Multimedia Toolkit 2/Multimedia Toolkit 2.iso/imagine/text/archive.00

Text File | 1993-03-12 | 164.0 KB | 3,995 lines

IMAGINE archive: collected off of [e-mail]

ARCHIVE 0
Jan 8 '91 - Jan 31 '91

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

Many thanks to Doug Dyer ([e-mail]) for the previous
versions of this archive

note: each message seperated by a '##'

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Subject: Extrude along path (point path)
Date: Tue, 8 Jan 91 12:19:10 PST
From: "\"davis@soomee\""@rust.enet.dec.com

I wanted to create a wall with smooth curves so decided to extrude
it along a path.  I placed axes and oriented the axes in the direction
that I wanted to path to proceed, picked axes in same direction, selected
sort, then make path.  My path was made with no problems.  I called the
Mold requestor, picked extrude along path and placed my path name in
the gadget, then selected perform.  In the editor screen a requestor
appeared stating "illegal parameters".  After experimenting for a couple
of days, I figured out that Imagine does not extrude along paths
created with the "Make Path" command, whether used in the Detail
Editor or Stage Editor.  It WILL extrude along paths created from
points and edges (exactly like Turbo Silver).  A quick way to create
this path is to load an axis, place points in the path you want to
create, then connect the points with edges SEQUENTIALLY in the
paths direction.  Or you can use the "line" command to create the
path.  If the points in the path are not "picked" in order your
path will meander in the order that the points were picked.  This
path creation inconsistency is an annoyance and have so notified
Impulse.

mark


##

Subject: Welcome!!
Date: Tue, 08 Jan 91 15:36:02 EST
From: [e-mail]

At last, the list has begun! Welcome to the Imagine Mailing List, a
forum for the discussion of the use and abuse of Imagine. I am
Steve Worley, the list's creator, and I hope this list will live up
to its potential- My mailbox was crammed with 65 letters this morning!
At this writing, there are 40 members, and I'll be continually adding new
people as they turn up.

Comp.sys.amiga has been getting a lot of Imagine questions and comments
on it lately, and I hope to have similar discussion on a deeper level. I
posted a loooong article about Im about a week ago, mostly dealing with
its learning curve. I came close to giving up in frustration- I saw the
power, but it was so maddening to try and so anything I didn't WANT to
play around and figure it all out. Of course, it is now a week and a half
later and I'm administrator of the Imagine mailing list. [Geez! Starting
a list is an evil experience!] Imagine is a truly wonderful program, as long
as you walk on the studs, and not the ceiling tiles.

I was angry that Imagine comes with NO pre-built objects. Even two or three
semi-complex objects (a chair, a car, a teapot) would have made a big
difference in learning the ropes. It's boring to animate toruses flying
around! (but kinda neat- I had one squish lengthwise to squeeze though
the hole of another torus, then spring back. Keen!)   Never fear, though.
I keep repeating this, but if you want objects, they can be found via
anonymous-ftp at ab20.larc.nasa.gov in incoming/amiga/3d/Imagine. I put
about 40 objects there, and am busy making/finding more. If you don't
know how to use ftp, ask one of your local computer gurus- they should help.

The big question of the day a week ago was glass. How do you do it?
The answer- SET SHININESS TO ZERO. Not low, ZERO. High hardness helps in
certain cases. Also, I think the "filter" controls are intuitivlely
backwards! To make absolutely air-transparent glass, all three filter
sliders should be set at 255. I would think that filters BLOCK light, so
low filter settings would let light through, but this is not Im's
interpretation.

Anyway, the Imagine mailing list is officially open. Mail sent to

                       [e-mail]

will automatically be sent to the 40 or more members of the group. If
you have any purely administrative questions like adding/dropping yourself
from the list, please DON'T email imagine@athena- mail ME personally because
nobody else wants to read it. That's all!

Happy Rendering!

-Steve


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                           [e-mail]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

##

Subject: Eliminate Imagine 1.0 Startup Pic
Date: Tue, 8 Jan 91 17:03:57 -0600
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

OK, the most appropriate post for all Imagine 1.0 users who are sick and tired
of the damn Imagine picture loading every time you run Imagine or create a new
project.  I got my Imagine upgrade and after installing it, it didn't work.  I
contacted Impulse the next day and they were supposed to send out the picture
fix (that was over three weeks ago) but it hasn't arrived yet.  In the mean
time, determined to use my new $150+Turbo Silver cost product, I was able to
hack out the picture dependence.  Make the following changes and enjoy some
extra playing time :-)

Use NewZap or similar sector editing program.

For the floating point version:

         Load block 373,
         locate two occurencex of $1830,
         change $66 after first $1830 to $67
         save block 373
         (make sure Image.pic is absent or renamed)

for integer version:

         Load block 376
         locate two occurences of $189c
         change $66 after first $189c to $67
         save block 376
         (make sure Image.pic is absent or renamed)

This hack courtesy of:  Rick Tillery

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])


##

Subject: Steve's hint-of-the day!
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 03:23:32 EST
From: [e-mail]

The next time you sit down in front of your Amiga (if you aren't already)
IMMEDIATELY go to your Imagine directory and edit Imagine.config.
Change the flag on "Do lines in color shade" from T to F.

You have just changed a pitiful previewer into something that makes
really nice quick anims.

The "color shade" mode was stupid when I tried it out. Yes, you could
see the color of every polygon, but a quick 100 by 100 HAM scanline was
infinitely better.

However, when I was playing with function keys in the config file, the
"do lines" option caught my eye. (So much to experiment with... :-)

The quality of the shaded models is decent. The objects are simplified,
casting no shadows, and I think they lose brush and texture mapping.
Unfortunately, ground is not rendered at all.

So why am I raving? Because the quality is decent, and the
rendering BLAZES!!!! A complex scene with about 10 objects with
400 polygons each rendered a 320 by 400 scene in about 50 seconds. The
"percent done" indicator BLURS! [I have a 6M 25Mhz A3000, so I'm cheating]
However, I can render a 20 frame anim in about 20 minutes- it rocks for
testing the "feel" of an anim. I would think unaccellerated machines
would benifit even more. The amount of setup and load time for each
frame is also cut since it doesn't load textures, etc.

Anyway, my hint for the day. Try it!


[e-mail] now has 56 members.


-Steve

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                           [e-mail]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: luminescent surfaces
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 11:15:18 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Ed Chadez)

Greetings!
Is anyone aware of a way to make surfaces bright (ie, luminescent with
casting any light)?  This was a feature in TurboSilver which, at first
glance, didn't get carried over to Imagine.  Any suggestions??

--
[e-mail] * Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries  * [phone]

##

Subject: Textures and attributes
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 16:25:59 -0500
From: [e-mail]

Has anyone noticed yet that when you "save attributes" it doesn't carry the
textures along with it?

Anyway, I've been playing around with using multiple textures on the same
object, and I've pretty much got it under control. (The documentation
has an incomplete section which begins "You will notice that you can apply more
than one texture to any object." and just lets that hang.

Textures are applied to the object in rising order (that is, texture 1 is
first). Each texture operates on what was left behind by the last one.

For instance, if the first texture is "wood" and the second is "checks",
then the resulting object will look like cubes of the output
of the wood texture alternating with cubes of the color/shininess/filter
described in the cubes frame.

I hope to be able to generate some interesting effects with this after I
do some more experimenting.

##

Subject: How the list works, and a hint-of-the-day
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 17:14:21 EST
From: [e-mail]

A couple people have asked me how the list works, since some people
haven't used mailing lists before. Quite simply, every e-mail sent
to  [e-mail] will be sent to my machine at MIT and
a copy will be sent to every member on the list. That's it. I am
not planning on moderating this group at all- just mail your Imagine
raves, techniques, and bug workarounds [ :-) ]  to [e-mail]
and everyone will get it.

Any administrivia like adding/removing yourself to the list and
the like should NOT be sent to the list, because nobody cares but
me. Email those queries to me at   [e-mail].

-- == --

The Hint of the Day.

Have you ever used a sledgehammer on your Amiga when you are trying to
fill an outline with triangles because  *&#^*#*ing  Imagine thinks points
and edges are too close together? The answer? Buy Pixel 3D, an automatic
outline filler.

Now, friends, some people might go out and just do that. But today,
and today only, I'm willing to give you a method that eliminates the
hassle. In the tutorials, you probably made an 'A' and filled it by
slicing with a plane. Even with this simple object I would get the
dread requester "points or edges too close together."

The solution: make sure that no points or edges on the plane
are anywhere near points or edges on the outline. How? BY SLICING
NOT WITH A PLANE THAT HAS 2*10*10 TRIANGLES ON IT, BUT BY SLICING
WITH A SINGLE TRIANGLE THAT IS MUCH LARGER THAN THE OUTLINE.
       ^^^^^^                  ^^^^

Since the entire outline is contained in a single face, there are no
point and edge collisions. I usually add a primative plane that is
1x1 (2 triangles) and scale it to outragous proportions. A side benefit
is that the slicing/tiling  time is considerably shorter since the sliced
object is 2 orders of magnitude less complex.

Try it!

--------
Remember: don't be afraid to post to [e-mail]
Administrivia to me.

Keep on rendering!

-Steve

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                           [e-mail]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

##

Subject: Projects
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 17:51:41 EST
From: [e-mail]

I would be interested in knowing what people are doing/have done
in Imagine, both for ideas and to see how diverse the uses are.
I've been using Imagine since 12/27/90- here's what I've done after
the tutorials:

1) 60 frame anim of the NBC Peacock, camera moving around, smashes
   through a "feather" which shatters

2) 30 frame anim of the x29 swooping and banking around some pillars

3) Animated logo for "MIT Live", a cable talk show. MIT in big,
   monolithic font, Live in script that writes itself out cursive
   over 20 frames [neat!]

4) Plain of 12 x29s each with different texture/attributes. This
   was to test different attributes/texturews/brushes.

5) This morning, made a set of Lego building blocks- a 4x2, a 2x2,
   a 1x2, a thin plate. I measured real Legos and got the measurements
   exact. Two versions of each- a "real" one with pips on the top
   and the deep cylinder things inside, and a trivial fake rectangle
   for use as blocks that are covered by other legos on top and bottom
   (just for speed). Any suggestions what to do with these?

6) A few stills of a flag waving in the wind with my picture on it.


I also converted about 40 DEC OFF objects to Imagine format [posted
on ab20.larc.nasa.gov]. I'm working on converting NFF files, including
one of St Paul's Cathedral (!)


I have yet to set up a plain covered with 100 mirrored balls. :-)

-Keep rendering!

-Steve


##

Subject: Re: Projects
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 15:02:06 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Ed Chadez)

Hi!-----
I saw your list of projects, and would like you to post either what you've
done, or (better yet) how you did it!  for example:

} 3) Animated logo for "MIT Live", a cable talk show. MIT in big,
}    monolithic font, Live in script that writes itself out cursive
}    over 20 frames [neat!]

Was the script part created with the "grow" f/x or did you use Kara
anim-fonts?  (I hope it was grow since I don't have the kara fonts).  In
which case, why don't you mail out the project??

As for an idea....
} 5) This morning, made a set of Lego building blocks- a 4x2, a 2x2,
}    a 1x2, a thin plate. I measured real Legos and got the measurements
}    exact. Two versions of each- a "real" one with pips on the top
}    and the deep cylinder things inside, and a trivial fake rectangle
}    for use as blocks that are covered by other legos on top and bottom
}    (just for speed). Any suggestions what to do with these?

Why don't you make the blocks build themselves into somthing, fly apart and
build into something else, and back again.  This would be an interesting
looping animation....


} I'm working on converting NFF files, including
} one of St Paul's Cathedral (!)

My only concern here is the size (file that is) of the object.  If you can,
why don't you post abreviated (SP?) versions simular to the DEC models.


Be seeing you...

--
[e-mail] * Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries  * [phone]

##

Subject: Projects
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 15:07:51 PST
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis ~)

>>>>> On Thu, 10 Jan 91 17:51:41 EST, [e-mail] said:


Steve> I would be interested in knowing what people are doing/have done
Steve> in Imagine, both for ideas and to see how diverse the uses are.
Steve> I've been using Imagine since 12/27/90- here's what I've done
Steve> after the tutorials:
Steve>...

Steve> I also converted about 40 DEC OFF objects to Imagine format
Steve> [posted on ab20.larc.nasa.gov]. I'm working on converting NFF
Steve> files, including one of St Paul's Cathedral (!)


    Well, I am glad to see that somebody is getting good use out of
my ShareWare project, "TTDDD"!  So far, two people have registered.
Maybe some more of you will find it useful, and be interested in getting
SQuad (generates Super Quadric objects) and TSTeX (converts TeX fonts to
objects).  I neglected to mention in the TTDDD.doc that I am also
providing the source code to ReadTDDD and WriteTDDD on the disks that I
send to registered users.
    I appreciate the support of ShareWare, as I spent over 200 hours
on the TTDDD project.  Thanks, and happy rendering!

Steve> I have yet to set up a plain covered with 100 mirrored balls. :-)

    Sounds like fun... Go for it!

                            -- Glenn Lewis

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



##

Subject: phong shading per polygon
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 18:13:06 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Viet Ho)

Anyone know of a way to bypass phong smoothing over an entire
object?  I mean control which set of polygons are to be smooth
and which to be faceted?   I have an MR-2 I've done in Sculpt
4D and some of the edges are to be facted (the door trimings
for ex.) and others are to be smooth (thefront bumper)..  With
Scalp, you cam select which polygons should be smooth and which
should be faceted.   The only two ways I could thing of in Imagine
(which I prefer not to do) is to break everything up to little
pieces and group them or.. add more complexity to the object
by subdividing the corners so that smoothing around the edges
would be minimal.


-Viet
 [e-mail]


##

Subject: imagine-ative legos and what to do with them.
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 23:26:46 EST
From: [e-mail] (Sandy Antunes)

Hi there!
Okay, Steve "Mr. Moderator" said he had some lego blocks made
up and was wondering what to do with them.
Well, I made a Tie Fighter (TM lucasfilm)-- riduculously simple,
just a sphere primitive (so it can be exploded :) and two planes
with structures added.
So, for surrealism, I'm making it zoom around all sorts of weird
things (trying to make a skull, currently)... why not make a lego
death star trench?  End the animation with a giant kiddie's hand
plucking it from the "toy"...
Imagine is tremendously useful for creating spaceship-type scenes,
simply by grouping objects, zooming them around, and then blowing up
discrete components of them (exploding all the pieces at once lacks
'realism')
Anyone have any suggestions on how to make a laser, though?  I thought
maybe making a reflective line and bouncing a cylinder light pointing
the right way at it, but I haven't tried that yet.
                                  sandy
------------
Sandy Antunes   "the Waupelani Kid" 'cause that's where I live...
[e-mail]                 Penn State Astronomy Dept
------------        "que sera c'est la via"         -------------

##

Subject: Re: luminescent surfaces
Date: 11 Jan 91 10:36:23 MET (Fri)
From: [e-mail] (Helge Egelund Rasmussen)

> Is anyone aware of a way to make surfaces bright (ie, luminescent with
> casting any light)?  This was a feature in TurboSilver which, at first
> glance, didn't get carried over to Imagine.  Any suggestions??

You could set ambient light in the global requester, but this would work
for all objects in the scene.

Here is another question about light sources:
  I'm trying to create a night scene, where the only illumination is made
  by lamps which can be seen in the scene.
  My solution was to place the light source inside a sphere with color =
  (255,255,255) and filtering = (127,127,127). This work, but the
  lamps are very dark.
  Does anyone have a better solution?

Helge
---
Helge E. Rasmussen  .  PHONE + 45 31 37 11 00  .  E-mail:  [e-mail]
Compel A/S          .  FAX   + 45 31 37 06 44  .
Copenhagen, Denmark

##

Subject: Legos, luminosity
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 91 05:24:39 EST
From: [e-mail]

I tried exactly the same trick of making a white lamp that was semi-
transparent. Setting "diminish intensity with distance" REALLY makes a
profound imact on this object- it looks pretty good, though you're right,
its dim. How about putting multiple lights inside?



Side note, I found Rick Roderiguez and asked him to join the list- he's
the man who wrote Im's manual. [Oh boy, someone to, ah, direct, direct
our constructive criticisms at. :-) :-) He sould be getting the list
very soon, depending how long it takes my mail server to update.
Rick, if you're on already, I would have to summarize what I feel the
pervading opinion is- Imagine is incredibly powerful, and is an amazing
piece of work. The biggest problem, by far, is the documentation, which
is an order of magnitude too sparse. We also realize that you had only a
limited amount of time to organize the documentation of a program that was
being modified up to the last minute, but a few things are absolutely terrible,
like my pet peeve, paths. Not the neat easy to use spline paths, but the
undocumented, necessary for extrusion and grow, edged paths. Man! Ugh!

Don't let my criticism sting to deeply- I LOVE Imagine, and I must have put
100 hours of time in the past two weeks into it. [and 2*7*23.5 hours of
rendering time :-) Those 60 frame raytraced anims take a while.]

Getting back to lights, anyone played with the diminish intensity with
distance? How can you increase the distance light travels before it
gets too dim to illuminate?

Oh, a BIG problem (bug?) with Phong shading that glared at me with my
Lego piece. Individual triangles on a single plane (like a tiled outline)
sometimes have incredibly different shadings. I used Phong on my lego piece
so the round pips on top would be round instead of polygonal. The WIERDEST
highlights on the thing- Every triangle on the top, smooth face of one of
the pips stood out in stark contrast with its neighbors. Don't know why-
I thought Phong worked by interpolating surface normals between ajacent
triangles and using this direction for light reflection and highlights. If this
is true, the triangles on a plane are directed in the same direction and
therefore should have interpolants that are constant. Any ideas, guys?

