Light ROM 1/LIGHT-ROM 1 (Amiga Library Services)(1994).iso/imagine/text/archive.25

Text File | 1994-10-19 | 137.7 KB | 3,558 lines

IMAGINE archive: collected off of [e-mail]

ARCHIVE XXV
Jul. 24 '92 - Aug. 18 '92

If you have questions or problems with this file, email Marvin Landis
at [e-mail]

note: each message seperated by a '##'

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Subject: Essence Info!
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 92 23:28:40 PDT
From: [e-mail]

Hi, everyone!

The word finally comes! :-)

As everyone has been hearing, it has been a trying two weeks. Essence
began shipping in (limited!) quantities this week, mostly to the
people who begged, pleaded, and wore me down. :-) Just over 30 copies
have now been sent out as of today.

Anyway, for those who need to be told, Essence is a set of new
algorithmic textures for Imagine. They work with the FLOATING POINT
version of Imagine (0.9-2.0) and Turbo Silver. The final package has
SIXTY SIX new algorithmic textures for Imagine. List price is $79.95.
There's a much longer description of the individual textures in the
mailing list archives.

While I'm at SIGGRAPH next week, shipping *WILL* continue, though
there will be nobody to answer Apex's phone.  After I get back from
SIGRAPH shipping will go into full swing and mailing should go from
about 10 a day to about 50 a day. Already there are about 100 orders,
so the shipping time is at LEAST a week.

I've waited until now to post here on the list since I wanted the
direct mail I sent out to get to people: it also gave me more time to
nail down last minute problems (like discovering I had to rent a TRUCK
to carry a ton of empty software boxes!) There *IS* a price discount
to those people who are on the list. You can get Essence for a mere
$48! (The same price offered in the mailing.) More later in this post...

Some quick answers to questions that were asked of me in posts and email:

1) Yes, there IS a fractal bump texture. It is similar to brush
altitude mapping, except it takes only about 15K and it has no seams
or brush edges or pixel artifacts. You can make asteroids, sandpaper,
jagged rock, bumpy planets, all sorts of things. Allen Hastings even
suggested it could make the Romulan cloaking effect by perturbing a
lens (it works!)

2) Yes, the textures animate, in particular the fractal noise textures
all have a time parameter. You can also spin, translate (in 3D), and
scale them over time. You can also fade them in and out.

3) Essence REQUIRES an FPU (is you have a 68020 or 030 or 040 you
almost certainly have one.) There MIGHT be an integer version in the
future, but only if there is enough demand. Not for many months either
way.

4) Shipping NOW, finally. :-)

5) No, sorry, no basketball texture, though there *IS* a basketball
COURT texture!

6) The textures take only about 5-15K of RAM.

7) The Mandelbrot texture can be zoomed in to a magnification of up to
about 10^11 times.

8) Yes, you can crossfade the Essence textures (they have a feature
called "Fade") but you can't fade it with an Impulse texture.

10) No, you're not limited to 4 textures per object. I describe how to
add as many textures to one object as you like... for Saturn's rings,
you might want to add a dozen ring textures. But this is an easy
trick.

11) Yes, the transition textures have both a "crawl" mode and a "fire"
mode.  That is, you can animate mold growing as well as licks of flame
travelling.

12) Yes, there is a discount. See below.

13) No, Impulse has not released the Imagine texture format (to us or
anyone else.)

14) No, we're not releasing the texture format either. :-)

15) The textures work exactly as the Impulse textures do: You use that
big requester with 16 numbers in it. Unfortunately this is hardwired
so we can't add a better interface or color sliders or anything.

16) Yes, I wrote the manual. It is 112 pages long. (eek!)


--------

If you're interested in getting Essence from Apex directly, indeed, we
can sell it to you directly. The price for mailing list members is $48
US plus $3 for US shipping, $5 for Canadian shipping, or $10
elsewhere. We can't take credit cards [ :-( ] but we'll gladly take a
check or money order [drawn on US funds from a US bank]. When you mail
in, include your name, address, phone number, and email address. The
address to mail to is:

                            Essence Order
                       Apex Software Publishing
                     405 El Camino Real Suite 121
                       Menlo Park CA 94025 USA

The phone number for Apex is 415-322-7532, but note that you'll get an
answering service from 7/26 to 7/31 while I'm at SIGGRAPH. You can also
email me at "[e-mail]".

The orders will be shipped in the order they come in, but note there
is ALREADY a week's worth of orders in. After I get back from SIGGRAPH
shipping should go full-tilt and I hope to get any backlog cleaned up
fast. Sorry I can't guarantee faster shipping, but your check will not
be cashed until Essence is shipped to you.

That's the skinny, guys! Sorry for the blatent commercial in this
email, but I think that most of you will forgive me. Also, a copy of
Essence and a few books will be prizes in the great Imagine Mailing
List contest, coming soon from a Dave Wickard near you.... :-)

And as Glenn said, we are both very biased, but these toys are just too
much fun! We are EXTREMELY proud of them!

Take care guys, keep on rendering!

-Steve

[e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: Scaling question
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 92 1:17:16 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Aaron Tucker)

> So is there any way for me to get these letters to start small and
> grow larger while following the path?
>
Morph a set of small letters into a set of large letters. This has always
worked for me quite easily. Samw number of points, edges, and faces, just
different sizes. It works flawlesly and look very smooth.

> .                            <<<<Infinite K>>>>
>
Juan Trevino
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Essence report
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 92 10:02:17 PDT
From: [e-mail]

>From Gordon Baines to the Imagine Mailing List

It looks like I'm one of the first to get Essence which I've been
waiting for.  I told Steve to give me a copy as soon as possible and
he asked if I really wanted one now I could have it without the box
wrapper. I drove down to Menlo Park at lunch to get it. Well it was
worth it!

In the box there is a slick black manual, a floppy disk (with a cool
gold foil label) and a registration card. I had an hour to kill at
work before I could go home and use the textures so I read through
most of the manual there. The manual is a lot like Steve's book except
it doesn't have the cross references. It is very clear, and there are
pictures of all of the textures along with descriptions and parameter
descriptions. There is a chapter on how to use textures in general,
and a chapter all about fractal noise and how it is built and how to
control it.  There is a "Help" appendix with common questions. The
biggest part of the manual is the texture reference which has the
pictures and descriptions side by side. The manual is slick, and I was
getting so excited about the textures that I left work early to go and
start playing with them at home.

The textures are easy to install, its just dragging a folder. The disk
has less than 1K of room free on it I bet thats why there aren't more
textures! I started Imagine and added a sphere to test the textures
on.  The Essence textures come up just like the original textures, but
they tend to have a lot more parameters but luckily the manual helped
a lot. I tried the MANDELBROT texture first and couldn't get it to
work no matter what I did. I called Steve and he was a big help, I had
been looking at a side view of the texture, and not a top view. After
I talked to him I noticed this was described many times in the manual
and even in the common questions section!  RTFM I guess. Some textures
like the Mandelbrot are "2D" flat projections, and that was the
problem, but most of the textures are 3D.

After that I had no problems. I have a 25Mhz 030 in my A2000 but the
textures rendered very quickly. The fractal noise textures were
AMAZING!  They render MUCH faster than Lightwave, and look better too!
I haven't done any animation of them yet (like moving clouds or smoke)
but I was able to make granite and the Star Trek transporters and
clouds and agate with no problem! And there were about 10 other noise
textures I hadn't even used yet! The two best ones are called BLOBC
and FRACTALCOLOR which let you apply 1 or 2 colors respectively.

I also tried some of the suggestions in the manual and I made a gas
giant planet in about 5 minutes! It looks really cool and I'm going to
animate it next. I also added some thin rings circling it. I saw
Steve's sun picture and Im going to make one of those too and I'll
have the ultimate space picture! I can even make nebulas with the
fractalcolor texture "faded" onto an object which lets you make
ghosts.

There are a bunch of textures, but I've only tried about half of them.
There are a lot of altitude textures that add ridges and such to the
objects and they worked really well but some of them are weird. One is
FLATTEN and it makes your object a pancake!

The Mandelbrot texture is also fun, Steve showed me an animation of a
camera flying over a landscape then zooming in and it was eyenumbing.
I've rendered some shots and it looks great but I haven't animated a
flight or zoom yet. Theres even a second texture called HUEROTATE that
makes the colors cycle.

I stayed up until about 3am playing with these and I'm still excited
about them. They are terrific! The biggest problem with them is that
there are a lot of parameters to control and its not obvious what to
change, but the manual explains them very nicely. Overnight I did
render a fractal cloud animation and the clouds DO grow and shrink and
change with time: it is TOTALLY cool.

Another problem with the textures is that there aren't any premade
objects with the textures, it would be nice to have premade cars or
spaceships that have the cool Essence appearance. There also aren't
any tutorials in the manual, its just a reference. Everything is
carefully described but its not step-by-step. But the manual says that
it is an advanced product, and I know it is easy to use as long as you
already know how to render in Imagine. I guess everyone else will have
to buy Steves book before they get Essence!

So thats my impression of Essence: it is absolutely terrific. I've
been using Lightwave mostly but with the new control I have over
object surfaces I think I will be using Imagine for most of my
rendering from now on. Kudos galore to Steve Worley and Glenn Lewis. I
can't wait for whatever comes next from Apex, they have two products
now and two first class winners. if I sound a little positive it is
because I can now do a lot of the images and animations which I've
been wanting to do for a long time! Steve even says there will
eventually be a second volume of Essence textures and I'll be first in
line for them!



Gordon Baines

##

Subject: Thanks Gordon...
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 92 12:32:56 PDT
From: [e-mail]

Thanks Gordon for that exciting first look at the Essence product.

Gotta admit that I was laughing out loud when I read the term
"eyenumbing". :-)
Steve oughtta use that description in his advertising and credit you.
It's descriptive and hilarious at the same time.

Sounds like something out of my favorite newspaper "Weekly World News".

You'd read that immediately after the headline of
"Elvis not dead but stolen by UFO" or the recent article about
Ross Perot's "secret meeting" with a space alien in which they signed
agreements.  Heh heh.

:and the chant goes up from the masses of the Imagine Mailing List:

"Essence...Essence...Essence!"

Dave Wickard  [phone]   "Because they CAN!"
[e-mail]         -old joke about dogs
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: Essence report
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 92 14:21:56 MDT
From: HURTT CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL <[e-mail]>

    I don't suppose you or some other kind soul could do a bunch of sample
renderings and put them on hubcap? Just like a bunch of spheres would be great
so we can all drool some more while we wait for our own disks!

    Chris

##

Subject: Morphing. was re: Cylindrical lights
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 08:17:53 EST
From: Adam Benjamin <[e-mail]>

Sorry for the blank message, I really did say something!

I wanted to say that I too have had a lot of trouble with "morphing"
in Imagine.  I had a table that I smashed simply by scaling the Z axis
then tried to Morph from the regular table to the smashed one. (I know
there are other ways, after this failed I went to simply scaling the
table in the Action Editor)  Anyway what happened is 1/2 of the table
smoothly morphed while the other half jerked down on the last frame.
(It was weird!)
In scaling the table I may have re-grouped the parts in a different
order can this cause morphing to wack-out?
Adam B

##

Subject: Re: Morphing. __AND__ Re: Cylindrical lights
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 11:21:14 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Michael B. Comet)

    As far as morphing, I don't think you can properly morph grouped
objects.  For some reason imagine doesn't like them a whole lot.
Solution: join them!

    Also, for the lights, are you sure you have cast shadows on?

        Mike Comet
        [e-mail]

##

Subject: To those lucky enough to have Essence now...
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 12:28:40 -0500
From: [e-mail] (PJ Foley)

Am I right in hearing that the Mandlebrot texture is 2D only?  This still
sounds like a lot of fun to use (and I have many ideas in mind for this
texture alone), but it seems like it would be a lot more usefull if
it could be wrapped.  Bradley Schnick (sp??) maps a lot of fractal
patterns on collums and such in his animation, giving them a unique
trademark style.  I'd love to be able mimic this, (immitation IS the
best form a flattery, afterall) but from what I'm hearing I cannot.

Can anyone confirm this?

Would it even be possible (from a programming standpoint) to do this?

Thanks for the info

PJ FOley
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------#
| "My moral standing is lying down."       Kinetic Dreams wholeheartedly  |
|         --Trent Reznor, NIN              agrees with the things I have  |
| "The problem with SynthBananas is that   written here.                  |
|  you still have to peel them."           And so should everyone else.   |
|        --Vacter                          Kinetic Dreams, Lafayette, IN  |
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------#

##

Subject: Re: Morphing. __AND__ Re: Cylindrical lights
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 13:39:29 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Michael B. Comet)

>>I don't think you can properly morph grouped
>objects.  For some reason imagine doesn't like them a whole lot.
>Solution: join them!
>
>
>Hmm - that makes sense... I'll try that next time (the animation
>finished rendering this morning, and the Personal SFC arrived too...).
>With grouping, however, I was able to make the first letter of each
>word normal and put quickdraw on all the others, thus saving lots
>of redraw time.  Not sure if I could do the same thing with a joined
>group.  Anyway, thanks for the tip.
>
>> Also, for the lights, are you sure you have cast shadows on?
>
>It's on for some and not for others, as needed.  The spotlight that
>I couldn't get working right did not have shadows on for it.  Would
>that affect the alleged ability to limit its range?  After all, the
>diameter came out exactly as expected.
>
>.                        <<<<Infinite K>>>>
>

    Well for the spotlight, that sounds like your problem.

Take the following diagrams:

            +====+     Light aiming down
                        |    |
                        |    |
                       / ^^^^\

           ------------------------------   Plane No 1.

          ------------------------------- Plane No 2.

    Now with shadows OFF ..... BOTH planes would have a circle of
light from the lightsourse.  Reason is, in SCANLINE and TRACE WITHOUT
SHADOWS Imagine doesn't take into account other objects stopping the
light source for shading.

    So, if you aim the light at your plane, and you have shadows
OFF, the wall or whatever will still have light.

        Hope that helps.

            Mike Comet
            [e-mail]

##

Subject: Altitude maps w/Repeat?
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 10:16:01 -0700
From: Jeff Walkup <[e-mail]>

I am trying to make an altitude map to put craters on my moon
(sphere) object.  I have an IFF of some greyscale 'dimples'.
I have Imagine set to 'wrap' both axes.  I want to have the
altitude map 'repeat'.

First, I set 'altitude', 'repeat', and the 'wrap' buttons.
Then I scaled the X and Z axes down by one third.
This leaves me with a map whose axes are a small box in the
middle (from the front view) of the sphere object, with the
Y axis about 1/3 the diameter of the sphere (I want deep craters).

If it's rendered without 'repeating', it looks fine, but the
craters are far too large.  Therefore I want to have it
'repeat'.  When I do this, the whole brush fills the object
(without repeating).

What's wrong?  Can I not use 'repeat' with altitude maps?

