Graphics 16,000/graphics-16000.iso/amiga/raytrace/imagine/archive/archive.42

Text File | 1993-10-07 | 206.0 KB | 5,526 lines

This is the Imagine Mailing List ([e-mail]) Archive #42
covering messages from Sep. 09 to Oct. 1 period.
If you have any questions or problems with this file, E-mail Nik Vukovljak
at [e-mail]

Special thanks goes to Marvin Landis for helping me getting the archive going
again.

Note: each message separated by '##'.

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

Subject: Clouds???
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 93 14:17:09 +0200
From: "- Carsten Berggreen - Denmark -" <[e-mail]>

Hi there,

Does anybody have ANY suggenstions on how to make MOVING CLOUDS

so that I could make a hunt between to airplanes....?

Signed
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- Address: Carsten Berggreen         E-mail: [e-mail] -
-          Hirsevaenget 16A                                         -
-          8464  Galten          "It isn't the equipment alone, it  -
-          Denmark                is also what YOU can do with it!" -
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- A true fan of Amiga, Coca-Cola, Imagine and good looking females! -
---------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: REPLY :: Priority ::
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 93 10:29:02 EST
From: Adam Benjamin <[e-mail]>

Text item: 9/09/93 8:12AM (IA5Text Enclosure)

In a previous life Carsten Berggreen wrote:
>By the way, do you guys'n'girls (?) use a SCREEN-BLANKER while
>tracing, or at least go to the workbench (in 4 colors) ??

I have noticed this (going to workbench) even on my 4000/40 since I
run a lowres 8 color workbench it really helps speed up rendering.

Anyone have any REAL numbers for this?

Adam B.

P.S.  I suppose if you have an 800x600 256 color 'bench it would
actually SLOW down the rendering to switch to it??



##

Subject: Re: REPLY :: Priority ::
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 93 10:31:51 CDT
From: Wayne Haufler <[e-mail]>

> In a previous life Carsten Berggreen wrote:
> >By the way, do you guys'n'girls (?) use a SCREEN-BLANKER while
> >tracing, or at least go to the workbench (in 4 colors) ??
>
> I have noticed this (going to workbench) even on my 4000/40 since I
> run a lowres 8 color workbench it really helps speed up rendering.
>
> Anyone have any REAL numbers for this?
>
> Adam B.
>
> P.S.  I suppose if you have an 800x600 256 color 'bench it would
> actually SLOW down the rendering to switch to it??
>

I don't know about rendering time improvements, but sometimes my
fractal-based screen blanker (called FRACTBLANK?) hangs up my A3000
if I'm rendering.  Or its some interaction between Imagine and
the blanker.  I try to turn it off while rendering, but its probably
dumb to use a relatively cpu-intensive blanker while rendering, anyway.

I'll have to use a simpler screen-blanker for rendering speed improvements,
I suppose.

         __
\\ /\\ /\\ //_    Wayne A. Haufler   [Christian/SW Engineer/XWindows/Amigan]
 \/--\// \//__    [e-mail]         McDonnell Douglas-Houston
     //           Hobby:  "Computer Animations For Christian Endeavors"
          GodlyGraphics mailing list: [e-mail]


##

Subject: Re: priority
Date: 9 Sep 93 12:18:00 EST
From: "Ross Knepper" <[e-mail]>

>I don't know about rendering time improvements, but sometimes my
>fractal-based screen blanker (called FRACTBLANK?) hangs up my A3000
>if I'm rendering.  Or its some interaction between Imagine and
>the blanker.  I try to turn it off while rendering, but its probably
>dumb to use a relatively cpu-intensive blanker while rendering, anyway.
>
\\ /\\ /\\ //_    Wayne A. Haufler   [Christian/SW Engineer/XWindows/Amigan]

FracBlank only uses the FPU when it is otherwise idle, so that while Imagine is
rendering, it only displays a blank screen with intermittent fractals when
Imagine is writing to disk.

My question is, why does Imagine require access to ChipRAM ata all?  All it
needs to do is write to FastRAM and save that do disk, or so I thought...
Updating the %done message is the only thing that requires access to Chip
memory, I think.

 --Ross Knepper



##

Subject: Re: REPLY :: Priority ::
Date: Thu Sep 09, 1993 12:02:21
From: scotte@137.110.2.121 (Scott Ellis)

Adam Benjamin said on Sep 09 :

>
> Text item: 9/09/93 8:12AM (IA5Text Enclosure)
>
> In a previous life Carsten Berggreen wrote:
> >By the way, do you guys'n'girls (?) use a SCREEN-BLANKER while
> >tracing, or at least go to the workbench (in 4 colors) ??
>
> I have noticed this (going to workbench) even on my 4000/40 since I
> run a lowres 8 color workbench it really helps speed up rendering.
>

Lores? Icky icky icky.

> Anyone have any REAL numbers for this?
>
> Adam B.
>
> P.S.  I suppose if you have an 800x600 256 color 'bench it would
> actually SLOW down the rendering to switch to it??

Yes...on ECS systems at least, the horizontal overscan and color depth are what
steal bandwidth, and cause slowdowns in applications.  ECS systems are capable of
running 2 bitplane (4 color) 640 pixel wide screens without any DMA problems.
Since Imagine uses a 16 color screen, just refreshing the display steals CPU time
and slows down renders.  I'm not sure of the color/depth/bandwidth situation on
AGA systems, but I presume it to be very similar.  If you're viewing the
Workbench screen on an AGA system then the screen in interleaved, and you get
either a 2x or 4x bandwidth improvement...so that would seem to suggest that a 4
bitplane, 640 pixel wide screen would be "perfect", and anything larger or deeper
would cause bandwidth contention, and slow down renderings.

Personally, I almost always run Imagine at -1 priority ("TOOLPRI=-1" tooltype),
so I can continue work on my system without any noticeable slowdown.  I also use
the screen blanker "spliner" which can either open a 1 bitplane screen, or turn
off video dma alltogether.
   /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
  //  Scott Ellis //  IRC: ScottE // WARNING: This signature warps   //
 //    [e-mail]   //  time and space in its vicinity //
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////




##

Subject: Re:: workbench speedup
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 08:35:05 +0200
From: "- Carsten Berggreen - Denmark -" <[e-mail]>

Hi there (again),

to answer some of the letters, which I read after I had written mine yesterday.
(Ehh? Does anybody understand that sentence?  &:-) )

If you use an "old " amiga with the old chipset (NOT AGA, that is)
then you can be sure that Imagine will render very SLOOOOOOWLY,

Why?

I actually very simple, and therfore I'll try to explain:

Because of the Amiga's "multi-tasking" bus structure, we have something
called the DMA-BUS (Direct Memory access) which makes it possible for
all the chips to access the same locations.

That's why you can have Graphic, Samples, Programs in the same type of RAM,
the so called CHIP-RAM.

BUT it's made by using priority for the chips, so when you tell the graphic
system to show 16 color HIRES/MEDRES(640) then it needs A LOT of the access
time to your CHIPRAM (in order to show the screen) and the your processor
has a SERIOUS PROBLEM, called ACCESS TIME.
It simple has a lower priority than the graphic, and this you can't change!
Instead you should try rendering with less colors on the screen,
(This is NOT in your rendering settings, but the settings your workbench
 is setup with)

Therefore, use a 2 or 4 colored workbench and go to it when you've started
your projekt, ofcause you can't see when your finished, but hey!
Go and click it in front and back again with the gadgets in the upper right
corner of your workbench/imagine screen.

Well, as Arnie use to say:

"I'll be BACK!"

Signed
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- Address: Carsten Berggreen         E-mail: [e-mail] -
-          Hirsevaenget 16A                                         -
-          8464  Galten          "It isn't the equipment alone, it  -
-          Denmark                is also what YOU can do with it!" -
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- A true fan of Amiga, Coca-Cola, Imagine and good looking females! -
---------------------------------------------------------------------



##

Subject: Re: Clouds???
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 12:58:32 -0600
From: [e-mail] ()

On Sep 9,  2:17pm, "- Carsten Berggreen - Denmark -" wrote:
> Subject: Clouds???
> Hi there,
>
> Does anybody have ANY suggenstions on how to make MOVING CLOUDS
>
> so that I could make a hunt between to airplanes....?
>
> Signed
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> - Address: Carsten Berggreen         E-mail: [e-mail] -
> -          Hirsevaenget 16A                                         -
> -          8464  Galten          "It isn't the equipment alone, it  -
> -          Denmark                is also what YOU can do with it!" -
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> - A true fan of Amiga, Coca-Cola, Imagine and good looking females! -
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>-- End of excerpt from "- Carsten Berggreen - Denmark -"

You could try to use some spheres or ellipses with fog attribute (as you asked,
it is only a suggestion).

Or try a trick which is used in some real-time animation on a very famous
RealityEngine (Silicon Graphics) demo : in order to render trees, as this
graphics board does real-time brush-mapping, they use some planes with a tree
picture mapped on it (with a color and a filter map). When you move, the plane
rotate so that  it is always perpendicular to you (easy to do in Imagine - use
TRACK to CAMERA), so you see it always front view. Believe me, if you don't know
the trick you don't see it !
You could try it with some clouds images (and you can make them partially
transparent).

What do you think of it ?

Robin




--

---------------------------------------------------------------------
      Robin Chytil, Staff Engineer
      Mediterranean Distribution Territory
      Silicon Graphics

      Vmail: 5-9389           Email: [e-mail]
      Tel:   [phone]    Fax :  [phone]
                                                       \|/
                                                       @ @
---------------------------------------------------oOO-(_)-OOo-------







##

Subject: archicad to imagine
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 9:19:36 -0600 (MDT)
From: [e-mail]

Hello all;
    Does anyone know how to get an object from archicad on the mac
into imagine? archicad is a package for home design and a freind of mine
uses it for his business, I would like to enhance his work with imagine
and earn enough to accelerate my 1200, any Ideas or am I up in the night?
and this simply cannot be done.

                        Thanks
                         Lesk


##

Subject: 040 and Imagine
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 14:49:11 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Dave Wickard)

NOTE: This post was sent to the [e-mail] address
      and is being forwarded to the list by me. Please be certain when replying
      to IML posts that your REPLY function is grabbing the correct address:
      [e-mail]
      If not, be certain to either change the address, or at least Cc: a copy
      there. Thanks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 12:05:23 -0400
From: Rob Borsari <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: 040 and Imagine


I had the same speed problem on my a4000 (as anyone with an 040 will)
but a friend sent me a new math library for the 040.  It replaces the
non floating point library with one that uses the 040 FPU correctly.
then any non fpu program that calls that lib (as imagine and Propage do)
will be at full speed on an 040 equiped machine.  Its pretty small and
I can mail copies to (a small number hopefully) anyone who asks.

Note: you must use the int version of imagine for this to speed up your
system.

-R-

[e-mail]  Rob Borsari  "Bourne to be Wild"


##

Subject: re: Archicad to imagine
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 14:04:22 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Kevin Kodama)

lesk writes:

 Does anyone know how to get an object from archicad on the mac
into imagine? archicad is a package for home design and a freind of mine
uses it for his business, I would like to enhance his work with imagine

Archicad can save in DXF format. Get Interchange+ from Syndesis, and you can
convert DXF to Imagine, and be ready to go. Apparently, Archicad's DXF conversion
is quite good from what i have seen, and is readily importable to other mac
programs thru DXF.
btw, Archicad is a very good architecture oriented package, although at a retail
price of 4000 dollars (+ hardware copy protection :-) is probably a bit much for
"home design" :-)

kevin
[e-mail]


##

Subject:  Re: priority (fwd)
Date:  Fri, 10 Sep 1993 17:52:54 +0000
From: "Rob (R.D.) Hounsell" <[e-mail]>

Folks,

>   But if Imagine doesn't need to access chip memory, it won't matter whether
> the display is one bitplane or eight.  Display DMA runs independently of fast
> RAM access.  There is no overhead, because the screen's copper list is already
> set up.

  So, does anyone have an answer? I was following the thread and thinking
"yeah, that makes sense" until I saw this note fragment. I suppose if the above
is true there would be no hit in processor bus access unless the "% finished"
is updated, as someone else mentioned.

  If no one has any figures, I'll try to run some tests this weekend.

Rob
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Rob Hounsell                           BNR WAN:  HOUNSELL@NMERH53           |
| Team Leader: UNIX                      INTERNET: [e-mail]            |
| Global Product Performance:            PHONE: [phone]                |
| Paradigm Club Design Team. Dept. PS27  ESN: 395-2904                        |
| Northern Telecom Public Switching                                           |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------



##

Subject: RE: 040 and Imagine
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 14:15:34 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Dave Wickard)

NOTE: This post was sent to the [e-mail] address
      and is being forwarded to the list by me. Please be certain when replying
      to IML posts that your REPLY function is grabbing the correct address:
      [e-mail]
      If not, be certain to either change the address, or at least Cc: a copy
      there. Thanks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:    Sat, 11 Sep 1993 14:17:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail]
Subject: RE: 040 and Imagine
To: [e-mail]
X-Vmsmail-To: SMTP%"[e-mail]"

please email me a uuencoded 040lib
thank you !
jason
[e-mail]   <- use this address!



##

Subject: Re: Regarding Your Comments about 3D Obj
Date: 14 Sep 93 13:25:36 EDT
From: John Foust - Syndesis Corporation <[e-mail]>

To: >internet: [e-mail]

"David A. Rollins" <[e-mail]> writes:
> Imagine software for IBM and Amiga. Following the initial release,
> the same objects will be ported to Sun and SGI in WAVEFRONT format as
> well as DXF for Macintosh.
...
> Porting the object to other platforms is not as easy as using a
> converter. The objects contain individual attributes as well as
> maps that do not always translate across platforms, even for those
> other platforms that may have some version of Impulse's Imagine.
>
> That's the main reason. It takes time to make the conversions, align
> the maps, and conform to each computer platform's little idiosyncrasies.

DXF isn't very good at retaining high-quality 3D information such as
smooth shading.  In fact, it confounds it.  It stores no color or
surface map info, for example.

And unless you tailor your DXF data to the quirks of each particular
program's DXF importing code, you're going to lose that precious
extra information that you might be able to squeeze through the eye
of the DXF needle.  Or more likely, you miss the eye of the needle
completely and *no* information comes through.

To do what you claim, you'll need copies of each of the 3D programs
that you intend to work with (AutoCAD $3K, 3D Studio $3K, Wavefront
$30K, Electric Image $8K, Strata $2K, etc.)  So you're saying you own
or have easy access to above-average PCs, Macs, and SGIs equipped
with this software?

There are plenty of reasons why Viewpoint sells models for $500 each.
(Believe it or not, many of their models have no colors and no maps.)
In my experience, modeling companies have been forced to adopt
uniform cross-platform pricing because of the existence of
translators, both those built-in to each 3D program plus standalone
converters.  Secondly, they soon learn that they need skilled
operators for each platform they intend to support.  I think you
should address these questions before you start work on your
corporate scholarship fund.



##

Subject: mode promotion
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 8:30:40 -0600 (MDT)
From: [e-mail]

Hello Adam;
    I am using a vga monitor and have not noticed a slowdown aon my 1200
unless I set my colors up then I wait a lot. I found that most applications
like imagine and vertex and several others I have tend to stay in low res.
I did find a program on the net that forced mode promotion of imagine and
it seems to work great on my vga monitor but when I use certain brushmaps
and render them they do not display well. using viewtek I can display most
everything gifs iffs, etc. but jpeg stuff doesnt work. I even found some data types so I could use gifs and jpegs for workbench screens the gifs are fine.
anyway if you want this little mode promoter when I get home I will write down
the info and mail you the name etc. I really like it.
                        Good Luck
                          Lesk


##

Subject: textures vs. memory
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 18:11:17 -0600
From: Steve Koren <[e-mail]>

I know that if you have several objects each of which use the same
brushmap, Imagine will load the brushmap N times instead of simply
loading it once and using it in all places (which can waste a lot of
RAM). [1]

Does anyone know if this also holds true for textures?  I have an object
which has about 300 sub-objects, and currently about 75% of those have
textures.  It takes a whole lot of memory to render this.  I know that I
can probably trim down the number of textures quite a bit if I make
several axis using the desired textures (with "apply to children" set)
and then make my objects sub-objects of those.  However, that has two
negative effects: it prevents me from using another, more logical object
grouping, and it requires a lot of work to modify the way it is set up
now.  So I would rather not do it if it isn't going to buy me anything.

I half suspect that Imagine only loads textures once, no matter how
many times they are used, but I don't really know.

  - steve

[1] One could make this same argument about the stage editor.  If you
use an object more than once, there is no need to load it multiple
times.  Imagine could keep one copy in RAM, along with the
size/location/alignment vectors for the copies, and just use pointers to
the original data.  In some cases, that would save a *lot* of RAM, I
think.  There might be problems here with cycle objects, but not for
"normal" ones where the internal data is always the same and no effects
are used to change the object's actual shape.


##

Subject: Re: textures vs. memory
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1993 11:23:01 -0600
From: [e-mail] ()

On Sep 15,  6:11pm, Steve Koren wrote:
> Subject: textures vs. memory
>
> I know that if you have several objects each of which use the same
> brushmap, Imagine will load the brushmap N times instead of simply
> loading it once and using it in all places (which can waste a lot of
> RAM). [1]
>
> Does anyone know if this also holds true for textures?  I have an object
> which has about 300 sub-objects, and currently about 75% of those have
> textures.  It takes a whole lot of memory to render this.  I know that I
> can probably trim down the number of textures quite a bit if I make
> several axis using the desired textures (with "apply to children" set)
> and then make my objects sub-objects of those.  However, that has two
> negative effects: it prevents me from using another, more logical object
> grouping, and it requires a lot of work to modify the way it is set up
> now.  So I would rather not do it if it isn't going to buy me anything.

I did it. I had an object with more than 500 subobjects, all with the bump
texture.
In fact they were all rock blocks, assembled to be a kind of arena.
As the rendering time was too long (about 70 hours per image on an A3000 with
'040 accelerator, and ate too much memory (about 22 MB), I applied the bump
texture to the parent axis, with Apply-to-children setting, and removed the
texture on every object (took about 1 hour to do it).

I DIDN'T NOTICED ANY DIFFERENCE, same time and same memory needs.

So, I would advice you to not do it.

If you have problems with the amount of memory it takes, and you are using brush
maps, try to reduce their size.

>
>-- End of excerpt from Steve Koren

Robin


--

---------------------------------------------------------------------
      Robin Chytil, Staff Engineer
      Mediterranean Distribution Territory
      Silicon Graphics

      Vmail: 5-9389           Email: [e-mail]
      Tel:   [phone]    Fax :  [phone]
                                                       \|/
                                                       @ @
---------------------------------------------------oOO-(_)-OOo-------







##

Subject: DPS PAR drive info
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 13:04:11 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Dale R Rogers)

    Re: DPS PAR certified drives

    To interested parties,

    I just got off the phone with DPS about the drives that are
    certified with PAR.  I ordered my PAR yesterday and now need to
    find a drive.  The woman I spoke to said that ONLY the 3600A
    is certified to work with the PAR.  I asked her about the
    discontined status of the 3600A and whether the ST-3655A replaces
    it now.  She restated that ONLY the 3600A is certfied to work with
    the board.  I asked her if it will be "a while" before another
    drive is certified.  She said "yes".  I did not press her to
    quantify "a while".  I work in the software development arena and
    know full well what "a while" means.  It's time to find a ST-3600A.


    David Watters,

    I got your response from last post, but I never got the
    information regarding the current price of the ST-3600A drive.
    Excuse me for posting a private message to the list.  My private
    messages are either not getting to you, or your responses are not
    making it back to me.  Please send me the drive price and contact
    information.

    Thanks,

    Dale


       _____________________________^_____________________________
       dale r. rogers

       Building Design & Management               MailStop: LR24A4
       [e-mail]             Tel: [phone]
                                    .


##

Subject: Re: Seagate ST-3600A HD?
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 17:00:22 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> Yes, the 3600A has been discontinued.
> However, it has been superceeded by the ST3655A.  Same exact specs, except
> for 1 less physical platter (thus a little faster).

DPS is currently working on qualifying a newer bigger drive.
%~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
%      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  %
% --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   %
%      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   %
%     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   %
%                                                                          %
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


##

Subject: RE: Imagine the next Generation
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 21:52:02 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Christopher Stewart)

>Anyway, right now Essence I and II are only available for Imagine, so
>that means that Imagine is the only system even worth considering,
>imperfect although it may be :-) If the Apex folks port EI/II to R3D,
>and R3D was cheap enough, I'd probably move.  (Or alternately, a
>standalone version of LW with EI/II).  Impulse ought to be _awfully_
>nice to Apex though, because I suspect the only reason many people are
>still using Imagine is because of Essence.
>

     I'm one ;-). If it wasn't for Essence, I would have purchased Real3D
awhile ago. As it is, my bank account is aiming for higher goals,
Lightwave 3.0. Only a thousand or so to go 'til I have WORKING booleans
<that's the one that picks me>. Don't get me wrong, I love Imagine but it
hasen't kept up with the times. I'd miss the cycle editor though,
sniff.... Perhaps Imagine 3.0 will change my mind and I'll get my dream
deck instead, here's hoping....

                                             Christopher

ps. I've started an animation sig on the local freenet system. It's not
really running up to snuff yet but comments would be appreciated. Anyone
with telnet can join ;-). Address is in the sig (ua197).



--
....and if there be some harder, better way    [e-mail]
to salvation than to follow that which we      [e-mail]
believe to be good, then are we all damned.    [e-mail]
   Lord Dunsany, "Dom Rodriguez" (1922).         <Christopher Stewart>



##

Subject: Re: T3DLIB, R39
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 15:49:11 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~)

[ For those of you on the IML, I thought this had enough useful
information in it, possibly, to warrant posting to the IML.  Forgive
me, please, if you feel I was wrong.  -- Glenn ]

>>>>> "Theophil" == Theophil  <[e-mail]> writes:

    Hi, Theophil!

