v12.0 [Dec 9, 2010]
-Shade 12 Professional new, advanced material handling lets you generate and work with normal maps just like any other type of mapping. Use animated normal maps to create powerful environmental effects.
-Shade 12 workflow interface is the result of years of customer feedback. Task based tool groups let you select, use and configure tool parameters within a single window. Snap to hide tools you aren't using right now, and restore them with a single step.
-Volumetric materials allow you to create wide variety of effects. In addition to standard material attributes, control of Volume attributes such as Decay Distance, Scattering, Transparency and Glow.
-Turn your digital camera into a 3D modeling tool with Photo Modeling. It works through assigning 3D faces to multiple photo images shot from different angles. In addition to 3D geometry, Photo Modeling also creates textures extracted from the photos you take.
-Shade SketchModelerYou can transform a picture of a face using line shapes such as eyes, eyebrows and the mouth and a central line to link them together, such as a nose. Adding additional lines increases the detail.
-Volumetric lights are visible light beams, passing through fog, dust, smoke, steam or color effects, such as sunlight passing through stained glass. Now you can set any standard Shade light source with the VolumeLight attribute.
-The Boolean modeling engine is completely revised, featuring boolean rendering and true boolean modeling, with revised and improved real time previewing of booleans.
-You don't have to fake it any more - true displacement mapping is here. Unlike bump mapping or a normal map, displacement mapping actually deforms the object. Export the displacement effect as an actual model.
-Subsurface Scattering lets you create hyper realistic models with surfaces that allow enough penetration of light. Create complicated hues and shadows such as those associated with jade, marble, plastics, and human skin.
-Cage modeling lets you surround another object with an invisible, geometric cage and then through modification of the cage object, distort, modify and twist the object within the cage.
-Import Google SketchUp models and scenes, allowing Shade users to take advantage of the Google 3D Warehouse of thousands of models or participate with Google Earth placement of models.