No surprise: the Imagine manual has no index entry for "repeat"
or even "altitude map".  Although there *are* some completely
un-readable pictures on page 108.
Dang, how much is S.Worley's book?

##

Subject: Re: Altitude maps w/Repeat?
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 17:57:45 PDT
From: [e-mail]

The problem is that when you wrap, you are effectively telling the
rendering engine (I just LOVE that term) that you want your image
stretched out along that (those) axis.  If you wrap both axis, you cant repea
because the image is already covering the entire object.  Likewise, if you
wrap Z an image around a cylinder, the image will repeat up and down it,
but not around the cylinder.  I had this problem when tring to brushmap
bricks around a lighthouse.  They were fine up and down, but were HUGE
around the object.  The only solution is to go into your paint program
and make a superbitmap of your image, repeating it in the directions you
want as many times as you need it to repeat.  Thats what I had to do for
my bricks, and I would up with an image about 1020 horiz by 200 vert.  It's
a pain but it works.  The other solution, of course, it to buy Essence
that great algortithmic texture probram by Steve Worley and Avid.  Essence
has fractal bumps that are more memory efficient than brushmaps and even
has radial bricks, which would have solved my problem too!  Or you can
just plug Essence merrily in the hope that Steve will send you a free
copy.  :)
    It has nothing to do with tha altitude map, it's soley in the wrap
function.  Essence or a superbitmap, thats the only way to go.
    Paul J. Furio
    [e-mail]
    Shadowmar Grafix - Amiga Animations to Blow You Away!

##

Subject: Re: Altitude maps w/Repeat?
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 21:32:14 CST
From: Jeff Niebergall <[e-mail]>

There is another problem with Imagine repeating altitude maps.
They don't repeat properly! If you try a repeat you will see the
edges of each individual map because of the way the renderer
treats the grey scale values. I am not sure exactly why it
doesn't work but it doesn't. The solution as suggested is a
super-bitmap or hopefully Essence fratal bumps.

Jeff                [e-mail]

--

##

Subject: whoops, displacement
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 20:58:53 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Kevin Kodama)

i meant to add this question to my last message...
since caligari broadcast has those cool sounding deformation meshes-
can the package also do true displacement mapping ?

Also, can you poke holes in a deformation mesh-ala boolean type operations ?

[e-mail]

##

Subject: Macuser,Displacement
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 20:56:39 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Kevin Kodama)

For those of you interested, the latest Macuser has reviews of several
Mac 3d programs, including the latest from Electric Image (they finally
added shadow casting !), Sculpt, etc. And, of course, Lightwave is completely
ignored :-)

One interesting feature (though not in Macuser) of other magazine reviews-
the head to head rendering challenge-is not addressed by Amiga magazines with
any degree of seriousness. (amigaworld did a feeble attempt once...)
Macworld has each COMPANY render the same scene, utilizing the best features

possible. Other mags just run each package themselves.

I think it would be very beneficial to see such a comparison with the numerous
3d packages. I like the idea of getting the best possible artists with each
package involved, as opposed to some reviewer hacking his way through half a
dozen packages...So, Stephen Menzies could render in Caligari, Mark Thompson
could do Lightwave, and Steve Worley could do Imagine, etc..along with
whoever else on 3d pro, Real 3d, Journeyman, Draw 4D, etc..

In fact , i propose a twofold example-the first test scene would be a test of
rendering quality, speed, realism, etc. The second test scene would be up
to the artist/manufacturer, highlighting what they feel is the real strength
of the package. This would reflect differently on some packages whose strengths
may lie elsewhere than a simple scene would suggest (journeyman...)

What kind of scene would be appropriate/interesting/fun ? Could we get
John Foust of Interchange involved to facilitate transfering info easily ?

Ideas ? btw, stephen, mark, steve-i am not volunteering you, just using
you as examples :-)
kevin
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: whoops, displacement
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 12:25:33 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

[e-mail] (Kevin Kodama) writes:

>i meant to add this question to my last message...
>since caligari broadcast has those cool sounding deformation meshes-
>can the package also do true displacement mapping ?

As of version2.1, it does neither displacement nor bump mapping.

>Also, can you poke holes in a deformation mesh-ala boolean type operations ?

not as of 2.1...

-stephen

>[e-mail]
--
Stephen Menzies
#Internet: [e-mail]
#Fidonet : Stephen Menzies @ 1:167/265

##

Subject: Macuser,Displacement
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 15:54:06 -0400
From: [e-mail]

kevink writes:

>I think it would be very beneficial to see such a comparison with the numerous
>3d packages. I like the idea of getting the best possible artists with each
>package involved, as opposed to some reviewer hacking his way through half a
>dozen packages...So, Stephen Menzies could render in Caligari, Mark Thompson
>could do Lightwave, and Steve Worley could do Imagine, etc..along with
>whoever else on 3d pro, Real 3d, Journeyman, Draw 4D, etc..
>
>In fact , i propose a twofold example-the first test scene would be a test of
>rendering quality, speed, realism, etc. The second test scene would be up
>to the artist/manufacturer, highlighting what they feel is the real strength
>of the package. This would reflect differently on some packages whose
>strengths may lie elsewhere than a simple scene would suggest (journeyman...)

Great idea!  Now how can we get one of the Amiga magazines to pick up the idea?

rich nollman

##

Subject: Chimera.lha
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 13:48:53 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Andrew Denton)

    Alright, so i like dragons, okay? OKAY?!?!?!?? Ahem... I'll be okay...
anyhow look for Chimera.lha its a jpeg and a ham file... On Hubcap or
wuarchive....  Jpeg more of those raytraces guys!!!! unseen art is
whasted art!!!!! B) B) B)

##

Subject: Release 34 of T3DLIB (formerly TTDDLIB) available!
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 15:39:30 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis ~)

    I have released version 34 of T3DLIB and placed it, as usual, on
hubcap.clemson.edu [130.127.8.1] in the directory:
pub/amiga/incoming/imagine/TTDDDLIB.

    Presently, only source code is available, which compiles fine on
UNIX systems and Amiga under SAS/C.  I no longer use GCC on the
Amiga because of the problem I had with the last relase (R33) working
only under 2.04 of the Amiga operating system, so I am in search of a
compiler that will create Amiga executables correctly under all versions
of the operating system... I don't own SAS/C.  I used Manx C, V3.6a,
even though I have 5.0d (which I can't seem to trust).

    Anyway, here is the latest portion of the CHANGES file:

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Changes from TTDDDLIB33 to T3DLIB34
-------------------------------------
o Added support for AutoCAD's DXF files (without having AutoCAD).  If someone
  wishes to send me DXF examples that include "Layers" for use in assigning
  different levels in an object's hierarchy, I will attempt to implement that
  too.
o Added support for POV-Ray 1.0.  The input file format is rather restrictive,
  in my humble opinion (specifically regarding describing complex object
  hierarchies and applying textures to unions of shapes), which forced me to
  color ("texture") each triangle individually instead of applying a texture
  to a child object and overriding it on a triangle-basis if need be.
  Drew Wells, leader of the POV-Ray project, says that a future version will
  address my concerns.  Anyway, all this means that the POV files will be
  quite large for a medium- to high-complexity object.
o I added more documentation to the README.R34 file, describing uses of this
  package.  Yes, better and more complete documentation must still be written.
o Essence 1.0 has already shipped.  :-)  (Just thought I would throw this in
  here even though it has nothing to do with T3DLIB.  :-)
o I changed the names of the archives to T3DLIB, which is much easier to say. :-)
o I removed the "ext2int" program, which was simply a link to "readwrite" anyway.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

    If you have any questions, comments, or bug reports, please feel
free to e-mail me.

                            -- Glenn Lewis
                            (co-author of Essence)

Glenn Lewis | [e-mail] | These are my opinions...not Intel's

##

Subject: Displacement mapping
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 13:35:28 -0700
From: Jeff Walkup <[e-mail]>

I've heard the next version of Lightwave will have displacement mapping.
Along with animated sequeces, this could be very interesting!

##

Subject: viewing
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 21:30:16 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Kevin Kodama)

Most 3d packages use the camera-lookpoint model-thus we have camera lens
analogies for setting views-as a non photographer, this model is not as
intuitive to me as it may be for those more camera oriented.
As an architect, elevational and axonometric views are at  least as
important for viewing and understanding space in buildings.
Is it very difficult for a 3d package such as Imagine or Lightwave to
be able to render true axonometric views ? and if not, what is a good
rule of thumb using the camera analogy of getting a flat elevational
view of an object, i.e. what i see in modelers side and front views ?

thanks,
kevin
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Speed,Comparisons,Modeling
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 21:42:50 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Kevin Kodama)

My brother works for a software company marketing a very high end
mechanical engineer's 3d package-the package runs on SGI's, HP's, Suns,etc.
He gets the opportunity to demonstrate and practice on all of these machines-
so he is familiar with not only the software but the hardware strengths
and weaknesses.
With all of the various Amiga "packages", 030's, 040s, SCSI I and II,
(more to come at WOC ? :-)) I wonder anyone (probably someone working in
an amiga store) has really sat down with 3 or 4 differently configured
systems and run some "real world" comparisons with rendering time and
whatnot. this is in some ways tied into my previous message about
different rendering packages-
Would an Amiga show be the place to organize something along this thought ?
What is the true impact of, say, having 64 megs of memory, a SCSI II card
instead of SCSI I, a 50 mhz 030 rather than a 25 mhz 040 etc....

Personally, i can
remember running Sculpt 3d on my Amiga 500 a long time ago (22 hours for a
mirrored ball over a checkerboard floor :-) but i can't remember how much
slower my A2620 4meg card was than my GVP 33 030 8meg. Do you all with
040's still marvel at your new speed, or is it now just "too slow" :_)

kevin
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Release 35 of T3DLIB available *WITH* 1.3&2.04 Amiga executables!
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 08:11:44 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis ~)

    Sorry for the almost back-to-back release messages, but Scott Ellis
has graciously compiled the library using SAS/C without errors, and has
given the executables and link library back to me to place with the source...
Thanks a lot, Scott!  Because these were not compiled with GCC2.0, they
can run under any revision of the Amiga operating system without problems
or dedicated libraries.  Please let me know if you have any problems with
these.

    Here is a small relevant blurb from the CHANGES file (for more
information, read the README.R35 file):

Changes from T3DLIB34 to T3DLIB35
---------------------------------
o Thanks to Scott Ellis, Amiga executables are provided in the files:
  T3DLIB35_68000exe.lha  (68000, non-FPU version)
  T3DLIB35_68030exe.lha  (68030, FPU version)
  Note that these were compiled with SAS/C, and so they do not have that bogus
  restriction of running only under version 2.04 of the operating system like
  the R33 version of the executables had!
  Yahoo!  Thanks, Scott!
o So as to reduce the amount of confusion, I went ahead and bumped the revision
  number, because the README file changed, as did the Makefile.Amiga.

    As before, all necessary files are located on hubcap.clemson.edu
[130.127.8.1] in the directory: pub/amiga/incoming/imagine/TTDDDLIB.  By
the way...  the several source archives are identical, but simply in
different formats, to suit (hopefully) what people can handle.

    Enjoy, and please report bugs directly to me!  Thanks!

                            -- Glenn Lewis
                            (co-author of Essence)


P.S.  I have made a subdirectory under the TTDDDLIB area, called
      "contrib" that I would like to invite all of you to place
      programs or information that use or work with T3DLIB (including,
      of course, TTDDD-related things) that might be useful to others.
      I will placed in there Helge Rasmussen's "igensurf" program, which
      creates Imagine objects (through "| readwrite -tddd", of course)
      from mathematical descriptions of surfaces.  Someone used this
      recently to render the famous Newell (SP?) Teapot in an Imagine
      render to show that Imagine could blow away Real3D.  Not too
      shabby.  I will also try to hunt dont "off2ttddd" by Udo, or you
      can place it there if you wish, Udo.  Thanks!
      Let's see those handy dandy programs appear in this area!

##

Subject: Imagine THAT!
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 18:07:41 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Dave Wickard)

   Greetings Imagineers and ummm (Imagineerettes?)
                   :-)

**************************************************************
NOTE: You may get this file more than once. My local file
      system is not feeling well today. I am sending this
      file from a different pathway, since the other one
      wasn't apparently putting out the mail. Pardon my
      problems, but I think this posting has several
      important things in it and wanted to let you know
      them as soon as I could.     -Dave
**************************************************************



Several things to talk about during this post.

1. The Imagine Mailing List Contest is *not* dead!

  I have been touching base with the last few vendors about
  their prize contributions. Expect an official announcement
  about the contest itself on or about August 11, 1992.
  Naturally, this assumes no natural disasters and that all
  prizes arrive at my house unscathed etc. So far, so good.

  The *bad* news is that it appears we will not have enough
  participation to coax Impulse to kick in a Firecracker.
  Awwwwww! I wanted it too!  It's a shame, and it DOES really
  change the "scope" of the Contest...but on the other hand...
  even without one "big buck" prize, there are STILL
  many smaller ones that should be of interest to many of us.

  Smaller ones like ImageMaster, AdPro, Vertex, Essence,
  Still Store, Imagine 2.0 upgrades, and others.  :-)

  Our vendor/supporters have been very generous.
  When the Contest is announced, be sure to check the list
  of contributors. Give them your patronage. Be certain to
  let them know that you appreciate them supporting the
  Imagine Mailing List Contest. This is the key for us to get
  continued support. Hopefully, this will become an ANNUAL
  contest!

2. This is important. While talking to Mike Halvorson of
  Impulse, he told me that the new Imagine Newsletter would be
  going out to all registered owners within 10 days.
  (As a side note- ALWAYS REGISTER YOUR SOFTWARE!)

  There is big news in this newsletter.

  Impulse will be releasing an "ancillary" (adj. from the Latin
  ancillaris, and French ancilla - female servant...meaning
  subserviant or subordinate, auxiliary) program for
  Imagine within 30 days. It is called

                MORPHUS

  While Mike said the information will all be included in
  the newsletter, he *did* stat that it is an object
  manipulation tool. It will allow morphing between objects
  of different sizes, points etc.
  It will also let you ripple, shear, and "monkey around" with
  your Imagine objects.
  The list price on MORPHUS will be $99.95.

  Happily, even though Impulse was unable to justify a
  Firecracker for the Contest (maybe *next* year if we
  get enough responces!) that they will donate
  3 copies of MORPHUS as prizes.

  Couple this with our other prizes, and all in all,
  we have enough for a nice presentation.



3. I will be posting the complete membership list
   and the Imagine Mailing List Guide shortly. I will
   be posting both on a monthly basis so if you have a
   copy, just blast 'em. Many of the newer members have
   blasted their copy, and then find that they need some
   info that they could have gotten from there.

