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From: [e-mail] (Christopher Eric Hanson) ()
To: [e-mail]
Subject: World Construction Set V2 Preview pics (sorta Commercial)
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  Ok folks, here's that demo image I've been promising everyone.
This is a sample image of some of the new features in World
Construction Set V2. V2 is not currently available, but we will try
to show it at the Video Toaster Expo in Universal City at the
beginning of November.



  Things to check out in this image:

  New variable fractal levels and fractal displacement -- Forget
using those bitmapped ground textures to cover up polygon edges, we
can now subdivide to ludicrous levels to create realistic rock and
ground surfaces. Check out the rocks sticking out of the snowfield
in the upper left, and the rough cliff faces all over the place.
Variable fractal level scopes out an entire animation path and
figures out how high to fractalize each polygon based on how close
you get to it. This keeps rendering times down without sacrificing
great detail in the foreground. This also removes the aliasing noise
that sometimes appeared with the bitmap textures.

  Rock strata -- if you've been getting KPT-Bryce envy, look at the
gorgeous banding evident in the cliff faces. Strata can be straight,
tilted, even broken and perturbed, automatically or under user
control.

  Waves, animated even! -- You can't see it in this still image but
those waves in the foreground surf themselves right up onto the
beach, breaking, cresting and all. You can see one splashing onto a
steep rock face towards the lower right, just before the coast
curves around into that little inlet. Cowabunga dude!

  Volumetric clouds! -- Yes! Do you agree they are worth the wait?
Create as many as you want: Cirrus, Cumulous, Nimbus or
combinations. Move them around on animation paths. Envelope the
control values and watch them churn and evolve.

  Cloud shadows -- almost impossible to see in this still, but
beautiful to see moving. Clouds cast realistic moving shadows onto
the landscape and water below them.



  Things you can't see in this image: Terrain creation and editing,
reflecting waves, Windows version. ;)

  Hopefully I can put up another image in a week or so showing the
reflecting waves, but we're not totally satisfied with them yet. V2
also has tools for editing landscapes or even creating them from
scratch. And not just a one-button fractal-maker. Mark off ridges,
valleys and mountains and WCSv2 will create them where you specify.

  For comparison, this image is almost EXACTLY the same scene as is
found in the bottom center of the front of WCSv1's box. This data is
in Rocky Mountain National Park (our virtual proving-grounds and
factory test-pilot training facility ;) and might be what you'd get
if the polar ice caps were to melt and the sea level were to rise
3000 meters.

  Technical details:

  Rendered on an A2000/040-33 (GVP) with 16MB 32-bit RAM and 1MB
Chip RAM. Extensively studied on an Opalvision and a Spectrum.
Rendering time (on the unoptimized WCSv2 prototype) was ~43min
per frame.

  This image is presented in two forms for maximum compatibility
between different platforms. We've put WCSv2-1.JPG (JPEG, saved at
100% quality) and WCSv2-1.GIF onto the tomahawk ftp site:
(ftp://tomahawk.welch.jhu.edu/pub/LW/framestores/WCSv2-1.JPG)
(ftp://tomahawk.welch.jhu.edu/pub/LW/framestores/WCSv2-1.GIF)

  They're both 720x480.

  They were uploaded to /incoming on 22 Aug 1995, so they may take a
short time to appear in the correct directories.

  We recommend you _NOT_ view them with a WWW browser, since they're
usually not the best imagers in the world, and many will dither the
image badly. The GIF has already been optimally dithered to 256
colors. Your mileage may vary. ;)

  (The file WCSv2-1.txt is the same as the contents of this message.)

Chris - Xenon
Co-developer of World Construction Set
--
 Chris Hanson | [e-mail] | I've got friends in low latitudes!
 "There is no Truth. There is only Perception. To Perceive is to Exist." - Xen
--
[e-mail] (Christopher Eric Hanson) () sent this message.
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