==================================================== T H E T E S S E L L A T I O N T I M E S #518 Issue #18 of 1995, for Monday, June 26th ==================================================== *The Tessellation Times* (TESS) is Columbine, Inc.'s weekly electronic publication normally posted Monday evenings as a supplement to 3D ARTIST magazine. See Contacts at the end of this file for companies whose products are mentioned here. _______________ Tell it to TESS Send your 3D news tips to tell.tess@3dartist.com. _______________ TESS on the Web http://www.3dartist.com/ > 3D ARTIST and TESS's own Web presence http://www.tgax.com/3dartist.htm > a page just for *3D Artist* resources and *Tess* http://www.lightside.com/3dsite/ > in the Literature, Reference section of 3DSite __________________ TESS subscriptions It's free! Send a message to stating simply "subscribe" or "unsubscribe". _______ DETAILS This file may be passed between individuals and may be reposted in any online forum _as_long_as_ the file is not modified in any way (it must be left whole and unchanged). Posted as TESS518.TXT (TES518.TXT where only six characters are allowed), or as TESS518.HTM if posting our Web version, or compressed as TESS518 with the appropriate DOS-style extension (ZIP, etc.). Reposting to *mailing lists* is _not_ recommended. TESS's master files are maintained with corrections on our Internet site (ftp to ftp.3dartist.com and look for directories named /3dartist, /ballen, and /tess). These are the only TESS files for which we can vouch file integrity. Opinions herein are not necessarily those of independent sites or forums carrying this file. This file's contents are copyrighted and may not be reproduced in or with any other print or digital publication without permission. Any trademarked names mentioned in this file are the property of their respective owners and are used only in editorial fashion without intent of infringement of such trademarks. Columbine, Inc. and its publications are totally independent. No companies or products are endorsed. Published by and (c)Copyright 1995, all rights reserved: Columbine, Inc. P.O. Box 4787, Santa Fe, NM 87502 USA 505/982-3532 (voice); 505/820-6929 (fax) 505/820-6929x3 voice mail E-mail: tess@3dartist.com _____ Staff Alex Kiriako, Editor, TESS & Sysop, 3dartist.com Bill Allen, Publisher & Pres., Columbine, Inc. Sally Beach, Vice Pres., Columbine, Inc. Carol Williamson, Admin. Asst. ________ CONTENTS 518.00 - Heads Up 518.00.01 - The Fortnight in 3D 518.00.02 - Upgrades 518.00.03 - Shows & Exhibitions 518.00.04 - Classes of Note 518.01 - PolyForm _nee_ Pixel 3D 518.02 - 3D Online 518.03 - 3D Readings 518.04 - 3D User Groups 518.05 - News Wrap 518.06 - What's Up in Santa Fe 518.06.01 - 3D ARTIST 518.06.02 - TESS 518.06.03 - Publisher's Comments 518.07 - Continuing Listings 518.07.01 - Galleries & Exhibits 518.07.02 - Artists Call 518.08 - Follow-Ups 518.09 - Contacts --------- 518.00 - Heads Up Here's the stuff you need to know the soonest... 518.00.01 - The Fortnight in 3D July 3, Montreal, Canada: Montreal 3D Studio Users Group will meet 7pm at Dawson College, 4001 De Maisonneuve West, Room 3 G 15 in Montreal. Topics include Bones, LenZFX, and 3D Meshpaint. Bring samples of your work to show. 518.00.02 - Upgrades SoftF/X version 2.5 ($695) from Byte by Byte Corp. will be available on June 30th. New features reportedly include OpenGL support and 3D shaded models with texture maps in realtime previews. Other enhancements are NTSC legal color limiting, better Bezier drawing, and 8-bit antialiased alpha channels. This version is also said to be faster using OpenGL than the already speedy v2.0. (See an upcoming review and animation how-to for v2.0 in 3D ARTIST #20.) Improved documentation will be available after July 31. Upgrade pricing from v2.0 is $29 plus shipping. There is also competitive pricing of $429 for owners of many other PC 3D applications. And, in a move that other software publishers should emulate, this competitive pricing is extended to users of Byte by Byte's own programs on other platforms. Student and faculty pricing is also available with ID for $199.50 in the U.S. and Canada, $250.20 international. Note below in Contacts that Byte by Byte has a new address. Educators should note that this program has the potential to render students' work before the bell rings. 