4. On the problem of Imagine Mailing List bounces.
   When you post, you may get a couple bounces from
   sites on the List that did not properly accept
   mail from us. I also get a copy of each and every one
   from every post made. (blech)

   The purpose of this is two-fold. I can monitor what sites
   have a bad rate of mail bounces, and move them over to
   a "Problem Site" list and ask them to correct the problems.
   Also, since the posting individual (you) gets to know what
   sites did not receive their post, if they feel it was
   critical that a failing address see the post, they can
   mail it direct to them without reposting to the whole List.

   Currently, the only way to avoid it is to edit your
   message header. If you do not know how, ask your
   system administrator. Edit the header and enter the
   line

   errors to: [e-mail]

   And that should take care of it. You won't get any more
   of the bounce troubles. In the meantime, I am
   looking into having the sendmail here fixed so that all
   errors are sent to that account as well.
   If and when that is accomplished...rest assured I will
   share it with you.


Anyways, that's all for this report. Sorry it was so long.
I thought you would be interested in the MORPHUS product,
and also to hear that the Contest was still kicking
around and was nearing readiness.


Dave Wickard  [phone]  "I got stopped by a dyslexic
[e-mail]        policeman.He said he wanted to
[e-mail]      give me an IUD. I said, 'Don't
                               want to buy me a drink first?' "
                               -some goof on Comedy Central

##

Subject: LIghtWavers... with 040s.
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 22:05:00 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Toaster Man)

Hello ..


I just paid a little visit to NewTek today and found out some interesting things..........
shhhh don't tell anyone but.. :)

Well for us people who have a 040 and a Video toaster...........
Their in the process of beta testin their lightwave program that has been re-written or re-done to fit the 040 specs.. taking up all the speed they can get..
I heard that one scene done on a 030/50mhz took about 54min and that with their
beta of the new lightwave on a 040 with the same scene took about 6 min...

hehehe.. speed at last.. IM not sure will this version will be released...

Will this be done to imagine?


I have no association with NewTek .. I just wanted to let you guys know whats
comming :)

Steve
VisioNary Graphics...

##

Subject: OFF2TTDDD uploaded to hubcap
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 92 02:26:00 -0400
From: Udo K Schuermann <[e-mail]>

Via Glenn's suggestion I have uploaded a previous project of mine to
hubcap.clemson.edu:pub/amiga/incoming/imagine/misc/

The file is OFF2TTDDD.lzh and contains a program to convert objects from
DEC's OFF (Object File Format) to Glenn Lewis' TTDDD format.  This is also
compatible with T3DLIB so it may well be of use to those of you who have
access to OFF files and wish to convert them to Imagine objects.

The documentation includes information on getting OFF files from the DEC
archive (many of these have already been converted and been available).

Despite claims in the documentation that this version of OFF2TTDDD will
work on machines with 250K or RAM, I don't expect anyone to be using
Imagine on a 512K machine; I suspect that few are out there squeezing by
with even as little as 1 Meg.  This version of OFF2TTDDD runs only on
machines with some 850K free.  I will try to accommodate anyone with
different needs.

My own laziness when I was writing that program made me use static
structures instead of dynamic ones, and since I never got feedback on this
program, I figured nobody was using it.  Thus I never got around to
improving the code.  :-/  (See what lack of feedback will (fail to) do?)

 ._.  Udo Schuermann     "If I went around calling myself emperor just because
 ( )  [e-mail]  some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd
 Seeking virtual memory   put me away!"         -- Monty Python's "Holy Grail"

##

Subject: Release 35 of T3DLIB available *WITH* 1.3&2.04 Amiga executables!
Date: Sat, 01 Aug 92 08:34:32 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Bob Lindabury, SysAdm)

rutgers!pcocd2.intel.com!glewis (Glenn M. Lewis ~) writes:

> P.S.  I have made a subdirectory under the TTDDDLIB area, called
>       "contrib" that I would like to invite all of you to place
>       programs or information that use or work with T3DLIB (including,
>       of course, TTDDD-related things) that might be useful to others.
>       I will placed in there Helge Rasmussen's "igensurf" program, which
>       creates Imagine objects (through "| readwrite -tddd", of course)
>       from mathematical descriptions of surfaces.  Someone used this
>       recently to render the famous Newell (SP?) Teapot in an Imagine
>       render to show that Imagine could blow away Real3D.  Not too
>       shabby.  I will also try to hunt dont "off2ttddd" by Udo, or you
>       can place it there if you wish, Udo.  Thanks!
>       Let's see those handy dandy programs appear in this area!

Once again, "The Graphics BBS" provides mail-server access to people
with Internet mail access.  We have all the latest T3D files as well
as Udo's "off2ttddd" archive available in the amiga/3d/ttddd
directory.

Send mail to either [e-mail] (the older server)
or to [e-mail] (the new server) with HELP in the
body of your message to get more information on the servers.

If you want a directory of files right away, also include the command:

/DIR    - for the old server
INDEX   - for the new server

PS: There will be an announcement made in the next few days about the
availability of the Imagine Compendium and all the Imagine mail-list
archives at "The Graphics BBS" in this forum.

The "old" server is being phased-out.

-- Bob

 The Graphics BBS  908/469-0049  "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!"
 ============================================================================
  InterNet: [e-mail]                | Raven Enterprises
      UUCP: ...rutgers!bobsbox!graphics!bobl      | 25 Raven Avenue
    BitNet: bobl%graphics.rent.com@pucc           | Piscataway, NJ 08854
    Home #: 908/560-7353                          | 908/271-8878

##

Subject: Re: MORPHUS
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 92 9:55:14 MDT
From: HURTT CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL <[e-mail]>

    So Glenn, is this your project along similar lines? Sounds like a
dream come true for animators everywhere! If it is good, I hope it's success
spurs you to make even more neato tools for Imagine.

    Chris

##

Subject: Re: Imagine Mailing List Guide
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 92 9:58:29 MDT
From: HURTT CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL <[e-mail]>

    While it's interesting to hear about Dave and Steve every month or
so ( =^) ), I was wondering if other members of the list would like to post
a little blurb about themselves as a sort of re-introduction. Be nice to know
the persons behind the posts.

    Chris Hurtt

##

Subject: T3D Library R36 executables available on hubcap
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 92 14:47:57 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Virtually Here)

Greetings Imaginers!

I have just finished compiling, testing, and uploading the latest executable
versions of Glenn's T3DLib to Hubcap.

There are 2 versions, one for 68000 machines, and another for 030/040
machines.  If you are fortunate enough to have an 040, this release should
work a tad faster for you, as I compiled it to use the IEEE library, instead
of 881 specific code (Which would generate an exception for most math
functions on an 040).  Users of 68030's shouldn't notice any slowdowns due to
this.

Let me know of any problems you encounter with these executables, and remember
to register with Glenn Lewis if you use them!


    ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   //  Real Life: Scott Ellis             //WARNING: This SigFile Warps //
  //  IRC: ScottE                        //          Space and Time in //
 //  Internet: [e-mail] //           Its Vicinity.    //
////////////////////////////***Picard/Riker in '92***//////////////////

##

Subject: Re: MORPHUS
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 92 23:07:52 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis ~)

>>>>> On Sat, 1 Aug 92 9:55:14 MDT, HURTT CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL <[e-mail]> said:


Chris>     So Glenn, is this your project along similar lines? Sounds like
Chris> a dream come true for animators everywhere! If it is good, I hope
Chris> it's success spurs you to make even more neato tools for Imagine.

    Well, Chris, this sounds like something I have been
developing... that is, a general-object morph, where the two objects
could be totally unrelated, in terms of # of points, edges, and faces.

    But as you all know, I have no affiliation with Impulse, Inc.,
so it is a totally separate program.  We will have to see what it turns
out to be.  Who knows...  I may still need to implement the routines
that *I* want to use.  :-)

    Thanks for asking!

                            -- Glenn

##

Subject: Wanted: Klingon star-ships
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1992 19:01:25 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Jeff Walkup)

A friend of mine is looking for Imagine objects of the Klingon
Bird of Prey, and the Klingon Battle Cruiser.  He says the
Bird of Prey is what Kirk, et al, stole in Star Trek IV.
The Battle Cruiser is standard issue, TNG version prefered.

If you have anything like this or have seen it, please point
me in the right direction.  I've taken over Co-Sysop duties
on this BBS, and one of my 'jobs' is to run all over the
(collective) net-world and grab Imagine objects!

Thanks!

##

Subject: Brushmap
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 92 10:07:00 PST
From: [e-mail] (Kenny Sequeira)

I have a question maybe someone could help me with.  I going to digitize some
surfaces for brushmapping.

 How do you get seamless pics.  Do you have to edit the pic in a paint program
to do that?  Just curious.

Got a letter from Apex a couple of days ago, got to order Essence looks like a
killer.

[e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: Wanted: Klingon star-ships
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 92 10:19:10 -0500
From: [e-mail]

Hi I have a bunch of Star-Trek Objs, I have the Bird of Prey and
am looking for a Klingon D-7, If you give me
your BBS # and Access I can upload them.


David Potter

##

Subject: Streaming graphics
Date:     Mon, 3 Aug 1992 12:36:12 +0200
From: Hannes Heckner <[e-mail]>

WANTED: AMIGA3000 <----SCSI BUS----> AT-386 (Adaptec 1542)

Hello everybody (=SCSI experts),

I have the following setup:
Amiga 3000 with integrated SCSI Hostadapter and 1 Quantum SCSI HD
AT-386, AT-BUS DISK and Adaptec 1542 with Archive Viper Streamer.

What I want to do:
Use the streamer not only for my AT-BUS DISK but also for the
Quantum Harddisk in my Amiga.

What I have tried so far:
Soldered a cable between the external connector (50 pin Centronics)
of my Adaptec and the 25pin connector of my Amiga. I grouped
several ground wires to one pin. I tried first without connecting
pin 25 (TERMPWR) then with connecting pin 25.
The result: AMIGA does not boot at all (initial white screen stays
for ever plus harddisk LED on), Adaptec tells me on booting that
there is a hostadapter failure (I think it says something about
hard reset, but I'm not sure....).
The lesson I learned from that: Don't solder if you are not an
expert ---- went to the next store an bought a 25-50pin SCSI cable.
But .... the results are the very same !!!!!

Now, I know about SCSI ID's and I have currently the following settings:
Amiga Hostadapter      7
Amiga Quantum DISK     6
Adaptec HOST Adapter   5
Archive Viper Streamer 2

(BTW, the streamer does not work with any other setting than ID 2)

And, yes, I did remove the terminating resistor in front of the
external connector of my ADAPTEC. However, the Amiga does not
have any terminators in front of his external connector (just
empty sockets). This seems strange to me but as posted before the
AMIGA 3000 produced since 92 does no longer have these terminators.
I have to say that the Amiga 3000 and Harddisk work absolutely
error free despite that fact!

Is there something I missed???
I desparately need the streamer with my AT-386 and with my AMIGA
because all my graphics rendered with IMAGINE 2.0 need to be saved
immediately. Amiga Disk is 110% full :-)

Thanks for any help

Hannes

##

Subject: Hello again!
Date: Tue, 4 Aug 92 08:20:31 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis ~)

>>>>> On Tue, 4 Aug 92 08:52:42 +0200, Johan Nilsson <[e-mail]> said:

Johan> I just tried to compile T3D here at work on my Sparc SLC now, and
Johan> it says: make: Fatal error: Don't know how to make target
Johan> `writetddd.o' That is probably not so strange, as there is no
Johan> writetddd.c file in the archive. Have you missed that one or
Johan> what?  It is the T3DLIB36_src.tar.Z archive from
Johan> hubcap.clemson.edu.

    Ooops.  My fault.  "WriteTDDD" is obsolete (by the new
ReadWrite), so I should have deleted all references to it in the
Makefile, but guess I forgot.  Sorry about that.  Just delete
"writetddd" from the Makefile.

                            -- Glenn

##

Subject: "Real" cylindrical lights
Date: Tue, 4 Aug 92 17:49:26 -0500
From: [e-mail] (PJ Foley)

How do I model a cylindrical light that has a constant intensity throughout
the entire object?  Specfically Neon and Flourescent (sp???) lights?

I would prefer to use nothing more than an axis to achive this illumination
if at all posible.  Cylindrical lights just don't work, as they start
to diminish in intensity from the origin of the axis.  Or so I think.

Any help is much appreciated!

PJ

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------#
| "My moral standing is lying down."       Kinetic Dreams wholeheartedly  |
|         --Trent Reznor, NIN              agrees with the things I have  |
| "The problem with SynthBananas is that   written here.                  |
|  you still have to peel them."           And so should everyone else.   |
|        --Vacter                          Kinetic Dreams, Lafayette, IN  |
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------#

##

Subject: difficulities with Imagine 2.0
Date: Sun, 14 Jun 92 10:44:48 MDT
From: [e-mail] (Steve Koren)

I upgraded to Imagine 2.0 a long time ago (when the upgrade was first
available), but never got around to playing with it very much until
now.

I have noticed a lot of problems which have made it very difficult
for me to use.  Has anyone else seen these?

  * I have a picture which I render in Scanline mode.  It works fine.
    If I render it in trace, the machine crashes about 50% of the
    time.  I can detect no pattern to this.  If I reboot the machine,
    load up Imagine, and render, sometimes it works, sometimes it
    crashes.  I am giving it _plenty_ of stack space.  Scan mode
    has _never_ crashed - only trace.

  * The times when it completes without crashing in trace mode, only
    about 50% of _those_ look right.  I don't change the scene at
    all between them - just re-render.  The times when it comes out
    wrong, the bottom half of the image is pure white.  The other
    times, it looks normal.  This is not a world-size problem - I
    know what that is, and this ain't it.

  * About one time in 20 when I quit the detail editor, the machine
    hangs..

  * Sometimes the machine crashes when creating primitives.  This
    doesn't happen very often - maybe one time in 50.

  * The stage editor won't keep the size of objects like it used to
    in 1.1.  If I resize an object in the stage editor, it stays that
    way for the duration of the session, but if I quite the stage
    editor and reload the scene (after saving of course), the
    object looses its size.  I'm sure this was working OK in 1.1,
    because I used it all the time.

  * Brushmaps are different in scan and trace.  If I put a brushmap on
    an object in scan, it looks fine.  In trace, the position and size
    are different by as much as 25%, which means that the brushmap no
    longer lines up with things it is supposed to.  I believe it should
    appear in the same relative position in scan and trace.

  * This is debatable whether it is a bug or feature, but it is at
    least different than 1.1.  When I would map a repeating brush to
    an object in 1.1, and then resize the object, the brush would stay
    the same size but just repeat more often.  This was useful for, say,
    mapping a brick pattern to a wall - resizing the wall would give
    the same size bricks, but just more of them, which makes sense. In
    2.0, the brushmap is resized.  This is inconvenient, because if I
    make the wall 4 times longer, I get long narrow stretched out bricks
    which look strange.  (This is a brick brushmap, not the brick
    texture).  I could definately see times when this could be thought of
    as a feature, but I preferred the old 1.1 behavior.  Is there any
    way to pick one or the other?