Theophil> Hallo Glenn I have get the T3Dlib from wustle, it seems ok.
Theophil> I want to register with 25$ for your whole packages.  I need
Theophil> them like spheric... bump... very,very.  Question : for
Theophil> understanding your tools. With "spheric.." i can computing
Theophil> for example a car-modell in a sphere with equal number of
Theophil> points and with good morphing without crossing of faces and
Theophil> edges - can i translate this sphere further to a plane ?

    I have not tried a morph, personally, after conforming an
object to a sphere...  But I don't see why this could not be done...
And conforming to a plane should be equally easy...  Here is what I
would do:

mbb < car.iob
(note minimum bounding box... calculate center of car, X,Y,Z)
spherize <X> <Y> <Z> 100 100 100 < car.iob > sphere_car.ttddd
readwrite -tddd < sphere_car.ttddd > sphere_car.iob
copy sphere_car.ttddd sphere_plane.ttddd

edit sphere_plane.ttddd
(Then, pop up an editor, and perform a global search-and-replace
make all the "Z=..." values so that they are "Z=0" or whatever value
you want.)
readwrite -tddd < sphere_plane.ttddd > sphere_plane.iob

    In fact, Theophil, if you would prefer, maybe you would like
to send me a car object and I will perform the steps and send you the
results so that you can test out my theory before you register?  Or
maybe I should try it on something here, like maybe a rook chesspiece
or something, and send it to you?

Theophil> Can you tell the way for paying the registering - it ias the
Theophil> first time for me to send money to america - i don't know.

    Um, maybe an international money order or go to a bank and
they can send a US check?  I'm not exactly sure, but I know I have
troubles converting other currency into US dollars here, so if it is
possibly on your end, that would help tremendously.

Theophil> It would be very nice , if you can send me your package per
Theophil> e-mail in the next two tays.  Paying is shure.

    No problem.  In fact, I prefer e-mail if at all possible.  Let
me know if you would like me to perform the experiment first before
you register.

Theophil> I,m working on an honorable Insitut in Germany - you can
Theophil> believe.
Theophil> I'm happy to hear from you - Thanks
Theophil> [e-mail]
Theophil> my address: Fraunhofer-Institut IITB - Abt.IV
Theophil> Fraunhoferstrasse 1 Karlsruhe (westgermany)
Theophil> iitb means Institut for Informations an Dates

    Thanks, Theophil!  I look forward to hearing your reply.

                            -- Glenn


##

Subject: SGI renderers and HD anim players
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1993 12:03:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Mr. Scott Krehbiel; ACS (PC)" <[e-mail]>

Hi all
I know this info has been posted many times before, but I'm wondering
what would be a good anim player for an A500 with a hard drive and
4.5 Megs ram - no accellerator.  I'd like to take a look at that
windmill anim, but it'd be a bit too long at 5.? megs.

Also, I'm hoping to explore using PD renderers on all the SGIs here
at school, and I was wondering about converting between Imagine,
Wavefront, and something PD like Rayshade, or Raydance, or Radiance,
or DKBtrace, or whatever.  If any of you have experience in doing
cross-platform rendering, especially using scripting for motion
control and using PD renderers, please mail me.

Also, is it possible to convert Imagine objects into ascii files??
I'm not a programmer yet, so I'm hoping there is a tool that will
allow me to convert objects without writing a C program to do it.
(Kinda like the ISL - but for objects)

Thanks for any help
Scott Krehbiel

P.S.  just wait till I finish this really cool X-Wing model I'm
      making - I'm measuring a styrene model with a micrometer,
      and putting in all the detail I can.  Pretty soon, I hope
      to demonstrate that the Enterprise 1701D would be absolutely
      NO MATCH for a Star Destroyer.




##

Subject: Re: SGI renderers and HD anim players
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 19:43:28 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~)

>>>>> "Dan" == Daniel Jr Murrell <[e-mail]> writes:

>>  Also, is it possible to convert Imagine objects into ascii files??
>> I'm not a programmer yet, so I'm hoping there is a tool that will
>> allow me to convert objects without writing a C program to do it.
>> (Kinda like the ISL - but for objects)

Dan> Look for Glenn Lewis's T3D package.  It should be what you need,
Dan> although there is no direct Wavefront converter (yet?)  It
Dan> shouldn't be too hard to write, but he's probably too busy with
Dan> Essence. :)

    Actually, I am just now adding tddd2r3d (Real3D), because a
few people have asked for it.  I haven't looked at the Wavefront
format, but I'll at least take a look at it before releasing R40 of
T3DLIB.
    While I'm here, please don't anybody spread R38... it is
busted.  Get R39 (there is one known bug in MBB... doesn't calculate
center or size correctly, but gives the MBB correctly so you can
easily figure it out.  Stupidity on my part... I've fixed MBB for R40).

                            -- Glenn



##

Subject: Re: SGI renderers and HD anim players
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 16:05:23 EDT
From: charles lee <[e-mail]>

>Good anim player for A500, etc...

Well, try getting the MainActor1.15 demo. It allows playback (save
disabled) at very good speeds. But, since you want to look at
the Windmill anim, try either RTAP (Sebastiano Vigna) or BigAnim,
which can be found on Aminet. BigAnim is more recent of the
direct-from-hard-drive players, so try that....

>Cross platform rendering...

Ok... We have Rayshade 4.0.6 compiled for our SGI's and here are
your options:

1) Try Glenn Lewis's T3D libraries/converters. They can read
   Imagine 2.0 binary objects and output to: .dxf, .nff, .pov
   .ray, .mif, .off, .ps and .vort formats... I've only used
   the .ray for rayshade (and the .ps for a cute triview in
   Postscript format.) This package will obviously convert
   Imagine objects to ASCII too... Personally, I used it to
   import atomic coordinates for rendering in Imagine.. :)

2) I think Vertex (the latest demo is also on Aminet) allows
   for direct saving in Rayshade format. Some other formats
   too, if I remember....

Personally, I'd go with T3D lib... If you convert HUGE objects,
I suggest pumping up the stack size to.. oh 50000 bytes and up.
I remember loading up a very large protein that required a
stack of 100000 or my machine would crash and burn. :)

Have fun!

o---------------------------o--------------------------o----------------o
| Charles Lee               |A3KT-VT4000-PP&S28Mhz68040| FocuS GraphicS |
| IRC: waif GEnie: C.LEE4   |38MB RAM-USRDUAL-Syquest88|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
| Fortress /\ M | G /\      |QLPS52-ST3283-JX100-NEC3FG| Call for rates |
| Brandeis University       |<<Will Kill For Screamer>>|  617-891-1367  |
o---------------------------o--------------------------o----------------o


##

Subject: PC animation HD player
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1993 17:56:42 +0600 (CST)
From: Robert Lewis <[e-mail]>

OK, I don't have an Amiga (I was a dummy, I wasn't breast-fed long enough
or something, whatever).  I have the Imagine for PC and want to run
animation from my 1 GB hardrive through a NTSC convertor/encoder to a tape
drive.  Besides asking Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy for an Amiga 4000,
what can I try to do this?  Does anyone know of anyone working on this?

[e-mail]





##

Subject: T3Dlib
Date: 17 Sep 93 20:39:00 EST
From: "Ross Knepper" <[e-mail]>

This T3Dlib...  Can I use it to make my own objects and import them into
Imagine, such as a 3D graph or something?
Where can I find it?

Thanks!

 --Ross Knepper



##

Subject: Re: T3Dlib
Date: Sat, 18 Sep 93 05:43:33 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~)

>>>>> On 17 Sep 93 20:39:00 EST, "Ross Knepper" <[e-mail]> said:

Ross> This T3Dlib...  Can I use it to make my own objects and import them into
Ross> Imagine, such as a 3D graph or something?
Ross> Where can I find it?
Ross> Thanks!

    Yes you can.  I believe it should be on ftp.wustl.edu, but
haven't checked in a long while... you must get R39, though.  Don't
settle for less.  :-)

    One word of caution is probably in order... although the
T3DLIB package comes with a number of useful utilities for
manipulating objects and converting them to/from ASCII text for easy
manual or algorithmic manipulation, if you want to delve into making
objects or scenes from scratch, you may want to have some programming
experience in any language (preferably C) that can read/write ASCII
files.  If you wish to link directly with the t3d.lib SAS/C library,
then of course, you need SAS/C or you can remake the library with
whatever compiler on whatever machine.  But you can still do
interesting things without being a programmer, and I've even included
documentation on the utilities in the last release.  :-)

    Oh, and I've heard of a lot of people copying "t3d.lib" to
"LIBS:t3d.library"... there is no need... it is for linking only... it
is not a dynamic shared library.  :-)

    One more thing...  there are several really nice companion
programs available that compliment T3DLIB quite nicely, even if they
don't interface directly to it.  But the following will give you a
nice arsenal of utilities for your creative endeavors.  All are either
PD or Shareware...  (please forgive me, authors, if I forget to
mention all)  But check out Vertex, ISL, ICoons, IgenSurf, hmmm... I
know there are more... those are on the top of my mind right now.

    Enough babbling.  Enjoy.
                            -- Glenn





##

Subject: RE: Imagine the next Generation
Date: Sat, 18 Sep 93 19:36:27 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Christopher Stewart)

>
>
>>
>> ps. I've started an animation sig on the local freenet system. It's not
>> really running up to snuff yet but comments would be appreciated. Anyone
>> with telnet can join ;-). Address is in the sig (ua197).
>>
>
>    Hey!  Where is it?  I was thinking about adding one on freenet too...
>but I don't have the time.
>
>    [e-mail]


     Just telnet to freenet.victoria.bc.ca and login as "guest". You won't
have write privvies until you send a letter to the organization (just like
CWRU's freenet) but at least it's free. I'll be posting as many faq's and
related material as I can get my hands on (which, admittedly, isn't much
yet). My goal is to start an animation society here (a pretty small city
on an island in the north pacific), something along the lines of a small
resourse group. No files yet but I'm negotiating with an internet
connected facility for a little room.

                                        Christopher

ps. If anyone has any faq's, animation tips, lists of refrences etc that
might be useful (this SIG is non-system specific and supports traditional
animation as well), PLEASE, PLEASE (enough begging) let me know where I
can find them or mail me a copy. Tanks a bundle.

--
....and if there be some harder, better way    [e-mail]
to salvation than to follow that which we      [e-mail]
believe to be good, then are we all damned.    [e-mail]
   Lord Dunsany, "Dom Rodriguez" (1922).         <Christopher Stewart>



##

Subject: SIlver Texture & Morphin
Date: Sat, 18 Sep 93 21:40:00 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Jeff Saffold)

So, has anyone come up with a good value(s) for good looking silver?
I have been trying to do this, but have had no luck so far.:(

Also, wanting to make a cool anim like Terminator 2, I took cycleman,
Joined him, and made a flat plane that had the same # of points,
faces, and edges, and attempted to morph them together..
Unfortunately, the result look like a mess..  ANy suggestions??

One last thing, I keep hearing mention of "Imagine Units", what
exactly is that?  After reading a bit in the Imagine manual, I decided
to give that part up.  ANd I have Steve Worley's Understanding Imagine
2 manual, but alas, I haven't read it completely..  So, could someone
please enlighten me??


... We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.
___
 X MsgView V1.13 [R029] X
--
*******************************************************************************
* Cuerna Verde BBS FidoNet Gateway                   Data/Fax: [phone] *
* Pueblo, Colorado USA                               FidoNet:  1:307/18       *
*******************************************************************************


##

Subject: Imagine3 release date?
Date:     Mon, 20 Sep 1993 02:51:00 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Rosario Salfi)

Well, I know for a fact that it has passed the Beta testing stage (a
friend was doing some beta testing for Mike Halvorson).  This was about
a month ago, so the release time is unknown.

HOWEVER, Mike has stated plain and clearly that Imagine 3.0 will NOT
support Essence textures.  They are/have expanded their own texture
library to make up for this, but I can't see them beating Steve Worley's
work...which causes me distress to say the least.


##

Subject: Essence Idea
Date:     Mon, 20 Sep 1993 03:38:00 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Rosario Salfi)

MESSAGE PASSED ALONG FOR PAUL THOMPSON:

Hi Steve!  Got an idea for an essence texture...actually, a variant on
the Burnish texture.  It would be nice (and true to form) if there was a
radial variation.  More and more I'm noticing circular metal (mostly
stainless steel) items and the burnish is circular.  Any chance this can
make it into some update or a future release?

Putting together some neat attribute files for you.  Send 'em to you
soon!

Paul


END OF MESSAGE



##

Subject: object file format
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 13:17:59 METDST
From: [e-mail] (Arijan Siska)

Hi!

I would like to write an ImagineObject to MyOwnObjectFormat convertor, so I
need to know the file format of Imagine object files. Can you help me?
(for both PC and Amiga versions if possible please)

                                               Arijan



##

Subject: Imagine3 release date?
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 07:39:17 -0600
From: Steve Koren <[e-mail]>

> HOWEVER, Mike has stated plain and clearly that Imagine 3.0 will NOT
> support Essence textures.  They are/have expanded their own texture

That would be a bad move on their part - I really can't see them
matching all of Essence I and II with their own textures.  And even if
they do, there are lots of old projects which I would no longer be able
to render unless I changed all the textures to new ones.  Perhaps
Essence owners should all write to Impulse and say, "Hey, look, if you
won't expend a little effort to work with Apex on this stuff, then it
means we simply won't upgrade to 3.0 until there is a version of Essence
that works.  This takes money out of your pocketbook, so you might want
to re-think your position a little."  If we do that, perhaps it'll have
an effect on 4.0.  Really, "upgrading" to a version of Imagine without
Essence, no matter what nifty features they add, is going to be a big
step backwards.  I'm not sure if Impulse realizes this, but that _is_
enough to stop me from upgrading.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the above is true.  Maybe we'll
luck out and the Essence textures will continue to work.  The last
Impulse newsletter did mention changes to their texture/brushmap stuff
(such as the ability to load more than 4 of each without having to mess
with grouped axis), but I suppose it is an open question whether these
changes will break old textures.

  - steve


##

Subject:  Essence & Imagine 3.0
Date: Mon Sep 20 12:12:23 1993
From: [e-mail]

If indead Essence I and II textures do not function with Imagine 3.0, I am
sure that it is because of the increased flexibility and functionality that
the 3.0 texture format brings.  Impulse has stated that when "things are set
in stone" that they will share all file formats with anyone who asks for them.
I would assume that Apex is included in that "curious" group, and I'm sure
that those of us with some programing talent will wish to explore this option
as well.  Some sacrifice is almost always neccessary if advances are to be
made (look at KS 1.3 to 2.04)

Cheers


##

Subject: Re: Imagine3 release date?
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 16:01:21 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~)

>>>>> "David" == David A Rollins <[e-mail]> writes:

David> Hello Rosario Salfi,
>> HOWEVER, Mike has stated plain and clearly that Imagine 3.0 will
>> NOT support Essence textures.  They are/have expanded their own
>> texture library to make up for this, but I can't see them beating
>> Steve Worley's work...which causes me distress to say the least.

David> I am sure that the geniuses at Apex will simply port Essence to
David> the new version.
David> Any comments from the guys at Apex?

    Well, Steve and Charles are the geniuses (:-), but I can tell
you for a fact that we have not yet received any information about the
3.0 textures either.  So I guess we all will just have to wait and see
what gets delivered.
                            -- Glenn




##

Subject: Re: SIlver Texture & Morphin
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 07:33:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: Doug Kelly <[e-mail]>

On Sat, 18 Sep 1993, Jeff Saffold wrote:
>
> Also, wanting to make a cool anim like Terminator 2, I took cycleman,
> Joined him, and made a flat plane that had the same # of points,
> faces, and edges, and attempted to morph them together..
> Unfortunately, the result look like a mess..  ANy suggestions??
>
You need to make several intermediate objects.  Straight morphing from a
flat floor plane to a standing Cycleman figure means that the tip of the
left little finger, for instance, will follow a straight-line path from
some point on the floor to the final position.  What you want is some
amorphous blob, where the main body extrudes up out of the center of the
floor, THEN extrudes the arms and head.  Making these intermdiate objects
is tedious, but the only way I know to get good-looking organic morphs.

The easiest way I've found for making them is to push the Cycleman parts
around using the Magnetism function, with a radius of about 1/10 the height
of the figure.  Push the hand back into the forearm, the forearm back into
the upper arm, the arm back into the shoulder, etc., until you finally
push the entire compressed torso down through the ankles (which should be
flattened out into the floor plane by then).

> One last thing, I keep hearing mention of "Imagine Units", what
> exactly is that?  After reading a bit in the Imagine manual, I decided
> to give that part up.  ANd I have Steve Worley's Understanding Imagine
> 2 manual, but alas, I haven't read it completely..  So, could someone
> please enlighten me??
>
Arbitrary units.  I usually make objects at the scale 1 Imagine unit=1
centimeter, just for convenience, but the scale you use will depend on
what size object/scene you're doing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Doug Kelly               Information Specialist         First Consulting Group
[e-mail]  [phone]x125  P.O.Box 5161, Los Alamitos,CA 90721-5161

   "The difference between genius and stupidity: genius has its limits."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------




##

Subject: Re:  SIlver Texture & Morphin
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 12:22:24 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Steve Ziolkowski)

Yeah.  For that terminator 2 effect, take your human figure, put the
    axis at it's feet, save it, and then scale him in z so it's flat.
    When you morph this, all the points correspond properly.  The
    problem is, it's a linear morph so it won't look quite natural.
steveZ



##

Subject: Re: object file format
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 15:54:00 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~)

>>>>> "Arijan" == Arijan Siska writes:

Arijan> Hi!  I would like to write an ImagineObject to
Arijan> MyOwnObjectFormat convertor, so I need to know the file format
Arijan> of Imagine object files. Can you help me?  (for both PC and
Arijan> Amiga versions if possible please)

    Sure.  Check out T3DLIB (formerly known as TTDDDLIB), and make
sure you get revision R39.  Actually, people have told me that they
can't find it on any FTP site, so if you can't either, send me e-mail
and I'll e-mail you the source and the Amiga executables.

    A number of converters already exist, and a document is
included that describes the TDDD format, and the library itself
(T3D.LIB) allows your programs to simply link into it (using SAS/C, or
you can rebuild the library on any platform/compiler combination), and
automatically you have all of the conversion capabilities included in
the package available to your own C code...  Simply load in an Imagine
object, and then you can traverse the structures to write out your
own.  This is how I rather easily add new converters every now and
then to the package.  T3DLIB is shareware, by the way, authored by
myself.
                        -- Glenn Lewis




##

Subject: Re: SIlver Texture & Morphin
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 15:38:02 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~)

>>>>> "Jeff" == Jeff Saffold <[e-mail]> writes:

Jeff> Also, wanting to make a cool anim like Terminator 2, I took
Jeff> cycleman, Joined him, and made a flat plane that had the same #
Jeff> of points, faces, and edges, and attempted to morph them
Jeff> together..  Unfortunately, the result look like a mess..  ANy
Jeff> suggestions??

    What you need to do is have two objects with the exact same
topology... all points correspond to each other, in the same grouped
hierarchy.  All edges correspond to each other, and all faces
correspond to each other.  The only way I know to achieve this is to
copy the original object to another, and modify the second object to
make the final version.  If I'm not mistaken, there are some programs
out there that will help you with this, such as Morphus (I hear), and
T3DLIB (I wrote).
    I haven't tried this with a cycle object, but flattened a rook
and also made a sphere out of the rook, and the new objects looked
fine, but I actually haven't tried morphing them.  (I recently posted
about this.)  There should be no problem, though, because only the
location of the points changed from the original.

                            -- Glenn



##

Subject: Re: Imagine3 release date?
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 16:51:18 -0500 (EST)
From: [e-mail] (Jeff Hanna)

Before we all fly off the handle and begin to boycott Impulse, we
should take a look at what 3.0 has to offer.

Does the new texture system offer a _significant_ technological increase
over the existing one? What I mean is, did Impulse change their texture
format for the sake of improving the entire texture system, or did they do
it just to make it so Essence doesn't work?

If the change was to make an improvement in the overall functionality of
the texture system, then I will go ahead and upgrade, and prey that Steve
and Co. will re-work Essence I and II to execute under the new system.

If the new system has no improvement over the old system, and the change
was some self-motivated B.S, then I will stick with 2.0 and consider
getting Real3D and/or LightRave-Lightwave3D.

Jeff Hanna


##

Subject: Re: Where to find T3DLIB
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 22:19:18 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~)

    Since several people have been asking lately where it is,
and Charles found it for me (thanks, Charles!), I thought I would
share this info with the IML:
                        -- Glenn
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Glenn:
    T3DLIB R39 may be found in the boing directory tree on ftp.wustl.edu,
parallel the aminet tree, under video/utils.  The full path is something like
systems/amiga/boing/video/utils.  Aminet is systems/amiga/aminet.

./video/utils:
-rw-rw-r--   1 tucker   arc_amiga   13728 Feb 15 1993  T3DLIB_R39.readme
-rw-rw-r--   1 tucker   arc_amiga  360692 Feb 15 1993  T3DLIB_Exe_R39.lha
-rw-rw-r--   1 tucker   arc_amiga   98335 Feb 15 1993  T3DLIB_Src_R39.lha


##

Subject: Re: SIlver Texture & Morphin
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 12:30:19 CDT
From: Wayne Haufler <[e-mail]>

> >>>>> "Jeff" == Jeff Saffold <[e-mail]> writes:
>
> Jeff> Also, wanting to make a cool anim like Terminator 2, I took
> Jeff> cycleman, Joined him, and made a flat plane that had the same #
> Jeff> of points, faces, and edges, and attempted to morph them
> Jeff> together..  Unfortunately, the result look like a mess..  ANy
> Jeff> suggestions??
>

Maybe this idea is way too simplistic to work well, or
it might not result in the desired affect but ...
how about morphing the cycleman object's Z scale, so that
his height (only) shrinks down to nearly nothing?
If his axis is at ground level, he should shrink properly,
but not smoothly spread out into a plane.

Then again, I haven't actually seen the movie (T2) myself, sorry to say.