518.00.03 - Shows & Exhibitions September 11-13, Bellevue, Wash.: Asymetrix Worldwide 1995 Developers Conference focuses on the design, development, and delivery of multimedia content. Also featured are the Video Breakthrough Awards for videos using Multimedia Toolbook or Compel, Indeo technology, and Video Blaster RT3000. Registration by 7/1/95 is $695, afterwards $795. Aysmetrix Corp. 800/448-6543, 206/637-1504. 518.00.04 - Classes of Note The American Film Institute in Los Angeles is a great resource for advancing your skills as a desktop digital cinematographer. They offer classes in skills valuable to any type of video storytelling. Classes like storyboarding, screen and TV writing, interactive media, marketing for interactive media, directing, selling your ideas to Hollywood, and blue screening. AFI is very strong on the digital side, with classes on applications like Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, Macromedia Director, Equilibrium's Debabelizer, Electric Image, and Vidi's Presentor Pro. Though primarily Mac based, PC users can still participate with the Windows version for many of these programs. AFI also offers non-platform specific classes in animation, sound and music, design, and nonlinear editing. Many classes are offered as one- or two-day seminars and on weekends so out of towners can also benefit. Contact the American Film Institute; 2021 N. Western Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027; 213/856-7664. 518.01 - PolyForm _nee_ Pixel 3D Vivid Technologies is carrying forward the Amiga utility and 3D file format conversion program formerly known as Pixel 3D and Pixel 3D Pro. The new program, PolyForm, is promised for 3rd quarter 1995 for Windows 3.1/95/NT. Pixel 3D was published by Axiom, now reconstituted as Vivid Technologies. In the 6/12/95 initial product announcement, the Minnesota company also reported that it will keep its new name following a merger with the Wisconsin marketing firm Tres J Marketing. (There is no connection between Vivid Technologies and the Vivid shareware raytracer.)--B.A. 518.02 - 3D Online Virtus Corp. has announced new support for export to VRML in their interactive 3D products. WalkThrough Special Edition/VRML will first be available at Siggraph in August and will come bundled with a book on VRML. Virtus also plans to release major upgrades of WalkThrough Pro and Virtus VR by the end of the year that will incorporate VRML export and interactivity. Colony, you may remember, was one of the first 3D action games to appear on desktop. It ran on a Mac SE under 1Mb of RAM and won best-of-awards in its day. This 1988 technology was later incorporated into Virtus' first product in 1990. Mike Little sent a message 6/17/95 about AOL's PC Graphics & Animation Forum, which he helps lead. It's "a great place for 3D graphics enthusiasts. We have over 17,000 graphics related files in this forum as well as message boards for members to ask questions and share opinions. We have online live chats for members to attend every night except Saturday. I host the Animation Chat every Sunday night at 9:30pm Eastern." 518.03 - 3D Readings Continuing the TESS#517.02 item about Autodesk Press, a new joint venture of Autodesk and International Thompson Publishing, we've received more details about ITP's related publishing efforts. Thanks to former Autodesk PR person, Andrew Mackles, for this info: ITP subsidiary Delmar Publishers has in the works for Winter '95 *Harnessing 3D Studio* by Glenn Hilley and *The Illustrated 3D Studio Command Reference* by Jay Zirbel and Steve Combs. Both are described as texts for "high school, community college, and university students as well as professionals." Subsidiary PWS has scheduled for Fall '95 *Mastering 3D Studio* by Jon Duff and William Ross. "This is a text aimed at community college and university students." And "Thompson Learning Tools is publishing texts by Fred D'Ignazio on both 3D Studio and Animator Pro this winter for middle school to high school students." We didn't include the contact info with the TESS#517 item about Autodesk Press. You'll find it in "Contacts" below.--B.A. Check out the current *Byte* magazine (July '95) on your newsstand or at the library for a bunch of articles about Internet, but especially for a State of the Art section on 3D graphics, virtual reality, and visualization. John Foust of Syndesis (publishes Interchange and 3D-ROMs) wrote one of the pieces, "3-D Steps Forward," about 3D file formats, operating system support, and acceleration. One of the questions we most often hear is "What PC video boards are best?" Though we have begun a hardware survey among renewing 3D ARTIST subscribers, TESS and 3DA are not in a position to review commodity hardware. However, you will find 16 PCI boards reviewed in the June 27th *PC Magazine*. It's now off newsstands, but can be found in many libraries.