Path: contact!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!know!samsung! ua kari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpl-opus!hpnmdla!hpmwtd!mikep From: mikep@hpmwtd.HP.COM (Mike Powell) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Toaster arrives at FAUG 5th! Message-ID: <730011@hpmwngf.HP.COM> Date: 3 Oct 90 09:57:34 GMT Organization: HP Microwave Tech. - Santa Rosa, Ca. Lines: 154 The NewTek Video Toaster..... First Impressions- The Hyatt Palo Alto, California. The 5th Anniversary of the First Amiga Users Group (FAUG), Oct.2, 1990 The Toaster is here.... To a crowd numbering in the hundreds, NewTek presented the Video Toaster package. I will attempt to sum up some of the basic features of the device and its impressive companion software packages, and to give an account of the demonstration..... Here goes.... Paul Montgomery, one of the FAUG founders (and now a NewTek employee) hosted the meeting and introduced Tim Jenison to begin the demo. He placed all blame on the delay of the Toaster's introduction (some two years late) on himself, and gave no other explanation of the delay except to say that he decided that the Toaster should be (and more importantly COULD be) much more than it was back in 1988 (basically just a DVE), and decided to further pursue the vision rather than to compromise. He then announced to the crowd that the Toaster began shipping a week ago last Friday. It's official... it's out! We even witnessed a lucky FAUG member win a Toaster right there at the meeting (some door prize!), when asked for a comment, he said "I guess I'm going to buy a 2000 now..." On with the demo... Paul demonstrated the Digital Video Effects portion of the show to show the familiar (and sometimes not so familiar) wipes, blinds, pushes, etc. that was already a part of the 1988 Toaster... very intuitive, and appeared to be of the highest quality that video viewers have come to expect. It's important to note that while these transitional effects (the effects that are part of trasitioning from one video source to another.. Ex: a simple fade) are happening, the effect image is still LIVE and in motion. Some cheaper DVE's 'cheat' by freezing the frame and then making the transition... the Toaster doesn't ever freeze the image. There are 32 effects available on each 'panel' with a total of four panels available to the user.... There are MANY more details, but simply too much for me to put here (especially since it's 2:00 am). The next portion of the demo was on the Chroma FX color processing software. This software is simply called from the main Toaster screen by a single button, as are all the other programs that are launched from Toaster (Toaster Paint, Lightwave, etc.) and form the complete, integrated package.... but back to Chroma FX. I really know quite little about this part of the video world, but basically Chroma FX allows for the real-time manipulation and mixing of the color and luminosity of the video sources (or something similar...where is a video guru when you need one???). Two cameras were used as video sources for Toaster, showing two angles of the demonstrator at work. Chroma FX allowed for the simple tinting of the live image.... giving everything a red tint for example. A slightly more impressive effect was tinting different regions of the picture with different tints.... with 16 million + colors, the effect can be made quite subtle... great for tweaking video. Then came the really wierd effects.... solarization (sp?) effects, then a fantastic (and unique to the Toaster, we were told) chrome effect that made the presenter seem as if he were made of fluid chrome. Stunning. More vivid colors, outline effects, and zebra stripes followed.... and the effects are customizable by the user, by just altering settings, similar to fooling with a synthesizer to make sounds.... Next, we were treated to a short 'Vacation Video' that was spruced up with the Toaster, that featured a full range of possible effects including an Allen Hastings animation and end titles.... impressive. We then saw Toaster Paint (actually, the order of the presentation is a bit foggy... I hope I'm remembering correctly). Looks a LOT (read, 'nearly identical') to DigiPaint 3. Two monitors are used to create images with this package (as with most other parts of the software) one is a 1/4 scale magnification of the final image with a smaller color resolution... one simply paints in this display, and when desired, sends the image to the 24 Bit frame buffer in the Toaster (one of two frame buffers actually!) to be displayed in its full pixel and color resolution. This is a much nicer working arrangement than in first sounds.... it all worked VERY smoothly. A 5 Meg system is required to paint Hi-Res images though... as the image is 24 bit planes deep, and has an undo buffer and a swap screen.... It imports all IFF images and Digiview files..... Beautiful. Next was the now famous Penn and Teller video.... well done and quite entertaining..... mostly DVE effects. Then came the character generator demo (again, called up from the main screen at the press of it's button). Very nice... professional quality. I recall hearing that there were some 30 fonts included with a Amiga Bitmapped font converter utility in the probable future. Standard stuff here.... different scroll speeds etc. The things that stand out are the shadow capabilities.... the shadows cast by the fonts are partially transparent to the live video behind.... and the kerning of the fonts is adjustable for each position of each character on the screen.... Nicely done. Then came the 3-D object modeler system.... if you know about Aegis Modeler 3-D, then you have the basic idea.... it's a standard 3-view system, with a fourth view being a 3-D wireframe preview area (which can be rotated about all axis real-time). More powerful than modeler, and without menus..... everything is run from buttons on the screen, as is most of the software package, BTW. A really great environment. A lot of thought went into this one.... Allen Hastings even prefers it over graph paper! (inside joke....) Allen next took over to show the Animation package, which is in charge of creating the content and movement of the 3-D environment..... I really can't say enough about this one... Allen really out did himself on this one.... All objects are easily moved and rotated via the mouse (or numeric requester for more precise entries) which includes the camera and the lights! Yes, the camera and lights are actually depicted in the scene, and are resemble the actual articles, right down to the 'barn-doors' on the lights, to the film magazine on top of the camera.... there are many views possible, ranging to the static, plain views, to the dynamic perspective view to the actual camera view..... all objects are rendered as wireframe. The lights and camera can all be targeted to any object, meaning that they will point toward the object where ever it goes. They can also be attached to any object, following it around where ever it might go. The system uses key frames and tweening to produce the motion. All objects are easily scaleable, squashable, stretchable, etc... by the mouse in real-time. Lot's more! This one is HOT..... Lastly (whew!) was the Lightwave renderer.... Ray-Tracing may not be dead yet, but Lightwave is likely to push ray-tracing aside for many folks, as it produces BEAUTIFUL images of ray-traced quality at speeds that I would estimate are about 50 times faster.... reflection mapping, shadows, texture, bump, and image mapping.... simply beautiful. Waves can be defined, and made to animate and INTERFERE with each other in a natural way.... nothing short of magic! You MUST see this package. Allen put orange-peel onto a vase.... very realistic! Simple and flawless image wrapping onto objects too.... and much more. We then saw a final video that Allen made that was a 24-bit version of his last years SIGGRAPH animation "Rush Hour", about a small car stuck in rush hour traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge, that dreams of becoming a red Lotus, that sprouts jet engines and small wings that allow it to blast-off into the air above San Francisco, avoiding hostle gunfire from attack helicopters, the parachuting home.... Professional quality all the way.... the crowd went wild. Toaster price tag is $1595.... advance orders are getting filled first, and authorized Amiga dealers (with a store front... no mail-order) will be getting next priority, for a single unit only, to serve as an in-store demo to promote the product until the main production run finally gets units out to dealers shelves.... (December is an often quoted time frame for this). Hope this begins to answer some questions for everyone.... hope I got my 'facts' straight. I need to sleep now... Goodnite all. -Mike Powell-