         __
\\ /\\ /\\ //_    Wayne A. Haufler   [Christian/SW Engineer/XWindows/Amigan]
 \/--\// \//__    [e-mail]         McDonnell Douglas-Houston
     //           Hobby:  "Computer Animations For Christian Endeavors"
          GodlyGraphics mailing list: [e-mail]



##

Subject: Re: Essence & Imagine 3.0
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 19:58:52 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~)

>>>>> "> Siderean" == Siderean  <[e-mail]> writes:

>> If indead Essence I and II textures do not function with
>> Imagine 3.0, I am sure that it is because of the increased
>> flexibility and functionality that the 3.0 texture format
>> brings.  Impulse has stated that when "things are set in
>> stone" that they will share all file formats with anyone
>> who asks for them.  I would assume that Apex is included
>> in that "curious" group, and I'm sure that those of us
>> with some programing talent will wish to explore this
>> option as well.  Some sacrifice is almost always
>> neccessary if advances are to be made (look at KS 1.3 to
>> 2.04)

    OK, I have heard this argument a couple of times now on the
IML, and have remained silent in the past.  But I'm afraid that I must
speak out, or I will go insane.  :-)

    As a programmer (and one who knows the internal structure of
Imagine textures), I feel that there is no reason to not support the
previous textures.

    To those who don't know (and this is key information to my
argument...), Impulse had the foresight to embed a revision number in
the textures so that Imagine can first check the revision number to
make sure that they are the textures revision that it expects to find.
This is how we simultaneously support three different renderer with
Essence I&II... if the renderer says that it is Turbo Silver, we move
things around a big and say "Sure, we can support you, Turbo Silver."
Same for Imagine 0.9-1.1.  Same for Imagine 2.0.

    Now, back to the "as a programmer" part, there is no reason
why the renderer can't do the same thing...  First, attempt to check
if the texture supports the new-whizbang-maybe-better-3.0-version of
textures.  If not, then check if the texture supports Imagine 2.0
version of the textures (EssenceI&II, for example).  If the texture
returns "Yes", then go ahead and use it as a 2.0 texture.

    The only reason not to do this is that it might be a bit more
work, and it may increase the renderer's exacutable size by a few
hundred bytes.  But this is nothing compared to... what, 680K?

    OK, I've said my peace.  If I were writing the renderer, I
would support previous texture versions.  But since I'm not, well, you
get the picture.

                            -- Glenn



##

Subject: Re: Essence Idea
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 0:23:03 CDT
From: [e-mail]

Rosario Salfi writes:
> Hi Steve!  Got an idea for an essence texture...actually, a variant on
> the Burnish texture.  It would be nice (and true to form) if there was a
> radial variation.  More and more I'm noticing circular metal (mostly
> stainless steel) items and the burnish is circular...

If you mean what I think you mean, this is just a trick of the light.
I noticed this again when I was sitting at a bar with a stainless
steel top a couple of days ago -- circular burnish patterns, except
they moved to follow my head.  Closer inspection revealed that the
scratches in the steel were random, and the "circles" were simply
appearing around the reflections of the overhead lights.  Since this
is a light effect, couldn't this be reproduced with Imagine and
Essence somehow (I'm just guessing, since I haven't used Essence)?

--
Evan Kirchhoff, [e-mail]


##

Subject: How to model semisphere
Date:     Sat, 25 Sep 1993 09:06:00 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Roy Park)

Hello... I was wondering how I could create a smooth surfaced, FILLED
semi-sphere WITHOUT losing the SHARP circular edge.

I was trying turning the phong on and off and all that, but I can't
figure it out!!  When I turn the phong on, it looks very rounded and smooth
but I'd lose the SHARP cross-section edge.

Any solution to this??

----
Roy Park   // [e-mail]
A3000@25 \X/ 1st yr UofW Comp.Eng.

APO/SparX


##

Subject: Re: object file format
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 14:49:59 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~)

>>>>> "Mike" == m stortz1 <[e-mail]> writes:

Mike> Sure, that's great for Amiga users.  How about a PC version of
Mike> T3DLIB, or failing that, the originally requested file format
Mike> info?  Us PC guys just want to have fun...  What about a PC
Mike> version of Essence?  Are we waiting for 3.0?

    Whups... my apologies...  I was highly confident that my
modified version of the original "TDDD.doc" was in one of those
archives, and I just looked, wondering what you were complaining
about, and it isn't there.

    Since it is large-ish, whoever would like it, just send me
e-mail.

    As for your other comments, sir, I already stated I am
currently laboring on the PC version of Essence (pain in the
proverbial butt), and after I finish that, I will whip out DJGPP and
compile T3DLIB (which any one else could do in the mean-time).

                        -- Glenn


##

Subject: Re: How to model semisphere
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 17:46:42 +0200
From: [e-mail]

Hello roy,

To solve your problem use the functions MAKE SHARP on the circular edge
of your semi-sphere. Don't forget to create your object with phong on.

bye.


##

Subject:  Circular Metal Burnish
Date:  Tue, 21 Sep 1993 15:30:52 +0000
From: "Rob (R.D.) Hounsell" <[e-mail]>

Forwarded message:
>
> Rosario Salfi writes:
> > Hi Steve!  Got an idea for an essence texture...actually, a variant on
> > the Burnish texture.  It would be nice (and true to form) if there was a
> > radial variation.  More and more I'm noticing circular metal (mostly
> > stainless steel) items and the burnish is circular...
>
> If you mean what I think you mean, this is just a trick of the light.
> I noticed this again when I was sitting at a bar with a stainless
> steel top a couple of days ago -- circular burnish patterns, except
.
.
.

  There IS a type of metal finish that is made of circles (typically all the
same diameter, althought the diameter depends on the scale of the object) that
are polished or ground (burnished?) into the surface. The circles overlap to
some extent to ensure that all the surface is covered. I remember a tip from
one of my home shop books saying that a pencil clamped in a drill press chuck
(eraser end down) could be used to make this effect on small objects very
nicely. Can't remember what the finish is called, though. I believe the idea is
that it doesn't show fingerprints, etc., although it is attractive in itself.

Rob

--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Rob Hounsell                           BNR WAN:  HOUNSELL@NMERH53           |
| Team Leader: UNIX                      INTERNET: [e-mail]            |
| Global Product Performance:            PHONE: [phone]                |
| Paradigm Club Design Team. Dept. PS27  ESN: 395-2904                        |
| Northern Telecom Public Switching                                           |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+


##

Subject: Re:  How to model semisphere
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 10:11:23 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Steve Ziolkowski)

make sharp.  problem solved. go into pick edges, select all edges
    that lie on the circular edge, then hit make sharp.

steveZ



##

Subject: Re: How to model semisphere
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1970 18:08:50 -0600
From: [e-mail] ()

On Sep 25,  9:06am, Roy Park wrote:
> Subject: How to model semisphere
> Hello... I was wondering how I could create a smooth surfaced, FILLED
> semi-sphere WITHOUT losing the SHARP circular edge.
>
> I was trying turning the phong on and off and all that, but I can't
> figure it out!!  When I turn the phong on, it looks very rounded and smooth
> but I'd lose the SHARP cross-section edge.
>
> Any solution to this??
>
> ----
> Roy Park   // [e-mail]
> A3000@25 \X/ 1st yr UofW Comp.Eng.
>
> APO/SparX
>
>
>-- End of excerpt from Roy Park

I have 2 solutions to that problem :

1) I use that solution with Imagine 1, has it had not the feature included with
2.0 (see below).
All you have to do is to make half a sphere (open) and group it with a disk,
that clodse the hemisphere.

2) There is an easier way now in I2.0 : make the hemisphere smooth, then go in
Edge mode, select all the flat part of the hemisphere and use Make Sharp Edges
function. That's it !

Robin






--

---------------------------------------------------------------------
      Robin Chytil, Staff Engineer
      Mediterranean Distribution Territory
      Silicon Graphics

      Vmail: 5-9389           Email: [e-mail]
      Tel:   [phone]    Fax :  [phone]
                                                       \|/
                                                       @ @
---------------------------------------------------oOO-(_)-OOo-------







##

Subject: Re: How to model semisphere
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 12:25:28 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Michael B. Comet)

>
>Hello... I was wondering how I could create a smooth surfaced, FILLED
>semi-sphere WITHOUT losing the SHARP circular edge.
>
>I was trying turning the phong on and off and all that, but I can't
>figure it out!!  When I turn the phong on, it looks very rounded and smooth
>but I'd lose the SHARP cross-section edge.
>
>Any solution to this??

    Assuming Imagine 2.0 or greater for the edges you wish to "Make
Sharp" just pick them and do a functions, make sharp command.  Leave phong
shading on.


--
/*
 * Michael B. Comet,  [e-mail], CWRU Software Engineer/Graphics Artist
 *                   "And on the 7th day G-d Ray Traced..."
 */


##

Subject: Re: How to model semisphere
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 10:06:12 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Christopher Stewart)

>
>Hello... I was wondering how I could create a smooth surfaced, FILLED
>semi-sphere WITHOUT losing the SHARP circular edge.
>
>I was trying turning the phong on and off and all that, but I can't
>figure it out!!  When I turn the phong on, it looks very rounded and smooth
>but I'd lose the SHARP cross-section edge.
>
>Any solution to this??
>

     In the details editor, under the functions menu is the make selector.
Two of these are "make sharp" and "make soft". Apply the former to the
circular edge and perhaps the entire face of the semi-sphere. Problem with
applying it to the edge is that you'll see the outline of the polygons.
Perhaps just sharpening the base first might be the route to follow.

                                          Good luck,



--
....and if there be some harder, better way    [e-mail]
to salvation than to follow that which we      [e-mail]
believe to be good, then are we all damned.    [e-mail]
   Lord Dunsany, "Dom Rodriguez" (1922).         <Christopher Stewart>



##

Subject: How to model semisphere
Date:     Wed, 22 Sep 1993 02:11:00 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Rosario Salfi)

The solution, if I understand you correctly, is a simple one... provided
you have Imagine 2.0 (or better  8^)

First, turn phong shading on.  Then select PICK EDGES.  Using the DRAG
BOX, select the "disk" of points that makes up the cut portion of the
semi-sphere (make sure to hold the shift key down for multi-select).
Then, when all the edges on the disk have been selected, choose MAKE
SHARP from the FUNCTIONS menu.  Then save and render as usual.

This will turn phong shading off for those edges, causing them to be
sharp.  I've used the same idea several times, especially on the front
faces of extruded fonts.

Hope it helps you!



##

Subject: RE: No pressure to release 3.0?
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 09:18:57 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Dave Wickard)

NOTE: This post was sent to the [e-mail] address
      and is being forwarded to the list by me. Please be certain when replying
      to IML posts that your REPLY function is grabbing the correct address:
      [e-mail]
      If not, be certain to either change the address, or at least Cc: a copy
      there. Thanks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: [e-mail]
Subject: No pressure to release 3.0?
From: [e-mail] (Paul Marino)
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 23:01:38 EDT
Organization: [MindVox] / Phantom Access Technologies / (+1 800-MindVox)

A while back someone (forgive me; I don't remember who) posted a message
stating that Impulse did not feel pressure to release 3.0.

While I can understand the concept of keeping pressure at bay so one
can really concentrate on one's work, I find that having a "no pressure"
attitude towards their release a bit disheartening.

I, as a supporter of their products, feel that they should realize &
confront this situation. This is for their benefit as well as our own.

Pressure is what keeps the products such as Imagine on its toes and
consistently upgrading in light of their competitors.

If Impulse continually feels that "pressure" isn't something that they
need to address, then I predict Impulse will not have as many of their
customers coming back for an upgrade that had been promised for months.

Plenty of us will have moved onto a similar product that meets our needs
and gives in to our "pressure".

- Paul Marino


##

Subject: Re: Essence I & II
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 15:53:46 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~)

Lesk> Does anyone know if essence is different than essence I?

    Yes, I am familiar with these products... Essence I and
Essence II are definitely different.  Completely.

Lesk> I bought essence some time ago but didn't realize there were 2
Lesk> or more...

    Yes, just two for now...

Lesk> I tried to get in contact via email but no response.

    Hmmm, that is very odd.  The President and CEO of Apex
Software Publishing is Steven P. Worley, and his e-mail address is:
[e-mail].  Or you can mail to me, and I will pass the
messages along to him if I can not directly answer them.

Lesk> Is essence II an upgrade from essence I?

    It is a completely new package.  All new textures, everything.
Pretty awesome, too, I might add, but I am very biased.  :-)

Lesk> Thanks, Lesk
Lesk> P.S. is there an oolite in II?

    Ummm, you lost me there.  An "oolite"?  Sorry, I dunno.

                        -- Glenn


##

Subject: Re:  Essence I & II
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 10:08:20 PDT
From: "Charles Congdon" <[e-mail]>

Lesk:
    Essence II is completely different from Essence I.  It contains over 40
brand-new textures, over a third of which use never-published algorithms to
produce an organic "randomly-tiled" surface.  Believe me, you've never seen
algorithmic textures like these before.

    Essence I and II presently work with Imagine 2.0 and below.  Support
for Imagine 3.0 and other renderers is in the works, upgrade policy to be
determined :).  If you are an Essence user and have sent in your registration
card, you should be on the Apex Newsletter mailing list, which will announce
such information when available.

    Cheers,
    Charles    (Standard Disclaimer)


##

Subject: Picture Tracing
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 20:25:03 +0200 (MET DST)
From: [e-mail]

I've got serious trouble in tracing logotypes (1bp IFFs).
I need best possible quality and often, the tracing procedure can take up to an hour
before I get the desired result. This is caused by the #$@! damn bug in Imagine's
tracing algorithms and the fact that PixPro/Pixel3d is real hard to use.
My IFFs are often quite large.

Anybody having tips and hints?

  *How can I get rid of Intersecting bugs (very strange behaviour!)
  *How can I trace with good result with PixPRO (requires LOTS of fiddling?!)
  *Can I convert ProDraw Clips?

I think these are well known problems among Imagine users and probably, they're FAQs?
Well, every single help I can get is appreciated!!

/Per Swantesson


##

Subject: Re: Essence I & II
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 13:10:59 -0600
From: Steve Koren <[e-mail]>

> Lesk> P.S. is there an oolite in II?

GL>     Ummm, you lost me there.  An "oolite"?  Sorry, I dunno.

I was curious too.  According to Webster:

  oolite n. 1. a small, oval, calcareous grain occurring esp. in dolomites
         and limestone.  2. Rock, usu. limestone, composed mainly of
         oolites.

You can probably make it using some combination of the Essence textures.
Might have to play around a little to get it to look right though.

  - steve


##

Subject: Re: Essence I & II
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 19:59:10 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~)

>>>>> "Steve" == Steve Koren <[e-mail]> writes:

Lesk> P.S. is there an oolite in II?
GL> Ummm, you lost me there.  An "oolite"?  Sorry, I dunno.

Steve> I was curious too.  According to Webster:

Steve> oolite n. 1. a small, oval, calcareous grain occurring esp. in
Steve> dolomites and limestone.  2. Rock, usu. limestone, composed
Steve> mainly of oolites.

    Fascinating!  Thanks, Steve, for the lookup.  :-)

    I know that Steve Worley has included a slew of gnarly-looking
(sorry, best way I know to describe them :-)  rocks and flagstones in
Essence II.  Please take a look at the sample JPEGs on Aminet, I
believe, for Essence II...  you will see a nice selection, and I have
no doubt you can make the textures look like any kind of *-ites you
want, with a bit of experimentation.

    (Last I checked, I saw the Essence II JPEG samples on
ftp.wustl.edu in /pub/mirrors/amiga.physik.unizh.ch/gfx/... somewhere,
but the site is down now so I can't check.)

                            -- Glenn


##

Subject: Re: Picture Tracing
Date:     Wed, 22 Sep 1993 17:12:00 -0400
From: j#d#[e-mail] (J. Moore)

D>  *Can I convert ProDraw Clips?
D> I think these are well known problems among Imagine users and probably,
D> they're FAQs?
D> Well, every single help I can get is appreciated!!

This is only helpful if you know someone with either Aladdin 4D (or Draw
4D Pro): they import EPS files (from ProDraw, ProVector, and Art
Expressions) and these could be saved and converted with PixelPro (or
saved as geo files (VideoScape ASCII files -- Lightwave imports them; I
don't know about Imagine).  I don't suppose it's exactly what you're
looking for, but it would work and do a very good job -- a lot quicker
than what you've described.

 * Q-Blue v0.7 [NR] *


##

Subject: imagine info
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 16:27:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: Adam Heath Clark <[e-mail]>

i'm interested in buying imagine, but i've never seen it (none of the stores
i talked to had it up and running on a computer) and impulse says that if
i buy it and don't like it, tough.

i was wondering whether anybody had any screen shots, in-depth reviews, or
anything else that might help me.

thanks
adam
[e-mail]



##

Subject: Pegger Press Release
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 18:19:51 PDT
From: [e-mail]

Press Release

   For Immediate Release

   For More Information Contact:

   Chris Minshall
   Heifner Communications, Inc.
   4451 I-70 Drive NW
   Columbia, MO  65202
   [phone]  (voice)
   [phone]  (voice)
   [phone]   (fax)


             PEGGER, Automated JPEG Image Compression Software

(Columbia, MO -- September 10, 1993)

   Heifner Communications is now shipping a new software utility for
the Amiga line of personal computers and Video Toaster workstations.
PEGGER is a fully integrated JPEG utility based on the compression
algorithm from the Joint Photographers Experts Group.  PEGGER allows
programs that don't support JPEG images to work automatically with
them.  Everything from 3D animation systems to graphic and multi-media
programs greatly benefit from the enormous savings in hard drive space
PEGGERS JPEG compression provides.

   PEGGERs Snoop capability automates the JPEG processing for programs
that don't support JPEG, such as Electronic Arts Deluxe Paint AGA,
the NewTek Video Toaster, so they can load or save JPEG files. Literally
any program on the Amiga that supports the loading and saving of images
in the IFF 24 bit, DCTV, HAM8, or Newtek Framestore formats will now be
able to transparently load and save JPEG format images using PEGGER.
PEGGER runs seamlessly in the background, compressing and decompressing
files as needed.  Your 100 MB 24 bit or HAM8 library can be compressed
to under 10 MB and your applications won't even know it. A 50 MB hard
drive can now hold more than 1000 frames of high resolution 24 bit
files instead of just 60 or 70 frames.

   PEGGER does it's job in just seconds; we have optimized the JPEG
code for the Amiga. The JPEG compress, decompress, and selection of
files to process run completely independent of each other.  This
allows both compression and decompression of files at the same time,
with the ability to adjust the priority of each.  A cue list of files
awaiting processing is maintained so that you can select additional
files to process while PEGGER is busy in the background processing
your previous selections.  In addition to selecting individual files
to process, entire directories of files can be set up to be batch
processed.

   You can have PEGGER execute an ARexx script prior to and after JPEG
processing of a file.  This allows the integration of PEGGERs powerful
batch processing capabilities with other applications which support
ARexx.  For example, using an ARexx script to load a frame buffer
and activate a single frame recorder after JPEG decompression of an
image.

   The JPEG processing is performed on a small portion of the file at a
time, so PEGGER doesn't need megabytes of RAM to hold the entire image
before processing can begin. A 2000 by 3000 pixel 24 bit image takes
almost 30 MB of system RAM to JPEG compress or decompress with current
Amiga programs.  With PEGGER, less than 1 MB of system RAM is needed.

   Designed to run in the background, and when idle, uses few system
resources.  Even if your computer were to crash while PEGGER was
processing files, when restarted, PEGGER will continue processing
the files where it was interrupted.

   Features:

      ARexx support.

      Support for NewTek Framestore, 24 bit IFF, DCTV, and HAM8 images.

      PEGGER can process images up to 32000 pixels wide using less than
      4 MB of system RAM.

      AmigaDOS 2.0 & 3.0 compatible.

      Follows all AmigaDOS programming guidelines.

      Adjustable priority for JPEG compression and decompression.

      Pegger is designed to multi task in the background using minimal
      system resources so a 3D rendering or graphics program can also
      run at the same time.

      Snoop feature allows PEGGER to compress the output of your 3D
      rendering or graphics program into a JPEG file automatically.

      JPEG code has been optimized for speed.

      PEGGER can be used with the appropriate ARexx script to single
      frame record images directly from JPEGed sequential files.


   PEGGER is a low cost alternative to a new expensive large capacity
   hard drive for animation or color graphic workstations.

   NOW SHIPPING!
   Retail Price: $99.95
   Dealers and Distributors : Contact Heifner Communications Inc.

Deluxe Paint IV AGA is a trademark of Electronic Arts
Video Toaster and Framestore are trademarks of NewTek, Inc.
Amiga is a trademark of Commodore Business Machines, Inc.


##

Subject: Animated brushmap question
Date:     Wed, 22 Sep 1993 21:44:54 -0400
From: Jason B Koszarsky <[e-mail]>

I have a simple sphere object with an anim brush applied to it.
the max sequence is 32, the files have 4 digit numbered appendages.
Everything seems ok but when I try to quickrender frames in the
stage editor i get a 'can't open mypic.0016.0001' error message.
It seems to append this '.0001' to whatever frame i try to quickrender
from stage.  But if I go to Project and generate the frame, it works
just fine.  No complaints about not finding the brush.

Jason K.


##

Subject: Pics uploaded to wustl
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 19:05:51 PDT
From: Scott Lundholm <[e-mail]>

Hello to all on the IML,

     I have just uploaded two pics to wuarchive.wustl.edu (my first to the net)
They are in /systems/amgia/boing/incoming/imagine/ (if I remember right), and
are named  dolphins.lha and wetbar.lha. Please enjoy, and send me comments and
critiques. Thanks.