I'll post my Lego so you can see.

-Steve

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                           [e-mail]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: luminescent surfaces
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 91 08:38:29 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Ed Chadez)

I wrote....
> Is anyone aware of a way to make surfaces bright (ie, luminescent with-
> out casting any light)?  This was a feature in TurboSilver which, at first
> glance, didn't get carried over to Imagine.  Any suggestions??

And a reply was posted...
} You could set ambient light in the global requester, but this would work
} for all objects in the scene.

I could do that, but I don't want a bland effect. (Ambient usually washes
everything out if used too much.)  But I appreciate the reply!  So I
suppose I should explain what I'm trying to do....

Several of you mentioned "spaceships" or "space scenes"--this is sorta
along the same lines.  Imagine (pun not intended) if you will, lights on a
spacecraft, or parts of a object that need to "glow".  I thought of the
same idea someone else had about a laser, but it won't work in every case.
To simulate random windows on a space station in TurboSilver, I used a grid
texture, made the grid "bright" and made the object's own surface dark.
This meant parts of the object "lit" up, while the whole object was shaded.
And it rendered VERY nicely.  As far as I can tell, Imagine doesn't have a
"bright" attribute.  Any ideas?  How do YOU make your objects lite up on
their own?  How do YOU make your spaceship's cockpits or crew cabins light
up naturally??  I really don't want to go back to Turbo just to do these
scenes (although I may have to).

Thanks for any assistance you can offer.

--Ed Chadez.




--
[e-mail] * Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries  * [phone]

##

Subject: Re: Projects
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 91 11:03:34 MST
From: [e-mail]

>  I would be interested in knowing what people are doing/have done
>  in Imagine, both for ideas and to see how diverse the uses are.

Well I am using Imagine for an interesting project, I thought I would share.
An archaeologist here at the University of Arizona, is uncovering a
Roman Villa that existed in about 200 BC.  With the aid of the drawings
he is bringing back from Italy, I am recreating the villa with Imagine.
The tile floors have some spectacular mosaic patterns, and I'm using
the brush mapping capability to reproduce them on my Imagine model.
We will be doing a fly through of the model as he felt it looked in 200 BC.
We may also use Amiguy (a 3D character object I originally created with
Sculpt 3D, but redesigning with Imagine) to lead a tour through the Villa.
He has really been impressed with the 3d rendering ability of Imagine, and
so far all I have shown him is HAM renderings.  However, I just received
a FireCracker 24 last night, so wait till he gets a look at the 24 bit
renderings!  I will be single frame recording the flythrough on our
Panasonic Optical Disk Recorder, for later recording on videotape.  Should
be an interesting video when its all done, and have already had some
interest from National Geographic about the project.

Marvin Landis
Research Support, University of Arizona
[e-mail]

##

Subject: luminescent surfaces, lasers, etc.
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 91 13:59:04 EST
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

Uh oh...look out, here comes the renegade Lightwave user amongst all the
'Imagine' rabble :-)

A very effective techique for creating things like flames, lights, laser
beams etc. is to define your object as 'luminous' and then enclose that
object in a translucent larger copy of itself. The washed out look of
the 'luminous' object doesn't matter because the translucent object gives
a 'glow' that makes the overall effect very good. In Lightwave, this
would be accomplished by using the LUMINOUS switch for the first surface
and setting the exterior surface to be LUMINOUS and ~ 50% transparent with
clear polygon edges. Is there an Imagine equivalent for setting transparency
on the polygon edges independant of the interior transparency (giving
a crude control of opacity thoughout the *volume* of an object)?
%~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
%       `       '                Mark Thompson                          %
%  --==* RADIANT *==--           [e-mail]                 %
%       ' Image `                ...!{decvax,uunet}!masscomp!mark       %
%      Productions               [phone]  [phone]           %
%                                                                       %
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: erratic attribute application, lamps
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 91 15:30:04 PST
From: "\"davis@soomee\""@rust.enet.dec.com

Cc: davis@soomee

I have been having an on-going problem with extruded objects
being rendered (scanline) with the color attribute erratically
applied.  I create an extruded object and color it yellow(or red,
or blue, or...), I place it in a setting(with or without ambient
lighting, horizon, etc..), when rendered the object has places on
it that is white(not colored).  It seems to only happen with
extruded objects.  anyone else seen this?  Anyone have any suggestions?
I sent a notice to Impulse on People/Link but haven't had any
comments from them yet.

This may sound obvious but you CAN set your lights >255.  I am
experimenting with simulating sunlight with lights >1000.(makes
radical shadows)

mark

##

Subject: Hint-of-the-day, list glitch
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 05:17:26 EST
From: [e-mail]

A completely undocumented feature of Imagine- pretty neat! Its called "merge".
I am pretty sure of what it does. Its in the Detail editor, directly below
"join".  What it does is takes the selected object, and optimizes it by
removing duplicate points, lines, and faces. Some objects have a LOT of
these. If you are using any of those objects I uploaded to ab20.larc.nasa.gov,
USE THIS FEATURE. These objects are riddled with duplicate points- They
look fine, but will save much smaller and (most importantly!) will redraw
almost twice as fast when you move or zoom in any of the editors.
Joining seems like it would improve Phong shading- I'll have to check.
Another place where you might want to use this feature is after any
"join", since a lot of edges and points might line up, especially if
you're joining a front and back face to an extrusion.

List Membership at just over 60. There might have been a glitch in
the delivery of mail sent to the list on Sunday and Monday- the
host machine power cycled a few times.... :-)

Remember, to post anything to the list, just e-mail [e-mail]
Thats all!


Keep on Rendering!

-Steve

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                           [e-mail]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: Some nice attributes
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 07:11:27 EST
From: [e-mail]

Here are some nice attributes: use them as you will:

Black Gloss: (fururistic- looks sleek. Shine & reflect can be boosted.)
 Color 15 15 15
 Reflect 40 40 40
 Filter 0 0 0
 Specular 255 255 255
 Dither 255
 Hardness 200
 Roughness 0
 Shininess 100

Brick (red clay with mortar type) ->very nice.
 C 112 11 5
 R 0 0 0
 F 0 0 0
 S 155 70 31
 D 255
 R 118
 Sh 0
 Brick Texture:
  Size 24 14 5
  Mortar: 1.1
  Xshift 12 12
  Zshift 2.5
  mortar color 60 60 60

Chrome (mediocre quality, needs tweeking)
C 60 60 80
R 240 240 255
F 0 0 0
Sp 240 240 255
Dith 48
hard 247
rough 0
shine 177

Glass (beautiful! has just the right tint)
C 31 28 86
R 45 45 65
F 235 235 255
Sp 255 255 255
Dith 48 ?
hard 230
Rough 0
Shine 0  <=- CRITICAL
Index of Refr 1.50

Sandstone (great color, surface. Bands from wood texture can be played with)
Color 152 94 70
R 0 0 0
F 0 0 0
Sp 197 76 74
dith 255
hard 43
rough 125
shine 0
 texture: wood
 colr 118 50 30
 ring sp 10
 expon 7
 variat .97
 random seed (pick!)

Battleship grey paint (neutral. OK.)
color 104 104 104
Ref 30 30 30
F 0 0 0
Sp 130 130 170
dith 255
hard 162
rough 10
shine 30


Still looking for a nice metal or chrome.

Have fun, guys! Mail to [e-mail] to send stuff to the list

Keep on Rendering!

-Steve

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                           [e-mail]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

##

Subject: metals and chrome
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 09:46:39 EST
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

The primary keys to getting an effective metal texture is some degree of
reflection (obvious) and setting the specular highlights to be the same
as or close to the surface color. A more complete discussion of the
reflective properties of metals and other materials can be found in
"Illumination and Color in Computer Generated Imagery" by Roy Hall.
A good way to achieve the reflection effect without the effort of a
full reflection map or the time expenditure of ray-tracing is to create
a monochrome image of some black fuzzy blobs (random size and shape) on
a white backgound with a smooth gradient from black to white. This can be
universally used as a relection map and yield good results. The smoother the
gradient, the better (an IFF24 image is best).
%~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
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%  --==* RADIANT *==--           [e-mail]                 %
%       ' Image `                ...!{decvax,uunet}!masscomp!mark       %
%      Productions               [phone]  [phone]           %
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##

Subject: Is this still a problem?...Solutions?
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 17:40:27 EST
From: [e-mail]

    I haven't had a chance to test this yet, but I thought I'd ask anyway
in the off chance that someone might have a possible explanation.  I am
assuming that, like myself, many of you are old TS users (old figuratively,
of course ;^).  I had a "problem" with a TS project I was working on a
while back which I was never able to solve (with and without Impulse's help).
I had an animation in which one of the objects was a sidewalk.  Now, since
it was cement, and cement is "rough", I set the objects ROUGHNESS to a finite
value (> 0, but I do not recall the exact number).  (This is in TS 3.0 and
3.0 SV BTW)  After playing with the various attributes for a while, I was
able to get a very realistic cement-looking texture.  Needless to say I was
very happy.

Well, I used this sidewalk (and a "roughened" asphalt road) in
a 125 frame animation.  Since I was originally doing this on an A2000 with
1Meg, NO accelerators, and 2 floppies, I had some trouble making and storing
solid modelled and ray-traced previews (even for a few frames), so my problem
did not become apparent until I was allowed access to a faster system and
a HD.  What happens is that the roughness pattern on the sidewalk varies from
frame to frame, causing the sidewalk object (and the road object) to look like
it has millions of little bugs crawling on it.  This shifting also occurs in
the reflection of the sidewalk and road in the storefront window I had as
another part of the scene, so it is a REAL shifting.  Mike Halvorsen's
explanation was that the ROUGHNESS algorithm involves a random distortion of
the surface and, therefore, will vary from cell to cell.  This is unacceptable
for my animation, and I was wondering if anyone knows a work-around for this.
Also, is this still a problem in Imagine???  I'll try it soon (after I work
through the tutorials) to see for myself, but I thought I'd ask to see if
someone else had encountered this problem and figured out how to fix it.


Thanks,

Scott Sutherland
[e-mail]

BTW, anyone else had problems getting version 1.0 to work on an A3000 under
2.0?  My 0.9 works perfectly, but the 1.0 will only INSTALL and run under
1.3. Impulse said that is NOT possible, since they develop their stuff on
3000's now, but it IS happening to me.

##

Subject: RE:Is this still a problem?...Solutions?
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 18:03:09 EST
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

I don't know if it is still a problem, but if it is, you could use a
fine grain bump map to yield the same rough texture without the creepy
crawlies. This never should have been a problem in the first place
because random() functions in animation programs SHOULD produce
repeatable results much like the noise function used to generate a
procedural wood texture (and who wants a swimming wood grain).
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%       ' Image `                ...!{decvax,uunet}!masscomp!mark       %
%      Productions               [phone]  [phone]           %
%                                                                       %
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##

Subject: Fog and infinite tilings.
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 15:03:58 EST
From: [e-mail]

I had hoped to make a fog-like effect by making a GIANT cube with
95% transparency and the objects and camera "immersed", or surrounded
by the cube. I wasn't expecting  light backscatter like "real" fog,
but I was hoping distanbt objects would get dimmer with distance,
finally blending to grey at infininy.

Result: The scene got  dim everywhere irregardless of distance.
Oh, well. :-)


How can you make an infinite tiling on an object or ground? I'd love
to have a face or something repeated over and over again to infinity. I
don't think this ican be done. Sigh.

Positioning things in the cycle editor is TOUGH. The loading grouped
object trick (thanks for the tip!) works, but seems to rescale objects
and their axies.... Time to play around some more.


Remember: Merge your objects, especially the ones I posted to ab20!
You'll get a 2-2.5 redraw speed increase, and even rendering times
go down.


-Steve

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                           [e-mail]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: Re: Fog and infinite tilings.
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 13:48:10 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Ed Chadez)

Steve wrote...

} I had hoped to make a fog-like effect by making a GIANT cube with
} 95% transparency and the objects and camera "immersed", or surrounded
} by the cube. I wasn't expecting  light backscatter like "real" fog,
} but I was hoping distanbt objects would get dimmer with distance,
} finally blending to grey at infininy.

This is yet another thing that didn't get carried over from Imagine, along
with the StereoVision, bright objects (I know, nag nag nag) and an
atmosphere/fog effect that was built in globals and in camera.  I'm
assuming (and you know what THAT means) that these will be future
enhancements to Imagine, each costing a small price.  But as far as I can
tell, who wouldn't pay the price???  So, aside from the cycle editor and
effects, what's keeping me from using Imagine solely as an object editor
and rendering my stuff in Turbo??  Right now, without a '020/'030, Imagine
doesn't seem that great (gasp!).  And when I called Impulse, all they could
tell me was buy a new computer....

} How can you make an infinite tiling on an object or ground? I'd love
} to have a face or something repeated over and over again to infinity. I
} don't think this ican be done. Sigh.

Well, I don't know if this is any help, but its a try.  There's a program I
read about in AmigaWorld (it was a review) that converts iff images to
solid images.  The picture they showed with it was a continental united
states map extruded, floating over a ground which was tiled of several
(hundreds?) of little cont. u.s. maps (it was the original image that was
created to be extruded).  I know this is not much help, since I don't
remember the product, but if you want, I'll go through my library of AW and
find it.

} Positioning things in the cycle editor is TOUGH. The loading grouped
} object trick (thanks for the tip!) works, but seems to rescale objects
} and their axies.... Time to play around some more.

Could you post the tip you mentioned above?  I'm afraid I missed it.

} Remember: Merge your objects, especially the ones I posted to ab20!
} You'll get a 2-2.5 redraw speed increase, and even rendering times
} go down.

Thanks for the tip on merge.  I'll try it tonight!


--
--------------------------  CARL Systems, Inc ----------------------------
[e-mail] * Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries * [phone]
----------------------  >> Systems That Inform <<  -----------------------

##

Subject: EXTERNAL equivalent in IMAGINE?
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 17:47:37 EST
From: [e-mail]

    I posted this question to comp.sys.amiga but it was buried in a series
of questions.  Since I have not received any responses, I thought I'd ask
it here.  The single most useful feature I used in Turbo Silver for making
animations, especially lengthy ones, was the EXTERNAL command.  I had a 125
frame animation in which every cell contained one object that was over 60K
in size.  Using the normal procedure, TS saves a copy of that object in
every CELL.# file.  That's over 7.5 Megs of storage.  Needless to say, since
I did most of my TS work on my old A2000 with 1 meg of RAM and only two
floppy disks, this was unacceptable.  Using the EXTERNAL command, I was
able to have only 1 copy of the object saved in the cells subdirectory.
In this specific case, that is a storage savings of 7.44 Megs!!!  This was
very necessary for my work.  I want to continue to use this feature, but I
have not been able to find an equivalent command/feature in IMAGINE.  Anyone
know if "it's in there!"?  If not, any suggestions for avoiding that massive
storage problems, or am I going to have to buy a Syquest or Insite removable
storage medium (I plan on doing that anyway, but I'd like to be able to
use an EXTERNAL equivalent anyway)?

Thanks,

Scott Sutherland
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: EXTERNAL equivalent in IMAGINE?
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 17:56:35 -0500
From: [e-mail]

With regard to large objects duplicated in many frames of an animation, and
hoping not to keep gazillions of copies of those objects in memory:

Yes, "It's in there".

For any given frame, Imagine only loads the objects needed for that frame.
That's why when you enter the stage editor it asks you for a frame number -
it's using that to determine which objects to load.

Even when it is ray-tracing, it only keeps in memory those objects that it
really needs for the one frame it is working on. They're all expunged when that
frame is done, EVEN IF THEY'RE USED IN THE NEXT FRAME. As part of the
initialization for the next frame, it loads everything it needs from scratch.

You don't have to do anything special to get this done for you.

##

Subject: RE:Fog and infinite tilings.
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 18:13:33 EST
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

>I had hoped to make a fog-like effect by making a GIANT cube with
>95% transparency and the objects and camera "immersed", or surrounded
>by the cube. I wasn't expecting  light backscatter like "real" fog,
>but I was hoping distanbt objects would get dimmer with distance,
>finally blending to grey at infininy.

Unfortunately, transparent objects are modeled by assigning an opacity
percentage to the surface polygons. It is not a solid, which is what
your above experiment would require. Fog is typically implemented by
adding some degree of a specified FOG color as a function of z depth.
Now if Imagine were a volumetric renderer, your experiment would have
worked.
%~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
%       `       '                Mark Thompson                          %
%  --==* RADIANT *==--           [e-mail]                 %
%       ' Image `                ...!{decvax,uunet}!masscomp!mark       %
%      Productions               [phone]  [phone]           %
%                                                                       %
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


##

Subject: cycle editor objects, batman anim
Date: 17 Jan 91 12:14:25 MET (Thu)
From: [e-mail] (Helge Egelund Rasmussen)

Steve Worley wrote:

> Positioning things in the cycle editor is TOUGH. The loading grouped
> object trick (thanks for the tip!) works, but seems to rescale objects
> and their axies.... Time to play around some more.

I have now animated the Batman object, and haven't had any problems of this
kind at all. Here is some 'hints':

- Be sure to place the object so that it is facing in the positive Y direction.
  The stage editor expects this direction, and if you want the object to follow
  a path, then the object WILL move in the positive y direction.