--B.A. 518.04 - 3D User Groups By Bill Allen User groups are important points of contact for animators of all experience levels, as a recent San Francisco Siggraph chapter meeting showed. Speakers Andrew Schmid and Oren Jacob, a lead animator and a technical director with Pixar, explained tricks for blue screening, animation design strategy, and motion layering. (This technique builds a character's movements one component at a time, adding and refining traits in a logical sequence.) Like some other groups, this one has a newsletter that carries job offers, how-to tips, and other info like a list of meetings for the several Bay Area computer art SIGs. You can contact S.F. Siggraph c/o Hoyt Ng at CIS 73052,624. If there isn't a user group in your area, and you would like to try starting one, let TESS and 3D ARTIST help spread the word for you. Don't worry about all the organizational trappings, like dues and incorporation (most 3D SIGs avoid that stuff). Just find a time and place, and get the word out locally to friends, dealers, computer teachers, and anyone such as video producers and ad agencies that might be interested in hiring computer graphics people. Have a VCR and maybe a computer at the meeting for show and tell (but nothing you can't keep an eye on or nail down). Simple refreshments are nice but optional. A good first meeting agenda is to have everyone take a set amount of time (keep it moving) to describe what they're doing with 3D graphics. Out of this, you will find topics and speakers for subsequent meetings. You also should find volunteers to help get things done (don't let yourself get stuck doing everything). Once your group decides to meet regularly and picks a name and sets up contact details (address, phone, etc.), software companies will be eager to send promotional items. If they get to know your group, they may send commercial products to award as door prizes, and may assist with finding speakers. 518.05 - News Wrap CorelPress is a new collaboration between Corel and Osborne/McGraw-Hill. Their first book offering will be *The Official Guide to CorelDraw 6 under Windows 95* due to be released in September or October. (Corel as reported in TESS#501 and #502 purchased a variety of key 3D technologies from Ray Dream, Specular, and American Small Business Systems for their upcoming Corel CAD.) Diamond Multimedia has announced their first PCI-based Mac video accelerator product for the new Macintosh 9500. The Javelin Video 3240XL lists for $399 and comes with 2Mb of VRAM upgradable to 4Mb. The 3400XL lists for $569 and uses 4Mb. Both support 24-bit color up to 1152x870 resolution and refresh rates to 120MHz. You can also use them with either a Macintosh or PC monitor. Other features include support for a variety of CODECs like QuickTime, and each board comes bundled with KPT Convolver. Availability for Diamond's Mac boards is set to coincide with Apple's launch of their 604 PCI-based Macintoshes. This is good news for Mac users, as PCI offerings should eventually break the current high-pricing on Mac video products. CrystalGraphics Crystal Kaleidoscope bundle is now shipping. It includes Topas Professional 5.1, Fractal Design Painter 3.1, Kai's Power Tools 2.0 SE, Elastic Reality 1.01, Leadview 3.0, along with Acuris textures, images, and 3D models. Calcomp has announced that their Digitizer Division has been renamed as the Input Technologies Division, befitting a wider variety of input device products. A/E/C Systems reports that their June 1995 show in Atlanta had 20,435 show and 3,079 conference attendees. And Advanstar reports that their June ShowBiz Expo show in Los Angeles had 30,028 attendees and more thant 500 exhibitors. 518.06 - What's Up in Santa Fe 518.06.01 - 3D ARTIST Deadlines for 3DA#21 are 6/30 for editorial materials and ad space reservation, and 7/18/95 for ad materials. (New ad rates take effect.) 518.06.02 - TESS Deadline for TESS#519 will be 1pm MDT (3pm Eastern) Mon., 7/3/95. 