Hypershot: A Good CGI Wrench?

Industrial designers have always done 3D rendering, but have never been crazy about the tools themselves.

Gray Holland of Alchemy Labs expresses the nature of the disconnect: "We need to have great images to clearly communicate our ideas, dreams and imagination, but we're in the activity of design, not imagery."

Holland's desire for a simple tool that will do the job without fuss is echoed by industrial designers at firms such as Stuart Karten Design, Design Edge, Smart Design and Pixel Mathematics.

They've all migrated to a new tool that just might fulfill the misplaced promise of 3D graphics for industrial design: software called HyperShot from Bunkspeed, based in Los Angeles, Calif.

"HyperShot doesn't do every conceivable thing, with checkboxes for every imaginable option, but it does what we want, and it does it near perfect every time," says Matt Grossman of Design Edge.

"In that way, HyperShot is a really good wrench.

Perhaps most importantly, its rendering speed has given us much more time for design, which is the business we're in."

HyperShot is still in version 1.5, and like any product at that stage (think of the iPod or early Macs) has room for improvement.

Holland cites, for example, texture and projection mapping that is "fairly limited."

Still, this software is being adopted with a zeal rarely seen since the early days of 3D software.