- Place the axis for a object where you want a sub-object to connect
  to the object. This is necessary as the sub-object will turn around
  the axis of the object.
  Example, you want to connect a foot to a leg and then to a body:
    Be sure to be in 'pick group' mode.
    Place the axis of the foot in the toes.
    Place the axis of the leg at the bottom of it (you want the foot to
    turn about this point).
    Place the foot and the leg at the correct positions.
    Press the shift key, select the leg, select the foot and group the objects.
    Place the axis of the body at the lower part of the body (you want the leg
    to turn about this point).
    Press the shift key, select the body, select the leg and group the objects.
    Now save the object. This object can be loaded into the cycle object.

- Remember that it is the 'top' object of the group that will follow a path in
  the stage editor. Because of this, you can't move the 'top' object relative
  to the path, so it would be a stupid idea to use a real object as the 'top'
  object: The solution is to create an axis and group the final object to
  this before you save it.
  Example:
    When you make an object walk, the body is the fixpoint, and the legs move.
    However, if you want the man object to bend over, it is the legs that are
    the fixpoint, and the body that move.

As I mentioned, I now have created an anim of Batman and I'm willing to share
this scene with others (it consists of 80 frames and the size is about 200 k
compressed with lharc).
Anyone interested?

Helge
---
Helge E. Rasmussen  .  PHONE + 45 31 37 11 00  .  E-mail:  [e-mail]
Compel A/S          .  FAX   + 45 31 37 06 44  .
Copenhagen, Denmark

##

Subject: Do I have a bad copy of 1.0?
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 91 16:48:31 EST
From: [e-mail]

    Please help me determine if I have a faulty copy of version 1.0.  My
hardware configuration is an A3000, 6 Megs of RAM (5.5 available), OS 2.02
(BTW, it's the 25 MHz version).  The symptoms are as follows.  I tried to
use the install program to put 1.0 on my HD.  I had booted up under 2.02 of
the OS.  I initiated the installation procedure.  All went as normal (I'll
explain HOW I know what normal is below).  Files were copied to RAM and I
was prompted to answer where I wanted to install it and what version.  Then
a final message appeared stating something like "uncompressing files" and
***CRASH***, my system did with a CPU trap error.  Changing the destination
drive made no difference.  So, I rebooted under 1.3.2 of the OS.  Once again
I started the installation procedure and it WORKED PERFECTLY all the way
through.  Now, I can run Imagine 1.0 under 1.3.2.  However, IF I boot up under
2.0 and try to run the installed program, I crash again, with the same CPU
trap (I do not recall the number now, but I can find out REALLY easily ;^).
For the RECORD, my version 0.9 of Imagine works FINE under 1.3.2 AND 2.0!!

SECOND symptom.  I can create an object and add it to the STAGE editor with
an appropriate light source (any object, any light source, it makes NO
difference to the problem I am about to describe).  I go to the PROJECT editor
to render the image and can do so with NO problem.  However, getting BACK to
the PROJECT editor after SHOWING the rendered image is a major problem. First
of all, I cannot see my mouse cursor while the image is displayed.  The only
way I have been able to return to the PROJECT editor is to 1), use left Amiga/N
to bring the WB screen to front, 2) click on the WB screen to make the cursor
visible, 3) push the WB screen to the back using the F-B gadget (this puts me
back to the viewed image screen, BUT I can now see my cursor until I click
the left mouse button once), 4) push the view window back using its F-B gadget,
5) clicking on the now visible PROJECT editor screen, and finally 6) hitting
the ESC key to bring back the cross hair cursor of Imagine. Now, is that
CONVOLUTED or what.  I was curious to see if this happened on my 0.9 version.
I ran it, created a simple scene, and rendered it.  Well, to my surprise the
cursor WAS visible, AND by clicking the Right mouse button I can see a menu
with 3 choices (one of which quits the show mode!!).  This is MUCH nicer and
I assume it is meant to be this way.

    I called Impulse about the first problem and they told me (paraphrased
quote) "That's impossible.  We do all our development on A3000's and have no
problems.  You must have a faulty copy."  Has anyone else had the same problems
that I have (especially those of you with an A3000 and expanded RAM)?

Any help would be appreciated.

Scott Sutherland
[e-mail]

##

Subject: ROUGHNESS still flickers in IMAGINE!
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 91 16:59:46 EST
From: [e-mail]

    This is a problem that I encountered in Turbo Silver (2.0, 3.0 and 3.0
SV) and have just found out still exists in Imagine.  Do the following to see
what I am talking about.  Go to the detail editor and add an object (a simple
sphere will do).  Select it and go to the attributes menu.  Set the color to
grey (say 160 or so on all guns) and set the ROUGHNESS to 100 (it doesn't
matter what it is, really).  Save it and go to the STAGE editor.  Add the
object and add a light source (I used a SUN light source).

*** An aside.  HOW do you control the INTENSITY of a light source?  I can
    control its color (0-255 on each gun), but I cannot find a setting for
    its intensity.  Suggestions??

Back to my story.  Make sure you can see the sphere from the camera view and
go to the ACTION editor.  Create a 10 frame animation in which NOTHING moves
or changes.  Save all settings and go the the PROJECT editor.  Make a 10
frame movie out of this (looping or NOT looping, it doesn't matter).  After
it has finished, load it and play.  Now, IDEALLY you should just have a 10
frame movie of a ball with NO changes to it (you shouldn't be able to even
tell if it is an animated movie or a still.  BUT what you WILL see is that the
rough surface of the object "flickers" like millions of tiny bugs are on
it.  The "roughness" pattern changes for each frame.  I had this problem in
one of my animations and, not only is it displeasing to the eye, but it adds
trememdously to the size of the DIFF files in the Animation.

Any work-arounds?  I have reported this to Impulse, but their response was
something like the roughness algorithm is random and so this problem cannot
be alleviated.  BTW, I did make sure that the PERTURBANCE was set to 0 when
I used TS.

If you find out a way around this, please let me know.

Thanks,

Scott Sutherland
[e-mail]

##

Subject: light intensity
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 91 15:50:50 PST
From: "\"davis@soomee\""@rust.enet.dec.com

Cc: davis@soomee

I have been controlling the light intensity with the color settings.
i.e. for a dim white light I set the RGB settings in the lights actor
requestor to (160,160,160) for an intense white light (500,500,500).

mark

ps  as far as exiting after showing a rendering, I just hit the
escape key.  If I hit a mouse button during a showing then I have
to activate another screen(shuffle to another screen and activate
it), go back to the render screen and hit esc.

##

Subject: 3000 problems,roughness,objects
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 91 18:52:52 EST
From: [e-mail]

Scott, I have your EXACT setup (6M 25MHz a3000, Imagine 1.0). I had
no problems installing Imagine, and works beautifully under 2.02.
In fact, I have yet to have Imagine guru after many hundreds of hours
of use... Bad copy?

The problem with locking the screen while viewing... I wrote about
this about 2 weeks ago. DO NOT PRESS THE MOUSE BUTTON WHILE VIEWING A FRAME
OR ANIM! Pressing ESC will get you out cleanly every time. However, if
you press the mouse button, you change the active window to the screen
you are looking at, and Imagine's project screen doesn't see the
ESC. If you DO press the button, use right-Amiga-M to switch to the
Imagine project screen, press the button to make it the active window,
then press ESC. Of course, if you are displaying an anim, right-Amiga-M
won't work well because of the rapid page flipping, so you will probably
have to reboot! Definate bug.

Roughness- I see the problem, and have a solution. Roughness is generated
in most ray-tracers by adding a random angle to light reflecting off
of it (both diffuse and direct reflection). This random number isn't
"connected" with the object or even the frame. It seems like Impulse
used good random numbers (new seeds for each frame) so roughness is
never the same.

Well, the fix is an Imagine feature! I read about your problem
and thought of a possible solution. I tried this and it worked great,
although took a little work. The answer is altitude mapping. Roughness
is just a randomly bumpy surface! I used DPaint and airbrush mode
to make a nice "snowy" surface with all shades of grey, then used
smooth mode for one pass over the picture. Then I used brush mapping
and wrapped my object (a stone column) with the picture as an altitude
map. Rendered great, and provides both temporal and spacial roughness
continuity. You can even play with the roughness "scale" in Dpaint by
using pixel size snow for a fine grained object like concrete, or
a larger sized "spotted" roughness for something like pebbles.

Hope this works for you...

This mailing list seems a little light traffic-wise. I would expect
more people to post since theres about 60 people on the list. You
are all encouraged to write- hints, ideas, bug-workarounds, and
especially problems and questions. Just e-mail

             [e-mail]

Have fun, everyone. I have another group of objects almost ready for
release- these are about 30 VERY large objects, like a cobra helecopter,
St. Pauls cathedral, the space shuttle, Voyager, a handglider, an F15E,
lotsa goodies, and higher quality than the ones I posted to ab20. I'll
have them assembled in a week or so, and I'll put them on ab20. There
is FAR too much to mail to individuals or this list- some of these
objects are HUGE (like half a meg each!). More later.. These are mostly
objects I converted from a format called NFF- there's a French
site with quite a few scenes on it. I wrote a C program to convert them
to Imagine format using Glenn Lewis' slick TTDDD program.

Remember, don't be afraid to post to the list! I'd like to see more
volume!

-Steve

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                           [e-mail]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: 3000 problems,roughness,objects
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 91 16:13:28 PST
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis ~)

>>>>> On Fri, 18 Jan 91 18:52:52 EST, [e-mail] said:

Steve>...
Steve> Have fun, everyone. I have another group of objects almost ready
Steve> for release- these are about 30 VERY large objects, like a cobra
Steve> helecopter, St. Pauls cathedral, the space shuttle, Voyager, a
Steve> handglider, an F15E, lotsa goodies, and higher quality than the
Steve> ones I posted to ab20. I'll have them assembled in a week or so,
Steve> and I'll put them on ab20. There is FAR too much to mail to
Steve> individuals or this list- some of these objects are HUGE (like
Steve> half a meg each!). More later.. These are mostly objects I
Steve> converted from a format called NFF- there's a French site with
Steve> quite a few scenes on it. I wrote a C program to convert them to
Steve> Imagine format using Glenn Lewis' slick TTDDD program.
Steve>...

    That's awesome, Steve!  I can't wait to see the images.  I'm
glad that the TTDDD package was useful for these conversions.

    I also wanted to publicly thank Steve for registering his
ShareWare TTDDD package with me.  His donation was quite generous, and
the source code for ReadTDDD and WriteTDDD, as well as SQuad and TSTeX,
are on their way to Steve today.

                        -- Glenn

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

##

Subject: Re: Proper Lighting
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 09:54:29 EST
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> > I seem to be having difficulty getting my lighting set up right. Frequently
> >my objects have strong 'hot spots' but the rest of them are underlit.

> It sounds like you're not using enough lights.

More lights help, but the real problem is that your lights are too close
relative to the size of your objects. Pull your light(s) back until they
are nearly equa-distant to all objects in the scene. This is assuming
that you are using light sources that decay over distance. If you are using
spot lights, you will have to pull the lights back until the entire scene
is within the cone of illumination (or widen the cone angle) and aim
toward the center of the scene. You may need to increase the intensity
of your lights when you pull them back (if they decay).
%~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
%       `       '                Mark Thompson                          %
%  --==* RADIANT *==--           [e-mail]                 %
%       ' Image `                ...!{decvax,uunet}!masscomp!mark       %
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%                                                                       %
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##

Subject: Light attached to object?
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 14:46:08 EST
From: John J. Rosner <[e-mail]>

Is there a way to attach a lightsource to a moving object so that the light
moves with the object?  I thought of trying to define a path for the light,
but because the object's motion is determined by a sub-hierarchy in the
cycle editor, that would be very difficult.  The problem is the light is to be
attached to the object and not shining on it.

Thanks in advance,
John Rosner


##

Subject: lights and stuff
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 91 11:59:27 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Ed Chadez)

John Rosner asked...

} Is there a way to attach a lightsource to a moving object so that the light
} moves with the object?

And I, myself have the same question.  I know there are ways in the detail
editor to define groups, but is there a way to group a light souce to an
object?  What about hooks and tracking?  (Oh no, Mr. Ed, too many
questions!)

So let's start with a simple explanation of one object tracking another.
Can anyone help me out??

--Ed.


--
------------------------------ CARL Systems, Inc. ----------------------------
  //[e-mail] * Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries * [phone]
\X/ information databases (via telnet): pac.carl.org  inquiries: [e-mail]
--------------------------  >> Systems That Inform <<  -----------------------

##

Subject: Re: Imagine
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 91 12:20:30 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Ed Chadez)

Hey Steve!  When you get features like fire and smoke created with
Imagine, why don't you post them??  I'd personally like to see how you
created such "non-solid" objects with a solid rendering piece of software.

I posted a request on how to use some of the features in the stage editor,
do you have any suggestions??


--
------------------------------ CARL Systems, Inc. ----------------------------
  //[e-mail] * Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries * [phone]
\X/ information databases (via telnet): pac.carl.org  inquiries: [e-mail]
--------------------------  >> Systems That Inform <<  -----------------------

##

Subject: Light sources and objects
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 18:55:30 -0500
From: [e-mail]

Just a thought which I haven't got time to try out right now:

Our problem with attaching light sources to objects is that there can't
be any light sources in the detail editor where we create objects.

In the stage editor (the action menu) you can create a hinge for what
appears to be any object. Can you use a hinge to cause a light source
to track an object? (Does that make any sense at all?)

##

Subject: Re: Light sources and objects
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 08:48:47 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Ed Chadez)

} In the stage editor (the action menu) you can create a hinge for what
} appears to be any object. Can you use a hinge to cause a light source
} to track an object? (Does that make any sense at all?)

It makes perfect sense...if it'll work.  I don't have a lot of spare time
to try out all these fun things (I'll try hinge this weekend...) so I
thought I could dump the question on my fellow Imagine users.  I think
hinge is used to make things move in an arc (the manual isn't very clear on
that.)  If you (or anyone else) can give the Group an example use of a
hinge, I know it would be appreciated!

-Ed.


--
------------------------------ CARL Systems, Inc. ----------------------------
  //[e-mail] * Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries * [phone]
\X/ information databases (via telnet): pac.carl.org  inquiries: [e-mail]
--------------------------  >> Systems That Inform <<  -----------------------

##

Subject: Possible XENO virus on Imagine 1.0 disks!!
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 13:10:01 EST
From: [e-mail]

    I do not want to be an alarmist here since I may be the only one with
this problem, but I thought I should bring it to the attention of this group
just to be safe.  I still cannot install Imagine 1.0 on my A3000 under 2.0.
I tried again with the disk write "enabled", as suggested by several of you.
This is the sequence of messages and responses I get while trying to install
1.0:

1) I click on the Imagine Install icon.

2) The message "Copying Files to Ram Disk ..." appears.

3) The message "If installing on a floppy disk ... Press return when ready ..."
   appears.  I press return.

4) The message "Specify a pathname (drawer) to install Imagine in ..."
   I type in Work:Imagine1.0 (I previously created a drawer called Imagine1.0,
   but I get the same problem just trying to install it on work:).

5) The message "Copying files to destination ..." appears.

6) The message "Do you want floating point (F), integer (I), or both (B)?
   I type F.

7) The message "Uncompressing files ..." appears and the machine IMMEDIATELY
   crashes with:
    Software error- program stopped.  Finish all disk activity before
    selecting "Reboot".
   I select "Reboot" and get the infamous red blinking box with the error
   number 8000 0003.

Now to the XENO virus problem.  While trying this installation yesterday to
test out the "write enable" hint, I happened to have VIRUS X 4.0 running
in the background.  I had forgotten about it, but at STEP #7 above, where
the system crashes, not only did I get the Software Error message window,
but Virus X opened a message window stating:

    A Program you ran contained the XENO virus ...

It then states that the virus has been removed from RAM and tells me to run
another program (I forget the name).

Well, I was "shocked" to see this message, so I immediately called Impulse to
warn them that some of their disks might have the XENO virus on them.  I
got Mike Halvorsen (I recognized his voice from the time I met him at an
Amiga expo) and he emphatically told me that there the VIRUS X program is
wrong and that there is no way that my disk has the XENO virus (or any other
virus) on it.  I then told him that I could install it under 1.3, and he
stated that I should just run the 1.3 installed version from 2.0.  When I
told him that this caused a crash as well, he told me to send them the
disk.

I am going to send it to them today or tomorrow.  I'll keep you posted.

Sorry if I caused anyone undue stress with my article title, but I felt it
necessary to make sure that all of you should at least check your computers
for the XENO virus.

Scott Sutherland
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Help with image wrapping in Imagine!!
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 13:31:22 EST
From: [e-mail]

    Well, the subject line almost says it all, but I have a specific
example which am hoping that some of you can help me to get working.  I hope
that some of you get .INFO magazine.  In the Sept. 1990 issue (#32), there
was an article on PAGE 26 Called "How To Use Brush Mapping in Turbo Silver"
by Leo L. Schwab.  This is probably the best explanation on the how's and
why's of brush mapping in TS that I have seen, and the illustrations are
very helpful.  He describes how to wrap an object WITHOUT using an extra axis,
and he explains why Impulse recommends that you use the extra axis anyway.
Well, I decided to try to reproduce his examples using TS 3.0SV.  I created
a 320x200 image which looks like the one in his Figure 1.  It basically
consists of a 6x5 grid of colored squares, with the left most column having
smaller black squares inside of them to be used as a marker of sorts.  Well,
after about 2 hours of testing and finding out little things NOT mentioned
in the article, I was able to reproduce the FLAT X, FLAT Z examples (wrapped
on a cube and a torus), the FLAT X, WRAP Z examples (also on a cube and
a torus), and the WRAP X, WRAP Z examples (but I used a cube, not a sphere
like Leo used).  All worked out beautifully, and his explanation on how to
know where to place the objects axis is clear and makes sense.