There are more things too.  Mostly I am upset at the system crashes -
I hate having to reboot my machine that often.  Trace mode is almost
unusable for me.  (It is not a complex scene either - just a few objects
of average complexity).

I stopped using Imagine 1.1 because it was too unstable, and I was hoping
that 2.0 would fix some of these things.  It doesn't appear much better
though, and worse in some areas.  Sigh.

   - steve

PS - the crashes are _not_ a memory problem on my machine.  I have
run lots of memory tests, and also, I have not seen any problems with
other software, even memory intensive applications.

##

Subject: Re: Fracture and merge??
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 92 10:44:15 -0400
From: Udo K Schuermann <[e-mail]>

[e-mail] asks:
> What do the commands fracture and merge do in the detail editor?  I have
> been using the split command alot lately and was wondering if those two
> mystery commands had something to do with Split.

FRACTURE inserts a new point midway between the end-points of an edge.  It
should also properly add faces.  This allows you to increase the complexity
of objects by giving you more points to create detail with.
    ex: Select several edges and then FRACTURE them.

MERGE removes duplicate points and edges that resulted from JOIN or SPLIT.
Processing complex objects requires MUCH MUCH longer than simpler ones
because the algorithm is of O(n^2) complexity.

 ._.  Udo Schuermann     "If I went around calling myself emperor just because
 ( )  [e-mail]  some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd
 Seeking virtual memory   put me away!"         -- Monty Python's "Holy Grail"

##

Subject: Amiga Animation Tape
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 92 10:51:43 -0400
From: [e-mail]

  errors to: [e-mail]

Yo,
        To all who may be interested here is some more info on AVID
magazines Animation Tape. I quote from thier MAY 92 issue pg. 37;

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------

         A sixty minute video comilation of animations created by you, our
readers. Logos, industrial animations, and other Amiga created graphics.
Learn by watching and analyze the tools and techniques that went into their
creation.

SEND CHECK for $10 to:  Avid Publications
                                   21611 Stevens Creek Blvd.
                                   Cupertino, CA 95014

For Credit Card Orders Call: 1-800-388-3696

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
If anyone has seen (or orders) this video maybe they would be kind enough
to post thier impressions of it.

If anyone is interested in the magazine the address for that is:

BY PNONE & CREDIT CARD: 1-800-322-2843

        BY SNAIL MAIL:  AVID The AMIGA-VIDEO JOURNAL
                               AVID PUBLICATIONS
                               415-112 N. MARY AVE. #207
                               SUNNYVALE CA. 94086


P.S. I am in no way an agent of Avid magazine, only a satisfied  subsciber.


" be excellent to each other "   George Carlen to Bill & Ted

  Dave Kelly
<---------------------------------------------------------------------------
------>[e-mail]

##

Subject: RE: need help sizing objects in STAGE editor
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 92 10:19:03 -0500
From: [e-mail] (PJ Foley)

I also have had an unpleasant experence with Ipulse tech support.  Very un-
friendly, and even more unprofessional.  The use of swear words when trying
to explain a procedure with their program really is not what I should be
hearing.
Thank goodness we have people like S. Worley to help us with this most
powerful and unique package!!  Hear hear!

PJ
Kinetic Dreams

##

Subject: Shadows & Refraction
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 92 16:22:31 -0700
From: Jeff Walkup <[e-mail]>

[e-mail] (Isaac Guajardo Leal) writes:

> When i render a spot light (conical or cylindrical) and
> point it to two planes (for simplicity) one behind the other
> and look from one side. i can see the light hitting the
> first plane, BUT also the second plane as if the first were
> translucent not solid (as it is!).


This is because you don't have shadows turned on for that
lightsource.  If you don't turn on shadows, the light will
pass thru any object, no matter what it's attributes.  This
is the way it works.  The only way around it is, as you
said, to turn on the shadows and render in Trace mode.



>    Also, someone posted a few weeks ago about rendering
> glass that come out with large black areas (where there is
> no black anywere near the scene!)


I assume that this has something to do with the index of
refraction.  The light enters the object, and gets refracted
so much that it just bounces around inside forever, never
escaping into the camera.  Sort of a black-hole effect.
Try reducing the index of refraction, or changing the shape
of the object, or rendering in Scanline mode (!)

-----------                                                       //
Jeff Walkup <[e-mail]> Graphics/Animation Designer \\//

##

Subject: Dining room light fixtures
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 92 08:57:07 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Ramon L. Colinayo)

     Hi, I'm currently creating a dining room and need some light fixtures
in imagine format. If anyone has some or knows where I could get my hands
on them, please respond. I'm looking especially for a chandelier of any
kind.

Thanks.

##

Subject: Re: lha converters?
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 07:56:29 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Victor Martinez)

> > Does anyone have or know of a LHA unarchiver for unix systems (ie. source).
> > I have a unix version of lharc but that ofcourse doesn't work with .lha
> > files.
>
> Since there probably isn't a UNIX LHA unarchiver, I think we should
> limit uploads to LZH compression.   ...
>
> Stratocaster
>

There is a unix version of LHA. I got my version from ab20 before
it closed. Here is a list of lha.tar from archie.

Host amiga.physik.unizh.ch
    Location: /amix/new
           FILE -rw-rw-r--      30418  Feb  9 13:24  lha.tar.Z
Host cobalt.cco.caltech.edu
    Location: /pub/apple2/util
           FILE -rw-r--r--     294912  Mar 19 08:32  lha.tar
Host ftp.uni-kl.de
    Location: /pub/amiga/amix/new
           FILE -rw-r--r--      30418  Feb  9 11:24  lha.tar.Z
Host lysator.liu.se
    Location: /pub/amiga/LhA
           FILE -rw-r--r--      57621  Apr  2 00:53  unixlha.tar.Z
Host me.uta.edu
    Location: /pub/neural/annsim
           FILE -rw-rw-rw-      95739  May 14 19:04  lha.tar.Z
Host sun.soe.clarkson.edu
    Location: /pub/src
           FILE -rw-rw-r--      57621  Jul  2 03:38  unixlha.tar.Z
Host tybalt.caltech.edu
    Location: /pub/apple2/util
           FILE -rw-r--r--     294912  Mar 19 08:32  lha.tar
Host wuarchive.wustl.edu
    Location: /mirrors4/amiga.physik.unizh.ch/amix/new
           FILE -rw-rw-r--      30418  Feb  9 05:24  lha.tar.Z

Victor Martinez
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: lha converters?
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 21:32:04 +0300
From: Fishman M. Shmuel <[e-mail]>

On Jul 16,  8:32am, Steve Davis wrote:

: Mark Thompson
: >
: > > So if you have FTP ability, search any of the popular Amiga-oriented
: > > sites, such as hupcap.clemson.edu or wuarchive.wustl.edu and look
: > > for LHA.
: >
: > Does anyone have or know of a LHA unarchiver for unix systems (ie. source).
: > I have a unix version of lharc but that ofcourse doesn't work with .lha
: > files.
:
: Since there probably isn't a UNIX LHA unarchiver, I think we should
: limit uploads to LZH compression.  This may mean a few extra bytes

You can get LHA for unix at:
grind.isca.uiowa.edu:unix/arc-progs/lha-1.00.tar.Z

--
Fishman M. Shmuel  |  [e-mail]  |  FMS@irc  |  Back to stay !
-------------------+---------------------------+-----------+----------------
"PowerUser -- He who knows, respects and uses the Power"
                                                -- Book of the Energotics

##

Subject: Re: Brush wrap on ground
Date:     Thu, 16 Jul 1992 12:46:09 -0400
From: John J Humpal <[e-mail]>

Catherine Simon writes:
>
> One of the first things I tried to do, was wrap a brush (repeating)
> on to the ground, but try as I might I couldn't get it to work.
>
    As I recall, you have to rotate the brush axis (*not* the object
axis so that the y-axis pokes through (is perpendicular to and penetrates)
the ground.  Ground objects are the only objects which don't auto-position
the brush axis properly.

>
> BTW, what advantage is there to using Imagine's built in ground?
>
    It has infinite extent and renders very quickly.

--
-John

John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer

##

Subject: Re: Zooming Camera?
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 92 08:58:24 GMT
From: uunet!bknight.jpr.com!yury@email (Yury German)

Hi Aragorn (Aragorn J Mallory), in <[e-mail]> on Jul 8 you wrote:

: Hey does anynoe out there know hwo to get the "focal length" of the Camera in
: the stage editor to somthing other than what it is?  And can it be animated?
:
    Sure.... You can not get it in a stage editor. But you can
definately get it with a few numbers typed in to the action editor. Just
look under camera there and full around with the numbers.
    _____________________________________________________________________
   |                                                                     |
   | Yury German                  yury@bknight                           |
   | Blue-Knight Productions      GENIE EMAIL: Blue-Knight               |
   | [phone]                (Graphic Design and Video Productions) |
   | [phone]                P.O. Box 985, Queens, New York, 11354  |
   |_____________________________________________________________________|

##

Subject: Essence? what Essence?
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 92 09:47:00 EST
From: Adam Benjamin <[e-mail]>

Ok, so I'm impatient, jumpy, etc...
Where is Essence??
I was hovering over my email box like a starving vulture yesterday
waiting for the official word from Steve and nothing came. (how depressing)

It looks like Essence is just the thing I need to complete a project I
am working on (How many times have you read that!)

I never did hear what it was going to cost, any idea?
If there is a waiting list I want to get on it!
Adam B
************************************************************
* Adam Benjamin                    [e-mail] *
* Christian Animator           [e-mail] *
* Disclaimer:  Nothing I say means anything to anyone that *
*               might take it to mean something I didn't!  *

##

Subject: Re: Mask.lha is definitely a 'WOW'
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 92 19:00:33 CST
From: [e-mail] (Michael Linton)

[e-mail] (Bob Lindabury, SysAdm) writes:

> rutgers!bbs.draco.bison.mb.ca!linton (Michael Linton) writes:
>
> to render 24bit images.  If the image looks good in HAM, (which I use
> for previews alot) then you just change your rendering subproject to
> the 24bit render and you get a great 24bit image that is much better
> than the ham image.  Of course you can view this with the show
> command which basically gives you an Amiga displayable version.
> There is no reason I can think of not to render and distribute 24bit
> images (in JPEG or compressed format).  There are several PD
> converters out there so anyone can convert the image to thier own
> display.  Keeping the original 24bit means the best possible
> conversion.
>
> -- Bob
>


I know you don't have to have a 24bit card to display a 24bit image,
although I don't see much point in viewing a 24bit image in HAM... Talk
about downgrading. :)  The other thing is, the shadow has been smoothed
using DigiPaint, and there wouldn't be anyway for ME to smooth the shadow
out if it were rendered in 24bit.  I do have a work around for that, and I
had planned on rendering a 24bit version, but I decided I wouldn't... Not
until I can view 24bit in all it's glory. :) Sorry.



--
[e-mail] (Michael Linton)
The Draco Unix System, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

##

Subject: Star Wars objects
Date: Wed, 5 Aug 92 03:27:49 -0700
From: Always a rainbow <[e-mail]>

Does any1 have any Star Wars objects?
In particular, I would love to get my paws on the Imperial Shuttle.

***************************************************************************
This signature censored by mailer daemon.
***************************************************************************

##

Subject: Has Impulse moved?
Date: Wed, 5 Aug 92 10:24 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Manjit Bedi)

I was trying to call Impluse yesterday and I was using the phone
number in the June issue of Avid from an ad.  I got a message that the number
has changed and I called the new number and got a fax machine.

Manjit ( [e-mail] or [e-mail])

##

Subject: New Impulse Address/Phone
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 10:09:58 CDT
From: dave@flip (Dave Wickard)

Yup. Impulse has moved.

Here is the information for their current location etc.


Impulse
8416 Xerxes Avenue No.
Brooklyn Park, Minnesota 55444
[phone]

Fax:
[phone]


Hours:
Tech Support- 10am - 3:30pm Central
Office        10am - 4:00pm Central



Dave Wickard [phone]  "A good coating of rust will protect
[e-mail]       against corrosion."
[e-mail]     -Head Salmela

##

Subject: Star Wars objects!
Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1992 19:51:44 -0700
From: Jeff Walkup <[e-mail]>

Hi [e-mail]!  You wrote thusly:

> Does any1 have any Star Wars objects?
> In particular, I would love to get my paws on the Imperial Shuttle.


Funny you should mention this, I *just* grabbed a bunch of
StarWars objects from Hubcap.  If you have FTP, you can go to:
  hubcap.clemson.edu

and look in the dir:
  pub/amiga/incoming/imagine/objects

for the file:
  JPOBJS.LZH

or something like that.  It contains a few Imagine objects of
Star Wars spaceships, like the X-Wing, Y-Wing, Tie-Fighter, Imperial
Scout Walker, and more(?).  Unfortunately, no Imperial Shuttle.

If you can't FTP, you can call the BBS:
"The Castle" 415/355-2396 (14.4K/v.32bis/v.42/v.42bis/MNP)
(In Pacifica, dang close to San Francisco, California, USA)
The new-user password is: "TAO".

[J]oin base #2; The Castle G/FX, Anim, Video, 3D S.I.G., of which
I am the SIG-Op, "Lazerus".  ((This is an open invitation, btw.))

The Star Wars objects are under the name of "StWarOBJ.lha" or somesuch
silly name (dang stupid AmiExpress and it's 12 charactor filename limit!)

In any case, have fun!
Render on! (and on and on and on and on and on andonadnonandonandonandon)

##

Subject: An Amazing New Computer
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 92 11:07:52 CDT
From: dave@flip (Dave Wickard)

Commodore today announced the release of an amazing
new computer called the "C64".

Suprise!  :-)
Nah, it's not another one of those "old" posts.

Apparently the Site computer was "constipated"
(according to the mailque, it had held those old posts
dutifully since they were submitted. Why they hadn't been
sent, I can't say. What *did* trigger them into being sent
was that I was seeing a "loop" building up with an account
(the same one that is posting to the Lightwave Mailing list
 publically the last day or two) and to avoid it causing
trouble, I temporarily shut down the Imagine list for a few
hours. When I did that, apparently it somehow freed up
these long pent up posts. There are no more of them in the
mailque now, so I think we are happy again.

Now I at least know how to prompt the system to dump
the mailque if I see anymore jammed in there, so I will
keep an eye on it.

Chris notes that his postings always seem to come in "spurts".
That's confusing, but entirely possible. When I see posts
come into the system, I usually get mine (about 1/4 the way down
the list) in about an hour or so. Naturally it depends on
how busy the system/network is, but the delay is never
*too* long.

Perhaps as it goes down the List, there gets to be some
propogation delay, though I can't imagine why.

I will watchdog it for a while.

Heck, I'm still pretty new at this gig so forgive me while
I complete the learning curve.