                                                  Scott Lundholm

 *----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
 | Amiga 500/030 at 38Mhz w/68882 at | Email (UNIX)[e-mail] |
 | 50Mhz, 8Meg of 32-bit RAM, Bodega |                Memeber                 |
 | Bay w/105 & 450 Meg Hard Drives,  |   Redwood Empire Amiga Users Group     |
 | HP PaintJet, 16" HP Programmable  | Imagine 2.0 rendering enthusiast and   |
 | Multisynch w/Flicker Free Video.  | graphics fanatic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   |
 *----------------------------------------------------------------------------*


##

Subject: Re: Picture Tracing
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 22:12:05 -0500 (CDT)
From: Daniel Jr Murrell <[e-mail]>

>   *Can I convert ProDraw Clips?

What, John hasn't replied yet? :)

I'm not sure, but I think that Interchange can convert Pro Draw files.
I think I read that somewhere.

Danimal
[e-mail]



##

Subject: - Imagine 3.0 (FPU/INT) -
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 12:10:52 +0200
From: "- Carsten Berggreen - Denmark -" <[e-mail]>

Hi there,

About a week ago, I asked about if the essence textures was running, without
FPU, and the messages from you was(very shortly) "NO WAY! IT DON'T!!!!"

I was crying VERY LOUD...  since I have an "old" amiga 500 without anything
but 2 floppy drives and some 2.5 meg ram....  not alot I know, but that
shouldn't be able to stop ME....

Now, after I've understood what I've lost (and have stopped crying &:-( ),
then I had this "nightmare" question:

"DOES THE 'NEW' IMAGINE 3.0 ALSO NEED A FPU???????"
(ofcause the old Imagine's supported both Integer AND Floating, but what now?)

Please Impulse, I know I might be stupid NOT to own a FPU, but you know,
I'm trying to save some money to buy a bigger computer first (fx. A4000-T!!!)
and it would really make me very sorry to see if you've decided NOT to
support the "Integer people"(read: no money left for fun) like me, anymore...

Okay, I believe that's it for today...

Signed
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- Address: Carsten Berggreen         E-mail: [e-mail] -
-          Hirsevaenget 16A                                         -
-          8464  Galten          "It isn't the equipment alone, it  -
-          Denmark                is also what YOU can do with it!" -
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- A true fan of Amiga, Coca-Cola, Imagine and good looking females! -
---------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: Re: No pressure to release 3.0?
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 10:34:22 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Tom Smith)

[e-mail] (Paul Marino) writes:

>If Impulse continually feels that "pressure" isn't something that they
>need to address, then I predict Impulse will not have as many of their
>customers coming back for an upgrade that had been promised for months.
>
>Plenty of us will have moved onto a similar product that meets our needs
>and gives in to our "pressure".
>

I've kind of given up on Impulse. Until I see a product from them I really
don't consider them in the game anymore.

                                                    Tom Smith

>- Paul Marino


##

Subject: Pdraw + bitmaps
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 10:04:14 EST
From: [e-mail] (Doug Brooks)

>I've got serious trouble in tracing logotypes (1bp IFFs).
>I need best possible quality and often, the tracing procedure can take up
>to an hour
>  *How can I trace with good result with PixPRO (requires LOTS of
>fiddling?!)
>  *Can I convert ProDraw Clips?

I've never got any good results from imagine's bit map trace or from pixel.
The way I reccommend is to use Vertex 2.0. There is a manual bitmap tracer
with multiple levels of Zoom as well as a EPS import (with autofill). I
convert Prodraw clips on a regular basis and the results are outstanding.
Print your prodraw clip as a postscript eps page without bitmaps and it will
come right into vertex.

Another neat way of tracing logos is to use Morph plus. Load your bitmap, and
trace it with morph plus as if you were going to morph something. Save the
vertices and quit. Then load the file into your text editor and you'll find
that there are two sets of x-y coordinates per each point (ie start and end).
Delete the second set and add a 0 for a z value on each line (this can be
done with a small Rexx script or macro). Then load as a geo file in any
program that supports it. You'll then have to flip the object upside sown and
add the lines connecting the vertices but the Brightness/Contrast and Zoom
features of morph+ are far better than anyone elses.

 hope this helps




--
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|        Doug Brooks                 |            100% Virtual               |
|        Doug Brooks Animation       |           Kinetic Dissonant           |
|        [e-mail]     |                                       |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||


##

Subject: Re: Picture Tracing (fwd)
Date:     Thu, 23 Sep 1993 21:17:16 +0200
From: Hannes Heckner <[e-mail]>

Forwarded message:
> From @mail.uunet.ca:j#d#[e-mail] Wed Sep 22 23:37:49 1993
> To:    [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: Picture Tracing
> From:    j#d#[e-mail] (J. Moore)
> Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
> In-Reply-To: <[e-mail]>
> Date:    Wed, 22 Sep 1993 23:12:00 +0100
> Organization: CRS Online  (Toronto, Ontario)
>
> D>  *Can I convert ProDraw Clips?
> D> I think these are well known problems among Imagine users and probably,
> D> they're FAQs?
> D> Well, every single help I can get is appreciated!!
>
> This is only helpful if you know someone with either Aladdin 4D (or Draw
> 4D Pro): they import EPS files (from ProDraw, ProVector, and Art
> Expressions) and these could be saved and converted with PixelPro (or
> saved as geo files (VideoScape ASCII files -- Lightwave imports them; I
> don't know about Imagine).  I don't suppose it's exactly what you're
> looking for, but it would work and do a very good job -- a lot quicker
> than what you've described.
>
>  * Q-Blue v0.7 [NR] *
>
This is not exactly true. Vertex 2.0 allows import of EPS files to
convert them into Imagine objects. Perhaps thats the way to go.

Hannes



##

Subject: Re: - Imagine 3.0 (FPU/IN
Date:     Thu, 23 Sep 1993 15:27:00 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Roy Park)

> Hi there,
>
> About a week ago, I asked about if the essence textures was running, without
> FPU, and the messages from you was(very shortly) "NO WAY! IT DON'T!!!!"
>
> I was crying VERY LOUD...  since I have an "old" amiga 500 without anything
> but 2 floppy drives and some 2.5 meg ram....  not alot I know, but that
> shouldn't be able to stop ME....
>
> Now, after I've understood what I've lost (and have stopped crying &:-( ),
> then I had this "nightmare" question:
>
> "DOES THE 'NEW' IMAGINE 3.0 ALSO NEED A FPU???????"
> (ofcause the old Imagine's supported both Integer AND Floating, but what
> now?)
>
> Please Impulse, I know I might be stupid NOT to own a FPU, but you know,
> I'm trying to save some money to buy a bigger computer first (fx. A4000-T!!!)
> and it would really make me very sorry to see if you've decided NOT to
> support the "Integer people"(read: no money left for fun) like me, anymore...
>
> Okay, I believe that's it for today...

Strange... if you have enough money to buy Imagine package, you should be able
to afford an FPU accesory for your A500.... and I wouldn't want to use Integer
version of Imagine anyway...  :)

> -!-------------------------------------------------------------------
> - Address: Carsten Berggreen         E-mail: [e-mail] -

----
Roy Park   // [e-mail]
A3000@25 \X/ 1st yr UofW Comp.Eng.

APO/SparX


##

Subject: Re: imagine info
Date:     Thu, 23 Sep 1993 15:29:00 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Roy Park)

> i'm interested in buying imagine, but i've never seen it (none of the stores
> i talked to had it up and running on a computer) and impulse says that if
> i buy it and don't like it, tough.
>
> i was wondering whether anybody had any screen shots, in-depth reviews, or
> anything else that might help me.

Imagine 2.0 is very good for doing amatuer 3D animations/modelling.  Once you
get familiarized with its interface, you will enjoy using it... It's a lot
nicer to use on faster Amiga... for shorter render time.

> thanks
> adam
> [e-mail]

----
Roy Park   // [e-mail]
A3000@25 \X/ 1st yr UofW Comp.Eng.

APO/SparX


##

Subject: Re: imagine info
Date:     Thu, 23 Sep 1993 20:25:00 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Roy Park)

> Why do you limit it to amatuer 3D animations/modelling?

In my opinion, professional 3D animation/modelling software should have
gravity and particle animation feature, better light/cameral handling
(lens flare, etc)... that's what I meant.

>        ____________________________^____________________________
>        dale r. rogers
>
>        Intergraph Corporation
>        Building Design & Management             MailStop: LR24A4
>        [e-mail]           Tel: [phone]

----
Roy Park   // [e-mail]
A3000@25 \X/ 1st yr UofW Comp.Eng.

APO/SparX


##

Subject: IML policy
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 12:04:15 +0200 (MET DST)
From: [e-mail]

Hi!

I'm new here on IML and I have a question...

  * Is it taboo (correct spelling?) to discuss and compare Imagine to
    other tracing software i.e Real3d here?

Regards, Per Swantesson
Sweden






##

Subject: Re: imagine info
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 14:10:02 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Thomas Setzer)

>
> > i'm interested in buying imagine, but i've never seen it (none of the stores
> > i talked to had it up and running on a computer) and impulse says that if
> > i buy it and don't like it, tough.
> >
> > i was wondering whether anybody had any screen shots, in-depth reviews, or
> > anything else that might help me.
>
> Imagine 2.0 is very good for doing amatuer 3D animations/modelling.  Once you
> get familiarized with its interface, you will enjoy using it... It's a lot
> nicer to use on faster Amiga... for shorter render time.

Webster defines professional as follows:

  adj. 1. of or having to do with a profession.  2. practicing some sport, or
       involved in some occupation, for pay; n. one who makes his living by a
       sport or occupation often taken part in by amateurs.

Key word is *pay*.
Hmm, I happen to know of atleast one *professional* who uses Imagine.  I
understand your point, it isn't up to snuff with some high end stuff but....
The person I speak of happens to be working for a very famous producer whos
name I won't say at this point.  If he gives me the OK, I'll tell you what
he's doing.  Its pretty cool stuff.  Wish I was part of it:(


Tom Setzer
[e-mail]

"And of course, I'm a genius, so people are naturally drawn to my fiery
intellect.  Their admiration overwhelms their envy!" - Calvin


##

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 13:29:17 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Dave Wickard)

NOTE: This post was sent to the [e-mail] address
      and is being forwarded to the list by me. Please be certain when replying
      to IML posts that your REPLY function is grabbing the correct address:
      [e-mail]
      If not, be certain to either change the address, or at least Cc: a copy
      there. Thanks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Kiernan Holland <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: your mail
To: [e-mail]
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 22:52:02 -0600 (MDT)
In-Reply-To: <no.id> from "[e-mail]" at Sep 19, 93 06:38:16 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21]
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 2390

To simulate a silver metalic surface you need a completely
different rendering program altogether.. It is in the way
the metlaic surface reflects light. I talked to my father (physicist for
more than 30 years) about this one time and he said that the
properties of the reflection of light change even when you raise the
temperature of the object (eventually bending the reflection way out of
purportion, or something to that effect). I think one of the effects
is the only color that is reflected is the color of the metalic surface
or at least tinted to that color.

I think an easy way to simulate silver would be to look at your
environment or possibly to create a fish-eye rendering of the environment
from the point-of-view of the object looking at the observer.
take that image into Art Department Professional or some such program
and convert it to a grey-scale image, convert it back to color,
tint it light-bluish or darken it, then map that on to the object
and re-render the scene with the object and the texture map.
??? tried that???

Some artists even use a image that has nothing but a sky and a ground,
with the sky going from white on the horizon to grey at the top, and
the same for the ground (from bottom to top, white to black gradient,
white to grey gradient). That can be easily made in a paint program.
Then you just map that to whatever object, works better on smaller objects
because it tricks the eye into thinking the image resembles the surrounding
area.. It is called environment mapping, and undoubtely it is what was
done in T2 with the liqui-metal terminator. In fact, if you look at
individual frames (get the video on your vcr, and try to freeze frames...
my magnavox VCR will do it) where the t2000 (the liqui-metalic terminator)
takes over that helicopter (at the end of the movie). Try to increment frames
and freeze and you'll see that the reflection on the t2000 of the pilot
(who is currently in his seat) is not dimensionally correct..

It fools your eye, I suspect for the same reason any motion picture
does (in general): your brain makes up all that information that is
missing and imprecise.

Besides, environment mapping is the only way they could have
done it, otherwise they'd have to make a rendering of the whole scene
(the helicopter, pilot, outside environment, and the t2000,
with all the movement data).




##

Subject: yeah, Why do you limit to amatuer 3D?
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 13:14:26 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Dave Wickard)

NOTE: This post was sent to the [e-mail] address
      and is being forwarded to the list by me. Please be certain when replying
      to IML posts that your REPLY function is grabbing the correct address:
      [e-mail]
      If not, be certain to either change the address, or at least Cc: a copy
      there. Thanks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 17:58:09 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Steve Ziolkowski)
To: [e-mail]
Subject: yeah, Why do you limit it to amatuer 3D?


Roy Park writes:
>>Imagine 2.0 is very good for doing amatuer 3D animations

So I had to say that even though I work on SGIs at work, I
still use imagine 2.0 at home, and in fact got my job here
based almost exclusively on my amiga/Imagine animations.
Despite it's bugs and the obvious limitations, I have been
able to blend live/cgi with it, hand-drawn/cgi, and
produce very professional looking pieces with just Imagine,
a video camera, Dpaint and DCTV.
    Just my two cents.

steveZ



##

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 14:03:08 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Dave Wickard)

NOTE: This post was sent to the [e-mail] address
      and is being forwarded to the list by me. Please be certain when replying
      to IML posts that your REPLY function is grabbing the correct address:
      [e-mail]
      If not, be certain to either change the address, or at least Cc: a copy
      there. Thanks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Kiernan Holland <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: your mail
To: [e-mail]
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 16:03:14 -0600 (MDT)
In-Reply-To: <no.id> from "[e-mail]" at Sep 23, 93 11:18:04 am
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21]
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 750

Hello guys,
I was wondering if there is any particular place (and directory) where
general Amiga animations are uploaded to..?

I have this super-cool animation that I made in deluxe paint 3
(you may be wondering what is so super about DP3),
it uses the "Move" tool in a way that some might have not thought about
before.. It is kinda neat what kind of things you can do with old
programs. ;-)

Kiernan


(I would guess wuarchive, but things just seem to get lost there...
unless there is some directory that has remained constant through
all the changes that wuarchive has gone through. I'll put my animation
up and you can see what I mean by super. It is a way to make swirling
universes without having to make super complex objects. )


##

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 14:09:40 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Dave Wickard)

NOTE: This post was sent to the [e-mail] address
      and is being forwarded to the list by me. Please be certain when replying
      to IML posts that your REPLY function is grabbing the correct address:
      [e-mail]
      If not, be certain to either change the address, or at least Cc: a copy
      there. Thanks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Kiernan Holland <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: your mail
To: [e-mail]
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 15:48:09 -0600 (MDT)
In-Reply-To: <no.id> from "[e-mail]" at Sep 20, 93 05:17:33 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21]
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 3580

>Does the new texture system offer a _significant_ technological increase
>over the existing one? What I mean is, did Impulse change their texture
>format for the sake of improving the entire texture system, or did they do
>it just to make it so Essence doesn't work?

You don't cut off the folks that make your software more useful.
If you do, it is like cutting your limbs off one by one. Knowing how
Impulse runs things they might accidently amputate things, but
I'd see it as a seriously bad business decision to make a new piece of
software just to cut some other developer off from making supporting
software. From what they said in thier newsletter it looks like
it is much better than it is now, but my questions is
"is it better working, less fixed, more dynamic, modularized,
robust". It seems like, from what I remember it saying, that they did
do this (made things more dynamic as well as adding more features).

For instance, they said that the attributes panel would be split up into
different parts for textures, surface definition, etc. If the individual
parts are seperate modularized entities then it is a good design. Easier
to test, easier to modify, it is the way most software design is done
these days.

They said that 3.0 would allow (almost) infinite textures, objects,
frames per animation. Why? They were probably using fixed
data structures before... It probably had something to do with
the operating system too. I don't know, but it makes you wonder
what kinda of tricks they were having to perform with previous
versions of Imagine. They probably converted everything from C to C++,
that would be an easy explanation since that is what a lot of
developers and prgrammers are changing to right now (including me,
and C++ is a big jump in terms of thinking... it reminds me a little
of pascal, which sucks [beavis voice], but it is more operation/data oriented
than  function oriented as in C, it also lets you write simpler
looking code than the complex stuff you see in C [though, C++ is C
compatible, there is nothing stopping you from writing screwy code,
C++ jut tempts you to use its facilities]).

>If the new system has no improvement over the old system, and the change
>was some self-motivated B.S, then I will stick with 2.0 and consider
>getting Real3D and/or LightRave-Lightwave3D.

I saw the newsletter.. They promised, I guess if they didn't,
we could take it to the supreme court.. I don't know, maybe?
They are probably taking money via mail, so they can make a huge
pile of money to fund these changes that they talked about.
Either that or they are in debt for all the firecracker's that they
made, and owe some money. They probably made a deal with the MOB.

3. They are probably buying themselves a vacation to hawaii to surf all winter
long.

4. "" "" a few thousand armatures to prepare for the sequel to Jurasic Park.

5. "" "" sending a BIG check to Bill Clinton to help bring the country
   out of debt (right...)

6. Lending money to Micahel Jackson to pay his attorney(s)'s fee(s).

7. Buying a highrise building in South Africa.

8. Help La Posada add about 20 more menu items to thier menu (very very
   local, to me, humor).

9. Secretly they are buying up Commodore stock to eventual takeover.

10. They are doing nothing with the money but making it into tiny
    paper airplanes and burning it for heat.

12. Hiring a staff of operators to answer calls and tell
    thier customers that "Imagine 3.0" is not ready yet.

11. Or, they are, honest to god, working on Imagine 3.0.


##

Subject: ATTENTION ALL PEGGER USERS!!!!!
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 19:08:12 PDT
From: [e-mail]

ATTENTION PEGGER USERS!!!!

We have discovered a bug in the program which could potentially
destroy ANIM files created with the new Video Toaster 4000 or HAM8
animations in any of the various IFF ANIM formats.  Do not attempt
to compress Toaster ANIM files in your framestore directory.  If
you are doing a batch compression of a framestore directory which
contains ANIM files, remove those files from the framestore
directory to a temporary location.  Alternately, edit the batch
compress file list and remove the ANIM files from the list before
beginning the compression process.  The same process applies to
HAM8 format IFF ANIM files.  We apologize for this inconvenience
but the bug has been found and is fixed.  You can call the
technical support hotline at 314-446-7017 and request an update
disk.  Also, for registered users, the update will be available on
the Pegger Support BBS (314-474-0297).  Dealers will be getting
notification on Monday or Tuesday.  Again, we apologize for this
inconvenience and hope to get this update to everyone as quickly
as possible.


Thank You.

Chris Minshall
Technical Support Engineer
Heifner Communications Inc.


##

Subject: LightRave
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 93 00:19:44 +0200
From: [e-mail]

Hello All, and peace too.

I was at WOCA Pasadena, and got me a little white piece of ingenuity,

                  T H E     L I G H T R A V E    C A R D

It allows LightWave to be run without the toaster, and also allows images
to be rendered directly to Amiga modes as well as various graphic cards,
like the OpalVision and Retina.

What can I say, the combination of LightRave and LightWave 3.0 (got the
toaster software upgrade) is some piece of pie.
Bones, shadow mapping and lens flare come as my favorite new options. It's
really something to look for in Imagine 3.0.
The program doesn't render to PAL resolutions, though, and I couldn't find
a way to specify a custom resolution. Sure, I can render to High Resolution
and batch-scale the files down, but a custom resolution would be a far
better solution. Mark? Allen? Anyone? (If it's a RTFM case, just mention
the page number)

To anyone who wants to widen his horizons and get a state-of-the-art
package, I heartily recommend LightRave. If you own a toaster, great.
If, on the other hand, you live in that deserted, miserable part of the
world that uses a strange video system called PAL, LightRave is for you.

Also, here is a small tip for making open fire, a torch for example:

1. Build an object to base the fire on - cone, cylinder, plane, whatever.

2. Color the object an orange-yellow hue. R221, G189, B000 worked for me.
Phong should be enabled.

3. Add the linear texture. My object is 200 units tall, so the Transition Z
Width is set to 150. Filter is 255 for R, G and B. Place the texture axes
on the bottom of the object, with the Z axis pointing up.

4. From Essence I, add the misc/fractalfilter texture. The axes are oriented
at its' default. Here are my parameters:

                50.00000 Initial Scale            0.900000 Filter 1 End
                5.000000 # of Scales             150.0000 Filter 1 Red
                0.400000 Scale Ratio                150.0000 Filter 1 Green
                0.400000 Amplitude Ratio        150.0000 Filter 1 Blue
                0.400000 Time Ratio                255.0000 Filter 2 Red
                0.000000 Time                        255.0000 Filter 2 Green
                0.100000 Base->1 Trans            255.0000 Filter 2 Blue
                0.500000 1->2    Trans            0.000000 Fade 0..1

5. Save the object (Fire.1 could be a good name), and modify the following:
In the fractalfilter texture, change the Time parameter to 1, and edit the
axes so they are 10 times the length of the object higher. This setting is
good for a 200 frame animation, so the fire goes one object height up every
20 frames. Save the object with a different name, maybe Fire.2.

6. In the Stage Editor, load the first fire and determine place, size and
orientation. Go to the Action Editor and morph from Fire.1 to Fire.2 over
the entire length of the animation.

7. Render, have 200 cups of coffee, and view. Enjoy.

Nir Hermoni
Author of "THIS LONG MESSAGE"
[e-mail]




##

Subject: FEATHERS. any advice.
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 93 9:55:41 EDT
From: Steve J. Lombardi <[e-mail]>

Howdy. I need to make hummingbird feathers. I haven't sat down
at the machine to experiment yet, but figured I'd ask first to
see if anyone has done this. My first thought was to try to
elongate essence-II's reptile skin and soften the edges somehow.
Any suggestions or accounts of previous experience are appreciated.

Thanks.

                    | Hey Beavis. Essence-II's Crumpled texture
steve lombardi      | really KICKS ASS.    Mhhh huh. Yea. And those space
[e-mail] | textures don't suck either. Huh.