Now that I felt comfortable with the TS image wrapping, I decided to try
to reproduce these same examples using Imagine.  I used the AXIS placement
and size guidelines to place the axis of the IFF image box under edit axes
in the BRUSH mapping menu.  The guidelines for FLAT wrapping worked without
any major glitches (I had to play with it a little, but the placement is
essentially the same as the TS examples).  Well, I got bold and tried the
FLAT X, WRAP Z examples.  To make a long story short (too late, eh?), I was
completely unsuccessful in getting this to work.  The BEST I got was that
PART of the cube was wrapped properly, but the majority was not.

Now, I have seen that at least some of you have been successful in getting
the WRAP options of brush mapping to work.  Can anyone out there post (or email
to me), in excrutiating detail, how to use WRAP X, FLAT Z and/or FLAT X, WRAP Z
in Imagine.  Use a cube as an example and, if possible, the image used by
Leo (or something similar).  I would appreciate it if you would describe how
you created the object, how many faces, its size, its exact axis placement
(with respect to the object itself), the size and shape of the brush axes
(how you altered them and why you used the size and shape you did), its
position with respect to both the objects axis and to the object, and any
other details that will help me to get this to work.  NO detail is too small
to exclude (except something like "I clicked the left mouse button" or "I
took a sip of my coke" ;^).  Also, generalizations about the proper size and
placement of object and brush axes in Imagine (similar to what Leo did) would
be most helpful (rules of thumb for image wrapping).

Any help would be much appreciated!!

Thanks,

Scott Sutherland
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Castle problem
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 13:41:28 EST
From: John J. Rosner <[e-mail]>

I downloaded the Castle, 80 frame Batman animation, created the Castle
project, and then created CastleSub for the subproject.  It won't generate
stills or an anim.  The Stage editor finds all but about 4 objects and the
seen looks impressive starting with Batman sitting on a bench outside the
castle.  I don't know what objects are missing; it would be nice if IMAGINE
would mention the path that failed.  Missing objects I don't think would
prevent it from generating a single frame would it?  Or does it care what
the name of the subdirectory is?

Thanks in advance,
John Rosner


##

Subject: Re:  lights and stuff
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 13:50:34 EST
From: [e-mail]

Ed Chadez asks...

>So let's start with a simple explanation of one object tracking another.
>Can anyone help me out??


I'll have to check the Imagine manual, but I believe that the "follow me"
option still exists for objects.  That is, in TS, if you wanted to create a
train with several cars, you selected the first object and used its "follow me"
option in the PATH requester to have the other objects follow it.  As I
recall, you had to group the objects together and select the parent of the
group as the object to follow the path.  By specifying "follow me", its
children follow it along the path.  It's been a long time since I looke at
this in the TS manual, so if you do NOT own TS or have access to the manual,
I can type in that section for you.  It may help you to see how to do this
in Imagine.

As for a light source, look at the final tutorial in the Tutorial manual.  I
have not tried it yet, but I did read it.  As I recall, it uses a moving
light source (following a path). To have a light source track an object,
the Hinge option might work (haven't played with this yet), but you might
also be able to tell the object and the light source to follow the same
path over the same frames (or even stagger it by having the light stationary
for 3 or 4 frames and then telling it to follow the path over 3-4 more frames
than the object (otherwise it will slowly catch the object and finally
imbed itself into the object (of course, you might WANT to do this)).  Play
around with this to see if it works.  You could possibly avoid the time
stagger (I used it since, if you have 2 objects following the same path over
the same frames, they will occupy the same physical location in each frame,
so the light could be INSIDE your object in every frame) by placing the objects
axis OUTSIDE of all its points and faces.  In this way you might be able
to dictate how far the light source is away from the object.


    z
    |
    |                ####
    |______x
    *

The * is the light source,
and the #### is the object.
The axis represents ####'s axis.
My guess is that, if you tell both #### and * to follow a path P over 20 frames,
their axes will overlap.  If the object is physically removed from its axis,
then the light source will appear outside the object but will appear to track
it over the 20 frames.

Will it work?  Inquiring minds want to know!

Scott Sutherland
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: Castle problem
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 15:32:47 -0500
From: Udo K Schuermann <[e-mail]>

John Rosner writes:

[Castle Anim from ab20]
...
> The Stage editor finds all but about 4 objects
...
> I don't know what objects are missing; it would be nice if IMAGINE
> would mention the path that failed.  Missing objects I don't think would
> prevent it from generating a single frame would it?  Or does it care what
> the name of the subdirectory is?

Imagine does care for the path to objects.  The default path to objects
is from the startup directory.  The default path is used if the scene
does not describe an absolute path.

I agree that Imagine should be more verbose about the missing objects.
One way to find out the name and path of the objects is to type out
the staging(?) file (I can't remember the name right now, sorry).  Use
the command "type staging opt h" or, if you have it, use the strings
program: "strings staging"
    Another way is in the Action portion of the Stage editor, the
names of the objects are all listed, even though Imagine failed to
load them.  Use the Info command and click on the Actor of these
objects to find out the full path.

I don't know if Imagine will balk at rendering a scene with missing
objects.  I suspect that your problem is actually with paths to the
objects.  If so, you can make the corrections in the Stage/Action
editor (Info on Actor).

I hope this helps,
                 ___
 ._.  Udo Schuermann        / | \    "There is no Way to Peace.
 ( )  [e-mail]    \/|\/     Peace is the Way!"  -- Gandhi.
                 ~~~

##

Subject: Re: Light sources and objects
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 1991 22:28:06 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

[e-mail] writes:

>In the stage editor (the action menu) you can create a hinge for what
>appears to be any object. Can you use a hinge to cause a light source
>to track an object? (Does that make any sense at all?)

    Yes it makes sense, although we should clarify what we mean
by *tracking*. "Tracking" as far as a light sourse goes, is only useful
when using the conic or cylindrical light sources. Here, "tracking"
means that the light source will point at an object (or null axis) even
as that object moves. However the light source stays stationary.
    If the light source is *tweened* , translated, or sent along
a path, the light source (if it is also tracking) will continue to
point at the tracked object.
    If the light source (any) is tweened to another position it's
path will be straight from A > B. If this doesn't suit you, you can
assign a "hinge" object (or null axis) to the light. In this case the
light will still move from A > B (tracking or no-tracking) but in a
parabolic curve. You should give sometime to experimention with this
though as it's kind of a free-wheelin' kind of movement and hard
to be precise. Any tweened object, light or camera(especially) can
be hinged.
--
Stephen Menzies
Email: [e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: Light attached to object?
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 1991 22:44:46 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

John J. Rosner <[e-mail]> writes:

>Is there a way to attach a lightsource to a moving object so that the light
>moves with the object?  I thought of trying to define a path for the light,
>but because the object's motion is determined by a sub-hierarchy in the
>cycle editor, that would be very difficult.  The problem is the light is to be
>attached to the object and not shining on it.
    Not sure I know what you mean by "the object's motion is determined
by a sub-hierarchy in the cycle editor" but if it's impossible (I still don't
see why??) to create a path fr the light source all you have left is to
"tween" you light from position A to position B. If this seems a little
dull to you :-), you could also "hinge" the light source to any object
(or null axis) or even to your "cycled object", while it is being tweened.
To keep your light source "off" your object either track it to a null
axis or specify an alignment value for the light for the first frame
of your animation or "tween alignment" for the light over a number of
frames.

>Thanks in advance,
>John Rosner

-stephen
--
Stephen Menzies
Email: [e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: Proper Lighting
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 17:55:06 -0500
From: Stephen Menzies <[e-mail]>

[e-mail] (Brian Bishop) writes:


>  I seem to be having difficulty getting my lighting set up right. Frequently
>my objects have strong 'hot spots' but the rest of them are underlit. Are
>my objects too big? Would anyone care to elaborate on effective lighting
>setups? I recently read that Victor Osaka outlined two basic lighting setups
>for any images in his Turbo Silver book. Maybe I'll get ahold of it and
>check the results....
    Yes (as others have just replied), I agree that you likely
don't have enough lights in your scene and the one that you have
is too close. I might add to this, to check your ambient setting in
"Globals" as it defaults to 0,0,0 (black) and should be increased
somewhat (40-100 in most cases, and sometimes more when using
transparencies.  A lot of information has been passing through
Victor and while I haven't read his book, I bet it's quite informative.

>  Brian

>---

>   Brian Bishop, Software Engineer, Zyga Corporation

>   ([e-mail])

##

Subject: Re: Possible XENO virus on Imagine 1.0 disks!!
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 21:08:48 -0600
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

Keep a copy of the archive and try your favorite lharciver on it (I prefer lz
which works fine under 2.0 on my 2000).  There is no other copy protection
except for the re-writing of the image file.  Unarc the FP version and follow
my previously posted fix to allow you to do without the image file (I'll
send it to you if you don't have it) and it should work.  The decompression
file obviously is barfing under 2.0 (don't know why the 1.3 version won't
work though) so give lz a try.  Let me (us) know how this turns out.

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])


##

Subject: Hinging light sources
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 22:24:13 -0500
From: [e-mail]

The question I thought I was answering with my hing suggestion was: How do we
make objects which include light sources?

My guess is that "hinging" means that the path that the object takes uses some
other object as its origin instead the center of the universe.  If so, then
if a light source has a constant position and is hinged on some object, then
where-ever the object goes, the light source goes.

##

Subject: Convention for distribution of setups
Date: Thu Jan 24 19:40:46 1991
From: [e-mail]

One big difference between Silver and Imagine is that a complete scene
setup can be held self-contained in a single file by Silver, but Imagine
requires a directory structure.

Twice now we've had someone distribute scene layouts only to have a couple
of days of people complaining that they can't make them work. I know that I've
had to make extensive changes to them to get them to work in my environment.

I would like to propose a convention which should ameliorate such problems.
I've set up a pseudo-device with "assign" called "Imagine:", and all my
scene development is done in that directory. (That's where all my *.imp
directories are.) It happens to not be on the same hard drive as the Imagine
executable, nor at the same directory level. Nonetheless, if I specify
"Imagine:coaster4" in the dir-entry of Imagine file requestors, then my
fourth attempt (now abandoned) at simulating a roller coaster is found.

Now the nice thing about this is that "Imagine:" is what gets stored in the
staging file. I kept my 1000 last year when I upgraded to a 2000, and it sits
on the other side of the room with a 68020/68881 accelerator board inside
(though much less RAM and a color television as a screen),
running the floating point version of Imagine. I've got "parnet" set up between
them, and I use the 2000 (which has a real monitor) interactively with Imagine
to set up a scene, then transfer it to the 1000 to generate. On the 1000 I've
also got a directory where I keep things for Imagine, and "Imagine:" points
to it. On the 2000, "Imagine:" is "work:imagine", while on the 1000 it is
"slow:images" - but I don't have to worry about it because "assign" makes
all that transparent. I can use "copy all" to copy the directory structure
from the 2000 to the 1000 through parnet, and Imagine on the 1000 works
perfectly on it with no changes to anything.

If everyone does this, it should make setups equally portable between us as it
is between my two Amigas. The only thing that makes it a pain is that you can't
easily go back to an old scene and apply this. (You've got to go into the
action frame and delete and re-enter all the "actor" entries to use the new
assign path.) But if you use it from the beginning, it isn't hard at all -
just as long as you remember.

Nothing, by the way, keeps you from making this assign point to the directory
where the Imagine executable is stored. I don't do that because the drive where
I keep executables, a Quantum drive, is small but fast, whereas the drive where
I'm keeping the data, a Seagate drive, is slower but much larger.

What say you all? Can we adopt this as a convention?

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

By the way, how come I got four copies of the letter from Stephen Menzies?
Someone having a little trouble with their mailer?

##

Subject: Re: Convention for distribution of setups
Date: 25 Jan 91 09:41:39 MET (Fri)
From: [e-mail] (Helge Egelund Rasmussen)

I agree with the proposed convention of using an 'assign' called 'Imagine:'
as topdirectory for all animations.
Let's do it this way from now on.

However, this won't help with the 'Castle.lzh' anim found on ab20 :-(
I think that the following steps is necessary to 'move' this project
to another directory than the one I was using (':imagine/castle.imp'):

  Enter the object editor, load 'Castle.obj', and for each tree do the
  following:
    Select it,
    Press F7 (to enter the attribute requestor),
    Select Brush no. 1,
    Modify the path name for 'tree.iff'.
  After doing all this, then remember to select the full castle
  object group, and save it under the same name.

  Then you have to enter the action editor via the stage editor and
  modify the pathnames for all actors (using the 'info' command).

  Finally you should use 'modify' in the project editor, and change the
  pathnames found there.

As you can see, it IS a stupid idea to use pathnames in a project.
From now on I'll be using paths relative to an assigned variable.
This should make things a lot easier.

Helge
---
Helge E. Rasmussen  .  PHONE + 45 31 37 11 00  .  E-mail:  [e-mail]
Compel A/S          .  FAX   + 45 31 37 06 44  .
Copenhagen, Denmark

##

Subject: Objects attached to objects (Was: Light attached to object)
Date: 25 Jan 91 09:46:10 MET (Fri)
From: [e-mail] (Helge Egelund Rasmussen)

I tried to mail this to [e-mail] yesterday, but it bounced from
a machine called neat.cs.toronto.edu (???).
So this is the second try:

Now we're discussing how to attach a light source to a moving object, I'd
like to ask if anyone have found a way to attach another object to a
subobject of a cycle object.

I don't think that it is possible, but it would be nice to be able to do it.

Here is some possible usages:
  The possibility to morph a part of a cycle object while the cycle is doing
  its work (example: morphing batmans cloak while he is working, as it is now
  the cloak is stiff as ice!)

  The possibility to place a cycle as a part of another cycle object
  (this could be used for something like a little man walking on the hand of
  a big man)

  The possibility to place a lightsource in a subobject of the cycle
  (ie. a man walking with a candle).

It might be possible to create a path which is following the given
object, but it would imply a lot of manual work (as the path of a walking man's
hand is rather complex).

As I said above, I don't think that it is possible to do this at the moment,
but maybe we should create a wish list and send it to Impulse. As a group, we
may have a chance of influence them (I think that they are working on version
1.1 at the moment) ...

Another question: As far as I can see, an object will follow a path with a
constant speed. Is it possible to accelerate/decellerate an object as it is
following the path?

Helge
---
Helge E. Rasmussen  .  PHONE + 45 31 37 11 00  .  E-mail:  [e-mail]
Compel A/S          .  FAX   + 45 31 37 06 44  .
Copenhagen, Denmark

##

Subject: Light attached to object
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 08:52:10 EST
From: John J. Rosner <[e-mail]>

Stephen Menzies writes:
>Not sure I know what you mean by "the object's motion is determined
>by a sub-hierarchy in the cycle editor" but if it's impossible (I still don't
>see why??) to create a path fr the light source all you have left is to
>"tween" you light from position A to position B.

A robot carrying a flashlight in it's hand.  As the upper arm moves carrying
the lower arm which may move carrying the hand which may move, it is difficult
to predetermine the exact path of the light on the end of the flashlight.
All I'm trying to do right now is the upper arm/lower arm with the light on the
end of the lower arm.

I'm planning on looking into hinge though with all the discussion about it.

Later,
John Rosner

##

Subject: Distribution Convention
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 08:56:30 EST
From: John J. Rosner <[e-mail]>

([e-mail]) Writes:

>I can use "copy all" to copy the directory structure
>from the 2000 to the 1000 through parnet, and Imagine on the 1000 works
>perfectly on it with no changes to anything.

I'm all for establishing a convention using "assign imagine: mypath" and it
may be a cure-all.  However, you are copying the subdirectory structure as
well and this may be another critical factor.  I just found out from Helge
that the sub-directory in Castle is P1 and I'll find out this weekend if
that makes a difference.

Later,
John Rosner


##

Subject: castle anim
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 12:25:47 EST
From: [e-mail] (Kevin Goroway)

Well, now that I've rendered it completely, I can comment on it.
It looks real nice, and I'll probably use it for some hints...

Now, the question.  Is there any reason to trace this scene, instead of
scanline rendering?  Is there anything transparent, or reflective?
I did a scanline render of the whole thing in MUCH less than two days,
actually less than twelve hours, and this is on a 2620 board...

-Kevin

##

Subject: Re:  The world size?!?
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 13:23:34 EST
From: [e-mail]

Doug Bischoff writes:

     According to Impulse Tech support, the problem is that I went beyond
    1024 on those sides.  I was astonished that there was a limit to the
    size of the world that you could design past it all you wanted, and
    the Perspective would show everything fine, but the moment you tried
    to render it, most of your world would be gone!
    How do you all work around this?

Well, this used to be a problme in TS, but Impulse had an option to set the
world size.  I did NOT see this in the Imagine manual, but checka the
Imagine configuration file for a FLAG like WLDSIZE = 1024.  IF it is there
you should be able to change the world size limits.  IF not, then Impulse
took a GIANT step BACKWARDS in removing the variable world size.

Scott Sutherland
[e-mail]

##

Subject: SPLIT and SKIN equvalents in Imagine and HELP with SLICE!!
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 13:35:49 EST
From: [e-mail]

    Okay, I was trying to do something with Imagine last night and I
remembered that what I was trying to do was the equivalent of SPLIT in
Turbo Silver.  I had a lathed object which I needed to chop off at oblique
angles two sections.  (Imagine a sphere and you want to lop off the top third).
Well, in TS, I would have used the SPLIT option.  How do I do this in Imagine?
My gut feeling is that this is what SLICE is used for, but it was completely
left out of the REFERENCE manual, and the only information in the TUTORIAL
manual is the auto-facing tutorial (which I was UNABLE to get to work (I could
never get rid of those error messages (face to close to a face ...))), but
this hardly scratches the surface if SLICE is the BOOLEAN object operation
tool that is supposed to be in Imagine.  Will this work and does anyone have
details on how to use SLICE in general?