Dave Wickard  [phone]  "My toolbox only contains
[e-mail]        different sized hammers."
[e-mail]      -Me working onsite.

##

Subject: Error in Tumble FX
Date:     Fri, 7 Aug 1992 02:04:37 +0200
From: Hannes Heckner <[e-mail]>

Hi Imagineers,

now I tried tumble for several times but I never could reach any good
results, because the alignment of the grounp objects at the end
of the tumbling does not fit the non-tumbled group. This leads
to these anoying jerks in the animation. What is wrong with my
tumbling ?

Thanx
Hanness

##

Subject: Caligari,Anti-aliasing
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 92 23:40:52 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Kevin Kodama)

mark thompson writes:
>"i bought Caligari Broadcast..I had to have FFD modeling tools !"...
well, mark, how are the free form tools ? worth more of us Imagine/LW types
to spring for more money to get another modeler ?

hope to see a report when (if) you get some time :)

-has anyone used the new 3d Studio package ? the features sound great, and
i would love to have Lightwave or Imagine ship with a CD full of wraps,
animations, etc. like 3d  Studio does....why, i
would even buy a CD player for it :)

also, anti-aliasing- has anyone done any real comparisons on how the
major 3d packages for the amiga stack up in terms of antialiasing ? i
am particularly interested in terms of printing quality-Lightwave's
antialiasing seems great for video work, but i have not seen print
material that matches the screen-whereas some imagine pics i have seen
printed look great, but when *I* render in 24 bits and view on my Toaster,
i don't see the depth or quality i get with Lightwave....

[e-mail]

##

Subject: 3D Studio
Date: 08 Aug 92 11:00:06 EDT
From: "Syndesis Corp/J. Foust" <[e-mail]>

Kevin Kodama asked about 3D Studio and its "World Creation Toolkit"
CD-ROM...  We've got 3D Studio here at Syndesis.  It's a very nice
package, you do get what you pay for, at $3000.

The interface is sure to please everyone - it's got menus on the top,
AutoCAD-style menus on the right side, icon buttons elsewhere,
and a command line on the bottom.  :-)  You do get hands-on
control of points and triangles within a wireframe view area, too.
They've got a lot of tools available in the program, but each takes
a little time to understand.  Anyone used to Imagine wouldn't
have too hard a time, I think.  Besides, they include a very
nice, very thick manual full of examples.

The CD-ROM is a wonderful thing, too.  I know NewTek is eyeing
CD-ROM for future Toaster releases, it makes so much sense for
programs like these that thrive on data, samples, objects, texture
maps, animations, etc.  As for all those 3D Studio objects on
that CD-ROM, you can load them into the Toaster because of
the 3D Studio translator that we licensed to NewTek.  If you
want to get them to Imagine, we haven't quite got an easy
path for you yet, but we're considering it.

You can always load those objects into a Toaster, save
them as LightWave objects and then convert to Imagine using
InterChange Plus.  With this translation path, you'll lose
any hierarchies, but all the nice named surfaces will be
translated intact.  If/when we release a stand-alone 3D Studio
Converter for InterChange Plus, you'll be able to preserve
the hierarchies, of course.  So far, we haven't had much
demand for 3D Studio translation apart from the LightWave
crowd, but we'd do it if we had enough requests.

3D Studio's ancestry goes back to CAD-3D from the Atari ST.
Tom Hudson is one of the principal creators behind both
products, along with other notables such as Dan Silva and
Jim Kent.  Gary Yost, formerly of Antic Software and Publishing,
heads the "Yost Group", these people who now work on 3D Studio
for Autodesk.

You can read the 3D Studio CD-ROM on an Amiga.  See my recent
articles in AmigaWorld.  They're ISO-9660 discs with DOS-style
filenames, which the Amiga can certainly handle.  ;-)
You can load them directly from within LightWave, right
off the CD-ROM.  A lot of the texture maps are in GIF
format, 256 colors.  Other images might be in TIFF or Targa
format, but you can handle those on the Amiga, too, with
the right programs.

Also, if you are interested, there are a reasonable number
of 3D objects out there in CAD-3D format in the Atari ST
forums on Compuserve.  InterChange Plus includes a CAD-3D
Converter to help rescue that "orphan" data.

John Foust
Syndesis

##

Subject: Using Imagine 1.1
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1992 08:11 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Can anyone tell me how to render just one frame in Imagine 1.1? The manual
only gives instructions on how to render an animation and I just want to
render one frame. I need the instructions to be as simple as possible.

                         Thanks
                    Scott Corley

[e-mail]

P.S. Anyone have a copy of Steve Worley's book covering Imagine 1.1 they'd
like to sell?

##

Subject: Re:  Using Imagine 1.1
Date: Sat, 8 Aug 92 12:08:33 -0500
From: [e-mail] (PJ Foley)

To render just one frame in Imagine, all you have to do is treat the stage
you've set up as frame 1 (cell 1 in the project editor, you gotta love their
consistancy).  Highlight the '1' on the project and hit the 'generate' button.

You're off!

Now, can Impulse decide if they are _rendering_ a picture, as in 'quick render',
or are they _generating_ it?  Is it _quick draw_ or is it _fast draw_.

Geeze...

PJ

##

Subject: YABR and user bios
Date: Sat, 8 Aug 92 14:29:00 -0500
From: [e-mail] (PJ Foley)

Well, I hope someone from Impulse is seeing this list,
and is helping with the process of creating a nre and better
Imagine.

After rendering a picture with a Star Field in the project editor,
the stars continue to appear in quickrender pictures in the detail,
cycle, and forms editors.  Dumb.

Maybe not a BUG, but definitely an undesired feature none the less.

And on another note:

Was it this list where someone proposed self introductions?
I think that it is important that we do that soon.
It also gives people a legitimate place to say, "my machine can
beat up your machine."

What d'ya say?  How about this sort of criteria, if applicable to you.



Name; explaination of handle, if any; company, if any;
computer, with its Megs o' RAM, Megs o' storage, processor, speed and
graphics boards; how one got started in 3D rendering and animation;
past projects; current projects; future projects; favorite
supermodel or modelling program (your choice).



Sound good?  If so, just start!  I'll be posting my brag sheet soon.



PJ Foley

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------#
| "My moral standing is lying down."       Kinetic Dreams wholeheartedly  |
|         --Trent Reznor, NIN              agrees with the things I have  |
| "The problem with SynthBananas is that   written here.                  |
|  you still have to peel them."           And so should everyone else.   |
|        --Vacter                          Kinetic Dreams, Lafayette, IN  |
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------#

##

Subject: Re:  Caligari,Anti-aliasing
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 92 11:59:21 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Kurt Schultz)

I have just begun using the 3D Studio package at work. All the  features are
great. Some of the nicer ones I've started playing with are the particle systems
module and the render-to-fields feature when outputting to videotape. Both
of these produce amazing results. Ihave not cracked open the CD-ROM as I do
not have a player; I hear there are some scenes included on the ROM that
require 48+ megs to render. In all, its a real nice package; I think its
documentation is one of its strengths ( phonebook size ).

[e-mail]

##

Date: Sun, 9 Aug 92 14:31:06 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Andrew Denton)

WISHLIST for IMAGINE 3.0:

  The Ability to STOP a rendering midway and then RESTART it at any
   point.. <Mac renderers have it, why not us????>

  MAC Renderers view the renderings in LARGE pixels and the pixels
 get smaller and more detail with every pass.. thus makeing it so you
 can get a better view quicker of a rendering in progress...

  The Ability to load .jpg and .dctv for image and altitude maps
  <I know that jpeg would slow things down to decompress each one,
   but for some things it might be a nice OPTION>

  SLICE that works almost everynow and then!!!!!

  The Ability to maybe grab a frame at a time from an anim file for
  backgrounds and wraping on objects..

  BETTER FIRECRACKER support!!!!!!!!  Use the firecracker for perhaps
showing the TRUE pallet instead of a stupid DITHERED 16 color Representation
of a 24 bit color change! <I know asking impulse to support the board they
created in tbeir own software might be a stretch.... but you know impulse...
DOUBT that they will ever upgrade their paint software for the damn thing>

  The ability to have FOG objects while having a backdrop image....
 <If you use a backdrop, and have fogobjects in the foreground, watch
  them dissapear>

  The Implementation of better image mapping, the addition of motion blur,
  the addition of radiosity

       These are just a few dreams I have... mind you Im sure they will
 once again be ignored in general...After all... We are talking about
 Imulse here... they have one good programer and he is TRAPPED! B) B)
       I personaly have bought several Impulse products, including a
 Firecracker 24 board...   I'de love to see at least 2 or 3 of the things
 Ive mentioned to come true.. mind you im not holding my breath... B)

##

Subject: Disappearing objects
Date: Sun,  9 Aug 92 14:28:27 PDT
From: [e-mail]

Howdy Imagineers,

I ran across a peculiar problem today.  I just got 2.0 and was playing with
some of the new features and textures.  I set up a scene with an extruded
brush of the word "Welcome."  I set up my ground to be a red and white
checkerboard. (Will it never end?)  and set my objects up.  I had a 500,500,
500 intensity light with shadows and diminish intensity on, a default light
just to the right of the camera, and my object in the middle of it all.
Also, my ambient light was set at 40,40,40.  When I Quickrendered, things
looked quite excellent, so I began the Trace.  It traced pretty quick, and if
any other Imagineers know, something didn't work right.  When I viewed the pic
I found the object and lights had disappeared, leaving my checkerboard ground
lighted by the ambient light.  Any ideas on what I did wrong?

Keith Veleba
[e-mail]

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  "What would this country be without this great land of ours."        |
|                                                    -Robin Williams    |
|                                                 impersonating Reagan  |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

##

Subject: Introductions
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 92 22:36:29 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Thomas E. Smith [LORAL])

Howdy Imagineers!!

There's been some talk about self-intros on the mailing list. I think it
would be a good idea to see where we all come from, and where we are going.
PJ foley has suggested a format (without any of his own info :) ) for
self-intros, so here's my 2 cents :)

I'm Tom Smith, a `91 graduate of Texas A&M who now works as a programmer
for Loral Space Information Services in Houston, Tx. I've got an A3000
with 6 megs `o ram, 105 megs `o disk space (98% full :) ) a 68030 processor @
33mhz, and a DCTV (4096 colors just doesn't cut it!)

I got into computer graphics once I saw the movie TRON, and have been in love
with it ever since. What mainly drives me is re-creating the real world on
computers, so my computer graphics & animations are more about natural things
(ie nuclear explosions, space scenes, planets, and mountains with VistaPro 2.)
I also dabble into the audio side of real world simulations, and have
simulated trumpets, and pianos. Also I have an Ensoniq SD1 keyboard midi'd to
my A3000. Ultimatly I'd love to get into doing virtual reality.

My next ad on to my computer will be somewhere around 500 megs of HD space so
I can  really get busy, followed by a frame accurate video recorder. But hey,
all it takes is money :)

                                                        Tom the Smith

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The opinions stated here in no way reflect |
           the opinions of the             | Tom Smith
   Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council.   | [e-mail]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

##

Subject: Re: Macuser,Displacement
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 92 10:32:51 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

[e-mail] (Kevin Kodama) writes:
>I think it would be very beneficial to see a comparison with the numerous
>3d packages. I like the idea of getting the best possible artists with each
>package involved, as opposed to some reviewer hacking his way through half a
>dozen packages...So, Stephen Menzies could render in Caligari, Mark Thompson
>could do Lightwave, and Steve Worley could do Imagine, etc..along with
>whoever else on 3d pro, Real 3d, Journeyman, Draw 4D, etc..

I think this would be great and I would be glad to participate once I free
up some time (right now I am ridiculously busy). Example pictures from
talented people can go a long way to sell a product. I bought Caligari
Broadcast just last week thanks to Stephen Menzies Brightside/Darkside
pictures. I had to have FFD modeling tools!!! Beyond the two pics Kevin
mentioned (speed test and render quality/capability on a standard scene),
I would add one image of the artist's choice that shows off any unique
capabilities that the other programs don't have that might not be illustrated
in the chosen standard scene.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: IMPULSE IS WATCHING YOU. ;-)
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 92 12:49:04 CDT
From: dave@flip (Dave Wickard)

Hiya Imagineers!  :-)

Andrew recently posted a Wish List for Imagine 3.0.

It included THIS excerpt:
>       These are just a few dreams I have... mind you Im sure they will
> once again be ignored in general...After all... We are talking about
> Imulse here... they have one good programer and he is TRAPPED! B) B)
>       I personaly have bought several Impulse products, including a
> Firecracker 24 board...   I'de love to see at least 2 or 3 of the things
> Ive mentioned to come true.. mind you im not holding my breath... B)


And also PJ Foley recently expelled:
>Well, I hope someone from Impulse is seeing this list,
>and is helping with the process of creating a nre and better
>Imagine.



Well PJ and Andrew, yes... Impulse is reading and paying attention
to your posts.

Let me introduce to you Steve Gillmor of Impulse Inc.
He is the Official online presence of Impulse.
This is nothing *new* per se. Steve has monitored our
conversations right along from his post on Portal. He is our
direct pipeline into the company. I never really felt I had the right
to direct you to him before, but he has said that it's OK.

His personal address is...

[e-mail]


But please try and keep the discussion public here on the List.

It will keep Steve from answering the same kinds of questions over
and over again privately. The point it, if you talk about it
here, Impulse sees it.


Andrew and PJ, hope that answers your concerns.

(Hey...happy birthday Andrew)

Dave Wickard   [phone]   "You like the same things *I* do:
[e-mail]          Wax paper, boiled football leather,
[e-mail]        dog breath!"  -Ren Hoek

##

Subject: Steve & Glenn thanks guys!!
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 92 23:48 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Manjit Bedi)

I got home to see a package from Apex and was very pleased.  I have just
started
to look through the documentation.

I was very impressed by the inclusion of an "User Followup" card.  A very
smart touch indeed and I most definitely will be sending the card in after a
few
weeks.
But it is now 11:30 PM and I have just got home and I have these new things to
try
with Imagine : )  : )  : )  ( I thought a triple was approriate).

Manjit

##

Subject: Re: Caligari,Anti-aliasing
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 92 16:11:16 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

Kevin Kodama writes:
> mark thompson writes:
> >"i bought Caligari Broadcast..I had to have FFD modeling tools !"...
> well, mark, how are the free form tools ? worth more of us Imagine/LW types
> to spring for more money to get another modeler ?

I like the FFD tools alot. Very powerful, especially with the automatic
surface subdivision. The big problem with them is they are limited to
what they will work on. They will only deform closed surfaces, such as the
predefined primitives within Caligari. I was really hoping to be able to
load in any of my existing LightWave objects and deform them as needed.
No go. I have not yet been able to successfully deform anything other than
the simple primitives, but then I haven't tried yet much either. It will be
a little while before I truly get to devote some time to playing with the
program. However, I have noticed a disturbing tendancy for the system to crash
frequently when using the FFD tools, even on simple objects. I plan to give
Octree a call about this.

