CU Amiga Super CD-ROM 27/CU Amiga Magazine's Super CD-ROM 27 (1998)(EMAP Images)(GB)[!][issue 1998-10].iso/GoodBye/JohnKennedy/April94.lha/Imagine.LHA/Imagine.doc

Text File | 1994-02-16 | 11.0 KB | 369 lines

Article: Imagine 2.9 review
Words: 1800
Pictures: 7 (4 iffs and 3 jpegs)



So what's new? Imagine 3.0 out yet? Nahh... don't be silly,
it's coming in a special bundle with the A1200 CD-ROM drive.
Will John Kennedy be rendered speechless?





Imagine 2.9



Imagine 3.0 has to be the most sought after piece of
'serious' software on the Amiga.  Imagine 2.0 was (and is)
great, but users have been constantly tempted with promises
of new features in regular newsletters.  Whispers on the
electronic nets bounce across the globe - "it's shipping
next month" .."it's skipping next week" ..  "it's shipping
tomorrow" ..  "the ship's sunk".  To make it all worse, the
new version 2 of Real 3D and the growing availability of
LightWave has caused beautifully animated ripples of panic
amongst even the most dedicated Imagineers.

First things first - this isn't Imagine 3.0.  This is a
'work in progress' which contains all the parts of 3.0 that
are working.  Impulse must have gotten fed up with the
number of whining 'when 3?  when 3?' enquiries and decided
to throw something to the baying crowds. The big question of
course, is will they be satisfied?


FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Ok, so the loading screen is different, but what else is
new?  At first glance everything is the same.  The same quad
view (top, side, front and isometric), the same editors -
what has changed exactly to merit the .9 addition?

You have to look closely at Imagine 2.9 to spot the
differences, but they are pretty major and most are
conveniently placed a small menu called 'new stuff' just so
you know where to find them.

Probably the most important is the extension of the
isometric view window - the display that shows your object
in a 3D wireframe representation.  It really has been
improved beyond comparison, with real time manipulation and
Zoom, Angle and Perspective buttons to allow precise
movements.  Even better, when the camera is moved around
objects are replaced by real-time moving bounding boxes, so
no more guessing at complicated viewpoints.

As well as the usual wireframe, solid and shaded view a 'new
mode' allows the object to be manipulated in the virtual 3D
world, so at last all the move and rotate tools can be
applied in any window.


A NEW EDITOR!

Imagine has always split tasks across different editing
screens.  Objects are built in the Form and Detail editors,
arranged in the Stage editor and then animated in the Action
editor.

Now there is a new screen to know and love - the Spline
editor.  In the same way the Forms screen is used to make
symmetrical objects for tinkering with in the Detail editor,
the Spline editor can be used to make curvey shapes.  At
long last there is even a PostScript font option with dozens
of bevel options:  a feature which logo animators have been
screaming for.  Unfortunately none of the hundreds of fonts
I tried worked, and the best I got was a few obscure error
messages.  Humph, work in progress I suppose.

There are a few other features which don't quite work:
quick render now causes a hang and the AGA support isn't the
most comprehensive you'll see.  You can count on these bugs
being fixed really soon, but Impulse have had plenty of time
to work on them.  Perhaps they have been working on other
features, such as the weird and wonderful particles.


PARTICLES

Imagine is a funny program.  You think you've seen it all
when up pops a feature that you know will result in you
spending the next month of your life experimenting.
Particles and the particle effects is such a features.

Have you seen Deep Space 9?  Seen the bit at the start where
a large white glittery rock thing flies past, spewing dust
everywhere?  Imagine 2.9 can do that.

Want to animate water coming from a hose pipe?  Down a
waterfall?  How about smoke from a candle?  Rain?  Wind
blown snow?  (ugh, don't talk to me about snow).

This is what Imagine particles are all about. They are
nothing like the real-world Physics of Real 3D - no bowling
balls scattering pins - but they are still very clever, and
it's going to be sometime before the real power behind these
menu and requestors is turned into animations, but you can
bet it will look good.





MORPHING AND WARPING


Also in the 'new things' is a deformation menu, which can be
used to add a new twist to your objects.  Highlight your
object in the usual way, and then decide how to twist,
shear, taper, pinch, bend or stretch it.  The degree of
mangling can be controlled by entering numbers, or by
selecting one of the new buttons at the bottom of the Detail
Editor and wiggling the mouse. Thankfully the Undo feature
still works a treat.

Object 'states' are closely related to warping objects.
When creating animations it's extremely useful to be able to
define keyframes, and then get the software to tween or
morph the object between them.  For example, an image of a
head talking might require one frame with the mouth fully
closed, and another with the mouth fully open.  The
intervening frames can all be calculated by the computer.

Doing this with Imagine was always possible, but the real
problems start when brush and texture maps are used.  If you
map a digitised picture of a face onto the head object and
alter the shape of the object, the texture seems to remain
static as the object squirms underneath in a most repulsive
manner.  Now with the addition of states, the textures can
be tacked into place so when an object gets bigger, the
texture stretches to cover it.  Clever stuff, and it allows
for all sorts of weird and wonderful morphing projects.