    Next, I was thinking of an alternative way to create the object I
am after and I recalled an article in Antic's Amiga PLUS on Louis Markoya's
organic object creation.  He states in that article that he made extensive
use of the SKIN command in TS to create slimy-manders and the like, so I
thought that I could use it as well.  However, I can find NO mention in either
of the Imagine manuals of a SKIN equivalent.  If it is "in there" but not
documented, Impulse deserves a slap on the wrist and some letters.  If it is
NOT "in there", Impulse deserves to be flogged to within an inch of their lives
for removing what was obviously a very powerful tool in TS.

My last question was asked above.  I need info on the SLICE command.  Anyone
played around with it to "bore holes through objects", etc. and have some
"do's and don'ts" of SLICE (rules of thumb)?

Later,

Scott Sutherland
[e-mail]

##

Subject: What does .lzh mean?
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 13:46:45 EST
From: [e-mail]

I hate to put this on the Imagine group, but everyone is talking about anims
and scenes on ab20 as something.lzh.  I realize that it is some sort of
compression program like LHarc, compress, and arc, but EXACTLY which one is
it and where do I get a copy?

Sorry to waste everyone's time, but I REALLY want to see the batman and
castle stuff.

Finally, with respect to the "convention" for distribution, could someone out
there give me a DETAILED description of HOW to set this up and then how I
would go about using it for my animations and stills?  I found the
original suggestion article somewhat confusing (I have not used ASSIGN or
virtual devices much at all, so I could use some help).

Thanks,

Scott Sutherland
[e-mail]

Scott Sutherland

##

Subject: "Glass" objects...?
Date:    Fri, 25 Jan 91 14:00 EST
From: "Doug Bischoff" <[e-mail]>

     Hokay... I've tried to get a simple glass ball with a blue box inside
it against a red background for about a week now, and I can never get the
ball to go transparent even SLIGHTLY.
     Impulse people said to make the object completely black and set the filter
s all the way on.  This did not work.
     Can somebody give me the settings they used in the Attributes box to make
a simple glass object?  Thanks!

/---------------------------------------------------------------------\
| -Doug  Bischoff- |    *** ***    ====--\         | "It's so neat to |
| -DEB110 @ PSUVM- |   *  ***  *     ==|<>\___     | see an AMIGA say |
| -The Black Ring- |    *** ***        |______\    |   "Welcome to    |
| --- "Wheels" --- |      ***           O   O      |   Macintosh""    |
| Corwyn Blakwolfe |     T.R.I.     -------------  | ---- AMIGA ----  |
\---- [e-mail]  D.BISCHOFF on GEnie  THIRDMAN on PAN -----/

##

Subject: VISTA objects in Imagine
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 13:59:09 EST
From: [e-mail]

    I tried to load a VISTA object (in TS format) into Imagine and
render it.  The object loaded with NO problems, but, when I rendered it,
ALL color information had been lost.  The object was islands in an ocean,
but the entire object was white.  Is there a special command to use when
loading TS objects into Imagine?

Scott
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: The world size?!?
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 10:57:37 PST
From: "\"davis@soomee\""@rust.enet.dec.com

Cc: DECWRL::"[e-mail]"

I think in the Action editor global actor there is a provision
to change the world size.  I recall reading about this somewhere
but I am not sure.  Try getting info from the globals requestors
or rather the size gadget of the global actor in the Action editor.

mark

##

Subject: Re:  SPLIT and SKIN equvalents in Imagine and HELP with SLICE!!
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 14:42:03 EST
From: [e-mail] (John Rosner - Oakwood 470 Ext 7584 )

Scott Sutherland writes:

>I had a lathed object which I needed to chop off at oblique
>angles two sections.  (Imagine a sphere and you want to lop off the top third).
>Well, in TS, I would have used the SPLIT option.

Sorry I can't help you with SLICE and SKIN, I can't find any documentation
on them.  For the basic problem what about using the Detail editor to select
points and then delete?  If the lasso pick mode is not precise enough you
could rotate the object to the appropriate angle and use the pick mode that
draws the squares.  Then flip the object over for the other side.

Hope this helps,
John Rosner

##

Subject: slice and skin
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 14:51:47 EST
From: [e-mail] (Kevin Goroway)

I've used both of these commands extensively.
First SLICE:

Create the object that you want to bore a whole through, or slice, or whatever.
  A sphere will be fine (primative sphere)
Create the object to do the cutting with, a cylinder to drill a hole, or a
  plane to do some cutting, for example.
Place the objects over one another, aligned the may you want the SLICE to
  take affect (did you understand that?)
Multi Select the two objects (order doesn't seem important) and select SLICE.
This will leave many new objects, which you can cycle through and delete the
  ones that you do not need, or want.  For example, slicing a sphere with a
  plane will leave the bottom half of the sphere, the top half of the sphere,
  a plane with a disc cut out of it, and a disc. (understand where these all
  come from...)

SLICE can be used to do some very powerful things (BOOLEAN wise...)

SKIN:

I've used this to create airplane wings, and the like, I start by creating
the "ribs" of the wing. copy them, size them, etc. until I have the ribs of
the wing done (much like a balsa wood model of a plane).  I then multi select
all of the ribs, and select SKIN, which does exactly what you would expect.

get all of that?
-Kevin
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
| Worcester Polytechnic Institute   | "It happens sometimes, people just     |
| [e-mail]                  |   explode, natural causes."-Repo Man   |
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

##

Subject: Slice
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 15:26:15 -0500
From: Udo K Schuermann <[e-mail]>

> I had a lathed object which I needed to chop off at oblique angles two
> sections.  (Imagine a sphere and you want to lop off the top third).
> Well, in TS, I would have used the SPLIT option.  How do I do this in
> Imagine?  My gut feeling is that this is what SLICE is used for, but
> it was completely left out of the REFERENCE manual, and the only
> information in the TUTORIAL manual is the auto-facing tutorial (which
> I was UNABLE to get to work (I could never get rid of those error
> messages (face to close to a face ...)))

Slice-n-Dice ;-) will do what you need it to do.  I've used it
successfully to do AutoFacing, but I'm myself still puzzled about how
to get it to "punch holes" into objects.  Have you considered just
removing extraneous points/edges/faces from the object or a copy of
it?
    The trick with AutoFacing is to make sure that the object
you'd like to have faces on is EXTRUDED and (this is important) the
plane intersects this object.  You'll notice a minute visual hint in
the Tutorial about this: the Right view shows the plane intersecting
the extruded "A" but no mention is made in the manual of this.  Duh!

An important trick (given to us all by sworley(?) [sorry, not sure of
your real name, but don't let that bother you: I'm grateful for the
trick myself]) is to use only a large, 1x1 plane for AutoFacing.  This
has worked very well for me and I've never again seen the "...edge too
close..." problem.  I do not know, however, if this has any impact on
the time spent AutoFacing.  An object with a thousand points and edges
will take a day or two even on a very fast machine.  Thanks to Amiga
for multitasking!

> use of the SKIN command
> If it is "in
> there" but not documented, Impulse deserves a slap on the wrist and
> some letters.

It's in there.  Look in the Object menu of the Detail editor.  It
should be there.

> My last question was asked above.  I need info on the SLICE command.
> Anyone played around with it to "bore holes through objects", etc. and
> have some "do's and don'ts" of SLICE (rules of thumb)?

I'm working on it :-) My first guess is that both objects must be
extruded (i.e. 3D and not just planar).

> Scott Sutherland

                 ___
 ._.  Udo Schuermann        / | \    "There is no Way to Peace.
 ( )  [e-mail]    \/|\/     Peace is the Way!"  -- Gandhi.
                 ~~~

##

Subject: Textures!
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 22:55:16 EST
From: [e-mail] (Kevin Goroway)

Okay, I've spent enough trial and error time on getting Textures to work.
I need a definate answer here.  How do these things works?!  I tried doing
the simple example that is on the errata sheet:
50x50x50 cube, five sections on a side, mapping a brick texture onto this
thing.  I get various results...
1)just a cube covered with random dots...I know, sorta, why this happens.
2)bricks around the perimeter of the cube, with garbage on the interior
  or each side, sorta...hard to explain.

Okay...
with the cube, axis in the exact center, where do I place the axis of the
Texture? in the cube? out of the cube? where? maybe I should move the axis of
the cube? How big shouldI scale the Texture, does this matter at all?!

thanks...as you can see, I'm getting frustrated, and I'm confused...
-Kevin
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
| Worcester Polytechnic Institute   | "It happens sometimes, people just     |
| [e-mail]                  |   explode, natural causes."-Repo Man   |
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

##

Subject: Textures
Date: Sat Jan 26 11:57:55 1991
From: [e-mail]

>From: [e-mail] (Kevin Goroway)
>
>Okay, I've spent enough trial and error time on getting Textures to work.
>I need a definate answer here.  How do these things works?!  I tried doing
>the simple example that is on the errata sheet:
>50x50x50 cube, five sections on a side, mapping a brick texture onto this
>thing.  I get various results...

>1)just a cube covered with random dots...I know, sorta, why this happens.
>2)bricks around the perimeter of the cube, with garbage on the interior
>  or each side, sorta...hard to explain.
>

The texture axis is the reference from which the texture algorithm calculates
its discontinuities. If you place the texture axis at 100,100,100 and are
using "checks" with cube-size of 40, then on each axis the color changes will
occur at -20, 20, 60, 100, 140, 180 etc.

If you set up a cube (or a "ground") so that it lays exactly at one of these
change planes, you'll get what they refer to as "digital bounce" which means
that the color is indeterminate and it effectively makes a random choice.
You need to offset the texture axis so that the surfaces of your object do not
lay on such change planes.

The "brick" texture isn't any more complex conceptually than "checks", it just
has more of these color planes to watch out for. For example: If your "brick"
texture is centered at 0,0,0 and has brick size of 40,40,40 and mortar size of
10,10,10, then on the X axis there's a color change plane at 0, 40, 50, 90,
100, 140, 150 etc.

>With the cube, axis in the exact center, where do I place the axis of the
>Texture? in the cube? out of the cube?
Since a texture extends infinitely far in all directions, this doesn't matter.
What IS important, as stated above, is to place the axis so that none of the
surfaces of the object lay exactly on any color-change plane.

> Maybe I should move the axis of he cube?
The axis of the texture is kept relative to the axis of the cube, so moving the
cube won't cause manifestation of the texture to change.

> How big shouldI scale the Texture, does this matter at all?!
You should scale the texture to make the result look the way you want. For
instance, you need to make sure you don't make it too large, or else your cube
might end up being one big brick - which is rather pointless. Equally, if you
make the texture too small, your cube might become a hundred million tiny
bricks, which is equally pointless.

If this doesn't make it clear, let me know and I'll try to explain it further.

##

Subject: Texture Axis, Objects, and Administrivia
Date: Sat Jan 26 20:53:52 1991
From: [e-mail]

Hi, everyone. The list has grown to 71.

The texture axis DOES matter. The scale of the axis doesn't seem to
do anything, but position and ORIENTATION do. The axis position specifies
a reference for the texture- It is the center of a dot, or brick, or whatever.
If you move the axis, the texture is moved the same amount. For example, if
you have a rectangular solid with a brick texture that renders with two
bricks on it, you can move the axis to get 1 brick and 2 half-bricks on
either side. Orientation is also important. If you tilt the axis, the
angle of the bricks (or whatever) changes too.

I've finished translation of a few zillion objects (well, maybe 50)
Almost all of these are higher quality (and size) than the objects
I posted to ab20.larc.nasa.gov.

Files Sent to me from Helge : (Thanks!) Converted from SA4D format

Glasses.obj                19530 ----rwed 18-Jan-91 19:56:36
H2O.obj                    30002 ----rwed Future    05:56:30
Mirror_Ball.ob             30224 ----rwed Future    06:03:44
Robot.obj                  60832 ----rwed Future    06:04:50
BatWing.obj                25686 ----rwed Future    06:01:08
Callipers.obj              10068 ----rwed Future    06:12:14
RoboHand.obj               33398 ----rwed Future    06:20:06
lamp1.obj                  12176 ----rwed Future    08:07:12
lamp2.obj                   4412 ----rwed Future    08:09:08
Baloon.obj                 66644 ----rwed Future    05:57:18

Some of these are from Helge, some I scrounged.

tire.iob                   56330 ----rwed 08-Jan-91 11:44:03
wheel.iob                  32678 ----rwed 08-Jan-91 11:44:39
Apple.obj                  18716 ----rwed Future    06:09:06
Frog.obj                   27270 ----rwed Future    06:14:40
F15e.obj                   61936 ----rwed Future    06:02:46
Runway.obj                  1520 ----rwed Future    06:05:28
Phone.obj                 112660 ----rwed Future    06:21:44
shuttle.iob                18900 ----rwed 12-Jan-91 07:18:58
x29.iob                    33312 ----rwed 08-Jan-91 13:19:33
plant.iob                  44622 ----rwed 08-Jan-91 13:18:22
Voyager.obj                67112 ----rwed Future    06:06:26

These I wrote a program to convert NFF files to Imagine format. Some are
HUGE! cobra- a Bell Cobra helecopter, and StPaul's are great!

crypt.iob                 177038 ----rwed 12-Jan-91 09:16:38
stpauls.iob              2438840 ----rwed 12-Jan-91 09:55:19
spirale.iob                84169 ----rwed 10-Jan-91 08:28:24
hangglider.iob              7760 ----rwed 12-Jan-91 09:04:43
teapot.iob                885069 ----rwed 10-Jan-91 08:40:46
dragon.iob                 38756 ----rwed 12-Jan-91 09:23:41
matchbox.iob               48644 ----rwed 12-Jan-91 09:06:23
gothic.iob                 72902 ----rwed 12-Jan-91 09:38:19
expresso.iob              112214 ----rwed 12-Jan-91 09:03:25
watch.iob                  76364 ----rwed 12-Jan-91 09:58:00
temple.iob                116558 ----rwed 12-Jan-91 10:03:34
cobra.iob                 618618 ----rwed 12-Jan-91 06:31:02
jaws.iob                  118322 ----rwed 12-Jan-91 10:07:08

I'll post these to ab20 within a week- I need to find an oportunity
to walk the disks to a computer that can send to the net. (I'm using
my 3000 now over a 2400 baud line)

Glenn Lewis' program TTDDD was indispensible in translating files- It
makes writing Imagine format easy. Not very useful if you aren't a
programmer, but TERRIFIC if you want to write C code to make or
translate objects. Glenn- the NFF files came from irisa.irisa.fr,
and I have ALL of their nff files and a few more. They'll soon be
posted to ab20.

Administrivia: A couple of you guys (S. Menzies and Scott Sutherland (sp?))
have wacko mailers. The reason everyone got 4 or 5 copies of some of their
letters was because my mailer RECIEVED 4 or 5 copies. There's a problem
somewhere in the loop before my machine gets it. Hopefully, the
problem will go away- if not, we'll have to come up with a workaround
like you mailing me personally, and I'll redirect a copy to the list.

I'm glad you like my auto-facing trick, Scott. Using the 1x1 plane
(really just a triangle) makes it work like a charm. Slow, but it works.

My current project- fire and smoke. Right now, it looks like one of
those electric fireplaces with lighbulbs under plastic, and these big
light grey trashbags fly out occasionally. So far, a dismal failure.

Oh, I made a picture frame, with very nice wood texture.
Nice for making IFF "paintings". Anyone have a GIF or IFF of the Mona Lisa?
If its in 24 bit, I'll jump up and down in glee.

For the person who was asking: To make glass, SET SHININESS TO ZERO.
Not a low number, ZERO. Its the classic Imagine bug, along with the
ESC problem when viewing. I also posted about 10 nice attribute
paramaters (like metal, glass, plastic, brick, grey paint, etc.)
about a week ago.

The volume to the list is picking up! I'm glad. Feel free to mail
the list at [e-mail] whenever! Thats why its there.

I don't know about having lights follow objects.. I tried some ideas,
and no luck. Looks like a feature of Imagine 2.0  (or luminous objects!
who needs point sources!)

Steve Menzies- how did the roughness solution I suggested work out?
(It was you who was having trouble, right?)

Helge- Batman was cool! The castle is BEAUTIFULLY lit, and is great. The
batwing unfortunately looks like a blue frisbee [  :-) ] but the anim
is way-cool! Good job.

That reminds me- I'm porting some fractal software that creates fractal
and algoritmic objects, like landscapes, trees (!!), gears, chains and some
other things. On the back burner, though I have made some trial objects.
The tree I made was Stupendous! Unfortunately, it was 5 meg large. :-)

Enough rambles, I'm going to work on my thesis. (Computer vision- Take
2 pictures in stereo, use the displacements to get range. Boom! You
just digitized a real object in 3D. Yes, it can even be ported to Imagine.
No, it doesn't work at all. Yet. Thats the tough part.)

Enough rambling. Have fun, guys.

Keep on rendering!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                           [e-mail]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

##

Subject: DCTV, Colorburst
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 91 21:54:27 -0600
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

Hi folks.  Someone mentioned using DCTV to display pics.  It looks real nice,
but I'm looking forward to the end of next week or the beginning of the next
when I'll be getting M.A.S.T.'s ColorBurst.  It boasts images as good as
Firecracker with many more features, and (ta da) SOFTWARE!  The paint program
for FC24 hasn't been released yet (or course the hardware for ColorBurst
hasn't been released yet either).  DCTV and ColorBurst are around $495 and
FC24 runs about $1595.   Hmmmm, I like Impulse, but this sounds like a bad
deal.