As for buying CB to increase your modeling potential....I feel its a little
early for me to give any good comments, but I probably would suggest you
hold off unless you need that capability now (as I did). I say this because
the FFD modeling tools will be made available in the low cost version of
the program in the future (when, I am not sure). And to keep the Broadcast
version a step ahead of the consumer version, the deformation tools will be
moved from the modeler into the animation module (where they belong anyway).
Stephen Menzies (Caligari beta tester) tells me that there have been many
enhancements to the FFDs just since 2.1 was released. I'll definately be
looking forward to them. I hope they allow them to be used more universally
on objects.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1992 17:46:54 -0600
From: HURTT CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL <[e-mail]>

    Here's my old wish list for Imagine. I posted this many weeks ago
but with Dave recenlty saying the Impluse is watching I thought I'd post
this again just to make sure. :) I may go throught it again and revise it.
For example with MORPHUS coming out and few suggestions aren't relevant. Plus
Essence has also hit the market, and Real 3D 2.0 is sounding strong. Not to
mention all the ideas that come to ones mind with the "rumoured" AA and new
OpalVision.

-----------Old stuff starts here-----------------------------------------


    Whelp here it is in all it's glory. Much as I like Imagine it's a
real love-hate relationship. I hope this ends up in Impulses hands somehow.
I think there's alot of good ideas here and just becuase my list is long
doen't mean I hate Imagine or won't upgrade if stuff isn't implementated.
This is like the title says a wishlist. If I could have it all- Imagine
would have all these features.
    Also feel free to correct me if I've overlooked something that
Imagine already does, or can be done in a different way.

                        Imagine 3.0 Wishlist Key:

    ! MUST have
    * Would be great, but I don't really expect it
    # Personel preference? Maybe its just me.
 LW = LightWave

OS STUFF

    File notification for renderings, objects, etc.
    Multi-task different editors
  # Have sub-projects differ more than just rendering mode
  ! Use ASL requestor (MFR)
        Allow multiple selecting for loading objects
    Make screen front-back gadget more easier to hit
  # Keyboard equivs without quailifier
  ! Different color scheme
    Support larger than 640x400, use new ECS Denise modes (ie use 2.0 screen
        mode style requestor)
  ! No more title picture!
  ! Get rid of 1.3 hard-coded drawers, make user definable
    Interlace option in project editor
    Make 2.0 3-D style complete
  * "Hot-links" for objects toggle (if altered in detail, changes in Stage)
  # Remove .imp and .pix suffixes
    Automaticly CD to objects/ when of project when opened
  ! For ALL requestors have hitting return (or tab) scroll thru all choices
  * AREXX!!
        at very least for Stage and Action editors
    Make Imagine a Public Screen
  # Return = YES for requestors like 'Overwrite object'


PREFERENCES
  ! RGB sliders change values!
    Make GUI more pleasing to use
  # Comments default to menu item name
    Have gadgets be complete macros (ie: BOX gadget makes a 2 face plane
        and extrudes it to be a cube)

DETAIL
    Editing in prespective window
    Extrude, sweep, (mold) on any selectable axis
  * Moving preview (ala LW)
  ! Surfaces!!! A database of surfaces is used much like LW so if you want
        to change the metal for the 50 pieces of your spaceship you only
        have to alter the one surface.
  * Multiple sided polygons! (clearer, faster wireframe, renders faster)
    Lasso or drag 3 pts for add face, lasso or drag 2 for add edge
    Have arrows move view depending on which triview. Like LW again, if
        pointer is in the top view then the arrow keys move the view along
        the Y and X axises, Z and X for the front view etc.
    Fit style (LW) command
    Multi-select thru Find By Requestor
  ! Start cursor in object name and scroll thru for attributes requestor
  ! Have coordinates reflect object's position when moving, etc. rather than
        the pointer's position
    Snap To Axis/Object feature, selected object, point, etc. will snap to
        the axis of the selected object. Great for easily lining things up.
    Hide Objects feature: will not render object, nor draw it's wireframe.
        Make like Fastdraw with it set to Hide until 1st face is added, so
        then clearing the workspace if fast and easy.
    Render points and edges. Starfields, particles, lines much easier.
    Find by Requestor: allow ordering, show total pts, faces, edges- same
        for Stage editor but show pts, faces, etc for cycle objects too.
    When PHONG is turned off and then on don't clear out all Phong Dams in
        object. Reason: when loading attributes of a non-phonged object to
        a phong object, you lose all your dams.
    Load other object formats.
    Optimize function: goes thru a optimizes object to fewest # of faces
        needed. Slice often makes overly complex objects.
    Better Slice.

  * TOOLS
        Freehand draw, Arc, Circle, Box, etc. I'd love to have some dpaint
        like tools to make objects with. Could make them so that they have
        outline (edges) and filled (faces) modes. Instead of using the
        primitive plane, you just drag out a filled rectangle! If you need
        an arch, drag it out instead of cutting up and scaling a disk! These
        would really double the power of the Detail Editor to me. Makes me
        almost want to switch to Real3D. :-)

    BRUSHMAPS
      ! Support JPEG, DCTV
      * More intutive placement? I agree its better than say LW is.
        Follow objects contours. If you model a snake and map scales, the
        scales twist with the snake's body. I think Caligari2 does this?

    TEXTURES
      ! More, more, more!
        Commission Steve Worley and Glenn Lewis!

CYCLE
    Be able to animate just wireframe links in 1 of tri-views. (Fast!)
    With Make have option of frame intervals like in Stage
    Allow moving objects around without scaling!

ACTION
  ! Better intergration with Stage Editor (too much loading going back and
        forth)
    Cut, copy, paste of bars
    Drag bars lengths (no more hit Info then type in start frame & end frame)
    Make lights actor color different and cycle objects
  ! More FX!, unlimited for each actor
    When more frames are added ask if you want animation 'stretched' to fit
        new # of frames, same for shrinking. This way you can make your
        motion smoother if you didn't have enough frames for your anim and
        not have to do everything over.
    Click on name of object, etc. for assigning paths, objects to track, etc

STAGE
  ! Don't "lock" grouped objects, behave like in detail editor. I really do
        not like this! The cycle editor can not do everything I need so I'd
        like to still have the grouping control like in the detail editor.
        Currently I have to load each object in seperately. Which leads to:
  ! Drag, lasso, etc. and Select All
  ! Cut, copy, paste. Ever loaded 50 different objects since you didn't want
        them grouped?
  ! Old Turbo Silver style tracking (or click on camera, Amiga-T, then click on
        object- same for lights, etc)
  * Be able to look thru any object or light's alignment in perspective
        window
    Check staging to see if object is in for more than one frame to reduce
        the amount of loading from disk (same for when rendering)
  # Default to perspective camera view
  * Scatter feature, randomly places selected objects. definable range and
        axies to scatter on. Choice of solid scatter (makes a solid sphere
        or circle) or edge scatter in which objects are only scattered
        around on the edge of the sphere, etc. Good for stars, asteriods,
        planet surfaces, etc.
  ! Continue drawing objects when editing spline paths
    Have prespective window show cut off with lines for odd camera settings
        (like widescreen)
  ! Scale brushmaps as in detail
  * Morph brushmaps and objects of different pts/faces

    For All Make Anims: (Stage & Cycle)
        Play in reverse
      ! Show FPS
      # FullScreen HiRes option
        Ping-pong option
        Save out as ANIM file

RENDERING
    Iconify to small bar on WB with %, etc.
    Faster
    Better HAM output
  ! Better ambient lighting, new true distant light type with parallel rays

QUICK RENDERS
    More intutive light placement
  # Line scanning down prespective window to show currently line being
        rendered rather than &


NEW EDITORS

  * MORPH EDITOR
        This would be an editor in which you load and object and then can
            use all the point transformation tools on. You make "key" object
            morphs that can be saved out plus it has:
        Onion skinning
        Make Preview Anim
        Load Pose (provided it has same # of points, faces, etc)

  * ATTRBIUTES EDITOR
        This editor could work several ways for it's layout. The idea is
            to have the attributes requestor and some sort of primitive
            shown in color. All manipulations on the basic attributes
            (Not textures or brushmaps) are shown in real-time. Ex: if
            you move the RGBs from white to red, the primitive cycles
            thru the colors in real-time like the current color box does.
            Some Mac 3-D programs already have this great feature, even
            for textures!
        The layout could be on a EHB screen, or perhaps a HiRes 8bit
            screen :). Maybe the primitive on a Laced HAM with a HiRes
            half screen below it with the controls. I don't really know.
        Other options for it:
            Save & load attributes (obviously)
            Quickrender
            Choice of primitives in view (Sphere, cube, cone, etc)
          * Real-time render textures?!?!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Chris Hurtt

##

Subject: PJ Foley & Kinetic Dreams...
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 92 18:46:34 -0500
From: [e-mail] (PJ Foley)

Here's my data:

My name is PJ Foley and I am the founder of Kinetic Dreams, a computer
animation and effects company (not making any money, but we're trying).
My company is comprised of my friends Matt & Mike, and myself.  We
use an Amiga 3000 25Mhz, an Amiga 3000 16Mhz, and an unexpanded 1.2 DOS
7Mhz Amiga 500 (for simple sound work).  Combined, we have a wimpy 200Mb
of hard drive storage.  We are severly underpowered and short on space!
We use DCTV for output to standard Hi-Fi VHS tape (ICK!).
   I became interested in 3D graphics and animation long ago, but I knew
I was underpowered for a long time with my A500.  Once I got my A3000
in the fall of 91, I was ready to rock n' render.  I got the best
rendering package on the market: Imagine 1.1.  (I've since upgraded,
of course).  Fortunatly I did not buy Opticks.  Close one there:-)
   I spent last fall doing nothing but sitting in front of my computer
trying to decide where my nitch was:  game programming?, utility creator?,
writer?, telecommunications god? (Space Empire is incredibly fun!), or
animator?
   After rendering a 100 frame, 11-day-render of a T2-like sequence,
I decided that 3D animation was it.  Had to be.  (I still am going to
write, though.  That's why this is so long-winded).

   I haven't really distributed many of my past projects, but I could
if you really wanted to subject yourself to visual self- torture.
Well, they really aren't that bad, it's just most are testing features
and not really a complete whole.  I've got a nice sillouetted babe
in a shower, a liquid metal morph monster (who doesn't?), and some
samples from my future project (explained below).

   My current project is a set of self-promo items.  Dorky commercial
things like flying logos, movie title sequences (my favorite),
realistic photo-quality scenes.

   My future project is working in tandom with these self-promo
bits.  An animated show featuring the combination of 2D and 3D
art.  I started this before I saw "Grinning Evil Death."  Honest!
It will be a sci-fi type of thing that will have great writing,
character development, and storyline.  Of course it will, I'll be
directing it!

   My favorite supermodel is Elle MacPherson, Inc. of course.  My
favorite modeling program, I suppose, would be Imagine :-), but
Pixel 3D, though not really a modeler, is really useful.  How many
appositives, do you suppose, can one, meaning a writer, effectively
use in one sentence?

PJ Foley






#-------------------------------------------------------------------------#
| "My moral standing is lying down."       Kinetic Dreams wholeheartedly  |
|         --Trent Reznor, NIN              agrees with the things I have  |
| "The problem with SynthBananas is that   written here.                  |
|  you still have to peel them."           And so should everyone else.   |
|        --Vacter                          Kinetic Dreams, Lafayette, IN  |
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------#

##

Subject: Cylindrical lights!
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 92 21:28:27 MDT
From: [e-mail] (Ben Scott)

OK, I've had about enough of this...  you're supposed to be able to limit
the distance a cylindrical or conical light source sends its light, right?
A few weeks ago I was having a problem with this and posted a question to
the list.  Didn't get a response in time but someone did tell me that
having "cast shadows" on would do the trick.  (a quick recap - I was trying
to get a cylindrical lightsource to illuminate some objects without
falling on the wall behind them; I was in full raytrace mode, and the
diameter I selected worked perfectly but I could not get it to stop
before hitting the wall no matter what I set the other axis to)  I hadn't
had cast shadows on (though I was in raytrace mode, I already had 4
other light sources and I figured rendering times were getting high enough)
so I accepted that.  Now, I'm back at the same anim (have to add more stuff
to it) and I reset the light and turned "Cast Shadows" on, but lo and
behold, it STILL hits the wall behind.  I just don't know what to do
with it any more...

The Worley book has a very clear explanation of this and it just doesn't
work for me, not on either of two client machines nor on my own.  What
could I be doing wrong?

.                            <<<<Infinite K>>>>

--
.---------------------------------------------------------------------------.
|Ben Scott, professional goof-off and consultant at The Raster Image, Denver|
|Internet [e-mail], or call the Arvada 68K BBS at [phone].|
>-------------------------------------.-.-----------------------------------<
|"He tried to kill me with a forklift"| |The Raster Image IS responsible for|
|Proud owner: CO license plate "MST3K"| |everything I say! ** Amiga Power **|
`-------------------------------------' `-----------------------------------'

##

Subject: Videographers, The men and their machines.
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 92 11:39:35 EST
From: Adam Benjamin <[e-mail]>

  COULD SOMEONE COPY THIS TO C.S.A.Graphics FOR ME? (Dave?) I can Only
READ the groups... THANKS
I am starting to get more and more fired up about video/animation.
I was wondering,...  Just how many of you out there really do this
stuff for a living??  If you could take a few minutes and answer these
questions I would sure appreciate it, I will summerise if anyone else
wants to know.  These questions are asked with the "small scale" video
market in mind.  Something that one person or a few people could start
up.

1)  Would you consider yourself a professional video maker? _______
           (Is it what you do to make money?)
If your answer is NO please skip to question 5.

2)  Do you work for yourself or as part of a company? ____________

3)  Do you do a wide variety of jobs or do you stick to one kind of
    work? ____________ (Please list a few typical jobs you've done)

4)  What is the minimum investment for getting into video making
    for profit? (Feel free to list $$ and/or equiptment)

     ---------------------------------------------------------

5)  Do you feel the video marketplace is still open or is it
    getting crowded?            ______________________

6)  Do you think some kind of college degree is required to get
    into video making?  If so what degree? ____________________

7)  What do you see for the future of video/anim makers?
    (as the knowledge/equiptment gets better, won't it go away
     similar to the typesetter who now is not needed thanks to
     DTP?)____________________________

8)  What do you think is the most interesting part of consumer video
    (animations? Video? Stills? Special effects?)
     _________________________

9)  What do you feel holds you back the most when it comes to
    creating videos/anims?  {Software? Hardware? Creativity? Price?
    NTSC? etc..} _____________________________

10)  Any Comments, you might have for someone thinking about
     getting into this field?_______________________________

Thank you again!
************************************************************
* Adam Benjamin                    [e-mail] *
* Christian Animator           [e-mail] *
* Disclaimer:  Nothing I say means anything to anyone that *
*               might take it to mean something I didn't!  *


##

Subject: Re: Steve & Glenn thanks guys!!
Date:     Tue, 11 Aug 1992 09:43:08 -0400
From: John J Humpal <[e-mail]>

I just received my copy of Essence yesterday.  First let me just say THANK
YOU to Glenn and Steve.  The textures are truly amazing.  I haven't played
with all of them yet, but the fractal noise and the bump textures are
great.  I also like the Utility textures -- I'm sure they'll come in
handy.