##

Subject: Re: FEATHERS. any advice.
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 93 14:05:17 MDT
From: [e-mail] (Greg Pringle)

>Howdy. I need to make hummingbird feathers. I haven't sat down
>at the machine to experiment yet, but figured I'd ask first to

   Well, I'm not sure if this helps, but if you're planning on
doing an animation, this isn't the best way to do it.. I made
something similar with a bumble-bee hovering around a flower.
After several tries, the best result was to make a brushmap
by smudging around a lot of grey colors, and tapering off the
bottom to nothing. I then mapped the colors onto the wing as
a filter map, and had the bee's wings move RADICALLY.. like
three different angles and positions, a new one each frame.
The result is a nice blurry-transparent look. This might
look not too bad as a still, too I guess..

  Greg Pringle


##

Subject: A4000 and Sony monitors
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 00:17:14 +1000 (EST)
From: Nikola Vukovljak <[e-mail]>

I have been trying to work out which monitor wouls suit my A4000 the best.
I have thought of NEC 3D, but it may not be the best. I'm using a friend's
right now, and I'm getting 1-1.5 cm black borders on each side and that's with
VGA driver (+ DBLPAL mode). If I dn't have the VGA driver active, then my
active area is even smaller (not just black borders, but even some screen
are on the left side). I am using the latest monitor drivers.

So, I've been wondering about the Sony monitors. I know that there are
some old models that work, but what about new ones ? I've seen the ad for
Sony GVM 1311Q monitor in CGW and the ad mentions both Multiscan and
PAL/NTSC/SECAM modes. Does this mean, that this monitor will support all
the AGA modes ? It even has speakers! Has anyone used this monitor
(especiall with AGA machines) ?
Can you comment on it ? What kind of price are we talking here ?

Any info appreciated.

Thanks.

Nik.
[e-mail]

P.S. E-mailing responses would probably be better...





##

Subject: imagine pics u/l'ed to aminet
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 08:10:21 -0600
From: Steve Koren <[e-mail]>

I've uploaded the following to ftp.wustl.edu.  They are in
pub/aminet/new, but should appear in pub/aminet/pix/trace.

   MightyMo_1.lha   MightyMo_1.readme
   MightyMo_3.lha   MightyMo_3.readme
   MightyMo_4.lha   MightyMo_4.readme
   MightyMo_5.lha   MightyMo_5.readme
   MightyMo_6.lha   MightyMo_6.readme

(There is no 2, just 1,3,4,5&6).

All are pictures of the USS Missouri rendered with Imagine & Essence I
and II.

(Also, I didn't send a message to the imagine list at the time, but you
might also want to look for Twisted_City.lha which I uploaded about 2-3
weeks ago.  Its rather cool, IMHO :-) )

   - steve


##

Subject: Just the FAX, ma'am
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 10:29:12 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Thomas Setzer)

Here are the questions I sent to Mike.  I got his fax back today.  It is
a one page hand written letter which I will take a brief moment to type in.

-----Begin Include----
Mike,
  As you suggested, here is my list of questions, via FAX.  I compiled these
from questions that went unanswered on the Imagine mailing list and a few of my
own.  Hope you can find time to answer a few....

Why doesn't fog over fog work?
  Is this fixed in 3.0?

What is the format for textures for Imagine 2.0? 3.0?

What is the format for effects for Imagine 2.0? 3.0?

Why does making objects big speed up rendering?

Why does Imagine slow **way** down when you zoom up real close on an
object(rendering)?

Any suggestions on how to get a good star field(that you can see through
transparent objects and doesn't flicker)?

What causes problems with slice?
  How can I avoid this problem(besides "don't use slice")?

Will 3.0 support in some way cycle objects?  If not, will there be a conversion
to the new format?

Will you be rejoining us on the list soon?  Its gotten quiet since you left.

What other platforms will you be porting to?

Well, thats enough for now.  I know your busy, and I don't want to
distract you from your efforts to get 3.0 out the door.  Can't wait to
see it!

Tom Setzer
Motorola, Inc.

----End Include----

Mikes reply:

Tom,
1 Bug for Fog Fixed in 3.0
2 Texture & Effect data to be rel. in Oct.
3 Better Oct volume handler
4 Small oct vol
5 nope
6 slice is tuff  we need to do better.
7 cycle will work the same
8 yes soon on list
9 sgi, amiga, pc maybe sun

End Mikes reply.

Gee, thanks Mike, for that wonderful insight.

BTW, I thought cycle was gone?!?!

Tom Setzer
[e-mail]

"And of course, I'm a genius, so people are naturally drawn to my fiery
intellect.  Their admiration overwhelms their envy!" - Calvin

ps How much does real3d cost?  Lightwave/lightrave price?


##

Subject: Two bugs?
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 10:29:08 MDT
From: [e-mail] (Ben Scott)

I'm reworking an animation in Imagine that gave me a lot of trouble the
first time through due to the Imagine bug that creates a halo around partially
transparent objects when there's an environment or reflection map.  I'm
working around the bug by using an Essence texture, more on that later.

Anyhow, the troublesome object is a logo extruded to a length of 1000 units,
so that it can come out of the distance with a 'trail' behind it; I then fade
out the trail with a linear texture.  At first I was gonna mail the list with
a question abou;cyulindrical lights, because I was trying to use one to
illiuminate the whole length of the logo and it wasn't working.  I eventually
found out that no amount of light (not even making the object bright!) would
work - but that leaving the front edges soft made everything normal.  In other
words, setting some edges sharp and others soft made the soft edges completely
unresponsive to light!

What's the deal with that?

Secondly, I'm using the Essence Varyrelbright (I think) to make the object
look a bit more like gold without using a reflect map.  I'm not morphing
this texture at all.  However, I seem to get shifting patterns at irregular
intervals... especially when morphing OTHER textures (I also use a bandsm
to create a glint passing across the object - have y'all guessed yet that
this is a flying logo?  But they pay the bills...).  I'm quite certain that
the settings on the vary----- logo aren't cahnging.  Is this a known bug in
Essence?  I've run into it before but it wasn't critical enough to investigate
at the time.  Come to think of it, the behavior was exactly the same - the
varyrelbright texture got all shifty when the Bandsm texture was moved across
the face of the logo...

Also, the linear fade still doesn't seem to be working properly - I'm still
investigating the exact problem, but if anyone has any advice about making
an object fade out along its length, I'd appreciate some pointers.

.                        <<<<Infinite K>>>>

--
.---------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Ben Scott, video animation dilettante and consultant at The Raster Image. |
| [e-mail], 24 hours a day!/\-----------------------------------|
|---------------------------------------.\ Powered by the mighty Amiga 4000 |
| "The penalty for murder is the same   `-----------------------------------|
| here as anywhere else."  "Plea bargain and a suspended sentence?" - MST3k |
`---------------------------------------------------------------------------'


##

Subject: US Cybernetics Transputer
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 00:26:32 +1000 (EST)
From: Nikola Vukovljak <[e-mail]>

I'm sure that some of you are aware of this product. According to the WOC
report #7 on csa.announce, TVPaint, VistaPro, Pegger, Real 3D, Cinemorph
and Image FX are being ported to run on these boards.

I believe that now would be the time to possibly write a letter to Impulse
and ask them to release Imagine 3 version for this transputer board.
Apparentely the company provides the software developer with all the tools
to do it in a relatively short time (4-8 weeks).
So what do you think guys ? Now, if Impulse had an E-mail address, we
could compile a list of people that would consider bying this version and
mail it to them ....

We don't need no screamer! Just pass me that Transputer! :-)

Nik.
[e-mail]





##

Subject: IML archives
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 22:01:08 +1000 (EST)
From: Nikola Vukovljak <[e-mail]>

The mailing list archives had reached number 40 before the archiving was
stopped due to our archiver unfortunately lost a job.
The archives 1-36 are available on the wuarchive.wust.edu but the archives
37-40 were lost from the /incoming/imagine area when their HD crashed.
If anyone has downloaded these archives from there before they were lost,
could they please re-upload them to wuarchive ? I'd like to be able to
download them, and this will also give me some idea how much time has
passed since the last archive.

Thanks.

Nik.
[e-mail]





##

Subject: Two bugs?
Date:     Tue, 28 Sep 1993 03:09:00 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Rosario Salfi)

Well, I don't know if this will help or not, but sometimes it's this
simple.  Change the order in which the textures are applied.


##

Subject: Starfields
Date:     Tue, 28 Sep 1993 03:07:00 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Rosario Salfi)

Sorry to jump into this thread like that, but I noticed you wanted a
decent starfield that shows through transparent objects.  I know of a
way, but you need Essence I.  Here's how you do it...it's simple.

1. Create a sphere.  Doesn't have to be an incredible number of faces,
just enough to do the trick.  Make this sphere HUGE...I usually use
about 10000 to 50000 units.  Yes, I'm serious!

2. Apply to this sphere the texture Polkadots (in the MISC directory of
Essence I).  You'll have to experiment with the size a little...and add
a second texture if you don't have enough stars.

3. Render!

Really, it works nicely.  You actually get a variety of shades of the
original star colour you chose in the Polkadots texture, due to the
antialiasing.  It doesn't slow down rendering (much) and it gives you
the effect you're looking for.

Just remember to increase the world size if you're Ray Tracing.

Have fun!


##

Subject: Re: IML archives
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 08:17:14 -0700 (MST)
From: [e-mail] (Marvin Landis)

> The mailing list archives had reached number 40 before the archiving was
> stopped due to our archiver unfortunately lost a job.
> The archives 1-36 are available on the wuarchive.wust.edu but the archives
> 37-40 were lost from the /incoming/imagine area when their HD crashed.
> If anyone has downloaded these archives from there before they were lost,
> could they please re-upload them to wuarchive ? I'd like to be able to
> download them, and this will also give me some idea how much time has
> passed since the last archive.

OK.  arc37.Z through arc41.Z are now re-uploaded to wuarchive.wustl.edu in
the /systems/amiga/boing/incoming/imagine directory.  arc41.Z covers messages
sent through about June 24 of this year.  I had put these up on wuarchive
before I gave up the archivist position, then Dave Ingebretson (sp?) took
over, then lost his job and internet access before anymore archives could
be collected.  Of course as Nik mentioned, an accidental erasure at wuarchive
deleted the incoming directory.  But they are back, so I hope they can be of
use. (Anybody else doing the archiving these days?)

Marvin Landis
[e-mail]


##

Subject: Re: Starfields
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 10:36:22 MDT
From: [e-mail] (Brian Ridout)

From: [e-mail] (Rosario Salfi)

    1. Create a sphere.  Doesn't have to be an incredible number of faces,
    just enough to do the trick.  Make this sphere HUGE...I usually use
    about 10000 to 50000 units.  Yes, I'm serious!

    2. Apply to this sphere the texture Polkadots (in the MISC directory of
    Essence I).  You'll have to experiment with the size a little...and add
    a second texture if you don't have enough stars.

    3. Render!

    Really, it works nicely.  You actually get a variety of shades of the
    original star colour you chose in the Polkadots texture, due to the
    antialiasing.  It doesn't slow down rendering (much) and it gives you
    the effect you're looking for.

    Just remember to increase the world size if you're Ray Tracing.
I always set my world size to 0.

    Have fun!

This makes beautiful still pictures.  However, I have not been able to make
the star field pan very well.  The stars flicker too much.


Brian


##

Subject: Joe's Diner project !!!!!
Date:     Tue, 28 Sep 1993 19:06:04 +0100
From: Hannes Heckner <[e-mail]>

I contributed one object to the project and therefore I want to
ask for status of the project.
Any news about it ??

Thanks a lot
Hannes



##

Subject: Re: LightRave
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 17:26:42 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> LightWave 3.0 doesn't render to PAL resolutions, though, and I couldn't find
> a way to specify a custom resolution. Sure, I can render to High Resolution
> and batch-scale the files down, but a custom resolution would be a far
> better solution. Mark? Allen? Anyone?

Set your camera resolution to be greater than your desired res and then use
limited region render to get the desired size within that camera res you
have selected. All RGB file saving works with limited region render so you
can save animation frames of any res up to 3008 x 1920.
%~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
%      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  %
% --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   %
%      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   %
%     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   %
%                                                                          %
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


##

Subject: Re: Joe's Diner project !!!!!
Date: 28 Sep 1993   22:37:21 GMT
From: <[e-mail]>

> I contributed one object to the project and therefore I want to
> ask for status of the project.
> Any news about it ??
>
> Thanks a lot
> Hannes
>

    I haven't contributed one item to the project, so I don't want
to ask about it!  Actually I probably won't have time either...so if
it is still on and anyone wants to model the outside of the diner
plus the neon sign, be my guest.





##

Subject: Re: Starfields
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 22:06:57 -0500 (CDT)
From: [e-mail]

On Tue, 28 Sep 1993, Rosario Salfi wrote:

> Sorry to jump into this thread like that, but I noticed you wanted a
> decent starfield that shows through transparent objects.  I know of a
> way, but you need Essence I.  Here's how you do it...it's simple.
>
> 1. Create a sphere.  Doesn't have to be an incredible number of faces,
> just enough to do the trick.  Make this sphere HUGE...I usually use
> about 10000 to 50000 units.  Yes, I'm serious!



    Yes, but it looks like hell when animated (unless YOU know how to
fix it).  When it's animated, patches of stars flicker and look realy bad.





##

Subject: Re: Starfields
Date:     Wed, 29 Sep 1993 03:39:00 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Rosario Salfi)

Awwwww...sorry, should've specified in the first message...make sure the
BRIGHT option is selected.  Believe me, it looks fine during an
animation.  My last one involved quite a battle between a Federation
starship and a Romulan battlecruiser.  I had no trouble with the
starfield whatsoever.


##

Subject: RE: US Cybernetics Transputer
Date: 29 Sep 1993 10:35:36 U
From: "Oxley David" <[e-mail]>

In article <[e-mail]>, Nikola
Vukovljak wrote:

>I believe that now would be the time to possibly write a letter to Impulse
>and ask them to release Imagine 3 version for this transputer board.

Agreed!  The thought of a 50MFLOPS transputer running alongside the '040 in my
A2000 (is this possible?) is thrilling to say the least :P

>So what do you think guys ? Now, if Impulse had an E-mail address, we
>could compile a list of people that would consider bying this version and
>mail it to them ....

In a recent post from Thomas Setzer, Mike H at Impulse said that he'd be back
on the IML "soon".  Question is...can we wait that long?  I'll dig out his fax
number and see if he has anything to say on the matter.

Regards,
David Oxley,
Logica UK Ltd.


##

Subject: RE: US Cybernetics Transputer
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 07:41:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: Doug Kelly <[e-mail]>

Yes, the WARP System sounds extremely promising.  I was contacted last
week by a representative of the company, who had some interesting
additions to the official announcement.  I asked about the 600MIPS
configuration, since that would seem to be directly comparable to the
Screamer; he said that the target price would be in the neighborhood of
$8000-$9000.  He was quick to point out that the entry-level board would
only be around $800, though, so you could scale up as the work demanded
(and presumably as the work PAID for the demands).

The 600MIPS Level 2 board is also the largest configuration that will fit
inside the A2000 case (at this time).  Interesting, that you will be able
to get the processing power of the Screamer without an external board.

The WARP Systems rep also said they'd talked with Mike H. at Impulse.
It's up to Mike now, but the WARP people would really like to get Imagine
ported over.  At 600MIPS, you could actually get stereo pairs rendering at
30fps (as long as you keep the procedural textures under control); a Virtual
Reality machine!

I'm starting to save my pennies...too bad it won't be shipping by Christmas.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Doug Kelly               Information Specialist         First Consulting Group
[e-mail]  [phone]x125  P.O.Box 5161, Los Alamitos,CA 90721-5161

   "The difference between genius and stupidity: genius has its limits."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------




##

Subject: RE: US Cybernetics Transputer
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 00:50:25 +1000 (EST)
From: Nikola Vukovljak <[e-mail]>

On 29 Sep 1993, Oxley David wrote:

> >I believe that now would be the time to possibly write a letter to Impulse
> >and ask them to release Imagine 3 version for this transputer board.
>
> Agreed!  The thought of a 50MFLOPS transputer running alongside the '040 in my
> A2000 (is this possible?) is thrilling to say the least :P

Well, that's one person apart from me any more takers ?
BTW, from what I've read about this. the above example should be possible.
The software included is meant to allow multiprocessing from my
understanding.

> >So what do you think guys ? Now, if Impulse had an E-mail address, we
> >could compile a list of people that would consider bying this version and
> >mail it to them ....
>
> In a recent post from Thomas Setzer, Mike H at Impulse said that he'd be back
> on the IML "soon".  Question is...can we wait that long?  I'll dig out his fax
> number and see if he has anything to say on the matter.

Could you post that Fax number ? Impulse don't seem to ever release it in
any correspondence.

Nik.
[e-mail]





##

Subject: Re: SIlver Texture & Morphin
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 15:38:02 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~)

    What you need to do is have two objects with the exact same
>topology... all points correspond to each other, in the same grouped
>hierarchy.  All edges correspond to each other, and all faces
>correspond to each other.  The only way I know to achieve this is to
>copy the original object to another, and modify the second object to
>make the final version.  If I'm not mistaken, there are some programs
>out there that will help you with this, such as Morphus (I hear), and
>T3DLIB (I wrote).

Hi glenn. I think T3DLIB is great (but who doesn't?), but I only got an
old version (not sure which), in which you mentioned in future versions
you'd probably add support to "make-topology-compatible" two objects, so
we could morph any 2 3D objects. Now that you've mentioned it, did you do
it? Any reason why you couldn't? Lightwave Modeler's programmer, Stuart
Ferguson, told me he "couldn't think of any way", or something like that.
Of course I disagreed, but I'm not a programmer...

Breno A. Silva ([e-mail])


##

Subject: RE: US Cybernetics Transputer
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 14:22:04 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Thomas Setzer)

>
> Could you post that Fax number ? Impulse don't seem to ever release it in
> any correspondence.

impulse fax  [phone]


##

Subject: transparency & 3D objects
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 13:04:21 -0600
From: Steve Koren <[e-mail]>

Lets say I have a flat plane, like this:
                -------
               /     /
              /     /
             /     /
            -------

I can shape this plane in interesting ways using transparency textures;
for example, a recent picture I made used 4 Essence "linearturb"
textures to effect a flame object, with the textures turning on
transparency towards the edge of the plane to make the turbulent shape
of the flame.

Now lets say I want to extrude the object thusly:
               e-------f
               /     /|
              /g    / /h
             /     / /
           a-------b/
            |     |/
           c-------d

And I again apply a transparency texture to accomplish the above effect.
What happens is that planes aefb and cghd are made transparent in the
manner that I wish, but unfortunately so is abcd and efgh.  It is
obvious why this happens, because if the transparency texture is applied
to aefb to "cut" it off, the cross section between aefb and cghd has no
polygons to appear between the two planes.  Instead of an effect like a
broken-off cement wall, one gets an effect like two planes separated
from each other by some distance with nothing between them.

However, that's not what I want.  I want to make a sort of crumbled wall
effect as you might see in ancient ruins.  Modeling this with polygons
will be a royal pain, and will not look very good close up.  It seems
like some sort of "linearturb" texture would be the perfect solution,
save for the above problem.  I run into this sort of thing all the time
with Imagine, because 3D objects aren't really "solid", they are really
empty space bounded by polygons.

Has anyone discovered an interesting way to get around this difficulty?
In order to _really_ get around it, I suppose the renderer must model
solid objects instead of space-bounded-by-polygons.  Does R3D do this?
Lightwave?  Aladdin?  And if so, do the allow the technique of using a
transparency texture to "lop off" the extruded plane?

  - steve


##

Subject: US Cybernetics WARP System
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 14:06:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: Doug Kelly <[e-mail]>

Has anyone out there heard anything more about the transputer system for
the Amiga that was shown at World of Amiga in Pasadena on September 10?
All I have to work from is the text of GEnie's 5-Minute News item, and
they don't give company contact info, just the name.  US Cybernetics
doesn't appear in any of the national company directories, either.  I've
got a call in to the people who organized the show, but if anybody has any
contact or background info on WARP Systems or US Cybernetics I'd really
appreciate it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Doug Kelly               Information Specialist         First Consulting Group
[e-mail]  [phone]x125  P.O.Box 5161, Los Alamitos,CA 90721-5161
                   [phone] fax
   "The difference between genius and stupidity: genius has its limits."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------




##

Subject: Repeating Altitude Maps
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 16:57:18 MST
From: [e-mail] (John R. Spencer)

Greetings:

   After several months of bafflement with Imagine, I got hold of
Steve Worley's "Understanding Imagine" book and now (almost)
everything makes sense.  Thanks, Steve!  However I'm still having
trouble with a couple of things:

1) I tried simulating brick walls and unpolished wood using
infinitely-repeating 24-bit altitude maps, featuring the
cracks between the bricks and the pores in the wood respectively.
Results look pretty good except that the seams show between
the repeating "panels" of the altitude map, either with black lines
or raised "ridges".  The original greyscale 24-bit images I'm
using for the altitude maps match perfectly at opposite edges.  Is
this a familiar problem and does anyone have a solution?
I'm creating the altitude maps using Opal Paint.

2) Almost half the time when I do a "Quickrender", the image
is calculated but not displayed: I get the "Delete Quickrender File?"
message as soon as calculation is done.  I can then view the image,
stored on RAM:, in Opal Paint, but it's a pain.  Any solutions?

Equipment:  A3000, 25Mz, 6 Megs RAM, Opalvision.


##

Subject: IML-FAQ #4: 9-29-93
Date: 29 Sep 1993   20:31:05 GMT
From: <[e-mail]>

+======================================================================+
|                         Imagine Mailing List                         |
|                      FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS                      |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                             Compiled By                              |
|                           Michael B. Comet                           |
|                              Steve Mund                              |
|                            Mark Oldfield                             |
|                             Dave Wickard                             |
+======================================================================+

        This is the Frequently Asked Questions posting for the Imagine
Mailing list.  This posting is sent every so often to answer general
questions that users of the 3D rendering software, Imagine by Impulse
Inc. may have.  It is aimed toward all users, especially newcomers to
the program.