RUMOR OF THE MONTH:   A relatively reliable source reports that an update
   to Imagine is in the works, probably within the month.  Supposedly the
   update will be (get this) FREE.  It was also mentioned that the updates
   were so great that it will be called 2.0.

(of course you should insert the appropriate disclaimer here :-)

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])


##

Subject: DCTV/Imagine
Date: Sun, 27 Jan 91 12:05:27 PST
From: think!ames!claris!portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]

When I was at Ami-Expo in Anaheim a few months ago, DCTV and Impulse were
both there..at the time Impulse had not quite shipped imagine so i got
a little bit of a preview..they shipped two days later..anyhow DCTV can
convert a 24 bit image to NTSC color format using about as much file space
as a hi-res 16 color image..I spoke with Mike Halvorsen about the
possibility of having Imgaine directly support DCTV format..he seemed
to like the idea..what I'd like is for impulse to support DCTV still
picture format *and* its animation format..the reason is I'd like to
be able to create Imagine animations with better than HAM quality output
but I *don't* want to pay for a)24 bit plane frame buffer b)single
frame recording controller c)single frame capable 3/4 or othre video
equipment..that is..creating 24bit plane animations is *expensive*..
with DCTV you get better than HAM quality images/animations..tho not
quite as nice as 24 bit plane..but on the other hand you are outputting
*directly* to NTSC format..that is you a ready to go straight to video
from that device *and* the file sizes are small enough such that
you can create nice animations that will playback in real-time from
the amiga..you're not tied to all that single frame recording/synch
equipment..at $600..DCTV looks like it'll be a good value.

-Mike
[e-mail]

##

Subject: DCTV, Suggestions to Impulse
Date: Sun, 27 Jan 91 18:28:36 EST
From: [e-mail]

Hi again everybody.


Everyone is talking about DCTV, which allows higher color resolution of
pictures. I'm very intereseted in hi-quality renderings, and I've been
convinced DCTV is a great (and cheap) way of getting nice pix, especially
when you want to dump to video. I decided to buy one in December.

However!

Colorburst.

Its Mast Technologies' 24 bit frame buffer- it gives you MANY more colors
than DCTV, at hires resolutions. It also does 12-bit color animations.
Rick Tillery is The Man To Ask, and as soon as he gets his and tells me
that it does what I think, I'm ordering the next day. My DCTV plans were
instantly dropped.

Sorry for talking about this on the list, but have you ever seen one of your
Imagine renderings in 24 bit color?? A friend of mine has a Toaster, and
WOW! My pictures were Slam-fan-stastical! Colorburst is the same resolution as
the Toaster. ( I think. Rick?)

Anyway, Rick, I'd love an update on the CB, unless people want this off
the list.

Back to Imagine. I've compiled a list of bugs and improvements that I'm
planning to send to Impulse, and I'd like people to add to it and comment
on my ideas. Actually it might get there immediately, since Rick Rodriguez
should be reading this.. :-)

Bugs

 - pressing the button on the mouse when viewing a picture or anim will
   prevent return to the project editor without shuffling through screens
   manually.

 - Loading attributes should load associated textures and brush maps.

 - Brush mapping onto flat planes very buggy.

 - IFF converter does NOT have "fill face" option, like the manual says.

 - Document Merge. It's nice!

 - Slice is so powerful, and so useless with complex objects.

 - Cycle anims have a 1 frame pause in them between the last frame and the
   start of the first frame.

 - Shiny glass is an oxymoron.

 - "grown" objects have funny attributes- the joints are OK, but the
    bodies of the cylinders seem to be grey. (Havn't played with this
    enough, might be my fault)

 - Roughness has no temporal or spacial continuity! have a
   "random altitude map amplitude"

 - modifying a path or an object that is being tracked by a camera
   does not immediately update the other objects (or camera) that
   depend upon it.

Improvements

 - Warnings when world-size is exceeded. The way we usually find out is
   when something doesn't show up in the picture.

 - Set antialiasing level user-selectable. For quick test-renders, no anti-
   aliasing should speed things up considerably. Currently everything is
   rendered with a good amount (certainly more than 3 rays per pixel) and looks
   nice. Imagine a 3x speed improvement at the cost of getting "Jaggies".
   Its worth it for tests.

 - Flag to set constant object size in cycle editor

 - "null" links in cycle (with no attached object) should be different
    color

 - Converting IFFs should have the option of coloring polygons that are formed
   the same color as it was in the picture. Currently, polygons are monocolor
   and there is no provision for making outlines along all color boundries
   instead of just black/not-black boundries.

 - Fill outline should be automatic, instead of convoluted slice
   procedure.

 - Infinite tilings on grounds (or objects!)

 - Phong shading selectable for parts of objects

 - Spine cycle "phase" to offset start path position esp. with closed paths

 - Path velocity! Currently, everything on a path goes at a constant
   speed from start to end. Linking paths with different lengths and times that
   they control the object will give different velocities at cost of VERY jerky
   accelerations, and is not elegant at all. Also, a better "bank" indication
   would be nice, since trying to get the feel for the bank by interpolating
   in my head by the Z-axis arrow stinks.

 - Grow and extrude should extend along SPLINE!!! paths, not the
   incredibly lame edge paths.

 - Slice should have improved handling of close edges or points. Complex
   objects are nearly impossible to slice.

 - The perspective view can be interupted by commands like zoom. The other
   three views should be similarly interuptable. This is very important-
   it sometimes takes a LONG time to update. This is probably the most
   important addition to change- it is easy to modify, and currently wastes
   a LOT of time.

 - The file requestors should have better default directories-
   load object should initially default to the object directory in
   the current project drawer.

 - Grids seem to take a long time to draw- speed can be improved

 - Interactive rotation of camera views, a la Lightwave. VERY useful. Can do
   the same for lights.

 - Box zoom (drag box over area you want to zoom to).

 - Default flat shade mode in Imagine.config- LINES OFF! (Trivial, but useful)

 - Movies should use DITHERED pictures if gadget selected.

 - Longer object names- currently limited to just 8 letters.

 - Skin should try to do it's best with different sized outlines, maybe with
   a "this point goes here" user input as a start.

 - Sliders for texture attributes- entering #s for RGB values sucks.

 - In cycle, have "rotate" around x,y, or z axis instead of "twist"
   with just y. (z?)

 - Marble/stone texture

 - Option to split large triangles over some length limit
   (for explode or to get higher face resolution on part of an object)

 - Gadget to view pic while it's rendering

 - Feature flag in stage editor to make sure objects ALWAYS stay just above
   an object like a floor or landscape. Remember the levitating man in
   the last tutorial in the manual? Ideally, your path for a guy walking would
   be a straight line horizontally, but he would keep his feet on the mountain
   at all times. Also, moving the mountain (or floor) would update everything.
   Imagine having some candies in (on) a bowl on a table on a rug on the floor,
   and moving the floor, and everything updates. This should obviously be an
   option, so planes can fly and stuff, but most things are supported on
   something.

 - Mini-picture of horizon in globals selector showing horizon colors, star
   backgrounds, blending, etc. to help choose colors. Use sliders instead of
   punching in #s.


Future Improvements/harder and more dreamy extensions

 - Optional spline patch surfaces instead of polygonal patches.

 - Anim-mapping! (or sequence-of-pics) mapping. This would be WayCool!!!!!!

 - Triview redraw speed increase (if possible)

 - fog/haze/smoke, both a texture for objects and a global.

 - clouds?

 - Waves?

 - Looking at individual face attributes is difficult to do.. perhaps
   a way of looking at faces without the default attributes

 - Fast re-rendering when only one object has changed- not exact for
   raytrace, but for scan OK. Can use matte from flat anim to tell.

 - motion blurring

 - Luminous objects

 - Radiosity lighting- very very nice! Not too hard, but slow.

 - Effect: Group explode- children spin away from parent. Reversable, to make
   complex objects  form as its parts assemble themselves.

 - An interactive method of brush map placement- rerendering is slow,
   and good placement is very difficult. Perhaps show the solid
   view with a colored grid for the brush projected or wrapped on it.

 - Gravity! Objects have velocity, will accelerate down unless
   supported. Very difficult, but neat! This gets more into a modelling
   environment, and is just a dream.




That's Steve's list of Imagine updates. Feel free to comment! I'll add
anything anyone else says then mail a copy off to Mike Halvorson himself.

Hey, Rick! Where did you get the Imagine 2.0 info?? It is reliable? When?
When? When? :-)

Keep on rendering, guys. 24 hours a day. Thats what CPU time is for!


-Steve

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                           [e-mail]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

##

Subject: Re: Suggestions to Impulse
Date: Sun, 27 Jan 91 20:29:30 -0500
From: [e-mail]

Steve, Everyone:

Please try to remember that the programmers at Impulse are people with
feelings. Use of terms such as "sucks" and "incredibly bad" only alienate them.
Let's take a couple of examples:

1: "Steve: I think you really fucked up this mailing list. I'm really sick of
getting multiple copies of some postings. Get off your butt and fix it."

2: "Steve: Thanks for the work you put into setting up this mailing list. All
in all, it works pretty well, but have you noticed that some of the articles
appear more than once? I would appreciate it if you could try to correct this."

Which approach makes you want to work on the problem?

For example: "Shiny glass is an oxymoron." We all giggle at your cleverness.
But all this will do is make the folks at Impulse think you're a jerk.

Please remember that what you really want is for the bugs to get fixed. You'll
get that a lot better if the people who read your list don't feel threatened.


##

Subject: Vista in Imagine
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 08:42:06 EST
From: John J. Rosner <[e-mail]>

Scott ([e-mail]) writes:

>I tried to load a VISTA object (in TS format) into Imagine and
>render it.  The object loaded with NO problems, but, when I rendered it,
>ALL color information had been lost.

The same thing happened to me, I believe that's the way it works.  Evidently
the format is not completely supported.  But I did make a crystal mountain
by extruding it and then setting the parameters to crsytal.

Later,
John Rosner


##

Subject: Castle
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 08:47:31 EST
From: John J. Rosner <[e-mail]>

Hi Helge,
I finally got the Castle anim running.  Good job!  I started over with the
lzh file and the only change I made (after copying the objects to the
appropriate directories) was to "assign imagine: mypath" it worked fine.
Evidently the name of the subdirectory is irrelevant; yours was P1, mine
was CastleSub.

Thanks,
John Rosner


##

Subject: steve's suggestions
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 07:07:17 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Ed Chadez)

Steve (and the rest of the Group...),

Thanks for posting those suggestions.  I had mentioned to some others some
of my own ideas (including a more comprehensive manual which would be,
among other things, indexed).   There are quite a few "little" things that
didn't make the long voyage from TurboSilver to Imagine.  But as they say,
little things mean a lot.  Including:

        Fog/Haze and distance when the picture completely gets too foggy to
        make out fine points.

        StereoVison, unless the folks at Impulse decided that the market
        wasn't there for true 3D pictures.

        Bright faces (I know, nag, nag, nag...but I REALLY used them in
        places!).

        And one more trivial thing:  set zone.  I know most of you use
        '030/'881 accelerator boards and the like.  But I own a 2Meg 500,
        and really miss the set zone (and I DON'T want to go back to Turbo
        for it).  One really good use was to trace part of a scene in
        full ray-trace (the parts with reflections) and go back and trace
        other parts in scanline that didn't need reflections.  Trust me, it
        worked!

The other things that Steve mentioned were things we should (somehow) ask
Impulse for.  Their catch phrase in their annual letters is "We ARE
listening" and our eMail group would be a strong voice.

Or maybe they're already working on some of them??


--

------------------------------ CARL Systems, Inc. ----------------------------
  //[e-mail] * Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries * [phone]
\X/ information databases (via telnet): pac.carl.org  inquiries: [e-mail]
--------------------------  >> Systems That Inform <<  -----------------------

##

Subject: objects
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 10:02:54 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Ed Chadez)

AllRight!!!  I'm more than anxious to get my hands on the Voyager.  A while
back I built an anim which showed an alien vessle approaching the voyager
spacecraft which had been caught in a planet's gravitation field.  The
alien craft interpets the voyager as a spy ship and destroys it.  Very
simple.  I was going to use the Director to run the whole thing, but I
never got far with it.  For one reason, the voyager I built wasn't very
conviencing.

Now that you've converted it to Imagine/TurboSilver format, I'll start the
project over again with the new powerful Imagine!!!

And one last note.  Can you elaborate on what Imagine 2.0 is, besides
hearsay?  My heart beat quickened, I broke into a light sweat, my eyes
dried and then I was crying with joy.  Could it be true?

Or was that the chilli I had for dinner last night.

--Ed Chadez

ps-
In the original letter I complained about my system crashing often.  Well,
I posted some inquiries to a local Denver bbs and got back some interesting
answers.  For the non A500 user, you should know that the MC68000 chip
isn't a real motorola chip.  I replaced my plastic generic 68000 with a
REAL ceramic chip manf'd by Motorola and so far I haven't had the problems
I used to.

But that DOESN'T excuse Impulse for their reply to my problem, which was
for me to buy a new computer.  Don't get me wrong, I love Imagine as much
(if not more) than the rest of the group, but when I buy my 3000 it will be
when I can afford it, not because a SOFTWARE manufacture told me to buy it
to run THEIR software.  After all, who's the consumer here??

Thanks again for the great list.  Render on.


--
------------------------------ CARL Systems, Inc. ----------------------------
  //[e-mail] * Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries * [phone]
\X/ information databases (via telnet): pac.carl.org  inquiries: [e-mail]
--------------------------  >> Systems That Inform <<  -----------------------

##

Subject: Imagine User Group
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 13:28:15 EST
From: John J. Rosner <[e-mail]>

Ed Chadez writes:

>The other things that Steve mentioned were things we should (somehow) ask
>Impulse for.  Their catch phrase in their annual letters is "We ARE
>listening" and our eMail group would be a strong voice.

If someone is willing to collect & collate messages perhaps everyone could send
suggestions as subject "enhancements".  It would be most helpful if this person
was in touch with someone at Impluse, in order to be in a position to know what
was in the queue for development.  Just a thought.

Later,
John Rosner


##

Subject: Re:  DCTV, Suggestions to Impulse
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 13:30:21 EST
From: [e-mail]

Okay, I have a couple of comments and additions.  You state:

- Shiny glass is an oxymoron.

Maybe true, but the flexibility of Imagine (and TS) allows you to create
objects or attributes that are NOT physically possible (e.g. a RED glass plane
should pass red light and filter all others, but, even though you can set its
filter values to R=255, G,B=0, you can also set it to REFLECT BLUE light or
give it a GREEN color.  Try justifying that with physics!  This makes getting
JUST the right look difficult, but I'd rather have the flexibility to do this
than having Sculpt-Animate's Glossy or Glass FIXED texture.


 - Set antialiasing level user-selectable. For quick test-renders, no anti-
   aliasing should speed things up considerably. Currently everything is
   rendered with a good amount (certainly more than 3 rays per pixel) and looks
   nice. Imagine a 3x speed improvement at the cost of getting "Jaggies".
   Its worth it for tests.

I agree and disagree.  You CAN set the anti-aliasing level, but as far as
I can tell ONLY by editing the Imagine.config (EDGE LEVEL) value.  It IS
IN THERE, but it should be selectable from the STAGE editor's GLOBAL actor.


 - Phong shading selectable for parts of objects

As far as I know, you CAN do this.  Just select the part of the object you
want (by selecting faces) and set their attributes.  I did this a different
way when I created a SPUN object.  I wanted the object PHONG shaded over
270 degrees and FACETED over 90 degrees.  I added an axis and created the
outline, saved it as outline, and SPUN it over 270 degrees with 10 segments.
Then I added it again and SPUN it -90 degrees and 2 segments.  I selected the
first object and set it to PHONG and set its color and texture attributes.
I selected the second object and DE-selected PHONG and set it to the SAME
color and texture. Then I JOINED and MERGED the two objects.
Worked beautifully. However, there is NO reason I shouldn't have been able
to join and merge the objects first, then select the appropriate faces and
set their shading to phong or faceted.

- Slice should have improved handling of close edges or points. Complex
   objects are nearly impossible to slice.

Guess I do NOT understand this one.  My only gripes with SLICE is that it
was left out of the REFERENCE manual (only the autofacing example in the
TUTORIAL manual mentions it) and that, when I sliced an object, it did
NOT create faces for the cleaved sections.  In other words, if I were
to SLICE a sphere with a plane, I ended up with two HOLLOW shells, not
two solid hemi-spheres.  I do NOT know if this was my fault or Imagine's.

 - Skin should try to do it's best with different sized outlines, maybe with
   a "this point goes here" user input as a start.

ALSO, the REFERENCE manual should be updated to contain SKIN.



ONE you did NOT include:  In TS, if you used SWEEP/SPIN and specified an angle
less than 360 degrees, you had the option to choose CLOSED or OPEN.  If you
picked closed, TS would fill in the remainder of the object to give you a
solid.  Example, spin a PAWN object 180 degrees.  Without CLOSED, the result
is a hollow 1-point thick shell (unless you used a finite thickness wall, like
in a goblet) with no back faces.  Using CLOSED, you would get a solid
semi-pawn (half a pawn, as if you had CUT a solid wood pawn in half from top
to bottom).  This is a VERY useful feature.


Hope this helps.


Scott Sutherland
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Imagine User Group
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 10:48:51 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Ed Chadez)

Greetings all!

Is anyone aware of an OFFICIAL Imagine User's Group, or is our Group the
closest thing to one??  Seventy One members is quite a charter.

Has anyone heard from Impulse as far as proper avenues of
communication with them that THEY would approve of?  John Rosner suggested
that we collect our ideas and propose them through a liason to the company.
That's nice.  But we have to make sure that we communicate with Impulse in a
manner that they would approve of, so that all our good work doesn't get a
cold reception.  The catch phrase "We are listening" may be taken as "we
are listening, but we really can't answer you right now."

