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Date: Wed, 29 Jun 94 10:51:20 +1000
From: JOHN ROWE <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: LightWave > VistaPro paths
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> Does anyone on the list know of a program that will take a LightWave motion
> file and convert it to a VistaPro path? I'm setting up an animation where I
> need to mix LW foregrounds and VistaPro backgrounds. If you don't have If
> you don't have camera paths that are the same shape in each program you get
> really bad looking motion.
> PD/shareware would be nice but a commercial program might be an option if
> it wasn't too expensive.
>
> Thanks for nay info.
> Jeff H...

Hi Jeff!

Last year I produced an animation in which I did the same thing with Imagine.
I found Vista Pro has a major bug which really becomes a problem when you try
to do this sort of thing.

VistaPro truncates all camera positions to integer metres.

Even the camera positions in script files generated by its MakePath utility,
which apparently are accurate to 2 decimal places, get truncated to integers.
To prove this render a view with the camera set to a position where x, y and z
are integers.  Now increase the value of x by .5 and rerender. Now increase x
by another .5 and rerender.  Compare the 3 images, 2 will be absolutely
identical, even down to the exact same number of bytes in their file sizes.

I contacted Virtual Reality Labs.  They said they are aware of the problem and
have absolutely no intention of fixing it.  They said their programmer says the
code uses integer math (even the floating point version of the program!  Go
figure!) and so cannot be modified without a lot of work.  Sounds like a lot of
balony to me!  But what can you do??

In my opinion, this makes VistaPro totally useless in terms of a professional
animation tool.  Bummer!  It makes real nice pics.

Scenery Animator and Panorama do not have this problem.

I just completed an animation which injects positions from an Imagine camera
path into Scenery Animator.  Scenery Animator rendered the sequence and Imagine
used these pics as backdrops in each frame.  The result was a seemless
combination of the two and looked great.

Unfortunately Scenery Animator does not support AREXX and writes its scripts in
its own proprietary format.

Panorama however has an extensive AREXX implementation, but won't load standard
DEM files and has 2 dimensional trees only.

In short both have their strengths and shortcomings.  Sadly, nothing in the
computer world is ever a panacea.

Hope this helps.  Let me know how you get on.

Best Regards from Down Under, John

John Rowe Animation                        -> Christian <-
Toowoomba Qld.              Reg.CBM Developer, 3D Animator, Programmer
AUSTRALIA                           Aussie Amiga Keyboard Overlays
EMail:[e-mail]