BAD THINGS

It's a pity that some of the old irritations are still
present in Imagine 2.9.  Any backdrop image still has to be
the same size as the rendered image, which makes rendering
previews and full-screens tedious.  Come on, how much work
does it take to scale an image?  And please, please add a
file requestor - it can take ages typing in a long path only
to find you've made a mistake when the rendering process
starts.  This isn't what Workbench 3.0 was made for.

On the other hand some real improvements have been made with
palette handling, although Impulse still haven't got the
hang of directly creating animations.  It's plain to see
that Impulse still have a lot to do before Imagine can
approach the flexibility of Real 3Dv2.


CONCLUSION


Imagine 2.9 is good, but far from the finished 3.0.  It's
not completely fair to say it's only worth the hassle of
upgrading if you are sure you have pushed 2.0 as far as you
can already as the new view modes and object deformations
will actually make the program easier to use.

However, the biggest single improvement Impulse can make in
version 3.0 is a good manual, preferably one that covers all
the features in the program in detail.  Until that happens,
many Imagine owners will only be scraping the surface of
possibilities.









Box out: THAT NEW MENU IN FULL

Pic: Imagine2.iff (if possible will lines leading from menu
options to following paragraphs. If not, forget it - this
box is optional)


UNHOOK
REHOOK
        Controls grouping of objects and their current
Imagine state.

DEFORMATIONS
        Also known as 'six different ways to destroy a
perfectly good object'.  In reality, the changes can be as
drastic or subtle as you wish.

CONFORMATIONS
        Moved from a previous menu.  Warps objects so they
bend around spheres or cylinders.

PARTICLES
        Add particles to an object to permit various sorts
of animation and special effects.

APPLIQUE
        Use a brush map to deform an object, depending on
grey-scale colour.  Similar to a bump map, but the positions
of triangular facets are actually modified.

WAVE
        Instantly deform an object with ripple or wave
effects.

STATES
        Control the 'state' of an object, and lock it with
its various brush and texture maps.


CHECK OBJ
        Perform an internal check on any objects loaded in.
Some previously defined objects may not work perfectly with
Imagine 2.9

LATTICIZE
        Split an object into its component triangles, adding
an edge to each. The easiest way to get scaffolding effects.



Box out: WHAT'S HOT AND WHAT'S NOT


What's new:

Here's a quick at-a-glance list of some of the new features
present in Imagine 2.9.

    *Real time 3d editor view
    *Spline editor
    *Fifty new textures
    *Particles
    *AGA rendering modes
    *Deformations
    *States
    *Particle effects



What's not new:

And here are some the of the features which have been
promised at various times for Imagine 3.0, but failed to
make it into this 2.9 version. A new 3.0 manual is currently
being written, and is supposed to be considerably better
than the 2.0 manual. This wouldn't be difficult.

    *Bones
    *Kinematics
    *Improved anti-aliasing
    *New light sources with improved shadows
    *Shadow mapping
    *Depth of field effects
    *Sound









Flannel Panel


Note:  I'm sorry, I can't get a price for this.  It was sent
to me from Mat who got it from the states.  Amiga Format
sell it themselves (actually they advertise 2.9 and sell
3.0) but I'd rather not quote them.  The price depends on
what you are upgrading from, and so its really 'Price On
Application'.  The original 2.0 is sold by Hobbyte for a
laughable £146 (it was on Amiga Format's cover).


Impulse Inc.
8416 Xerxes Avenue North
Minneapolis,
Minnesota
55444
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]

Works with:  All Amigas.

Lots of memory, hard drive and fast
processor with floating point unit recommended.


Ease of Use:  70%
Thanks to crippling documentation, Imagine has never been
easy to use. The few pages supplied with 2.9 will point out
new features to Imagine experts and baffle new-comers.


Effectiveness:85%
Getting there. The new editor view is great, but rather than
include the features everyone wanted, Impulse have added
what they think everyone will want.


Flexibility: 86%
Creating objects is getting easier, although more advanced
brush and shadow mapping is needed.


Innovation: 89%
Some pretty exciting features are starting to make Imagine
look like a serious contender for the rendering crown it
once held.


Overall:82%

It's not Imagine 3.0, but at least it's available. Dedicated
Imagine fans will snap it up, the rest should wait for 3.0
and a good manual.



captions
--------

imagine1.iff
Version 3.0 has been promised 'real soon now' for so long,
it's good to see something other than hot air from Impulse.

imagine3.iff
A useful addition is the ability to see where virtual camera
is actually pointing. The perspective view in the top-right
will update in real time which you move the camera around.

imagine4.iff
Here's one of those features you just know you're going to
love. Particle effects provide scope for some of the
weirdest things yet to be animated.

imagine5.jpg
Ok, I admit it - I'm a sick man. But I couldn't resist the
new deformations and I only used 2 of the 50 new textures...

imagine6.jpg
The Gas Giant texture is calling to me.. "Render a Voyager
flypast" it is saying. "No" I reply, sort of.

imagine7.jpg
I couldn't get the PostScript font to work, so I had to use
a Deluxe Paint image, extrude it, bevel it and give it a
little deformation. The texture is interesting but bright.