        If you find any errors or have answers to other frequently asked
questions that you would like to have included in this posting, please
send e-mail to: [e-mail] (FAQ List).

        - Mike C.

========================================================================

Last Update   : September 29, 1993 Wednesday
Issue Number  : 4
What's New    : "Amazing Amiga" added to magazine section
                Section 6, #10.  Making conical lights.
                Section 6, #11.  Lighting your scenes.

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

CONTENTS:
=========

    SECTION 1 - Support Products/Sites
         1] Imagine related: References/Help Books/Magzines/ftp sites.
         2] How do I reach Impulse?
         3] What is the Imagine Mailing List and how to get it?

    SECTION 2 - Modeling and Detail Editor
         1] How do I brushmap a ground plane?
         2] How do I make glass?
         3] The Slice command doesn't work or gives me errors.
         4] How can I make a room so that the walls don't have cracks?
         5] When I select a group of points in the DETAIL editor, all I
            can do is drag them...not ROTATE or SCALE interactively.
         6] List of common Index of Refractions
         7] How do you make mirrors?
         8] How do I make "metals" and what are some good gold
            attributes?
         9] Is there a quick way to add faces to my object without
            using the Slice command?

    SECTION 3 - Forms Editor
         1] After a Forms Editor object is loaded into the Detail Editor
            and manipulated, it won't reload into the Forms Editor.

    SECTION 4 - Cycle Editor
         1] I made this animation sequence in the Cycle editor, but when
            I set it up in the stage/action editors, the motion of the
            overall object isn't there!

    SECTION 5 - Animation, Stage Editor and Action Editor
         1] Even though I move an Object/Camera/Light to a new
            POSITION/ALIGNMENT/SIZE in the STAGE editor, Imagine seems
            to 'forget' what I did!
         2] How do I use the Grow Effect?
         3] How do I use the Tumble Effect?
         4] How do you get something to roll (at the right speed!) while
            following a path?
         5] When I move a Tracked Camera in the STAGE editor, it doesn't
            realign and draw the Perspective view correctly!
         6] When I increase the number of frames in an animation I find
            my scene gets mangled in the first frame.  Why?

    SECTION 6 - Rendering and the Project Editor
         1] Why do objects render fine in Scanline, but disappear in
            Trace?
         2] I have a problem with Filtered objects/fog and the Global
            Backdrop!
         3] My animation frames look fine, but when animated, they have
            the "crawly" effect.
         4] What situations, parameters, attribute values, etc. require
            the most trace rendering time?
          5] How do I get rid of the "Jaggies?"
         6] How can I figure out pixel aspect for a given resolution?
         7] When making a disco ball effect, will a SPHERICAL light set
            at 255 be bright enough to cause visible spots on the
            surfaces in a scene?
          8] How long should it take to do a full trace picture with
            perhaps one transparent glass on a Amiga 3000/25? Is 4.5 hrs
            too much?
         9] Is there any particular format that Imagine prefers?  Ham?
            32 Color?  EHB?  24 bit 1000 x 1000?
        10] I would like to use conical light sources with my rendering,
            is there anyway "see" in wireframe where the light will fall?
        11] How important is lighting for a rendering, and is there any
            "preset" method used to get good results?

    SECTION 7 - Essence Settings
         1] Electrical Arc
         2] Veined Marble
         3] Rough marble/rock

    SECTION 8 - Miscellaneous
         1] What the heck is BTW, IMO and other weird abbreviations...
         2] Rendering and refresh times are MUCH too slow, even with an
            accelerator. Are there any Basic tricks or hints to help?
         3] How long will before my renderings aren't ugly anymore?

    CLOSING - Closing statements and Disclaimer

========================================================================
                   SECTION 1 - Support Products/Sites
========================================================================

1] Imagine related: References/Help Books/Magzines/ftp sites.

  REFERENCES AND HELP BOOKS:

    "Imagine 2.0 User Manual", Impulse Inc, 1992.
                   (Yes....read the manual!)

    "The Imagine Companion", David Duberman, Motion Blur Publishing,
         1991

    "Understanding Imagine 2.0", Steven Worley, Apex Software
         Publishing, 1992.

  MAGAZINES:

    These are some good graphics magazines, most of which focus on the
Amiga computer.  If anyone has some other suggestions please post them
to the FAQ list!

    "Computer Graphics World"
    P.O Box 122
    Tulsa, OK 74101-9845
    (800) 443 - 6632
    (918) 835 - 3161 ext. 400
    (918) 831 - 9497 (FAX)
        (A general computer graphics magazine focusing on the
    latest technology from PC's to SGI's)

    "Amiga World"
    P.O Box 595
    Mt Morris, IL 61054-7900
    (800) 827 - 0877
    (815) 734 - 1109
        (A general Amiga computer magazine, focusing on both
    hardware, software, utilities and graphics)

    "Amiga Video/Graphics Magazine"  (formerly AVID)
    365 Victor Street
    Suite "H"
    Salinas, CA 93907
    (408) 758 - 9386
    (408) 758 - 1744 (FAX)
        (A general Amiga computer magazine, focusing on both
    hardware, software, utilities and graphics)

        "Amazing Computing for the Commodore Amiga" aka "Amazing Amiga"
        P.O. Box 2140
        Fall River, MA 02722-9969 USA
        (508) 678 - 4200
        (800) 345 - 3360
        (508) 675 - 6002 (FAX)
              (A general Amiga computer magazine, focusing more on how
        to, hints and tips, programming, reviews of software and
        hardware(less ads and more meat than AW))

    "Video Toaster User"
    21611 Stevens Creek Blvd.
    Cupertino, CA 95014
    (800) 322 - 2834
        (A magazine focusing specifically on NewTeks Video
    Toaster device.  Nothing related to Imagine, but some more neat
    pictures to look at!)

  FTP SITES:

    There is now a new ftp site set up for Imagine related items
including pictures, animations, tutorials, objects, and help files such
as previous postings from the list, and this FAQ at:

    wuarchive.wustl.edu
    in the  /systems/amiga/boing/video/imagine

        Under this directory are the following sub-directories:
        art
        archive
        anims
        objects

        Note:  New files cannot be sent directly here.  Instead send
any new files you wish to upload into the same directory:

    /systems/amiga/boing/incoming/imagine

        Files here will/should eventually get moved to the proper
location by the ftp site administrator.  Don't forget to send a text
file explaining the data you uploaded.

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

2] How do I reach Impulse?

    Impulse Inc.
    8416 Xerxes ave. North
    Brooklyn Park, Minnesota 55444
    USA

    [phone]
    [phone]
    FAX: [phone]

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

3] What is the Imagine Mailing List and how to get it

    (From the Imagine Mailing List Sysop, Dave Wickard)

        The Imagine Mailing List is a wide variety of Amiga computer
artists sharing friendship and knowledge. The main thrust of the List is
the Imagine renderer. Subjects discussed though have varied widely.
There are discussions of Imagine and it's competitors, Imagine wish
lists for future versions, 3D rendering principles in general, single
frame recording techniques and many more.

        With first day users thru battled scarred veterans  :-)  there
is someone at your level of knowledge on the List. We are always glad to
see questions from every level of user. So often a simple and seemingly
embarrassingly easy question will lead to an interesting comment on a
related topic.

    New products, both hardware AND software, are discussed as to their
relationship with Imagine and Amiga 3D rendering.

    Names of Amiga luminaries dot the list, and often join in to lend
their insights without the usual "noise" of a USENET newsgroup.

    There are over 300 individual sites receiving the Imagine Mailing
List, and they include many networks, BBS systems, user groups, and
individual computer artists from literally around the globe.  We share
one thing.  Interest in each other's work with Imagine.

    YOU can get the Imagine Mailing List. All you need is access to
Internet mail. Simply mail to the following address:

         [e-mail]

and in your subject line, enter the word "subscribe".

    If you are reading this from a Commercial System, ask the
Amiga Coordinator to set up an Imagine Mailing List area that
everyone can read.

========================================================================
                  SECTION 2 - Modeling and Detail Editor
========================================================================

1] How do I brushmap a ground plane?

    The problem with brushmapping a ground plane is that the ground
itself is off 90 degrees in relation to its' axis for proper brush
placement.  (Add a primitive plane, a ground and compare them).  The
following will properly set a ground wrap:

         1) Add a ground object, select it, go into attributes, select a
            brush to use.
         2) You will now be in a requestor for the type of brushmap and
            placement etc...
         3) Select TRANSFORM AXIS
         4) Click on ALIGNMENT and set X = -90.  Leave Y and Z at 0
         5) Click on SIZE and leave X = +640.  Set Y = +2, Z = +400
         6) Click on POSITION and Leave X = -320, Y = -200. Set Z = +1
         7) Click on PERFORM.
         8) If you want the brushmap to repeat forever click REPEAT.
         9) Click OKAY.

        Your brushmap will now be placed correctly.  You can of course
resize it on the X/Z axis if you wish for scaling purposes.

        Basically step 4 re-rotated the brush axis properly and 5 and 6
fixed the size and position which Imagine screws up since it thinks it's
brushmapping on the other axis.

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

2] How do I make glass?

        You can use the following Attribute setting for a default glass:

                   RED  GREEN  BLUE   VALUE
    COLOR          0    0      0      *
    REFLECT        0    0      0      *
    FILTER         255  255    255    *
    SPECULAR       255  255    255    *
    DITHERING      *    *      *      255
    HARDNESS       *    *      *      255
    ROUGHNESS      *    *      *      0
    SHININESS      *    *      *      0     (Very important see below!)

    PHONG = ON
    INDEX = 1.50
    FOG LENGTH = 0.00

    This should give you glass.

    One thing many people get confused by is:

         1) Shininess must be set to ZERO.  If you set this to anything
            but 0, the FILTER setting will not work.  This is just the
            way Imagine works since FILTER usage assumes shininess
            automatically.
         2) No background.  To get glass, you need surroundings.  If you
            render a glass cup on a pure black screen, you'll probably
            just see the highlights.  Adding global colors for Scanline
            and Ray Trace will give your object something to refract.
         3) Ray Trace.  To get refraction of surrounding objects
            exactly, you need to Trace, though scanline WILL approximate
            refractivity.

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

3] The Slice command doesn't work or gives me errors.

    Due to the complexity of doing a 3D slice, sometimes Imagine gives
errors, or actually crashes during this operation.

    Things to do if you plan on using this function are:

         1) Save _ALL_ currently loaded object BEFORE trying to slice.
         2) If you get an error, move one of the objects slightly and
            try again.  Moving one of them may yield a working slice.

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

4] I'm making a house which has many rooms and thus many walls, what is
    the best way of adding walls to the house so that they leave no
    cracks in the corners ?

        Three possible methods ---

        1. You can design your walls to be nice dimensions like 100
           or 1024 instead of 383.38. Place your axis at the corner
           of each wall. Then, to get seamless joints, use "snap to
           grid" in the project editor which will instantly adjust
           your walls to a perfect fit (If wall lengths are multiples
           of the grid line spacing).

        2. Create a 2D outline of the floorplan and extrude it up.
           Then simply pop a ceiling and floor on it.  The floorplan
           could be created either in Imagine or even a paint program
           and then auto-traced.  This means you will have to bust up
           a few polygons to add the windows and doors, but that is a
           minor task if you have a complex floorplan.

        3. A cheesy option is to make your walls too big. Then
          INTERSECT them. You get a mess BEHIND the wall, but if you
          don't look there, you'll never see it.


      wall 1           |
     ------------------+--
               \|/     |
      bug-eyed O.O     | wall 2
        monster v
                       |
                       |
      camera X

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

5] When I select a group of points in the DETAIL editor, all I can do
   is drag them... it doesn't let me ROTATE or SCALE that clump of
   selected points.

        Imagine will let you move selected points, as well as rotate
and scale them. The limitation is that you cannot do this interactively
in Version 1.1 or earlier by using the mouse: The Transform command does
the manipulation. The picked points can be translated, scaled, rotated,
and positioned INDEPENDENTLY of the rest of the object. Rotations and
scalings all use the object's axis a reference point.  Absolute
positioning will move the FIRST point you pick to the location you
choose, and the rest of the picked points will be translated an equal
amount.  Interactive dragging is accomplished using the "drag points"
mode.

        Note: Versions 2.0 and later support interactive point editing.

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

6] List of common Index of Refractions (and not so common too!)

         (All items except Vacuum are in alphabetical order)
         (STP = Standard Temperature and Pressure)

         MATERIAL                      Index
         -------------------------------------
         Vacuum ...................... 1.00000 (exactly)

         Air (STP).................... 1.00029
         Acetone ..................... 1.36
         Alcohol ..................... 1.329
         Amorphous Selenium .......... 2.92
         Calspar1 .................... 1.66
         Calspar2 .................... 1.486
         Carbon Disulfide ............ 1.63
         Chromium Oxide .............. 2.705
         Copper Oxide ................ 2.705
         Crown Glass ................. 1.52
         Crystal ..................... 2.00
         Diamond ..................... 2.417
         Emerald ..................... 1.57
         Ethyl Alcohol ............... 1.36
         Flourite .................... 1.434
         Fused Quartz ................ 1.46
         Heaviest Flint Glass ........ 1.89
         Heavy Flint Glass ........... 1.65
         Glass ....................... 1.5
         Ice ......................... 1.309
         Iodine Crystal .............. 3.34
         Lapis Lazuli ................ 1.61
         Light Flint Glass ........... 1.575
         Liquid Carbon Dioxide ....... 1.20
         Polystyrene ................. 1.55
         Quartz 1 .................... 1.644
         Quartz 2 .................... 1.553
         Ruby ........................ 1.77
         Sapphire .................... 1.77
         Sodium Chloride (Salt) 1 .... 1.544
         Sodium Chloride (Salt) 2 .... 1.644
         Sugar Solution (30%) ........ 1.38
         Sugar Solution (80%) ........ 1.49
         Topaz ....................... 1.61
         Water (20 C) ................ 1.333
         Zinc Crown Glass ............ 1.517

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

7] How do you make mirrors?

        The trick with mirrors (or especially chrome-like objects) is
not setting the attributes of the mirror correctly, but making sure that
the environment is set up so something will be reflected into the
camera.

        If a mirror is TOO reflective, the mirror can actually become
invisible!  This is because the mirror's own flat glass/metal flat
coloring is overwhelmed by all the reflected light.  You see a PERFECT
reflected image, so the object itself isn't shown.  This is especially
true with flat mirrors.

        Some attributes that give a nice mirror polish:

                       RED  GREEN  BLUE   VALUE
        COLOR          150  150    150    *
        REFLECT        200  200    210    *     (a bit of a blue tint)
        FILTER         0    0      0      *
        SPECULAR       255  255    255    *
        DITHERING      *    *      *      255
        HARDNESS       *    *      *      255
        ROUGHNESS      *    *      *      0
        SHININESS      *    *      *      0

        PHONG = ON
        INDEX = 1.00
        FOG LENGTH = 0.00

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

8] How do I make "metals" and what are some good gold attributes?

        One thing you can do to make your objects look more like metal
is to give them a specular setting close to the main color of the
object, but higher in intensity.  One mistake is to often make the
specular a pure white.  This makes objects look more like plastic than
metal.  For example, if you are trying to make gold, don't make the
specular pure white, but try a bright yellow or yellow/orange creame
color.

        Another problem is that many metals reflect the world.  For
example a chrome ball is pretty much just a shiny mirror.  Thus, if you
want to make realistic metals you will need to at least simulate
reflection. This can be done by adding a global reflect map, doing a
true ray trace or even just setting sky colors in the stage editor.


        You can use the following Attribute setting for a default gold:

                       RED  GREEN  BLUE   VALUE
        COLOR          205  205    80     *
        REFLECT        180  160    125    *
        FILTER         0    0      0      *
        SPECULAR       255  255    160    *
        DITHERING      *    *      *      255
        HARDNESS       *    *      *      255
        ROUGHNESS      *    *      *      0
        SHININESS      *    *      *      0

        PHONG = ON
        INDEX = 1.00
        FOG LENGTH = 0.00

        This should give you something close to gold.  Note that the
reflect values are fairly high.  You may wish to lower them to see how
it would look if you don't have anything to reflect etc...

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

9] Is there a quick way to add faces to my object without using the
   Slice command?

        Here is a neat trick to add faces.  This method works best with
an object that is basially concave (such as a circle).

        1] Make the outline of your object, i.e.: points and edges.
        2] Extrude the object a distance away.
        3] Pick all the points that were just made...i.e.: The ones
           that now comprise the back face.  Using Bounding box
           selection would probably be helpful.
        4] Choose Join!
    5] Translate the now 1 pt back on the Y axis by the distance
           you extruded from, and position the point somewhere in the
           center of the object.

        The object is now a solid faced object with all faces connected
to one point on the center, just like the primitive disk object.

========================================================================
                       SECTION 3 - Forms Editor
========================================================================

1] I was working in the forms editor on an object, and loaded it
    into the detail editor for modification.  However, I can't seem
    to be able to get it back into the forms editor!  Help!

        Simply put, you cannot load objects saved from the detail editor
back into the forms editor.  The reason is the forms editor requires
a specified object structure which the detail does not.  Thus, saving
an object in the detail editor loses that information.

        When you work with the forms editor is recommended that you keep
a spare copy of the FORMS OBJECT saved separately from any detail
object. In this way you can then go back and make modifications in the
forms editor.

========================================================================
                       SECTION 4 - Cycle Editor
========================================================================

1] I made this really great animation sequence in the cycle editor,
    but when I set it up in the stage/action editors, the motion of
    the overall object isn't there!

        When using the cycle editor, Imagine only remembers changes in
size, position, and so on in relation to the main parent.  Thus, if you
make a change to the parent object, it gets forgotten.  What this means
is if you make a nifty robot jumping cycle, and make it in the cycle
editor so the robot actually move up etc... all that will be remembered
is the changes to the legs, arms and anything OFF of the PARENT.  The
overall rotations and movements to the main object will be gone.

        Two solutions exist.  One is to simply make those changes in
the stage editor each time you need to.  The second is to group a plain
axis before you start to your object.  (ie: Make the parent have a Null
link).  Then, you can rotate everything by rotating the main child
grouped right under this null axis.  This way you aren't moving the
"parent", and everything will be remembered.

========================================================================
          SECTION 5 - Animation, Stage Editor and Action Editor
========================================================================

1] Even though I move an Object/Camera/Light to a new
   POSITION/ALIGNMENT/SIZE in the STAGE editor, Imagine seems to
   'forget' what I did!

    All objects must have timelines split wherever there is a change in
position, alignment or size.  If you do not set this up, Imagine will
forget the changes no matter what.

    Rather than going back and forth to the ACTION editor and adding
timelines, you can have Imagine automatically create the timelines
properly so everything tweens as normal.  There are the "Position Bar",
"Alignment Bar" and "Size Bar" commands under the OBJECT menu in the
STAGE editor.

    So, if you have just gone to a frame and are making a new POSITION,
ALIGNMENT or SIZE for an object (or camera or light) to tween to, press
RIGHT AMIGA and 7/8/9 respectively.  Or use the respective bar commands
from the OBJECT menu.  This will extend or put a 'split' in the timeline
for you (you can check this in the ACTION editor).  Also, don't forget
to "Save Changes"if you want to keep the motion!

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

2] How do I use the Grow Effect?

        To use the grow effect, create an object in the DETAIL editor
that you wish to have 'extrude' over time.  Create a spline path as
normal in the detail editor.  This will be the path the object extrudes
along during the animation.

    GROUP (not join) the object with the PATH AS THE PARENT.  If you do
not make the path the parent, it will not work.  To do this, select the
path, then hold shift and select the object, then select group.  Save
your GROUP for loading in the animation.

    Finally, add the effect in the ACTION editor for the grouped object.

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

3] How do I use the Tumble Effect?

    The tumble effect is used to tumble 1 or more objects during an
animation.  To tumble an object, create your object or objects in the
DETAIL editor.  Still in the detail editor add an axis.

        Group (not join) the AXIS to all the objects you want to tumble
with the AXIS AS THE PARENT.  Then load the GROUP into the STAGE/ACTION
editor and add the effect as normal.

    NOTE: The reason for the null object (axis) as parent is that
Imagine does not TUMBLE the PARENT, just the children.

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

4] How do you get something to roll (at the right speed!) while
   following a path?

        Getting an object to spin (like a plane doing a barrel roll) is
easy- you align to path, then set Y rotation to be from 0 to 360 and it
will do a complete spin. This is not in the right direction for a
rolling ball, though. [Annoying feature- you can't say from 0 to 720 for
two spins, or 0 to 3600 for ten.] To get it to roll I created a second
path, which was basically a larger copy of the first, so the first path
was just inside of the second path. I had an axis (a track) follow this
new, outside path, then used "align to object" to make the sphere point
to the axis.

        Thus, as the ball moved along its path, one end (the positive Y
axis direction) was always pointed at right angles to the direction of
motion.  Is this clear? Now using the "initial Y angle" and "final Y
angle" I set them to 0 and 360 and it rotated as it rolled. As a special
effect, I raised the "track path" a little in the Z direction so the
sphere looks a little bit like a top rolling around, since the spin axis
was not horizontal anymore.

        An alternative would be to make a cycle object, rolling around
the X axis.  This is equally valid, but I did it this way first.

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

5] When I move a tracked Camera in the STAGE editor, it doesn't realign
   and draw the Perspective view correctly!

    If you have Imagine 2.0 or higher, press RIGHT AMIGA and the K key
together, or select "Camera (Re)track" from the OBJECT menu.  This will
make the camera repoint to the track from the new position and will
redraw the perspective view.

        If you have an older version of Imagine (or if you just want to)
you can press RIGHT AMIGA and the C key or select "Goto" from the FRAME
menu.  Go to the current frame you are already on which will cause
imagine to redraw everything.

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

6] I have found that after creating a scene in the Stage editor, and
    then deciding that I want an animation and adjusting the highest
    frame count, my scene gets mangled in the first frame.  Why?