And what's all this talk of an upgrade to Imagine??
If it is indeed true, then we have to let Impulse know NOW what kinds of
things are most asked for.  Steve's wish list was organized very well, and
reflected MY views on many things (which I added to in a previous letter to
the group).  Maybe this is the approach that should be taken.

Any comments?

--
------------------------------ CARL Systems, Inc. ----------------------------
  //[e-mail] * Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries * [phone]
\X/ information databases (via telnet): pac.carl.org  inquiries: [e-mail]
--------------------------  >> Systems That Inform <<  -----------------------

##

Subject: Possible solution to Bad Imagine 1.0 copy.
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 13:58:23 EST
From: [e-mail]

        I MAY have found my problem with the buggy Imagine 1.0 disk.  I tried
to use the LHarc found on the disk to manually extract the Imagine files in
im.lzh.  Since I had never used LHarc before, I typed LHarc ? to see what
the options were (this was under 2.02 on my A3000 with 6 Megs of RAM (2 CHIP,
4 FAST)).  The result was that my machine CRASHED, but with a slightly
different error than before (8000 0004 as compared to 8000 0003) BUT VIRUSX
did report a XENO virus just as the system crashed.  Is there a version or
versions of LHarc that do NOT work with the A3000 under 2.02??  If so, what
versions do I want to have/avoid?

As soon as I can get a different version of LHarc, I'll try it and see if it
fixes my problem.

Scott Sutherland
[e-mail]

Let's hope that my mail server does NOT send multiple copies of this to
the group.

##

Subject: "Official" Impulse/Imagine channel
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 12:40:54 PST
From: "\"davis@soomee\""@rust.enet.dec.com

Impulse has a "Club" on People/Link.  This is a way to directly
communicate with them on their products.  I believe, Harv Laser,
the sysop for the Amiga club on People/Link posted this message
in comp.sys.amiga several weeks ago when he posted the response
from Mike Halvorsen on technical support criticism.  I'll see
if I can find the post and re-post it here.  It gave the number(s)
to call to subscribe to People/Link.

I have "spoken" with several people from Impulse through People/Link.
There are some good tips and suggestions posted there but I do not
know if I can re-post them here.  I will check.  I do recall that
Mike Halvorsen wrote a long "how to" on brush mapping and simulating
metals.  Stay tuned.

mark


##

Subject: RE: castle anim
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 16:53:05 EST
From: [e-mail] (Kevin Goroway)

Well, I too have five megs... But I've never had any problems with scanline
mode...even with 0.9

Oh well, Maybe you should try again...
-Kevin
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
| Worcester Polytechnic Institute   | "It happens sometimes, people just     |
| [e-mail]                  |   explode, natural causes."-Repo Man   |
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

##

Subject: Impulse suggestions
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 17:03:06 -0600
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

I have an addition to make to any suggestions going to Impuls.  How about
a fully usable scanline mode, complete with shadows?  I have contacted
NewTek about an independent version of LightWave 3D (from the Toaster that
is) because its technique (Gerard shading?) give MUCH faster results in
rendering than ray-tracing by losing reflection and refraction.  I would
not even be interested in this if the scanline mode in Imagine worked like
this.  BTW, the scanline mode has a big problem in most of the cases I've
test rendered through it.  It seems that if a facet (triangle) is behind AND
in front of another one, there is a random chance of it being displayed.  I.E.
I rendered 7 chess pieces on a chess board constructed of a rectangular solid
with 12 facets.  Some of the pieces were not rendered and others were only
half there.  OK, you say, do a full trace.  _16_ HOURS later (28Mhz 68030
and 68882 w/4 megs 32 bit fast and 1 meg chip) (that's full overscan hi-res
interlace 24 bits) I was disappointed in the results (BTW, anyone know how
to use the conic light sources for spotlights?).  A similar rendering on
LightWave 3D took >>> 15 minutes <<<!  Maybe I'm asking too much, but I want
this mode as well.  Didn't someone mention that with set zone in TS they
could render those areas with no reflection or refraction in scanline and
do the rest as a full trace?  This would be a GREAT deal if the shadows were
there as well.

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])


P.S.  Whenever the number of members in this group stablizes for a few days,
      I can re-post my hack to Imagine to do away with that annoying picture
      upon running and creating a new project.  It also fixes problems with
      a corrupted Imagine.pic file (as was my case when I tried to install it).


##

Subject: Vista & Imagine
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 21:16:27 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Brian Bishop)

  I have only imported a couple of Vista objects into Imagine, but I have not
had any problems with the colors coming across. Perhaps this is a feature
they added in 'VistaPro'???


  Brian

##

Subject: RE: Vista & Imagine
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 91 01:42:18 EST
From: [e-mail] (Tirso Alonso)

For the Vista object to have the correct colors, the vista manual
indicates that the landscape should be rendered past the
Cliff and Color phase before saving it as a Silver object.
Once you have the desired landscape in Vista, select the
polygon size you want to export to Imagine, then render,
dithering or shading make no difference for this. After
the Cliff and Color phases, abort the rendering in vista.
Now save the TurboSilver object which should have the
Vista colors.
.
Tirso Alonso
[e-mail]
.

##

Subject: Re: Light attached to object
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 1991 08:04:51 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

John J. Rosner <[e-mail]> writes:

>Stephen Menzies writes:
>>Not sure I know what you mean by "the object's motion is determined
>>by a sub-hierarchy in the cycle editor" but if it's impossible (I still don't
>>see why??) to create a path fr the light source all you have left is to
>>"tween" you light from position A to position B.

>A robot carrying a flashlight in it's hand.  As the upper arm moves carrying
>the lower arm which may move carrying the hand which may move, it is difficult
>to predetermine the exact path of the light on the end of the flashlight.
>All I'm trying to do right now is the upper arm/lower arm with the light on the
>end of the lower arm.

>I'm planning on looking into hinge though with all the discussion about it.
    Yes I see your proble now. Hinging may work if the swing of your
robots arm has smooth curves although it sounds like a lot of work by
*hand*. What you have going for you is that you don't see the source
of the light therefore you can be loose providing it points in the
right direction. Perhaps the lightsource doesn't even have to be anywhere
near the hand but *out-there* somewhere with a co-ordinated swing to it.
    Would be quite interested in how you end up solving it. Let us
know.

cya -steve

>Later,
>John Rosner

--
Stephen Menzies
Email: [e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: SPLIT and SKIN equvalents in Imagine and HELP with SLICE!!
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 1991 08:52:22 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

[e-mail] writes:


>My last question was asked above.  I need info on the SLICE command.  Anyone
>played around with it to "bore holes through objects", etc. and have some
>"do's and don'ts" of SLICE (rules of thumb)?

>Later,

>Scott Sutherland
>[e-mail]

    These are the "booleans" and they are simple to use. Two or
more objects (ie: a sphere (not the mathamatical one) and a cone OR
even two planes) are positioned so that they intersect one another
in some way. Then multi-select the intersecting objects and pick
"slice" from the menu. Wait, you'll get a cancel requester, wait
longer and it'll disappear and the editor will redraw. Your objects
will be all "sliced and diced" into several pieces grouped to a
new null-axis, parent. Imagine keeps ALL the pieces and its up to
you to carefully delete the pieces you don't need. The remaining
pieces can be left grouped, or they can be UNgrouped and then joined.
After preforming this operation you should "merge" the objects to
get rid of duplicate points.
    Problems that may occur: you may get a message that says "a
point or an edge lies to close....") Two things may be happening
here: 1. there are points or edges...of one object that are too
close to the points or edges of the other object. The solution
may be to move one of the objects or "slice" with an object of fewer
points 2: the problem may be solely in one of the objects particularily
if the the object is a "converted" IFF file. In this case you will
have to inspect the object and see if there are points and edges almost
on top of each other.
    Also, if an object is booleaned, it will loose all of the
attributes you may have given it. The solution is to save the attributes
before and then reload them or do the booleans first.

cya -steve
--
Stephen Menzies
Email: [e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: "Glass" objects...?
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 1991 09:05:23 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

"Doug Bischoff" <[e-mail]> writes:

>     Hokay... I've tried to get a simple glass ball with a blue box inside
>it against a red background for about a week now, and I can never get the
>ball to go transparent even SLIGHTLY.
>     Impulse people said to make the object completely black and set the filter
>s all the way on.  This did not work.
>     Can somebody give me the settings they used in the Attributes box to make
>a simple glass object?  Thanks!

    What they told you appears to be correct. Did they tell you that
the "shiny" setting MUST be set to zero?
    I did notice a glass that was circulated last week, and it works:

    C=31,28,86
    R=45,45,45
    F=235 All
    Spec=255
    Dither=48 (or zero for 24bit file)
    H=230
    Rough=0
    Shiny=0 (!)
These are not firm though, C could be any color, F could be 255 (although
a bit TOO transparent for glass, etc.
    If you want you can give a refraction index upto 2.5 (limit I
think) to suggest, water,glass, crystal etc.

cya -steve


>/---------------------------------------------------------------------\
>| -Doug  Bischoff- |    *** ***    ====--\         | "It's so neat to |
>| -DEB110 @ PSUVM- |   *  ***  *     ==|<>\___     | see an AMIGA say |
>| -The Black Ring- |    *** ***        |______\    |   "Welcome to    |
>| --- "Wheels" --- |      ***           O   O      |   Macintosh""    |
>| Corwyn Blakwolfe |     T.R.I.     -------------  | ---- AMIGA ----  |
>\---- [e-mail]  D.BISCHOFF on GEnie  THIRDMAN on PAN -----/
--
Stephen Menzies
Email: [e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: Textures!
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 1991 09:26:44 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

[e-mail] (Kevin Goroway) writes:
B
>Okay, I've spent enough trial and error time on getting Textures to work.
>I need a definate answer here.  How do these things works?!  I tried doing
>the simple example that is on the errata sheet:
>50x50x50 cube, five sections on a side, mapping a brick texture onto this
>thing.  I get various results...
>1)just a cube covered with random dots...I know, sorta, why this happens.
>2)bricks around the perimeter of the cube, with garbage on the interior
>  or each side, sorta...hard to explain.

    The problem may not be with the texture but with the cube itself.
I'm having a lot of problems with redering flat surfaced objects and
extruded objects. It appears to me that Imagine will not accept "phong"
on a flat sided object and I get wild results sometimes. There are
other uglies and oddities that happen with for instance, a 24 x 2 Cone
primative. I too would like to know of other users specific problems
with the renderer.

>Okay...
>with the cube, axis in the exact center, where do I place the axis of the
>Texture? in the cube? out of the cube? where? maybe I should move the axis of
>the cube? How big shouldI scale the Texture, does this matter at all?!

    The axis of the cube can stay where it is. The texture axis can
be anywhere as the texture is *solid* through out the world. The main
consideration is that with bricks, checks etc the outside surface of
your object is not lying in the mortar. To fix this, ofset your axis
about half the thickness of a brick (or check) to get the outside
of the object out of the mortar.

>thanks...as you can see, I'm getting frustrated, and I'm confused...
>-Kevin
no problem, I hope it helps alittle

>+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
>| Worcester Polytechnic Institute   | "It happens sometimes, people just     |
>| [e-mail]                  |   explode, natural causes."-Repo Man   |
>+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

--
Stephen Menzies
Email: [e-mail]

##

Subject: Snapshot
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 1991 09:57:08 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

    I would like to correct a mistake in a previous
reply. The snapshot feature in the Action editor saves "cycled"
objects in their tweened position NOT "morphed" objects. Sorry
for any confussion I mat have caused.

steve

--
Stephen Menzies
Email: [e-mail]

##

Subject: Corrupt Imagine1.0:  A Status Report.
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 91 12:58:24 EST
From: [e-mail]

    To use a cliche... "so close, and yet so far...".  I want to thank all
of you for your helpful suggestions for possible solutions to my problem.  My
most recent attempt is as follows.  I downloaded lharc1.30 from ab20 last
night and unzoo'd it on my Amiga.  I tested it on another .lzh file I had
to see if it would work.  It did.  I deleted the lharc program on my Imagine
1.0 disk and replaced it with the lharc1.30 (renamed as lharc, to avoid any
potential name problems).  Note: I first tested it by copying the im.lzh
file to RAM: and using lharc l im.  I got the list of files included in the
im.lzh file.  Then I used lharc x im to see if I would run into any bugs.
NONE appeared.  So, now that I had a WORKING copy of lharc on my Imagine1.0
disk, I clicked on the Imagine1.0 installation icon.  I got the standard
messages all the way through.  I got the the final message ("Do you want
floating point (F), integer (I), or both (B)?") and typed F followed by a
return.  It WORKED!!! (This was under 2.0 of the OS, the one that was
giving me problems).  So I now have a 'working' copy of Imagine1.0 under
OS 2.02.

    I put 'working' in quotes for the following reasons.  I decided to
put this newly installed version through its paces.  I clicked on the Imagine
1.0 icon and it loaded perfectly.  I chose OPEN to open a project I had
previously created under the 1.3 installed version of Imagine1.0.  It loaded
fine, and I checked the STAGE editor to see that everything was in order.
It was.  Then, just on a hunch, I rendered the scene (scan line mode, 150x150).
It worked fine UNTIL it finished rendering.  At the point where the menu bar
usually shows "cleaning up" (right after it finishes the rendering) the
machine CRASHED, with the same STUPID CPU trap error message 8000 0003!


AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!


You know, primal scream therapy does not seem to work as well when its typed
and not vocalized.  Ah well.  I DID think that perhaps the old project was,
for some unknown reason, incompatible with the 2.02 installed version, so I
created a NEW project, loaded my OLD objects in, added a light source, and
rendered it again.  SAME RESULT.   The ONLY thing I have NOT tried is to
make NEW objects under this 2.02 installed version and try that.  My GUT feeling
is that my Imagine 1.0 is just corrupt (something in the compression screwed
it up JUST enough to make it incompatible with 2.02).  BTW, I did try this
2.02 installed version after having booted up under 1.3.2 and it WORKED
beautifully (EVEN up to the point where it says "cleaning up").  NO crashes
at all.  So, I CAN use Imagine1.0, but I would REALLY like to be absolutely
sure it is okay.  Unless someone out there has another suggestion, I am
going to send the disk back to Impulse.


Thanks again for all your help.

Scott Sutherland
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Slice
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 91 12:19:00 -0600
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

I keep hearing (reading :-) that you should reduce the number of faces or
points when you get the "a point or an edge lies too close..." error in
the slice option.  However, in my limited experience, I've noticed that this
is not necessary.  All that needs to be done is to move one object by a
very small amount (use a .001 offset in the position requester in any of
the three direction) and try the slice again.  The worked for my several
attempts without having to cut the object apart or limit points.  Give this
a try and see if it solves your problems.

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])


##

Subject: EDGE Level and Resolve Depth?
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 91 13:19:48 EST
From: [e-mail]

    Here we go again.  I KNOW that both of these are initially set in
the Imagine.config file, BUT, is there a way to interactively change these
from within the program.  I would have assumed that they would be in the
GLOBALs info window in the ACTION sub-editor of the STAGE editor, but I cannot
find them.  BTW, someone also mentioned that it was possible to alter the world
size from within the Imagine program (as opposed to altering the Imagine.config
file with a file editor and then running Imagine).  I cannot find this option,
although I'd expect IT to be in the GLOBALs info window as well.  Where is
it, exactly?

Thanks again.

Scott Sutherland
[e-mail]

P.S. Does anyone know if Gary Dominguez has access to the usenet.  I've just
ftp'd some of this stuff from ab20 and it's great.  I had always wondered
where that ANT with the mirrored ball (in the ART gallery of an old Antic's
Amiga Plus) came from.  I tried to recreate it to match this image (then I
was going to animate it), BUT I could NEVER get the lighting, textures, or
objects to look anything like this.  I'd like to interact with him to get
some helpful hints.



##

Subject: "shiny" surfaces
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 91 13:16:19 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Ed Chadez)

Can anyone say exactly what happens when the shiny attribute is used?  I
have a few ideas of what it may produce as an effect, but, like "glossy"
in TS, I haven't seen its usefulness.

I know that "glass" objects shouldn't be set to shiny.  I also rendered an
object with scanline that had shiny as an attribute with hardness and its
hotspot attribute (I forgot the name of that one) set.  There weren't any
hotspots on the object.

So if anyone has experimented with the shiny attribute, would you mind
sharing with us what your results were??

--Ed Chadez.

--
------------------------------ CARL Systems, Inc. ----------------------------
  //[e-mail] * Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries * [phone]
\X/ information databases (via telnet): pac.carl.org  inquiries: [e-mail]
--------------------------  >> Systems That Inform <<  -----------------------

##

Subject: Vista
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 91 18:37:56 EST
From: [e-mail]

Tell me about Vista, those of you who have it. I know it generates
3D views of terrain based on actual places. What kind of quality is
it, and how many locations are in it's database? I'd love to see
a "real" background for an anim or something in Imagine.


I'll post my objcts soon, I promise! I'm  merging them all by hand,
so everyone doesn't have to.

-Steve

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                           [e-mail]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

##

Subject: Re: EDGE Level and Resolve Depth?
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 91 18:57:38 -0600
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

Gary doesn't have access to the net, but since I was the one who shanghaied
those pictures from him to upload, and can contact him rather quickly, I can
relay any comments etc. to him.  He is always happy to hear praise for his
work and the more I can send him, the better chance I have of getting more
stuff from him.  He's using Imagine now and even entered a great animation
in the Amiga World contest.

