" geometry editing, and instancing.
• N-Dynamics: Animation tools including scripting, curve-based animation, and skeletal animation.
• N-Render: Surfacing and rendering tools. Ray tracing and materials output to various game console formats.
• N-Paint: 2D & 3D paint. Mattes, effects, color reduction, and a visual VRAM editor for Playstation.
• Game Tools: Utilities for game developers, including exporters for Playstation, Nintendo 64, and Saturn consoles.