        Well, it seems to me that this will happen if you don't split
your channel bar from the first frame (where you want stuff to be
exactly) to the second frame. I usually setup my scenes so that I have
the first frame all set as it should be and then I do my transformation
from frames 2-whatever. In this way, the first frame is ALWAYS where
it's suppose to be no matter what changes I make in the remaining
animation.  If you look at your channel it should have a break between
frames 1 and 2 and then be continuous (if that's the way your animation
works out) from 2 on.

========================================================================
               SECTION 6 - Rendering and the Project Editor
========================================================================

1] Why do objects render fine in Scanline, but disappear in Trace?

    There are 2 possible causes for this.
         1) You are running out of RAM
         2) You objects are outside of the World Boundary

    To check #1 (for the Amiga), pull down The Project editor after you
start a render during the initialization phase.  Click once on the
Workbench backdrop and you should see how much RAM you have on the top
of the screen.  As Imagine starts to render, this will decrease.  If it
becomes close to 0, chances are, that's your problem.  To solve that,
buy more RAM.

    The other possibility is that the objects are outside of the world
boundary.  The world boundary is basically a box in which your objects
are placed.  When you enter the STAGE editor, you are placing objects in
this "virtual box" whose center is 0,0,0.

    When you Trace, Imagine clips ALL objects that fall outside of the
box.  The size of the world boundary is set in the ACTION editor.  In
this editor, there should be an item named GLOBALS.  Whatever numbers
are set in the SIZE timeline becomes the size of the box so that it lies
from +/- Value for X,Y and Z.  The default is no information present,
which Imagine assumes is +/- 1024 units for all 3 coordinates.

        Thus to fix this problem you can:
         1) Scale your entire scene to fit inside the +/- 1024 size
            boundary
         2) Add a size line and set the X,Y,Z to the values you need
            (This can be found by using "coordinates" in the STAGE
            editor and moving the cursor around to find the values)
         3) Add a size line and set the X,Y,Z sizes to 0,0,0.  This will
            force Imagine to calculate the world size for ALL frames
            based on where objects are for the FIRST frame.  This is
            important since if your objects move farther out during
            subsequent frames, you will have to set the size manually
            (see 2 above) since it will now be outside the computed
            boundary, and thus clipped.

    Note: The world boundary has no effect in Scanline rendering.
    Note: Setting the World Size to 0,0,0 regardless of problems will
          usually DECREASE Trace times!

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

2] I have a problem with Filtered objects and the Global Backdrop!

        For some reason, clear or glass like objects will not be clear
when used with a backdrop.  To get around this render with "genlock sky"
and then use an image processing program to composite the rendered image
onto the background pic for each frame.  Fog objects have a similar
problem.

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

3] I have created an animation (Hurrah!) and when I look at each of
    the individual frames, they look just as I thought they might.
    However, when I animate them, anywhere I have applied the
    "roughness" parameter, surfaces look animated...with lots of
    "crawling" effect on them. What gives?

        Roughness should NOT be used on objects that will be animated.
(Unless of course, the "crawley" effect is what you're after). This is
caused by a bug in the roughness algorithm. One of the main work-arounds
suggested, is by using a very small or fine bump-map. Another work-
around is to create a DPaint (or for that matter ANY IFF) multi-gray
shaded screen and apply it as an altitude map.

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

4] What situations, parameters, attribute values, etc. require the most
    trace rendering time?

        The list is long: reflections and refractions increase rendering
time significantly, anti-aliasing (0 longest)-BTW this you must edit in
the .config file and resolve depth (also in .config file), number of
polygons, camera position (obliqueness), size of brush maps and even the
numerical entries of solid textures, resolution, display and render
modes etc etc.

        The big ones are refraction, edge level(antialiasing, reflection
(along with "depth") and #of polygons. Pretty well in that order too.
Remember that a higher refraction index is longer rendering time also.
And yes the scale of the object means a LOT. Imagine uses something
called an *Octree* to calculate the scene.  This is related to the world
size setting which is also discussed here in article number 1 above.
The difference can go from *hours* to minutes, so scale your scene by
the size you make your world.  You can select everything in the scene
(including camera and lights) and scale it interactively.

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

5] How do I get rid of the "Jaggies?"

        The .config file for anti-aliasing defaults to 30. This is ok,
but not great. The best is 0 and final rendering should always be 0. So
you must edit this file every so often (before opening Im) or build a
front end on the work bench (requires programming knowledge, though).
BTW, the anti-aliasing is EDLE in .config file.

    {for those unfamiliar with the term jaggies - they refer to the
way lines drawn by computers tend to haved a jagged or stair stepped
appearance, instead of a smooth continuous line.  This is usually found
more in low resolution images.}

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

6] How do I figure out the pixel aspect for a certain resolution
    display?  I am rendering a picture to be displayed on a macII
    at 1024x768.  Does anyone know the formula or is it device
    dependent?

        Pixel aspect ratio depends both on the aspect ratio of the
display device (your monitor) and the resolution that fits onto that
screen. Most monitors use a 4 x 3 aspect ratio so that to achieve square
1:1 pixels, the resolution must also be 4:3. 1024 x 768 will achieve
this as well as 640 x 480. The Amiga typically uses a non-square aspect
ratio of about 1.2:1 such as 320 x 200, 640 x 400, 768 x 480, etc. So
the pixel ratio can be found using...

  (horiz res. / horiz display size) : (vert res. / vert display size)
If your monitor has a 4:3 aspect, you should have 1:1 pixels.

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

7] When making a disco ball effect, will a SPHERICAL light set at 255
    be bright enough to cause visible spots on the surfaces in a scene?

        No, I bet that a light of 255 won't work too well. So crank
it up to 2000!  Lights are not limited to 255 (It is logical that lights
can be as bright as they want).  Values above 500 or so are pretty
severe; they cast strong shadows, like a very sunny day. Above 3000 or
so and it looks like you're world is lit by nuclear weapons.

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

8] I have a Amiga 3000/25.  How long should it take to do a full
    trace picture with perhaps one transparent (nearly) glass?
    Does 4.5 hours sound reasonable to you?  I am running the
    floating Point version of Imagine.

        The floating point version of Imagine uses inline floating point
code for maximum speed.  It does not use the libraries.  I suspect that
the non-FP version uses the libraries, just in case. You can probably
SPEED UP your trace time SIGNIFICANTLY by scaling up the whole scene in
the stage editor (see question 4 above!). A trace time of 4.5 hours on a
3000/25 definitely a "wee bit" on the high side for a scene as simple as
you describe.

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

9] Is there any particular format that Imagine prefers?  Ham?
    32 Color?  EHB?  24 bit 1000 x 1000?

        The best is a 24-bit image, of course. Anything works, but the
color range of a 24-bit will beat the tar out of a 16 color any day.
Exceptions would be objects with a few discrete colors, like a red,
white, and blue flag. Then a 24-bit and a 4 color image are equal in
quality. Note that Imagine converts them all to 24-bit internally,
though- the memory goes down equally for a 100 by 100 4-color as it does
for a 100 by 100 24-bit.

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

10] I would like to use conical light sources with my rendering,
     is there anyway "see" in wireframe where the light will fall?

        For conical lights, the X-axis size determines the radius of the
light beam at the distance set at the Y-axis.  This if a light has a X
size of 50, and a Y-size of 200, the light would have a circle with the
diameter of 100 units at a distance of 200 units from the light's axis
itself.

        You can use this information to create a conical light object in
the detail editor.  By creating a wireframe light, you can then load the
light in and actually "see" and resize it to get an idea for the lights
size.

        Add a primitive cone object.  Then position the axis of the cone
such that it is at the exact tip op the cone object.  Finally rotate and
resize the cone's axis so the Y axis extendes to the end of the cone
and the x-axis (which should allready be set okay) has the diameter of
the cone.

        The above can be done in 4 steps using the transformation
requestor, make sure that the "transform axis only" box is checked
in steps 2,3 and 4:

          1] Add a primitive cone with default values.
          2] Set the Position on the axis -100 on the Z-axis.
          3] Set the axis alignment to -90 on the X-axis.
          4] Set the axis size to X=50, Y=100, Z=50.


    Front or side view of cone:      Z---X
                                    /|\
                                   / | \
                                  /  |  \
                                 /   |   \
                                /    |    \
                               +-----|-----+
                                     Y

        Once this is done you will now have a cone object with the
axis set correctly to be a light.  It is not yet however a light source.
Go into the attributes requestor for the object and click on the box
labeled "light".  In here is a standard light box just like those in
the action editor.  Click on conical, and set the color and other options
as you wish.

        At this point you must remove any faces from the object.  If you
do not do this, when you render the object will will have a white cone.
Simply go into "Pick Faces" mode and then "Select All" of the faces and
finally "Delete" or "Cut" them.  You will now have a wireframe cone light.
Save this object.

        From now on, you can load this as a normal object into you
renderings and resize, scale and move the light around as you wish.  The
only drawback to this method is that to change light parameters such as
color or shadows, you must re-edit the object in the detail editor and
then resave it.

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

11] How important is lighting for a rendering, and is there any "preset"
     method used to get good results?

        Lighting in computer graphics is a very important element in
creating images.  It takes a while of experimenting with different types
of lights and settings to get good results, but there is one basic setup
that can also be used as a starting point.

        The basic approach is one used for lighting real world video
scenes.  It is known as a "3 point" light setup since it involves 3
light sources.

        The first light source named the "key" light is the main light
for the scene.  It is usually placed about 45 degress above and to the
side of the camera.  This provides overall light so you can see your
objects etc...

        The second light is known as the "back" or "top" light.  Place
this light above and slightly behind the center of your scene.  In video
this is used to show highlights on a persons hair so you can tell where
the back of their head is.  In this case, it provides a similar function
so that you can see the back parts of objects.  This is typically set at
about 2 times the key lights intensity, though for computer graphics a
setting equal to or less than that of the key is usually enough.


        The final light is the "fill" light.  This is usually placed
at a 45 degress angle below and to the side of the camera so that it
is on the opposite side of the "key" light.  This light should be dim
and possible colored and diffused to give some illumination to any part
of the scene not covered fromt the other lights.  For rendering this
means lowering the intensity and or making the light "diminish in
intensity".

        With this setup there should be an improvement over any
rendering using just one light.  As a test setup a ground and a
stationary object.  (The typical chrome ball with cool highlights on a
checkered ground works well here)  Render once scene with just one light
(the key light only).  Then add the other 2 or more fill lights and re-
render it.  There should be a big difference.

       Also, don't forget that lights can be colored, can cast shadows
and can be "conical spotlights".  All this can be used to give greater
value to your scene.

========================================================================
                       SECTION 7 - Essence Settings
========================================================================

1] Electrical Arc

        Here's how to make an electrical arc between two rods, like
something out of Frankenstien's lab.

    1] Start with a plane with 255 R,G,B on Color and a light blue
       (or whatever color you want the arc to be) in Filter.
    2] Use Ringfract as follows:
         Set the Z axis to point out of the plane, (rotate 90 on X)
         Low Trans Start=30      Low Trans Width=5
         Hi Trans Start =40      Hi Trans Width =5
         Set the color to 0,0,0 for RGB.
         Leave other settings at defaults
       Place the axis of Ringfract in the middle of the bottom edge of
       the plane.
    3] Now use Swapcrf to swap the color and filter values. Do this by
       setting all parameters to 0, and then setting the following
       values to 1:
         Filt -> N Color = 1
         Refl -> N Refl  = 1
         Color -> N Filt = 1

        Now when rendered, there should be something similar to an
electrical arc (or maybe some sort of plasma).  To have the arc grow,
rotate the Ringfract axis on X up or down so that the plane and cylinder
do not intersect at 90 degrees.  If you animate this it looks like the
arc gets taller until the arc breaks (i.e. the plane no longer
intersects Ringfract's cylinder in a curve, but instead in two lines).

        Also setting the plane to bright will make it look correct
in dim scenes.

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

2] Veined Marble

        The veinedmarble texture is used twice, once for large, widely
spaced veins.  The second use is for finer, closely spaced veins.

        For veined green marble set the object color to 40,80,40 for
Red Green and Blue respectively. The texture veins are a gray-green
color.

  Text#1   Text#2    Parameter        Text#1   Text#2    Parameter

  800.0    300.0    Initial Scale       4.0      5.0      Turbidity
    7.0      7.0    # of Scales         0.9      0.98     Color Level
    0.4      0.4    Scale Ratio       120.0    120.0      Color Red
    0.6      0.6    Amp Ratio         150.0    150.0      Color Green
    0.4      0.4    Time Ratio        120.0    120.0      Color Blue
    0.0      0.0    Time                0.0      0.0      Fade 0..1
    1.0      1.0    Sharpness           0.0      0.0
   20.0     10.0    Vein Spacing        0.0      0.0

        Rotate the second texture 45 degrees around the X and Y axes
with respect to the first texture.  You may want to rotate the first
texture as well.

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

3] Rough marble/rock

        This uses 2 textures, one for a main color variation, and
the other for the bump/roughness.  This is very effective for creating
stone surfaces.  Try these settings on a primitive plane.

    Object Attribs   R   G   B    Value
        Color     = 136 118 128
        Specular  = 153 134 132
        Dithering =                255
        Phong = On
        All others at 0.

    Texture 1:  fractalcolor       Texture 2:  bump
        Parameter        Value        Parameter        Value

        Initial Scale       15        Initial Scale       5
        # of scales         5         # of scales         4
        Scale Ratio         0.4       Scale Ratio         0.5
        Amplitude Ratio     0.4       Amplitude Ratio     0.5
        Time Ratio          0.4       Alt. Adjust         3
        Time                0         Fade 0..1           0
        Base->1 Trans       0.3       Axis placement left at default
        1->2 Trans          0.6
        Color 1 End         1
        Color 1 Red         70
        Color 1 Green       60
        Color 1 Blue        60
        Color 2 Red         255
        Color 2 Green       240
        Color 2 Blue        240
        Fade 0..1           0
        Axis placement left at default

        When rendered an off gray stone will be created.  Great for
caverns, dungeons and so on.  Just slap it onto the walls or columns
to give it good-ol' natural look.

========================================================================
                        SECTION 8 - Miscellaneous
========================================================================

1] What the heck is BTW, IMO and other weird abbreviations...

    BTW is an abbreviation for "By The Way".
    IMO is an abbreviation for "In My Opinion"
    IMHO is an abbreviation for "In My Humble Opinion"
    IML is an abbreviation for "Imagine Mailing List"
    :) is a sideways smiley face
    :( is a sideways frowny face
    ;) is a winking-eye face  etc...

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

2] My rendering times and even my refresh times in the editors are
   much MUCH too slow, even with an accelerator. Is there any
   basic tricks or hints that are often overlooked that might help
   me out?"

        Always be sure to MERGE your objects. This eliminates multiple
faces, points and lines. Some objects have a VERY large number of these
and it can slow your times down by up to 1/2!

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

3] When does one get good enough so that they don't render ugly
    pictures!

        Practice with a simple objects (to cut down trace time) over and
over and over.  Varying lighting & color etc.  This will allow you to
get the effect you want which is only a technical problem.

========================================================================
                CLOSING -  Closing statements and Disclaimer
========================================================================

        Hopefully this document is useful to people out there.  Once
again, if there is anything you want added/changed/deleted, please
e-mail as listed at the top of the document.

    What follows is a small disclaimer so no one gets sued for
information that is accidentally incorrect or misleading.  (If you find
a mistake...please send e-mail so it can be fixed!).

      Disclaimer: There is no guarantee regarding any information
                  presented in this document.  The information may not
                  be correct, useful or helpful.  The reader accepts ALL
                  responsibility for actions pertaining to reading this
                  document, regardless of consequence.

========================================================================
END OF IML-FAQ




##

Subject: Re: transparency & 3D objects
Date: 30 Sep 1993   00:37:24 GMT
From: <[e-mail]>

.
[TONS-O-STUFF deleted at various locations]
.
> polygons to appear between the two planes.  Instead of an effect like a
> broken-off cement wall, one gets an effect like two planes separated
> from each other by some distance with nothing between them.
>
> effect as you might see in ancient ruins.  Modeling this with polygons
...
> like some sort of "linearturb" texture would be the perfect solution,


    Hmmm.  It seems to me that the problem is the texture.  I don't
see why you want linearturb is you're trying to make small pockets
of clearness.  One of the noise textures like fractalfilter or whatever
it's called should be used instead i think.  The linear turb will make
half the object clear and the other half gone.  If you set up the texture
axis Z-axis okay you shouldn't be missing anything.  Maybe you're axis
is misplaced/angled?

    I am not sure why it would appear as 2 floating planes.


    Mike C.




##

Subject: us cybernetics transputer
Date:      Wed, 29 Sep 1993 16:32:08 MDT
From: "Neil MacMullen" <[e-mail]>

If people on this list are interested, I would be happy to post details
of our soon-to-be-released transputer board for the amiga.

                Neil MacMullen, US Cybernetics.

--
Neil MacMullen                                    Vc.  (1-403)  264-2338
[e-mail]                          Vc.  (1-403)  289-0252
                                                  Fax: (1-403)  282-1238


##

Subject: Re: Repeating Altitude Maps
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 23:43:04 EDT
From: Steve J. Lombardi <[e-mail]>

>
> 2) Almost half the time when I do a "Quickrender", the image
> is calculated but not displayed: I get the "Delete Quickrender File?"
> message as soon as calculation is done.  I can then view the image,
> stored on RAM:, in Opal Paint, but it's a pain.  Any solutions?
>
If you jump to another screen while quickrendering and the image finishes
it pops up for a second and disapears. Even if you swap back to the Imagine
screen before the render is finished this will happen. My solution
is a hot key using the FKEY commodity to pop RAM:QUICKRENDER into the
Opalvision buffer.

On another unrelated note. Has anyone heard if if the Stereo rendering
feature is going to make it into imagine3.0??  I really hope so.

                    | Hey Beavis. Essence-II's Crumpled texture
steve lombardi      | really KICKS ASS.    Mhhh huh. Yea. And those space
[e-mail] | textures don't suck either. Huh.


##

Subject: Re: Repeating Altitude Maps
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 09:45:40 +0100
From: [e-mail] ()

On Sep 29,  4:57pm, John R. Spencer wrote:
> 1) I tried simulating brick walls and unpolished wood using
> infinitely-repeating 24-bit altitude maps, featuring the
> cracks between the bricks and the pores in the wood respectively.
> Results look pretty good except that the seams show between
> the repeating "panels" of the altitude map, either with black lines
> or raised "ridges".  The original greyscale 24-bit images I'm
> using for the altitude maps match perfectly at opposite edges.  Is
> this a familiar problem and does anyone have a solution?
> I'm creating the altitude maps using Opal Paint.

It seems to me that this has been reported as a KNOWN-BUG in Imagine 2.0, and we
all hope that it will be fixed in version 3.0. Am I wrong ?

Robin



--

---------------------------------------------------------------------
      Robin Chytil, Staff Engineer
      Mediterranean Distribution Territory
      Silicon Graphics

      Vmail: 5-9389           Email: [e-mail]
      Tel:   [phone]   Fax :  [phone]
                                                       \|/
                                                       @ @
---------------------------------------------------oOO-(_)-OOo-------







##

Subject: Repeating Altitude Maps
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 08:25:21 EST
From: Adam Benjamin <[e-mail]>

Text item: 9/29/93 7:57PM (IA5Text Enclosure)

Hi there,

You'll probably get a slew of replies, but just in case...

> 1) Results look pretty good except that the seams show between
>the repeating "panels" of the altitude map, either with black lines
>or raised "ridges".

Yup, been there... Done that...
It is a "feature" of imagine.  Actually I think this is described in
Steve's book somewhere. Altitude mapping works by figuring the
diference in color of ajoining pixels, since there is no adjoining
pixel at the edge of your map it gives those ridges. (even though you
repeated the map, it doesn't figure into the formula)
As far as I know there is no easy fix for this.

>2) Almost half the time when I do a "Quickrender", the image
>is calculated but not displayed: I get the "Delete Quickrender File?"
>message as soon as calculation is done.  I can then view the image,
>stored on RAM:, in Opal Paint, but it's a pain.  Any solutions?

Sounds like you are leaving the quickrender to do other things on your
system.
If the Imagine screen gets inactive (by you switching to another task)
it will do this.  No big deal. I do this all the time on my 4000. I
quickrender in 24bit and then use Viewtek to look at the quickrendered
image. as soon as Viewtek get switched in front of Imagine it asks
"Delete Quickrendered image?" Kind of a pain but it's the only way to
view iff24's in ham-8.

You can switch away from Imagine while it is doing the quickrender,
but when you switch back be sure to click the mouse ONCE on the
imagine screen to make it the active screen again.


Enjoy Imagine

Adam B



##

Subject: Re: Repeating Altitude Maps
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 00:39:32 +1000 (EST)
From: Nikola Vukovljak <[e-mail]>

On Wed, 29 Sep 1993, John R. Spencer wrote:

> infinitely-repeating 24-bit altitude maps, featuring the
> cracks between the bricks and the pores in the wood respectively.
> Results look pretty good except that the seams show between
> the repeating "panels" of the altitude map, either with black lines
> or raised "ridges".  The original greyscale 24-bit images I'm
> using for the altitude maps match perfectly at opposite edges.  Is
> this a familiar problem and does anyone have a solution?
> I'm creating the altitude maps using Opal Paint.

I've had a ame problem and can't work it out. Is this a known bug ?

>
> 2) Almost half the time when I do a "Quickrender", the image
> is calculated but not displayed: I get the "Delete Quickrender File?"
> message as soon as calculation is done.  I can then view the image,
> stored on RAM:, in Opal Paint, but it's a pain.  Any solutions?

This often happens if you happened to click in the Imagine window while it
was renderig or just finishing.
No real silution but the one above.