Can't wait for Volume 2, guys.  Keep up the good work!

--
-John

John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer

##

Subject: Preliminary Setup
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 92 20:21:30 PDT
From: [e-mail]

Howdy again.  :-)

I have gotten a few requests for a list of the goodies that
will be available for the soon to be announced Imagine Contest.

The list and quantities have been finalized.

They are as follows...

MORPHUS from IMPULSE (3)
ESSENCE from APEX    (1)
AD PRO 2.0  from ASDG  (1)
IMAGEMASTER  from BLACKBELT  (2)
BUDDY SYSTEM FOR IMAGINE from HELPDISK  (2)
IMAGINE 2.0 UPGRADES from IMPULSE  (3)
UNDERSTANDING IMAGINE 2.0  from APEX  (2)
STILL STORE  from GRAPHIC IMAGINATION  (1)
VERTEX  from ALEX DEBURIE  (1)
SUBSCRIPTION TO AVID MAGAZINE  (1)
PIXEL 3D PROFESSIONAL (unreleased) from AXIOM  (2)
INTERCHANGE PLUS from SYNDESIS  (1)

(subject to additions)

A superb grouping of prizes all from fine vendors who are trying to
support Imagine Users!
Hopefully we users can support them likewise. Be sure to
support these vendors and remember to express your thanks to
them for supporting the Imagine Mailing List both on your registration
cards, or by voice when you have contact with them. They need to
know of our appreciation for this outpouring of support.
The Contest itself will be appearing here on the Mailing List
first... on August 17, 1992. A majority of the prizes have been
received already.

When you see the contest posting...don't be frightened.  :-D
It will be quite large. I suggest you store it on disk for later
reference. It will contain Contest Dates (start/end), Contest Rules
as well as all the vendor info. Full prize descriptions, full
vendor contact info (addresses, hours etc) and will set the general
tone for the contest.

>From the list of prizes, no doubt there is something there that would
be of interest to everyone reading this. There should be HIGH participation.
Remember... participation means exposure. Exposure means support.
AVID may be writing about the contest as well...so who knows...
maybe they will even print a few of the winning entries?

When you see the full contest posting on Aug 17, I would really
appreciate it if you could spread it far and wide.
I would like to see it on Portal, on Compuserve, on GEnie, on AOL,
on BIX, on USENET (comp.sys.amiga.graphics and anywhere else applicable),
and on every network and system and BBS we can get it posted to.

The more widespread (remember...this is GLOBAL) we can make this,
the better chance that it will become an annual event with bigger
prize packages. I have promised the vendors that you will get
the word out. This is cheap and effective advertising for them.


So... Aug. 17, you will see the post and get all the details.
(Including some of the preliminary description of the as of yet
 unreleased Pixel 3D Professional)


It's coming.


Dave Wickard  [phone]   "We took pictures of the native girls,
[e-mail]         but they aren't developed yet."
[e-mail]       -Grouco  Marx

##

Subject: Need animated Smoke and flame
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 12:25:17 EST
From: Adam Benjamin <[e-mail]>

I just got essence yesterday (Joy of Joys!)
It's just in time for my project I need too things...
Animated realistic smoke (drifting up from a fire)
and a candle flame.  (I haven't even started tinkering with the candle
flame yet)
I tried TURBCOLOR on a trasnparent plane and it is cool but not smoke
at all. (I got a pretty linear radial fade actually, maybe I set it
up wrong?)  I will keep toying with it, but I thought maybe one of you
already knows just the right setting to use {grin}
Essesnce is good, too bad Steve didn't make the manual quite as
complete as his Imagine book. (Not many suggestions, and no tutorial)
It is over 100 pages (5.5 x 8 inch) so I'm NOT complaining.

************************************************************
* Adam Benjamin                    [e-mail] *
* Christian Animator           [e-mail] *
* Disclaimer:  Nothing I say means anything to anyone that *
*               might take it to mean something I didn't!  *

##

Subject: Re: Need animated Smoke and flame
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 16:07:43 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> I just got essence yesterday (Joy of Joys!)
> It's just in time for my project I need too things...
> Animated realistic smoke (drifting up from a fire)
> and a candle flame.

Fractal noise in Essence is a superset of the functionality LightWave
provides with its procedural fractal noise texture. I produced both
animated flames and smoke nearly 2 years ago using LW's fractal noise.
Below is an excerpt from an article I wrote last year for Amazing Computing
that describes the technique. It should be trivial to extrapolate this
to Imagine with Essence, except for the edge transparency.....

"One example of animated fractal noise is some dark sooty smoke I did for an
industrial cityscape.  To create the object, I stretched and manipulated a
sphere until it looked like a somewhat fat and irregular upside down tear
drop.  It was then given fractal noise color and transparency as well as
clear Edge Opacity.  The colors assigned were two dark shades of gray and a
Y velocity of a few feet/second made the smoke appear to rise.  Smaller X
and Z velocities were added (about 1/10th that of Y) to give it a little
variation.  Similar, but not identical, velocities were assigned to the
transparency which ranged in value from about 0% to 75%.  These settings
produced a very convincing smoke effect (see figure 5).  Combining a
luminous orange fractal noise tear drop with with the glow effects
mentioned above makes a nice candle flame."

The glow effects mentioned where also accomplished with edge transparency.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: pixel 3D --> imagine
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 8:45:09 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Steve Brailsford)

I'm having a problem converting Pixel 3D objects to imagine
format.  If I take a sphere created with imagine, and
convert it to something else, anything, in Pixel 3D, and
then convert back to imagine format I get a faceted sphere
back in imagine.  I have checked and set my hand the phong shading
attribute and that doesn't make any difference.  If I convert the
object to DXF and bring it into Topas it looks fine.  Anyone
ever see this?  Is it a bug or is there some way to fix it?
Thanks.

--
    Steve Brailsford ([e-mail])   _____
    Usenet:  uupsi!vitro!sparc!fsb         \/itro Corporation
    Voice:  [phone]                  14000 Georgia Ave.
    Fax:    [phone]                  Silver Spring, MD 20906

##

Subject: Re: pixel 3D --> imagine
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 19:08:01 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Michael B. Comet)

Regarding Pixel 3D ---> Imagine

    Load your object in the DETAIL EDITOR and select MERGE.

    Now render!

    Merge will remove all duplicate edges/points which pixel 3D adds.

    Hope this helps.

    Mike C.
    [e-mail]

##

Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 22:22:50 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Dave)

>From [e-mail] Fri Aug 14 22:12:45 1992
Received: by joel.sp.unisys.com.ARPA ( 5.52 (84)/5.17)
    id AA01508; Fri, 14 Aug 92 22:07:39 CDT
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 22:07:39 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Dave Wickard)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Apparently-To: dave@email
Status: R


Axiom promised to donate 2 copies of Pixel 3D Professional
upon it's release in approximately 30 days (give or take)
and because of that, I assumed Imagineers would be interested
in finding out whatever we could concerning this upgrade.


Talked to Scott Thede and he gave me the following info
regarding AXIOM's newest product (at least as it stands now).

"It is more than twice the product that Pixel 3D was", says Scott
 You will receive full retail value of Pixel 3D (129.95)
 toward the purchase of P3DPro. However, unlike AVID magazine
 reported in it's pages this month, it will NOT be a free upgrade
 to registered users. The new program will retail for
 approx $194.95 although the exact price will not be set
 until release time.

 New features will include support for Structured Drawing,
 and simple point editing as well as
 font support.


 It will have up to 6 values for spline fitting, allowing for
 nice sharp bitmap conversions. It has new and improved data
 manipulation functions for bitmaps.

 The user interface is fresher and cleaner and sports
 colored text. It remains 2.0 styled but Scott emphasises that
 it is "fresh and clean".

 It will load and save between 10 and 15 formats (although the
 final number to be supported will not be determined until
 release time and has not yet been cast in stone).

 One of the bigger notes is that it will attempt to address
 Imagine grouped objects and handle them properly.
 In other words,  it will load objects from Imagine
 that have been "grouped" without merely displaying one object
 of the group.

 (If you save it *back* out to Imagine again, it will be
 saved as one large object rather than continuing to be
 grouped, but this fix at least acknowledges one of the
 most common complaints by users about Pixel3D and it's
 Imagine connectivity.

 Do you have more questions about the product? Well, me too.

 Sadly, this "beta-peek" is about all we have to go on
 right now. Scott says as a disclaimer, that virtually
 everything I have told you is subject to change or deletion...
 but there for the most part, you have something interesting
 to think about.

 AXIOM hopes to have it's product ready in SOME form or another
 at the World of Amiga show
Dave Wickard  [phone]  "Eat my shorts."
[e-mail]       -Bart Simpson
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Pixel 3d
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 92 12:07:54 MDT
From: [e-mail] (Paul Johnson)

Dave writes:

>Sadly, this "beta-peek" is about all we have to go on
>right now. Scott says as a disclaimer, that virtually
> everything I have told you is subject to change or deletion...
> but there for the most part, you have something interesting
> to think about.

  Well I hope that Pixel 3d Pro includes more features than
what Scott has told you. I find the file requestor operations
totally unusable (type in each time the path where you
want to find something?? Yeuck!). The inability to do batch
operations (more than one file) is a definite loser. The errors
in loading/saving Imagine files are hard to justify (see
previous note on the need to do a Merge after loading said
files).

  My only use for Pixel 3d is to quickly look at objects files
w/o having to run Imagine Detail Editor. I use Interchange to
do actual conversions. Funny, the latter has no way to show
the object (and has other problems) but is very useful when
I do bulk  operations. The two programs cover each other's
weaknesses.

  Unless Pixel 3d Pro adds Arexx port, better file requestor
and other useful operations (Structured Drawing might
be very useful if you can incorporate fonts) I'll save my
money for the Interchange upgrade (~$70.00 upgrade
fee? Sheesh!)

PAJ

##

Subject: Re:  Pixel 3d
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 16:02:35 -0700
From: Jeff Walkup <[e-mail]>

Pixel3D 2.0 has an Arexx port.  Yeah, the file req. sucks dirt.
I've never had any problems in/exporting Imagine objects though.  But I do
wish it could handle groups, and also create sub-groups (faces, ala
Imagine2.0) for the different colors of the objects, like it does for
Lightwave objs.

##

Subject: Autodesk 3D Studio
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 17:23:41 EST
From: Hannibal Lecter <[e-mail]>

    Ok fellow Imagine frieks, I think our time is almost up,
    the battle with the Amiga VS the PC has been fiercely
    upturned.

    Here is my story.

    Autodesk has released Autodesk 3D studio Release 2 on the PC.

    It will import DXF files from Autocad etc.

    Autodesk has released a CD (600MEG?) of 24bit clip art, texturess
    new objects, scenes etc, that come standard with the package.

    I know all the hardened amiga frieks out there are saying -
    "YEAH BUT ITS ON THE LAME PC!!" :)

    This actually works out to be cheaper.

    ie.     486DX50 with 8MEG ram 200MB HD and 24Bit TSENG card comes
        TO ABOUT $3400.0 Australian.

    That is WAY cheaper than an A3000 with 200MB hd + 24 bit card etc.

    I know because I own both these machines.

    If anyone wants to argue, please feel free to change my mind, as I
    am about to purchase this AMAZING renderer. (which IS faster than
    IMAGINE)

    -Ric
                    [e-mail]

##

Subject: flame
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 08:02:45 EST
From: Adam Benjamin <[e-mail]>

>
>        This actually works and 24Bit TSENG card comes
>                TO ABOUT $3400.0 Australian.
>
>        That is WAY cheaper than an A3000 with 200MB hd + 24 bit card etc.
>
>        I know because I own both these machines.
>                                        ^^^^^^^^^
Ahh, but what does the software cost?  And what about upgrades
in the future?
My big worry will be when Imagine is ported to the PC, (of course I
still can't play it to tape with a DCTV hooked to the PC now can I?)

I too agree hardware is cheaper for the PC, but at least on my amiga I
can switch tasks and check to see if my hard drive is filling up
BEFORE the renderer barfs from lack of space.

IF the rumors are true and CBM goes with a full 32bit custom chip set
We will all want new machines {grin}

##

Subject: Re: Autodesk 3D Studio
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 8:40:57 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Pietrowicz)

>     Autodesk has released Autodesk 3D studio Release 2 on the PC.

  [ stuff deleted ]
>
>     ie.     486DX50 with 8MEG ram 200MB HD and 24Bit TSENG card comes
>         TO ABOUT $3400.0 Australian.
>
>     That is WAY cheaper than an A3000 with 200MB hd + 24 bit card etc.
>
>     I know because I own both these machines.
>
>     If anyone wants to argue, please feel free to change my mind, as I
>     am about to purchase this AMAZING renderer. (which IS faster than
>     IMAGINE)

You forgot to factor in that 3D Studio lists about $3000 US.  I have no
idea now much more it will cost in Australia.  That adds significantly
to the price of the package you're talking about.   And for that price
you could buy a toaster and still have money left over.  Don't get me wrong,
3DS is a pretty darn nice package, but it's extremely expensive.

Steve

##

Subject: Re: Autodesk 3D Studio
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 09:50:41 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

>     Autodesk has released Autodesk 3D studio Release 2 on the PC.

>     This actually works out to be cheaper.
>     ie.     486DX50 with 8MEG ram 200MB HD and 24Bit TSENG card comes
>         TO ABOUT $3400.0 Australian.
>     That is WAY cheaper than an A3000 with 200MB hd + 24 bit card etc.

Well 3D Studio is an outstanding package and is really the only one
on any platform that I would consider serious competition for Amiga
based solutions. Personally, if I was forced to choose between Imagine
and Studio, I would take Studio in a heartbeat. But keep in mind that
3D Studio costs $3000 just for the software, 6 times what Imagine costs.
Hardly the cheaper solution.

>     If anyone wants to argue, please feel free to change my mind, as I
>     am about to purchase this AMAZING renderer. (which IS faster than
>     IMAGINE)

3D Studio is probably a magnitude faster than Imagine and that is perhaps
one if its greatest attractions. I will not try and change your mind about
purchasing it but I must insist that it is definately not cheaper, especially
if you are bargain hunting....