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])


##

Subject: Re: Vista
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 91 17:07:48 PST
From: think!think.com!ames!claris!portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]

Steve..I've been very pleased with Vista Pro..it has landscape based on
real topographies as well as random fractal landscapes..it some with a
martian moon surface, mt st helens before/after the big one, and others..
user interface is very intuitive..I had no problem at all with colors
coming into imagine..quality depends on how much time you have to let
the object generate..ie the more subdivisions/the longer it takes to
generate you landscape..you have control over a number of parameters..
plus you have the ability to create "rivers" and lakes in you landscapes..
all in all I'd give it "two thumbs up"..

-Mike
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Vista
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 91 20:23:11 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Brian Bishop)

  Vista is an interesting product. It uses elevation map files which hold
different area maps. Auxiliary disks are available for various areas, but
I do not think they have published their format, which is too bad. I'd love
to be able to convert any USGS data into it. It has 4 rendering qualities,
based on a polygonal number (1,2,4,8 - I don't know if 'render' is the right
word to use for this process). I bought the souped-up version which includes
landscapes for Lake Arrowhead, Crater Lake, San Louis Obispo, the Olympus
Mons of Mars (my favorite), the Mandelbrot and Julia Sets, Big Sur, Mount
Saint Helens before and after the expolosion, El Capitan, Mount Baldy,
Big Sur, Half-Dome, Morro Bay, and a few others. The Mandelbrot and Julia
sets aren't recursive - you can't magnify them for more detail.

   It basically operates by setting up a camera location and a target location,
which sets boxes for dR (distance to target), dX, dY, dZ, and Yaw Pitch Roll
angles (though they call them slightly different names). Building animation
scripts is a little tedious (open file, set point, add point to file - no
keyboard shortcuts), however the file format is easily written by script.
Each picture is X,Y,Z,Yaw,Pitch,Roll (I may have the params mixed up, but
the program puts a descriptive header at the top of the file). I found the
pictures it generates a tad disappointing, but more colors (DCTV!) make the
pix excellent. It has lots of options for Gourad shading, Nighttime/Daytime,
adding lakes and rivers, Haze (I don't like the haze effect so far), and
more. Since it does not ray-trace, the picture generation times seem quite a
bit faster than Imagine renderings of the same objects.

  When exporting to Turbo Silver/ Imagine, the overall scene is broken into
around 16 sections. You can export as many sections as you want (I assume -
I haven't exported more than 4 at a time). For what it is, I think it's
kind of expensive (Vista is around $80, and VistaPro is around $120), but
the only other package like it is Scene Generator, but I don't think it
uses real landscapes, correct me if I'm wrong here, somebody.


  Brian Bishop ([e-mail])

##

Subject: Re: Vista
Date:   Wed, 30 Jan 1991 09:43:11 -0500
From: gatech!cbmtor![e-mail] (Caleb J. Howard (Product Support))

Hi there.  I have the VistaPRO software.  It will generate realistic
3D terrain views based on data loaded from disk or generated using fractal
algorithms.  There are lots of parameters that can be controlled and the
software includes primative animation capabilities.  There are two sets of
terrain maps, each being held on a series of six disks.  These are a strip
of California, and a strip of Mars.  There is a nice implementation of a
Gourand (sp?) shading algorithm.  I like the software. but I wish I could
edit the terrain objects, and I wish thast the animation capability was
slightly more useful.  There is also the option output the terrain as
an imagine object, but I haven't tried this yet.  If you have any
specific questions, let me know, and I'll try to shed some loght.
(that's light).
-caleb
--------------------------------------------------
'How many times must the cannon balls fly?' -Dylan


##

Subject: Re:  Vista and Scene Generator
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 13:56:57 EST
From: [e-mail]

    It looks like I'll have to upgrade to VISTA Pro.  The added features
described by Brian sound interesting.  And Brian is correct about Scene
Generator.  If you get a copy of the PD Scenery program (one one of the
FF disks (I think before 200)), you can get a feel for what SG does.  I do
NOT know how it works, but it generates landscapes based on a random number
(user input).  IMHO, SG makes much nicer looking images than Vista, but 1)
SG does not use real USGS (or any other) data, and 2) you cannot save the
SG files as 3D objects.  BUT, for background images, I'd recommend SG over
VISTA any day.  Also, the TS objects from VISTA are HUGE.  As Brian mentioned,
there are 4 "resolutions" of objects: 1, 2, 4, and 8, with 8 being the crudest.
A copy of the CraterLake object at LVL 2 is 900K.  At LVL 4 it is 300K (these
are rough numbers based on my memory, which ain't all that reliable folks).
If you want EXACT numbers, let me know.

If there is enough interest, I can post a more detailed review about Vista and
Scene Generator (Brian might be able to review Vista Pro as well).

Scott Sutherland
[e-mail]

##

Subject: re: Vista
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 15:09:40 PST
From: [e-mail] (R. L. Zarling)

From grebyn![e-mail] Tue Jan 29 20:49:18 1991:
>  Vista is an interesting product. It uses elevation map files which hold
>different area maps. Auxiliary disks are available for various areas, but
>I do not think they have published their format, which is too bad. I'd love
>to be able to convert any USGS data into it. It has 4 rendering qualities,

They will send you a description of their file format upon request; I know,
since I asked and received...  It has tables of colors and things, but the
most important part is just a two-dimensional array of altitude measurements.
Pretty straight-forward, just what you'd expect.

One of the options in VistaPro is to read a standard USGS format file.
Since these are usually distributed (I understand) on 9 track tape, this
is not as useful as it might seem on the surface!

[e-mail]

##

Subject: Brush wrapping by M. Halvorsen
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 15:05:05 PST
From: "\"davis@soomee\""@rust.enet.dec.com


TO all who have Imagine:
For those of you have Turbo Silver some of what is found here may be a bit
redundant.  For those of you new to this stuff, may I suggest that you down
load this text and refer to it when you get stuck.
First off there are three basic kinds of wraps and they all have to do with
the axis of the brush itself.  These types are:
Wrap X and Wrap Z, Wrap Z Flat X and Flat X Flat Z.  You may notice that It
seems that I have left Flat Z Wrap X out, I hardly ever use this type because
I can do the same thing with Wrap Z aand Flat X.
The brush that is loaded  when you tell it to assign a brush to an object is
brought in at the center of the axis.  IT is mapped in from the center and
moves outward in the positive direction of the Z and X axis.  The Z is the
vertical of the picture and the X is the Horizontal of the picture.
The simplest wrap that you can do is the Flat X and Z.  It truly is the
easiest of them all.
Assume for a moment that you want to put a picture on a flat object, this
object  could have depth to it or it could be a single pixel in depth, it
makes no real difference.
You  assign the brush ( IFF picture) that you want in attributes reqeuster,
then go to edit axis.  The frist this that you want to do is move the
axis of the brush to the lower left corner of the object.  This assumes that
the object is a simple flat object that is oriented as the axis is, by this I
mean that it looks like a wall in the front view as opposed to lying down
like a plate on a table.  The Z axis of your brush should run right up the
left side of the falt object and the X axis should be just below (two or
three pixels.) the flat object.  Now you must scale the Z and the X axis to
be slightly larger than the object itself.  If you had a square that was
100 by 100 units then the brush axis might be 105 by 105.  In this manner
you can be sure that when you palce the brush axis at the lower left hand
corner of the flat object that it will cover it like a blanket.  All of this
can be done from the front view.  When you scale an axis in Imagine you must
be in the LOCAL mode not WORLD mode.  Repeat,,,,, LOCAL, get to this mode
after you choose, scale and then choose local.  Only the aixs will grow when
you do the scale and the bounding box will just hang out and look stupid.
>From the right view you must move the axis negative in Y, just a couple of
pixels.  THis moves the brush off the face of the object so that it dosen't
get stuck on the objects face plane and look just horrible.
In Turbo Silver you never had to worry about the size of the Y axis.  In
Imagine you DO.  The Y axis defines the depth of the brush or map.  If you
want to make a decal on something that has more than one side or depth, say
the side of a truck.  You want to put your companies logo there, but you
only want it on one side. No problem position the brush axis where you
want it to appear and then decrease the size of the Y axis to be smaller than
the depth of your object.  It will appear on one side of the object and not
the other.
This is also where it seems that many folks are getting all horsed up when
they try to make what I call, World and Can wraps using the wrap Z option.
To make a world wrap (make a sphere look like earth from outer sapce) you
first need a good map image.  (even if you have a bad image the same applies)
With the brush assigned to your object move the axis to a couple of pixels
below the sphere, scale the Z axis in LOCAL mode to be just a bit larger
than the sphere itself.  From the fron view it should look like a line from
the bottom of the sphere to the top right in the middle of the sphere.  OK
now scale the X axis to be from it present location just slightly larger than
half of the sphere.  It should be a couple of pixels larger than the radius of
the sphere.  NOW Pay attention my friends.  If the Y axis is larger than the
sphere what do you think will happen ?  Of course, you just learned that the
Y axis has DEPTH and if you make it larger than the sphere it is going to do
something that you won't be able to see.  It is going to wrap the image at the
end of the Y axis and if the axis is larger than the object, it is going to
put the picture wrap outside of the object, in no wrap land.  To make this
go away all you have to do is make the Y axis smaller than the object.  I
just make the axis 1 or 2 untis in size and forget about it.  Make sure that
you choose Wrap Z Flat X or Wrap Z Wrap X.  YOu can decide which you like
better for planets and other heavenly bodies.
The last kind of wrap is the CAN wrap as I call it.  You know where you want to
wrap the coke logo around a tube or can like object.  Do the same thing for
the CAN wrap as you did for the sphere or global wrap.  Position the brush
axis in the same place and make sure that the size of all the axis are the
same as in the sphere wrap.  The  only real difference here is to make sure
that you only choose Wrap Z Flat X, all other wraps will look real spooky.
See now that wasnt so bad was it.  I hope this will help you in your
journeys through your own imagination.  The best answer to all questions
that  pertain to Imagine  is ...... EXPERIMENT, EXPERIMENT and do it again.
Like you I have learned the same way that you are now learning.  I tried
and tried and then did it again.  I dont think much about it anymore cause
I have found what I like.  You need to do the same.
Have Fun and ENJOY
Mike

##

Subject: More VistaPRO
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 21:25:33 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Brian Bishop)

>From grebyn![e-mail] Tue Jan 29 20:49:18 1991:
>  Vista is an interesting product. It uses elevation map files which hold
>different area maps. Auxiliary disks are available for various areas, but
>I do not think they have published their format, which is too bad. I'd love
>to be able to convert any USGS data into it. It has 4 rendering qualities,

>>From uupsi!altair.csustan.edu!rayz Wed Jan 30 18:42:33 1991
>>They will send you a description of their file format upon request; I know,
>>since I asked and received...  It has tables of colors and things, but the
>>most important part is just a two-dimensional array of altitude measurements.
>>Pretty straight-forward, just what you'd expect.

>>One of the options in VistaPro is to read a standard USGS format file.
>>Since these are usually distributed (I understand) on 9 track tape, this
>>is not as useful as it might seem on the surface!

  Yes, you are right. Upon reading the (F) manual, it states that DEM
actually IS a USGS format, and that the USGS has "converted about 40% of the
United States" into this format. So the next questions are:

   1. Where can we ftp USGS data from ... and

   2. Have they done the Grand Canyon yet???


 (actually, I may be able to find these out myself; the national headquarters
is a half-hour drive away from here in Reston Virginia. I has a summer job
there when I was in High School!)

One more thing - could someone mail me the octet for the location of the
Imagine renderings? Our node just got a uunet connection.....


  We now exit the Vista mailing list and return back to the Imagine mailing
list


  Brian...




##

Subject: Re: Sound and iconification
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 19:44:04 PST
From: think!think.com!ames!claris!portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]

One thing I really liked about Sculpt 4D was that it was very simple
to create an icon for your animation and also very easy to attach
a digitized sound file to said animation by altering the info
file..does anyone know of a way of adding sound to an imagine format
animation or of making the final animation run with the simple click
of an icon?..what is the best tool for accomplishing these same
tricks with op code 5 animations?..the sculpt movie program will run
sculpt proprietary format animations and dPaint animations..but in
my experience it has not been able to play back op 5 animations
created with any program other than dPaint..suggestions?

-Mike
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Imagine & Vista Pro
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 07:50:07 EST
From: John J. Rosner <[e-mail]>

Concerning the possibility of modeling real world places in Imagine,
that is any place, via Vista Pro:
There is a file called world data base at FTP site abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov
(128.155.23.64) the file name is wdb-data.lzh and is 778,240 bytes.
Does anyone know if this is a USGS file?  There are conflicting reports
as to the integrity of the file, I have not downloaded it because I don't
know enough about it yet.
Later,
John Rosner


##

Subject: Re: Texture Axis, Objects, and Administrivia
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 13:45:35 EST
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

In-reply-to: Your message of Sat, 26 Jan 91 20:47:21 -0500.
             <[e-mail]>

> I've finished translation of a few zillion objects (well, maybe 50)
> Almost all of these are higher quality (and size) than the objects
> I posted to ab20.larc.nasa.gov.

> Files Sent to me from Helge : (Thanks!) Converted from SA4D format

> Glasses.obj                19530 ----rwed 18-Jan-91 19:56:36
> Robot.obj                  60832 ----rwed Future    06:04:50
> BatWing.obj                25686 ----rwed Future    06:01:08
> Callipers.obj              10068 ----rwed Future    06:12:14
> RoboHand.obj               33398 ----rwed Future    06:20:06
> lamp1.obj                  12176 ----rwed Future    08:07:12
> lamp2.obj                   4412 ----rwed Future    08:09:08
> Baloon.obj                 66644 ----rwed Future    05:57:18

> Some of these are from Helge, some I scrounged.

> tire.iob                   56330 ----rwed 08-Jan-91 11:44:03
> wheel.iob                  32678 ----rwed 08-Jan-91 11:44:39
> Apple.obj                  18716 ----rwed Future    06:09:06
> Frog.obj                   27270 ----rwed Future    06:14:40
> F15e.obj                   61936 ----rwed Future    06:02:46
> Runway.obj                  1520 ----rwed Future    06:05:28
> Phone.obj                 112660 ----rwed Future    06:21:44
> shuttle.iob                18900 ----rwed 12-Jan-91 07:18:58
> Voyager.obj                67112 ----rwed Future    06:06:26

> These I wrote a program to convert NFF files to Imagine format. Some are
> HUGE! cobra- a Bell Cobra helecopter, and StPaul's are great!
>
> stpauls.iob              2438840 ----rwed 12-Jan-91 09:55:19
> expresso.iob              112214 ----rwed 12-Jan-91 09:03:25
> cobra.iob                 618618 ----rwed 12-Jan-91 06:31:02

Do you have any of these objects in Sculpt or Videoscape format?
I would love to use them in Lightwave but I can't deal with Imagine
format.

> My current project- fire and smoke. Right now, it looks like one of
> those electric fireplaces with lighbulbs under plastic, and these big
> light grey trashbags fly out occasionally. So far, a dismal failure.

Two truly stupendous features of Lightwave are the fractal noise texture
(which can be animated and applied to surface color, transparency,
bumps, etc) and the ability to make object edges transparent while
leaving the object volume opaque. This yields the ability to make great
clouds, fire, smoke, and glow effects. If someone is sending a wish list
to Impulse, I highly reccommend including both these features.

Anyway, hope ya can help me out with some of those objects.
Thanks.
%~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
%       `       '                Mark Thompson                          %
%  --==* RADIANT *==--           [e-mail]                 %
%       ' Image `                ...!{decvax,uunet}!masscomp!mark       %
%      Productions               [phone]  [phone]           %
%                                                                       %
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: metal attributes by M. Halvorsen
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 11:34:19 PST
From: "\"davis@soomee\""@rust.enet.dec.com


Here is something from People/Link that might be of interest.

-mark-

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


It seems that after all this time the message on how to make Chrome, Gold
Silver, Brass and other attributes that have a real world quality, has gone
either unoticed or we have done a poor job of telling you how.
So here is a quick quide.  In no way should you use these numbers to be
a holy grail, they are just numbers that I use and find that they meet my
needs.
First things First.  These attributes of Gold or Silver (chrome) and other
shiny metalics have almost more to do with the environment that they are in
than the color or refelction of the object.  Try to imagine yourself in the
real world and understand that gold and chrome are most noticeable when they
are shown in an environment of Bright sun with lots of colors and other
items to help the attributes in a sense take hold.
For GOLD.
I make the object color Red 205, Green 205 and Blue 80.
Refelctive settings are Red 180, Green 160 and Blue 125
I use hardness at 255 and specular 255 on all guns Red Green and Blue.
If you add a intersting dithered Global brush to the Globals in the
Action editor the effect is even better.
Now the enviroment of tthat Gold likes seems to be the use of pastel or
lighter colors for Horizon and Zenith colors.
It is best to try several objects in a scene with different attribute numbers
you will then get a much better feel for what YOU like.  The one problem
with Attributes is that you must decide for yourself what is GOLD or SILVER.
One mans Gold is another mans (or womans) Brass.
Chrome is almost the same.
Object color:  Red 120, Green 120, Blue 160
Reflective Red, Green and Blue 140 on each
Specular 255 all Guns and Hardness 255
Last but not least, Glass.
Make the object color Black or Red Green and Blue set to 0.
Filter 255 on all guns, no reflectivity on any guns and Hardness 255, with
Specular at 255 on all guns.
So I hope this helps, or at least gives you some idea of what I use to get
the effects that many find hard to conqure.  Remember I have spent many hours
trying several sets of attributes to get what I like.  Chances are that if
you do the same you will find yourself with results that you appreciate.
On to more tracing....
Mike