518.06.03 - Publisher's Comments By Bill Allen We're running light on news for TESS this week. Also we don't have suitable accompanying pictures, so there won't be a Web Pictorial Section this issue. A lighter workload is just as well since we're also busy getting most of 3D ARTIST issue #20 out to the printer today. More about that next time. We were running tests last week while also getting TESS#517 ready to upload, but didn't know until the last minute that our mailing list server would become operational. That means from now on we will be broadcasting TESS much earlier. It used to go out between 11pm and 3am Mountain Time, but now may go any time after 5pm. Subscribe and unsubscribe messages continue to go to tess@3dartist.com. The Web version of TESS should be going up shortly after the text-only broadcast, but our procedures there are still evolving. Despite the size of this week's TESS, broadcasting via mail server makes it easier for us to post larger issues. We had been staying under 21Kb, but will go up to 30Kb now, and possibly a little larger as the Siggraph PR season swings into full blast. If bigger message sizes will choke your E-mail system, please change your E-mail address for TESS or cancel your subscription. Last week I told you about putting 3D ARTIST's employment ads on the web (http://www.3dartist.com/ads/jobs.htm). You won't find it there, but you should know about a long help-wanted message posted 6/7/95 on AOL from the Feature Animation and Animation Human Resource Divisions of DreamWorks (Spielberg, Katzenberg, and Geffen). We don't normally publish this kind of thing, but it is an opportunity for you to get in on a historical ground floor. If you are ready to be a big-time 3D animator, programmer, or other team player, send your resume to . Demo reels go to DreamWorks Animation Technology, P.O. Box 7304 #132, North Hollywood, CA 91603, USA. Tell 'em *The Tessellation Times* sent you! 518.07 - Continuing Listings 518.07.01 - Galleries & Exhibits Through 7/15/95: Heartsong gallery, 934 Lopez, Santa Fe, N.M. Paintings and computer works by Robert Schrei. 505/982-7244 or 505/983-7213. 518.07.02 - Artists Call June 30 for the 15th Symposium of Small Computers in the Arts at the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, Penn. Contact Misako Scott 610/664-3418, scan@netaxs.com. June 30 for Graphis New Media Annual 96 for professional design work done since 7/94 in interactive presentations. $100 fee per entry. Graphis Press, 141 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10016; 212/532-9387, 213-3229 fax. July 3 for the San Francisco ACM Siggraph Animation Contest. See TESS#512.00.04 or contact S.F. ACM Siggraph, 310 Richland Ave., San Francisco, CA 94110; 415/642-9605, CIS 73052,624. July 31 for 3-D Coolness '95 animation contest. See TESS#507.00.04 for more info (but wrong deadline). Contact World Fusion Software, 5942 Edinger, #113-718, Huntington Beach, CA 92649; 714/894-4094; 3dcool@worldfusion.com. 518.08 - Follow-Ups On 3DA#19 p26 and in TESS#511.00.02, Glen Lewis' E-mail address was listed as glewis.pcocd2.intel.com. It should be glewis@pcocd2.intel.com. 518.09 - Contacts Please mention TESS when contacting companies about products reported here! > Autodesk Press; P.O. Box 15015, Albany, NY 12212; 800/998-7498; 518/464-3500, -0945 fax > Byte by Byte Corp.; 3925 W. Braker Lane #329, Austin, TX 78759-5321; 512/305-0360, -0371 fax; softfx@aol.com; http://bytebybyte.com > Corel Corp.; 1600 Carling Ave., Ottawa, ON K1Z 8R7, Canada; 613/728-8200, 761-9176 fax > CrystalGraphics, Inc.; 3110 Patrick Henry Dr., CA 95054; 800/867-2733; 408/496-6175, -0970 fax > Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc.; 2880 Junction Ave., San Jose, CA 95134-1922; 800/468-5846; 408/325-7000, -7070 fax; http://www.diamondmm.com/ > Virtus Corp.; 118 MacKenan Dr. #250, Cary, NC 27511; 919/476-9700, 460-4530 fax; info@virtus.com; http://www.virtus.com/ > Vivid Technologies; 13000 W. Bluemount Rd. #215, Elm Grove, WI 53122; 800/962-7659; 414/641-0520 __________________ 3D ARTIST magazine - 3D How-To A full-color magazine since 1994, founded 1991. Completely written by real users. Covers PC, Mac, and Amiga 3D software, and topics of interest to freelance artists. If you haven't seen and can't find 3D ARTIST, E-mail your snail mail address to t3.info@3dartist.com for a sample issue (North America) or an info kit with sample pages (elsewhere). Sample issue arrival may take 6-8 weeks by third class mail. Purchased issues ($4 each, postpaid surface mail worldwide) are sent immediately (fax Visa/MC orders to 505/820-6929). 12-issue surface subscription is $29 U.S., us$41 Canada/Mexico, $46 elsewhere. 6-issue, first class, and airmail subscriptions also available. All prices to change soon. [end]