Nik.
[e-mail]




##

Subject: RE: US Cybernetics Transputer
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 00:28:31 +1000 (EST)
From: Nikola Vukovljak <[e-mail]>

On Wed, 29 Sep 1993, Doug Kelly wrote:

> Yes, the WARP System sounds extremely promising.  I was contacted last
> week by a representative of the company, who had some interesting
> additions to the official announcement.  I asked about the 600MIPS
> configuration, since that would seem to be directly comparable to the
> Screamer; he said that the target price would be in the neighborhood of
> $8000-$9000.  He was quick to point out that the entry-level board would
> only be around $800, though, so you could scale up as the work demanded
> (and presumably as the work PAID for the demands).

So, this is with 3 transputers. I could assume that the 200 mips config.
would be about $4000 or so, right ? (assuming that bying the additional
chips woud be cheaper)
The cheaper board is the one I'll be gunning for if Imagine gets ported -
still having another CPU of the caliber of 040 in performance would be great.


>
> The 600MIPS Level 2 board is also the largest configuration that will fit
> inside the A2000 case (at this time).  Interesting, that you will be able
> to get the processing power of the Screamer without an external board.
>
> The WARP Systems rep also said they'd talked with Mike H. at Impulse.
> It's up to Mike now, but the WARP people would really like to get Imagine
> ported over.  At 600MIPS, you could actually get stereo pairs rendering at
> 30fps (as long as you keep the procedural textures under control); a Virtual
> Reality machine!
>
Well, how about all the guys who are interested contact Impulse about this ?

Nik.
[e-mail]





##

Subject: Re: us cybernetics transp
Date:     Thu, 30 Sep 1993 12:52:00 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Roy Park)

> If people on this list are interested, I would be happy to post details
> of our soon-to-be-released transputer board for the amiga.
>
>                Neil MacMullen, US Cybernetics.

Yes, I'd love have some pricing information.  Hope it's cheap enough for every
Amigan to afford it.

> --
> Neil MacMullen                                    Vc.  (1-403)  264-2338
> [e-mail]                          Vc.  (1-403)  289-0252
>                                                   Fax: (1-403)  282-1238

----
Roy Park   // [e-mail]
A3000@25 \X/ 1st yr UofW Comp.Eng.

APO/SparX


##

Subject: Re: transparency & 3D objects
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 10:15:57 -0600
From: Steve Koren <[e-mail]>

> see why you want linearturb is you're trying to make small pockets
> of clearness.  One of the noise textures like fractalfilter or whatever
> it's called should be used instead i think.  The linear turb will make
> half the object clear and the other half gone.

Well, I'm trying to do just that (make part of the object transparent).
That way I can actually shape the object using the linearturb texture
(with transparency turned on for the texture).  It is a technique that
works pretty well with flat objects; I've used it to good effect for
shaping flames & other such things which would be darned near impossible
to get right by hand.

>     I am not sure why it would appear as 2 floating planes.

It sort of makes sense when you think about what Imagine is doing.  With
a single flat plane, you can make part of it transparent with linearturb
(or whatever), and so you can "shape" the plane using textures.  But an
extruded plane into a 3D box is not really a solid object to Imagine.
If you apply a texture which makes everything along the texture's +Z
axis transparent, this will include part of the top, part of the bottom,
and the sides of the box.  (Ie, all parts of the box with
texture-relative coordinates greater than 0, or whatever you set).
Since the edge of the box is made transparent, the box suddenly appears
to be 2 planes floating unconnected.

To successfully do what I said before, the renderer would have to have
an understanding of objects as volumes, not merely as connected
polygons, which is why I'm also interested in the more abstract question
of whether other renderers such as R3D, LW, or Aladdin can do such a
thing.  It would be a fairly powerful technique if it worked with 3D
objects as well as 2D.

  - steve


##

Subject: Re: Starfields
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 12:42:38 EDT
From: F. Felixberto <[e-mail]>

>stuff deleted...
>This makes beautiful still pictures.  However, I have not been able to make
>the star field pan very well.  The stars flicker too much.
>
>
>Brian

    You might be panning too fast.  Try to limit your pan to around 1
degree per frame. That's what I use and it works just fine.

                            felix






##

Subject: Imagine 3.0 release date
Date: 30 Sep 1993 18:10:23 +0000
From: "Oxley David" <[e-mail]>

I called Impulse today to ask when Imagine 3.0 would ship.  They told me 31
October.  Hmmm.  So what happened to "end of September", I wonder?  Oh well,
another date to look forward to :(

Regards,
David Oxley,
Logica UK Ltd.


##

Subject: Suggestion for InterRender Interface
Date:     Thu, 30 Sep 1993 19:18:41 +0100
From: Hannes Heckner <[e-mail]>

It is not so unusual on the Amiga to use several programs to create
an animation. So I think now is the time to get a standard interface
bewteen 3D programs.
Something like Motion Control could make it possible to
composite VistaPro landscapes in the background and a Real3D or Imagine
forground.

What do you think of it?

Hannes



##

Subject: Lights
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 23:51:32 GMT
From: Tony Jones <[e-mail]>

Posted for Paul Rance (2:253/[e-mail])

I  don't  know  about  anyone else but Imagine's lamps have given me a bit of
grief  over the years , but I've found how to get round a bug/limitation when
trying to make an object into a lamp and make it cast shadows.

What  happens is that if you create a bulb object and make it bright and into
a lamp it works ok until you set the cast-shadows button on and then it stops
work.   Basically because the attributes are assigned to the objects axis and
not the polygons themselves.  So the outer surface of the object is a barrier
to the light when cast-shadows is on.

Here's the way around it:

1. Create the object

2. Select attributes

3.  Set the colour - keep all the other settings to 0 or the default will do

4. Make FOG = 1.00  - this is the important bit.

The  fog  setting  will basically make the complete object into the light and
not just the axis.

I  hope  this isnt old news, I havent seen a way around it in any books or in
the  texts  from  the imagine mailing list.  I noticed steve worleys desklamp
object had a conical lamp set just outside the bulb object to get around this
(I  think  thats  why  anyway)  ,this  works fine but not if youve got a wall
fitted  lamp.   You  can  apply  textures to the object without upsetting the
brightness,colour,etc   which   means   you   can   make   realistic  looking
candleflames,etc


Paul



##

Subject: fog 'feature'?
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 17:59:33 MDT
From: [e-mail] (Greg Pringle)

 Recently, I was doing a render that had a plane with a brush
filter mapped onto it. There was also fog object in the scene
( I can't remember if it was in front of or behind the plane).
When I went to render, everything looked fine, except..
the fog was gone wherever there was a transparent part
of the plane! I couldn't seem to get around this with any
amount of fudging, and eventually had to take out the fog..

 Sorry if this has been discussed to death, but is there
a workaround for this?

  Greg


##

Subject: Impulse and the Transputer
Date: 1 Oct 1993 10:10:34 +0000
From: "Oxley David" <[e-mail]>

On 30 Sept, I faxed Mike H at Impulse a letter asking about Imagine being
ported to the WARP transputer board.  He replied very promptly.  I hope he
doesn't mind me posting his reply, but I thought it might be of interest to
other speed-hungry IML-ers :)

66 ...

I have spoken several times to Mr Ron Henry in the past and as recently as
today.  I thought you might like to know what is really going on.

There are not really any of these boards in the hands of the developers as you
listed.  They are trying to develop something but they are doing so blind.

I was the first person Ron talked to about this boards, I said to him the
following, when you have a working set of boards, send them to us with the
development system and environment and we will port Imagine if it is wise to do
so.  That was two years ago.  To date they still have no boards but I do think
that they are very close, and Ron assures me that he will be sending me a board
or two next week.  I look forward to this.

Once we have the board, we will investigate it to the nth degree, we want to be
the fastest and the best rendering software solution.  Unfortunately there are
many problems when companies market what they don't have.  This is a perfect
case, for some reason that goes over my head these guys needed to find out if
anyone wants to go 100 times faster than they do today, well you don't have to
be a rocket scientist to know the answer to that question.

We are comitted to helping you and everyone else who owns Imagine, to make your
job easier as well as FASTER, we are on the job and have been from the start
and have been aware of these things, we just don't like rumours we like the
real thing even if we don't get done with software on time we do try.

Let me know what you think,
Mike.

... 99

So it sounds like Impulse and US Cybernetics have been in contact for a while.
I wonder how long it will take Impulse to investigate the WARP to the nth
degree?  In a recent newsletter, Impulse talked about a high speed rendering
engine.  I wonder if the WARP was it, or the WARP has made them think again
about their own board?  Who knows...more questions to Mike I suppose.

Regards,
David Oxley,
Logica UK Ltd.


##

Subject: fog 'feature'?
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 07:11:17 -0600
From: Steve Koren <[e-mail]>

> the fog was gone wherever there was a transparent part
> of the plane! I couldn't seem to get around this with any

Does that for me too.  Annoying, no?

The only thing I have been able to do to work around that problem is to
fix it after you render the image.  I use ImageFX.  Usually you can
outline just the area that the transparent plane covered and tweak the
color balance for that area until it looks "right" (which isn't as bad
as it sounds, because you can just fiddle until the sharp edge of the
transparent plane goes away).  If there is a better way to fix the
problem, I'd sure like to know about it.

  - steve


##

Subject: Lights
Date: Fri, 01 Oct 93 10:53:41 EST
From: Adam Benjamin <[e-mail]>

Text item: 9/30/93 7:51PM (IA5Text Enclosure)

In a previous post [e-mail] wrote:

>I  don't  know  about  anyone else but Imagine's lamps have given me a bit
>of grief  over the years , but I've found how to get round a
>bug/limitation when trying to make an object into a lamp and make it
>cast shadows.

>4. Make FOG = 1.00  - this is the important bit.

WOW!
Does this really work????
I never heard about this work around before, this sounds too good to
be true.

Also while I'm cluttering up your screen... 8-)

A Downloaded an Anim from (I think) Animet that was called Valkrie
Transform.  It was a robotech ship transforming.  Very VERY cool.
I don't suppose the object (or objects?) are available anywhere?

Adam Benjamin



##

Subject: Nuke Effect...
Date:     Tue, 5 Oct 1993 04:33:00 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Roy Park)

Hello all... I once saw somebody mentioning max value for Imagine light source,
and how it could create "nuclear explosion" effect.

So far, I've tried ONE spherical light source with value about 32000 (very close
to max value of 32xxx) and couldn't really get that effect.

I have a scene with checkered ground, one object in the center, and the bright
light source.  I placed the object and the light source without thinking any-
thing about their 3D distance (Imagine's 3D coorinate), would this be why?

For example, would it yield better result if I was to scale down the object by
factor of 10 and decreased the distance by 10?  Or using of more lights will
help at all?!

What about the global light settings?  I found that you can't enter any higher
value than 255 for global light.

My Amiga isn't too fast... so I really don't want to put it through another run
unless I have some guarantee.  (or something similar!)

----
Roy Park   // [e-mail]
A3000@25 \X/ 1st yr UofW Comp.Eng.

APO/SparX


##

Subject: Re: transparency & 3D objects
Date: Fri, 01 Oct 93 13:41:47 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

Steve Koren <[e-mail]> writes:
> An extruded plane into a 3D box is not really a solid object to Imagine.
> If you apply a texture which makes everything along the texture's +Z
> axis transparent, this will include part of the top, part of the bottom,
> and the sides of the box.
> whether other renderers such as R3D, LW, or Aladdin can do such a thing.

LW's fractal noise texture is a 3D texture that gets projected onto 3D
*surfaces*. If you create a box and transparency map it with fractal noise,
the noise will appear on all 6 surfaces as though you carved a box out of
swiss cheese and hollowed the box out (except the swiss cheese holes are
blurry and ragged :-) Generally, transparency mapping is better suited to
adding detail to an existing form rather than creating the form itself (as
far as 3D forms are concerned). So if you are creating a 3D flame, shape the
object like a flame and use transparency mapping to a vary the tip of the
flame. Aladdin, ofcourse, supports gaseous objects which supposedly have actual
3D volume as apposed to simply being surfaces.
%~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
%      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  %
% --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   %
%      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   %
%     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   %
%                                                                          %
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


##

Subject: bright vs light source
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 12:57:51 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Thomas Setzer)

Its been a while, so please forgive if I'm wrong...

I thought I read in Understanding Imagine 2.0 that setting the attribute
bright, didn't make the object emit rays of light, but made it so that the
objects color wasn't shaded or effected by other light sources.  In otherwords,
if you set an objects color to 100,100,100, then it would be 100, 100, 100,
and no shadows would be cast across it.

People on this mailing list seem to imply something different.  They suggest
that setting the bright attribute, makes the object a lightsource.  I have
seen that implication in quite a few recent posts.  This *may* be causing the
problems with cast-shadows and a lightsource.

Does anyone know?  Steve, can you verify?  Is the name "bright" misleading,
or am I just plain wrong(say it ain't so)?


Tom Setzer
[e-mail]

"And of course, I'm a genius, so people are naturally drawn to my fiery
intellect.  Their admiration overwhelms their envy!" - Calvin




##

Subject: Screamer and CRAY-1
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 20:27:53 +0200
From: Ilias Alexopoulos <[e-mail]>

Hi everybody

Does anybody know the speed of SCreamer in MFLOPS?
I have read that the Cray-1 Supercomputer has a speed of 160 MFLOPS.
When they say that the SCreamer has double the speed of Cray-1
they mean in MIPS, MFLOPS, all overall performance?

                    The Hard(ware) way.
                    Commander Ilias



##

Subject: Re: SIlver Texture & Morphin
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 19:13:35 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~)

>>>>> "Breno" == Glenn M Lewis <[e-mail]> writes:

Breno> Hi glenn. I think T3DLIB is great (but who doesn't?),

    Hey, thanks!

Breno> but I only got an old version (not sure which), in which you
Breno> mentioned in future versions you'd probably add support to
Breno> "make-topology-compatible" two objects, so we could morph any 2
Breno> 3D objects. Now that you've mentioned it, did you do it? Any
Breno> reason why you couldn't? Lightwave Modeler's programmer, Stuart
Breno> Ferguson, told me he "couldn't think of any way", or something
Breno> like that.  Of course I disagreed, but I'm not a programmer...

    I have ideas on how to do this, but have not yet implemented
it, and will probably not in the near forseeable future... working on
too many other things right now.  Sorry.
                            -- Glenn


##

Subject: Shadows and Light Objects
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 15:46:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David A. Rollins" <[e-mail]>

I see many people having trouble with light objects casting shadows.
I see many tricks being discussed here. The easiest way to
get your light objects to cast shadows is to
scale the axes down to almost nothing. Many times your light object's
axis may be so large that the only thing being illuminated is the
light object itself.

We made this discovery while rendering the examples of our objects
that will be released for sale in the very near future. The solution
is to model your light object, do all your tweaking and whatever, then
scale the axes down to as close to zero as is possible. This is
something that is not documented. It is just something that we
discovered by accident.


##

Subject: MS-DOS Imagine
Date: Fri, 01 Oct 93 15:59:00 PDT
From: Stethem Ted              5721 <[e-mail]>

Hi,
   I have been reading some archive IML about Imagine for MS-DOS and thought
I might be able to help out some people with problems.  I also started out
with the same problems (program wouldn't load, crashes, etc).  I am still
having a few problems but have gotten it to work for the most part.  First
had it on a 386/33 with DOS 5.  Now I have it on a 486/33 with DOS 6.  The
primary problem in getting it to load up is in the CONFIG.SYS.  Imagine
appears to dislike ANY expanded memory manager.   This is my CONFIG.SYS to
get Imagine to load up:

DEVICE=C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM /E:1024 /P
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
DOS=HIGH
DEVICE=DOS\ANSI.SYS
FILES=30
BUFFERS=30
LASTDRIVE=Z
STACKS=9,256

It also appears that Imagine needs as much of the standard memory as you can
get, like in excess of 580K.  This CONFIG.SYS works for me and I named it
CONFIG.OLD so I can use a batch file called OLD.BAT which I run and reboot
the machine to use Imagine.  I have another NEW.BAT  which loads CONFIG.NEW
into CONFIG.SYS when I need to use all the other MS-DOG junk.
   I have used Imagine 2.0 for almost a year on my Amiga 3000/040 so Imagine
doesn't totally throw me on the MS-DOZ machine.  Anyway, it appears that
Imagine is running almost 2 times faster on the 486/33Mhz as compared to my
A3000/040/25Mhz.  MS-DOS Imagine DOES load DXF, but like most DXF loaders,
not all the time.  You have to delve into the .DXF "standard" to understand
WHY!!!  MS-DOS Imagine will produce .FLC animations. It works although the
public-domain .FLC players will vary in their ability to play it back.
 AAPLAY doesn't work very well.  PLAYMOVY plays the Imagine .FLC animations
very well and has quite a bit of control over dissolves, pauses, playback
speed, etc.  I am going to send up an animation with the PLAYMOVY player to
amiga-boing or aminet when I figure out how to ftp send (my 486 crashes
right now for some reason when I tried this, another EMM386 error??!??).
 There are a lot more memory management problems with the Intel/MS-DOS
machines compared to the Motorola/AmigaDOS.
   Well, I wuv my Amy but ECS is looking really old.  Imagine animations and
renders at SVGA 640x480x256 colors look pretty awesome compared to 16 color
or HAM Interlace although HAM Interlace produces pretty nice results.  The
486 is really fast also but it spends more time during the cleanup and
showing of images.  It would really scream with a 486/66 Mhz or go ballistic
with a 486/99Mhz.  No problems with DOS 6 that I can see and, actually,
Imagine seems to run a little better under DOS 6.  Still, I will be going
along and it will crash all of sudden but usually after doing several .DXF
imports, back and forth between Detail Editor, Project Editor, Stage Editor,
Action Editor, etc.  Sure do miss that multitasking gadget in the upper
right corner though.  Only problem now is that my Amy seems kind of slow ...
 where is that 100Mhz 68060?  Hope this helps a little.


##

Subject: Impulse and U.S. Cybernetics
Date:      Fri, 01 Oct 1993 11:33:16 MDT
From: "Neil MacMullen" <[e-mail]>

 First of all my apologies to everyone who is not really interested in
 this....  I certainly don't want to get into a flame war here, but I
 would like to clarify some points.


>On 30 Sept, I faxed Mike H at Impulse a letter asking about Imagine being
>ported to the WARP transputer board.  He replied very promptly.  I hope he
>doesn't mind me posting his reply, but I thought it might be of interest to
>other speed-hungry IML-ers :)
>
>66 ...
>
>I have spoken several times to Mr Ron Henry in the past and as recently as
>today.  I thought you might like to know what is really going on.
>
>There are not really any of these boards in the hands of the developers as you
>listed.  They are trying to develop something but they are doing so blind.

 Clint of VistaPro is currently working with one of our boards; another
 10 will be sent to developers (including Mike) as soon as we get them back
 from the pcb manufacturers in about a week.  Up to now, boards have
 been in very short supply and naturally, highest priority had to be given
 to our own development team.

 I'm not sure what Mike means by 'developing blind', but I can assure
 everyone that we have a very firm idea of exactly the way we want the
 hardware and software to go.

>
>I was the first person Ron talked to about this boards, I said to him the
>following, when you have a working set of boards, send them to us with the
>development system and environment and we will port Imagine if it is wise to do
>so.  That was two years ago.  To date they still have no boards but I do think
>that they are very close, and Ron assures me that he will be sending me a board
>or two next week.  I look forward to this.

 As Mike says, we have been in contact with him for a long time.  As with
 most startup companies, we have had to struggle to overcome numerous
 hurdles to get to this point.  I certainly don't wish anyone to think
 that the reason that Imagine is not currently running on the warp board
 is down to Mike.  I have been reluctant to comment on the recent calls
 on this list for Impulse to port to the warp board because I assumed
 that Mike would want to keep any business dealings private until he had
 seen the board and made a decision.

>Once we have the board, we will investigate it to the nth degree, we want to be
>the fastest and the best rendering software solution.  Unfortunately there are
>many problems when companies market what they don't have.  This is a perfect
>case, for some reason that goes over my head these guys needed to find out if
>anyone wants to go 100 times faster than they do today, well you don't have to
>be a rocket scientist to know the answer to that question.

 The reason we approached Mike was that we felt, and still feel, that
 there is no point trying to sell a piece of hardware unless there is
 some software to run on it.  Since we saw Imagine as being the market
 leader in a field which was a natural application for the warp board,
 we hoped that he would be enthusiastic about porting his product.

>
>We are comitted to helping you and everyone else who owns Imagine, to make your
>job easier as well as FASTER, we are on the job and have been from the start
>and have been aware of these things, we just don't like rumours we like the
>real thing even if we don't get done with software on time we do try.
>
>Let me know what you think,
>Mike.
>
>.... 99
>
>So it sounds like Impulse and US Cybernetics have been in contact for a while.
>I wonder how long it will take Impulse to investigate the WARP to the nth
>degree?  In a recent newsletter, Impulse talked about a high speed rendering
>engine.  I wonder if the WARP was it, or the WARP has made them think again
>about their own board?  Who knows...more questions to Mike I suppose.
>

  I believe Mike was referring to the WARP in this newsletter.

  Well, I hope that can put things to rest.  If anyone has any further
  queries I will be happy to respond, either to the list (if requested)
  or privately.

                        Neil



--
Neil MacMullen                                    Vc.  (1-403)  264-2338
U.S. Cybernetics                                  Vc.  (1-403)  289-0252
Email: [e-mail]                   Fax: (1-403)  282-1238


##

Subject: Re: Screamer and CRAY-1
Date:     Fri, 1 Oct 1993 21:14:00 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Roy Park)

> Does anybody know the speed of SCreamer in MFLOPS?
> I have read that the Cray-1 Supercomputer has a speed of 160 MFLOPS.
> When they say that the SCreamer has double the speed of Cray-1
> they mean in MIPS, MFLOPS, all overall performance?

160 MFLOPS eh? must be 'entry level' Cray or something  :)  Seriously,
you can't really compare different computers in terms of MIPS or MFLOPS since
they are not the best way of measuring performance.

Remember, number of instructions or flip-flops are can be really different
machine to machine... efficiency, etc. can be another factor.

>     The Hard(ware) way.
>     Commander Ilias

----
Roy Park   // [e-mail]
A3000@25 \X/ 1st yr UofW Comp.Eng.

APO/SparX