Box Shot 3D Review:: Introduction

 

Product: Box Shot 3D

Version: 2.7.0

Company: Not Known

Price: $50 USD

Date: Information correct as of 31/12/2007

 

I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything about the company or individual that produces Box Shot 3D, as their website gives absolutely nothing away. The only way you can contact the team, company or individual behind the program is via a contact form on their website. I’m sure this level of anonymity isn’t helpful to an independent software vendor. I personally feel more inclined to approach and purchase products from companies that don’t hide behind a cloak of anonymity. However, the people behind Box Shot 3D certainly don’t have any reason to hide, as they’ve created a product they should be justifiably proud of. This review takes a look at Box Shot 3D in depth.

 

Box Shot 3D isn’t a WYSIWYG box design program. It actually renders the final image. This doesn’t take place in real time and rendering large images can take several minutes. However, as we will see, the quality of this output from the program is quite outstanding.

 

Box Shot 3D:: Installation

The download isn’t signed and the installer looks like inno setup with the standard graphics. Box Shot 3D doesn’t even install a desktop icon, which can make the product difficult to locate on a crowded Start Menu.

 

Box Shot 3D:: Interface

Box Shot 3D has a nice looking tabbed interface that’s laid out in a logical and organised manner. You can also interact with the view port via the mouse with left click rotation. This is by far the most intuitive method to control and manipulate the angle of a box shot, so I was pleased to see it included in the program. There’s no right click Pan / Zoom controls though.

 

Box Shot 3D:: Demo Restrictions

Box Shot 3D takes a sensible minimalist approach to watermarking the output. Screen shots produced in the demo feature a series of horizontal lines running across the image. These are fairly unobtrusive while effectively ruling out the commercial use of demo images.

 

I found it slightly puzzling that the rendering engine has a maximum output size of 1000 x 1000. Since the program has such a high quality output, one of the obvious uses for it would be producing high quality images for print. Capping the maximum output size to 1000 pixel serves only to restrict possible print use.

 

However, once you actually render an image you discover that this is a demo restriction and that the full version of the program can export images with a resolution of upto 4,000 x 4,000. I’m not sure what the demo gains from restricting export size, since I suspect that, having see the 1,000 x 1,000 pixel cap in the demo, at least some people will just assume that Box Shot 3D isn’t suitable for print use and look elsewhere without even rendering an image.

 

If the logic is to protect the demo from cracks and hacks by hamstringing the rendering engine, then it would make far more sense to offer the high resolution export options in the program and either “grey” them out, or display a pop-up when they are selected, indicating that you need to purchase the full version in order to export high resolution renders.

 

Box Shot 3D:: Features and Benefits

The main benefit of Box Shot 3D is the outstanding image quality produced by the rendering engine included in the program. Unlike many other box shot programs that follow the WYSIWYG approach, the footage in Box Shot 3D isn’t created in real-time, it’s rendered by the program using a sophisticated ray tracing system.

 

Box Shot 3D also has a wide range of Box Styles.

 

Simple Box

Bevelled Box

Chamfer Box

Vista Box

DVD Box # 1

DVD Box # 2

CD Box

CD

Hard Cover Book #1

Hard Cover Boox #2

Soft Cover Book #1

Soft Cover Book #2

Opened Box

Stack of Hardback Books

Stack of Softback Books

ScreenShot

 

Overall, I was quite impressed by the range of shapes and styles on offer. I particularly liked the inclusion of the Vista Box, which is becoming increasingly popular. The stack of books is also very nice. The only glaring omission is the inability to create a Box with a CD. This is slightly ironic, since the program’s toolbar icon is, (yes, you’ve guessed it) a box with a CD in front!

Box Shot 3D also features a unique command line system that allows you to stack up a number of rendering tasks for the program to complete in its own time while you get on with something else. Since it can take several minutes to render one high resolution image, this is a great boon to anyone using to the program to produce a large number of high resolution renders. I can easily see how this feature could appeal to a designer charged with producing all of the 3D Box Shots for a software catalogue for example!

 

Box Shot 3D:: Quirks

One of the biggest problems I found was that Box Shot 3D doesn’t remember the path to the images you are using. Since I design a lot of boxes, I keep these in a separate folder on an external hard drive. Box Shot 3D stubbornly defaults to a folder in its installation directory. This starts to become hugely annoying as soon as you’ve tried to load in more that a couple of boxes. This is a particularly odd omission, given that the program appears to be encouraging a bulk work flow with its command line rendering feature.

 

Box Shot 3D:: Image Quality

Like most box design programs, Box Shot 3D doesn’t include any design tools, as it expects you to create your box panels in an image editing package such as Photoshop. As mentioned a few times already, Box Shot 3D produces some very high quality images. These are not produced in real time and are actively rendered by Box Shot 3D’s in built ray tracing facilities. Let’s take a look at what the program can do:

 

Box Shot 3D:: Documentation

One of the key things that a manual adds to even a very simple program is clarification on the things it can’t do, as well as the things it can. Several box design programs I’ve come across make the arrogant assumption that they are so simple to use that they don’t need a manual in order to help the user.

 

I was pleased to see that Box Shot 3D ships with a complete and comprehensive manual that is nicely illustrated with screenshots throughout.

 

Box Shot 3D:: Conclusion

Overall, Box Shot 3D is an impressive product that can produce some great looking box shots. The quality of the rendered images is the key factor that makes Box Shot 3D stand out from the crowd with the rendered output giving the final images an almost photorealistic quality. Despite some minor irritating quirks, the quality of the output really does speak for itself. If you’re planning to produce box shots for print in any real volume then Box Shot 3D is the obvious choice thanks to its Command Line interface. Depending on what you’re looking for in terms of creating box shots for the web Box Shot 3D could be exactly what you need.

 

Buy Now!

 

Try it!