Viscape Universal

Superscape has been in the 3D business since before VRML existed, but the release of Viscape Universal 5.60 late in 1998 was its first nonbeta attempt at a VRML97 browser. As with Cosmo Player and CCpro, it supports both OpenGL and Direct3D rendering engines.

Version 5.60 comes reasonably close to achieving Superscape's claims of ``full VRML97 compliance,'' at least with regard to textures. Alpha transparency is supported, but single-shade PNG transparency in grayscale or RGB textures is not, and palette-alpha PNGs are rendered mostly opaque. Material transparency has varying effects: with the OpenGL renderer, all textures are composed with the underlying transparency; with Direct3D, none of them are. Both behaviors are incorrect. Grayscale textures also fail to absorb the underlying material's color.

On a more amusing note, Viscape Universal has no support for GIF textures--which is allowed by the VRML specification--but it fails to render the underlying material correctly in the absence of the textures. The browser may be downloaded from http://www.superscape.com/download/ViscapeUniversal/.