 $800     used Amiga 2000
$1000     RCS 68040
 $300     8 MB 32bit RAM
 $260     Imagine
 $800     Firecracker
 $500     200MB drive + controller
-----
$3660 US

Your looking at about $5000 minimum for the 3D Studio setup. And the next
question that arises is: can the TSENG card output NTSC/PAL video. If not,
you better tack on the cost of a scan converter ($$$$$). The Amiga still
remains the price performance leader in video and animation by a wide margin.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Re: Autodesk 3D Studio
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 10:38:27 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Dan Drake)

> Your looking at about $5000 minimum for the 3D Studio setup. And the next
> question that arises is: can the TSENG card output NTSC/PAL video. If not,
> you better tack on the cost of a scan converter ($$$$$). The Amiga still
> remains the price performance leader in video and animation by a wide margin.

Just recently we needed a way to get vga animations put on a video disk.  The
animations were done with AutoDesk Animator.  Anyway, to get the vga signal
converted to a NTSC signal, we had to rent a scan converter from new york.
(to pittsburgh.)  Anyway, the cost was $1000 for either 1 day or two, I forget.
Anyway, it is quite an expensive piece of machinery.

dan.

##

Subject: Cheap Frame accurate recorders
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 11:25:47 EST
From: Adam Benjamin <[e-mail]>

What is the cheapest solution for frame accurate recording?
I have a nice DCTV animation that has too large a delta for nice
smooth playback. (I know I could drop back to 3 bitplanes, but I don't
really want too).
I have a 2000 (68020) and DCTV, now I need a way to get it on tape a
frame at a time.  I was going to use the local Cable access station
but they don't have Frame accurate machines either.

Is Single Framing the only way to get smooth anims (at least ones with
large deltas?)
************************************************************
* Adam Benjamin                    [e-mail] *
* Christian Animator           [e-mail] *
* Disclaimer:  Nothing I say means anything to anyone that *
*               might take it to mean something I didn't!  *

##

Subject: Single Frame On The Cheap
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 12:38:35 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Dave Wickard)

Adam Benjamin writes:
>What is the cheapest solution for frame accurate recording?
>I have a nice DCTV animation that has too large a delta for nice
>smooth playback. (I know I could drop back to 3 bitplanes, but I don't
>really want too).
>I have a 2000 (68020) and DCTV, now I need a way to get it on tape a
>frame at a time.  I was going to use the local Cable access station
>but they don't have Frame accurate machines either.
>
>Is Single Framing the only way to get smooth anims (at least ones with
>large deltas?)
>

Adam, and anyone else who may be interested in doing some
recording of their anims without going bankrupt in the process,
this month....  AVID magazine has a great article
on "Single Frame On The Cheap" (or something like that).

It talks over using "insert" mode on some home recording units
after laying down a black track and simply layering one frame
at a time inserts. The author (escapes me...I am at work now),
points out that this method is for those of us with lots of time,
and not much of a budget.

For details, nab a copy of AVID this month.

Dave Wickard  [phone]   "Gee, I wish I could do that..."
[e-mail]        "You better pet him first, he looks mean."
[e-mail]       -old joke about dogs

##

Subject: Re: Autodesk 3D Studio
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 18:24:57 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> > question that arises is: can the TSENG card output NTSC/PAL video. If not,
> > you better tack on the cost of a scan converter ($$$$$).

> we had to rent a scan converter from new york.
> Anyway, the cost was $1000 for either 1 day or two, I forget.

Scan converters start at $10,000 and go up from there. I am nearly certain
that the TSENG card has no provision for video NTSC/PAL output. The far more
economic solution would be to ditch the TSENG card and buy a Targa/Vista
instead. That will increase your system cost yet another $3000-$5000
but will save you the cost of the scan converter. Now lets see, what is
that 3D Studio system costing you now?.......
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Re: Cheap Frame accurate recorders
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 17:17:18 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> What is the cheapest solution for frame accurate recording?

The cheapest real solution that would be useable for actual paying jobs
is the new Sony 9650 Hi-8 editing/animation VCR. Along with its controller
it lists for around $5k (street prices ofcourse are lower). I'm not sure
if the edit controller is necessary if you plan to use the unit with
someting like the Nucleus PSFC. Next in line would be the S-VHS AG7750 from
Panasonic.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Autodesk FLAMERS read this!
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 14:04:19 +1000
From: Hannibal Lecter <[e-mail]>

    Ok guys, EVERYONES passionate about their beloved amiga (hell, I have
    an A3000!), but my argument was coming from this point.

    I too judge rendering as an art form, something that can grab you
    for hours etc. But I was arguing from a professional standpoint.

    I know this is REALLY gonna heat up the Imagine mailing list, but
    do you guys really think Imagine is a PROFESSIONAL piece of software?

    ie. Support from impulse etc. I mean, when you are rendering
    for money etc. time is also a factor in the cost equasion, as also
    is the hardware that you have invested in.

    I am merely arguing from a professional viewpoint.

    Can anyone offer me some advice.

    P.S Keep it constructive, dont mail me saying blah blah AmigaVsIBM
        because it is NOT the crux of this arguement.

    -Ric

                        [e-mail]

    ------------------------------------------------------------------
    -            this sig is out of order                 -
    ------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: Computer compititon VS Penis size
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 02:12:53 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Andrew Denton)


      Im sick of people that run around saying 486 Vs 040,
 computer VS computer...   This is the IMAGINE mailing list
and starting a debate about whats better on it is just plain silly...
    Hannibal Lecter, why not mail your info to the AutoDesk mailing list?
    I belive that raytracing can be an Art, a form of expresion,
  A release for creative minds... but bringing up a subject like that
DOESNT belong on the Imagine mailing list, co post it on comp.sys.amiga.graphics
 or something...  People use programs for diffrent uses, some like this
   interface, others like another, even others like something ELSE...
    Everyone has his/her own tastes, but leave the Computer Compitition
    elsewhere.... I personaly think an SGI Crimson with Wavefront would be
    nice, but Im not posting a Crimson Vs imagine, C64 Vs imagine
    Mac w/ Stratavision vs Imagine on here... Why not post something
    about IMAGINE on the imagine mailing list? B) B)

##

Subject: Autoflame
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 21:54:14 -0700
From: Always a rainbow <[e-mail]>

guardian,
it was not about 'my computer is better than yours', but about costs of
equipments for raytracing related work. Its legitimate.

##

Subject: this sig is out of order?
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 23:10:37 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Andrew Denton)


   Imagine a profesional piece of software?

     Well Warner brothers is using it to generate frames in "Tiny Tunes"
      for createing 3D prespective and 3D feeling... <See the September
       issue of AmigaWorld>

     I personaly have worked for several Computer graphics firms, and
      have used most of the computer rendering programs available, and
       I perfer Imagine... its always a matter of choice, not of arguement

     Caligari II, Brodcast, LightWave2.0, Sculpt4D,Infini-D,Stratovision,
      Wavefront,Swivel 3D, AutoCad, AutoDesk, DKBTrace, POVision on and on..
         lets argue about them all on the Imagine mailing list...

     Kind of reminds me of the other day on IRC when 2 chaps that love IBM
      decided to bash the amiga... was rather silly, because in simple truth,
        no one was on #IBM...they were on #amiga trying to defame it...If you
         need to shout how bad something is, dont use it, but if others enjoy
          it, why bother them?

      I presonaly love my art, my expersion, and am no longer a profesional..
        I now just create my art for myself, no industrial firm... I happily
          would love the new Caligari Broadcast, but its 2K and i cant aford
           that sort of cash.
             I love Lightwave 2.0, but cant realy justify buying a toaster...
              but at 250 bucks Imagine 2.0 happily fits in my budget and keeps
               me able to express myself in imagery...

         P.S.   This sig is out of order?
                 who died and made Hanibal the judge? B)

##

Subject: PC Versus Amiga
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 3:40:01 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Steve Davis)

I personally feel that all messages that do not concern Imagine
running on an Amiga (which the PC vs. Amiga debate certainly does
not) be declared off topic and the people who persist in this
discussion be removed from the mailing list.

I do not want my mail box flooded with USENET or FidoNet style
arguing about computer platforms.  I joined the Imagine mailing
list over a year ago so that I could learn more about Imagine and
it's uses.

I personally do not give a damn about PC software, PC hardware, PC
prices, the PC version of Imagine, or anything else OTHER than
Imagine running on the Commodore Amiga.

If you can not respect the charter of this mailing list then please
send mail to Imagine-Request asking to be removed from the list.
End of discussion.

Stratocaster
--
  Steve Davis  |    Contact me at ...            | The Boarding House BBS!
               | Internet:  [e-mail]    | 9600 baud (v.32/v.42)
               | FidoNet:    Steve @ 1:295/3     | America: 913-827-0744

##

Subject: Re: PC Versus Amiga
Date: 18 Aug 1992 03:32:17 -0800 (PST)
From: "Alan Braggins, SDL" <[e-mail]>

I don't want to see the long running flame wars from c.s.a.advocacy spread here,
but this list does (and I believe should) cover more than just Imagine running
on Amigas.

> If you can not respect the charter of this mailing list then please
> send mail to Imagine-Request asking to be removed from the list.

>From "Imagine Mailing List Guide (Monthly Post)"

The purpose of the Imagine Mailing List is for the discussion of Imagine
and related products.
[...]
Naturally, while Imagine is the main thrust of the List, topics can vary
quite  widely. 3D rendering in general, Imagine comparisons to other
products, video applications and Imagine interfacing to other products
are just a few of the subjects that have rumbled through here!  :-)
DCTV/Colorburst questions, Lightwave comparisons ("Ask Mark Thompson")
removeable media drives (for large animations) reviews of Vista Pro
(virtual landscapes in a box) are a few more of the offshoot discussions.

##

Subject: Syquest 88M Drive
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 9:23:50 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Dale R Rogers)

    I'm contemplating getting a Syquest 88M Removeable drive.  Is
    there anything I need to be aware of when ordering?  Do I need a
    specific controller, or does everything come with the drive that
    I'll need?

    I'm thinking about getting an internal drive.  Are they easy to
    install?

    Thanks in Advance,

    Dale


       _____________________________^_____________________________
                                  __ __
                                ____ ____
       _____________________________ _____________________________
       dale r. rogers                Email:  ingr!b24a!camelot!dale
                                     Internet:
                                     [e-mail]

                                    .

##

Subject: Re: PC Versus Amiga
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 9:16:11 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Dan Drake)

I also could care less about any rendering packages that do not run on the
Amiga.  If some people think that the PC is a better platform to do 3d
rendering, that I suggest they go and buy one.  I'm questioning the reasons
for touting the greatness of PC's on this list.  Is it going to make everyone
go out and buy one? (That is if they don't already have one.)  I doubt it.
I would hazard to guess that most people who are on this list have an amiga
that they use imagine on.  I am on this list because I want to learn how to
create better stills and animations using imagine.  While it is always
interesting to see what other products for other systems are like, these
"one machine is better than another" arguments are really nonproductive, as
they always start flame wars.  One of the reasons that this was not made
into a newsgroup was to keep this sort of stuff out of the list.

dan.

(Feel free to correct me OFF this list by email if you have a beef with me)

[e-mail]
taz![e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: Cheap Frame accurate recorders
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 08:10:28 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Michael B. Comet)

>
>>
>> What is the cheapest solution for frame accurate recording?
>>
>
>The cheapest real solution that would be useable for actual paying jobs
>is the new Sony 9650 Hi-8 editing/animation VCR. Along with its controller
>it lists for around $5k (street prices ofcourse are lower). I'm not sure
>if the edit controller is necessary if you plan to use the unit with
>someting like the Nucleus PSFC. Next in line would be the S-VHS AG7750 from
>Panasonic.
>|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
>
>

    Question :  I am currently doing a little 24 bit animation work
on a Panasonic AG-7750....it works great...except that I am doing it "by
hand" similiar to this months AVID magazine article.  I am however
laying down only one frame, but what i mean is i don't have a single
frame controler so i am punching in the edits as i go.

    Took me about 2-1/2 hours for 3 seconds worth last night!

    So, does the PSFC come with software to control the AG-7750,
does it have any program to both show a sequence of images on my
firecracker and then to signal my recorder without me having to be
there, and is it good enough and accurate enough even though my AG-7750
doesn't have time code?  If anyone knows any answers please post!

    Mike Comet
    [e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: Cheap Frame accurate recorders
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 15:16:24 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Alan Price)

I bought the PersonalSFC for the department here and it works flawlessly
with our BVU-950 3/4" SP deck. The PSFC _does_ require time code as would
any single-frame controller. You can get a TC read/write card for your
AG7750, the AG-F700, for about $650.00. This thing should'nt even be
considered an option if you want +/-0 frame accuracy.

The PSFC will read TC and recognize what deck you are using directly
through the Serial cable supplied. It will not only set up animation
sequences and perform all the edits unattended, but you can use it as
a time-lapse camera-input device, grab freez frames in seqential order
from live video in conjunction with the Toaster, of perform 'traditional'
video animation with a camera on a copy-stand.

The PSFC allows you to select the output format of your choice. Included
are: DCTV, IFF, HAME, Colorburst, Firecracker, and will also talk directly
to the Video Toaster, loading IFF24 files into the framebuffers or even
waiting until Lightwave ahs completed each frame. If that isn't enough
they also have a 'custom' option where the PSFC will execute a CLI command
or script to load an image into whatever display system you have.

The most recent update (which I haven't ordered yet) also includes an
AREXX port. One can only imagine the limitless possibilities when this
is configured into an eidting system with a Toaster. An Arexx script
could instruct the PSFC to find a sequence of frames on tape, grab each
and manipulate them in ToasterPaint, then drop each back to tape. OR, use
each for brush wraps in Lightwave or Imagine, etc. Or.... Hey wait that
was my idea!

The PSFC intalled and was up and running instantly, while the BCD 5000
in the IBM lab still has people befuddled and the Mac lab is _still_ just
trying to get NTSC out. This thing is so easy and comprehensive and it
costs a fraction of the price of any other controller system!

It's also cool how you can use the Amiga's mouse as the shuttle control.

DISCLAIMER: I do not work for or represent Nucleus Electronics in any way.
            Just a very satisfied customer.

AP.

##

Subject: Opalvision
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 15:24:26 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Alan Price)

Does anyone have news or firsthand opinions regarding the new Opalvision
board?

I've been wavering back and forth over the Firecracker, but I really
wish I could have a 24-bit DEINTERLACED display (ala GVP's IV24).
Opalvision's price is more in my range, and they promise a deinterlacing
add-on in the works. Has anyone heard what this and the other add-ons
might sell for?

Oh, for the joy of seeing Imagine renders in all their 24bit glory...

AP.

##

Subject: SDH0:
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 13:06:30 -0700
From: Always a rainbow <[e-mail]>

Dale,
I have an external 88 so i dunno about installing it internally.
It requires a standard scsi controller which isnt included. When
installing also be sure to set the scsi number to one that is not
already used or u wont get it recognized.
About the only 'gotcha' I can think of is that I heard they are
coming out with newer models of SysQuest drive, presumably 3.5 inch
ones. (Can any1 confirm that?)