Amiga Tools 3/Amiga Tools 3.iso/grafik/raytracing/imagine/tips/arc09.txt

Text File | 1993-03-12 | 166KB | 3,899 lines

IMAGINE archive: collected off of [e-mail]

ARCHIVE IX
Jul. 25 '91 - Aug. 7 '91

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

note: each message seperated by a '##'

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

Subject: New LightWave features (was Re: C Hackers )
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 91 10:07:25 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> Mark, you mentioned modelling stuff like fire, clouds, etc. with Lightwave
> using particle systems.  Do you know if Allen is planning on adding
> "lifecycles" to the particle systems generator?
> I seem to remember he had mentioned that he planned on adding trajectories
> to the particles (so that you could grow grass, etc.) in an E-Mail post a
> while back (is this in v2.0 of Lightwave???).  This would be really cool,
> and only make me want it all the more.

He has mentioned doing both trajectories and lifecycles for particles but
I don't expect either to be in 2.0 (but ya never know untill its released).
He had mentioned something like 3.0 for all the additional particle support.
I would love to see it.

As for upcoming features, I had included lots of info on them in my article
in Amazing Computing, but they were edited out. Most likely the editor
called NewTek to confirm whether or not they would all be in 2.0 and NewTek
declined to say for certain. Oh well, for those that are interested, here
is a partial list.

John Foust of Syndesis has been working with NewTek and the next release of
LightWave should allow users to read in a multitude of other object formats
including Imagine, AutoCAD, and Wavefront.  Also in the works are many
modeler enhancements like cross sectional construction, extrude to path,
twist, shear, bevel, sub-divide polygons, a magnet tool, better object
statistics, and new selection methods just to name a few. Also, other new
LightWave features include:

Depth of field effects
Soft shadows
Full motion blur
Ray traced reflection and refraction (might make 2.0)
Surface morphing envelopes *
Image map pixel interpolation and negative *
Pixel interpolation for reflection maps *
Spherical and cylindrical image bump mapping *
Tiling options for cylindrical and spherical image mapping *
Super Low-Res (192 x 120 w/overscan) *
Super Hi-Res (3072 x 1920 w/overscan) *
More flexible antialiasing *
Save and load envelopes *
Save and load surfaces *
Image sequence looping *
Improved point and line rendering w/texture mapping *
Procedural dots texture *
Non-lambertian shading for surfaces like planets *
Non-linear fog *
Optional full color interface (similar to ChromaFX) *
Bounding box option for faster animation previews *
Numerous Modeler improvements *
A configuration file *
Greater speed *
Better requesters *
and many more

While most of these will be included in the soon to be available LightWave
2.0, a few may be deferred to following releases due to time constraints.
All in all, the next release promises to be much more than simple bug fixes
and minor enhancements. The ones I have marked with a * I am fairly certain
will be in the 2.0 release.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Colorburst
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 91 09:52:55 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Randy Carris)

To Aaron Tucker:

Do you know if you can use CB with CBM's display enhancer?  Also, I'm
interested to hear anything about the software.  Is the paint program fairly
complete?  How does it compare tool-wise with other programs such as DpaintIII,
DCTV Paint, HAM-E ?  You may not have access to all of these I realize, but
the paint program has to be VERY good for me to invest in this kind of box.


Thanks,
Randy Carris

##

Subject: Re: fog effect in imagine??
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 91 08:35:31 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Edward Chadez)

On Jul 25,  6:34am, mit-eddie!uucp.cs.toronto.edu!lsuc!canrem!james.ke wrote:
} Subject: fog effect in imagine??
}
}
} Hi All,
} Was wondering if anyone could explain to me how the 'FOG' effect works
} in Imagine v1.1.  There's a brief mention of in in the readme.docs but
} no real examples.  In case you don't know what effect I'm talking about,
} its in the readme.docs about the colour white completely dissipating
} in a scene. (thats about how descriptive they were in the docs ;) )
}
} PLEASE E-MAIL me directly since I don't have real access to this group
} or newsletter. If this has been covered in a previous letter, please
} E-MAIL me the reponses.            THX, James

Whoever answers this should also post to the group.  Last word was that,
no, true fog effects weren't included.  (TurboSilver users might grunt at
that, since TS included some (although limited) atmospheric effects.)

Hey Impulse!--how about adding 'atmosphere' to the globals editor in
any future upgrades?? ;-)

} +-------------------------------------------------------------+
} |  NETWERK  |  James       UUCP: [e-mail] |
} |  V I I I  |  Kewageshig   CRS: [phone]                |
} |  1 9 9 1  |               CLI: [phone]                |
} +-------------------------------------------------------------+
} ---
}  ~ DeLuxe} 1.1 #8086 ~           *** UNDER CONSTRUCTION ***
} --
} Canada Remote Systems.  Toronto, Ontario
} NorthAmeriNet Host
}
}-- End of excerpt from mit-eddie!uucp.cs.toronto.edu!lsuc!canrem!james.ke


-Edward Chadez

--
+--//-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|\X/ [e-mail]/Edward Chadez                CARL Systems(303)861-5319|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

##

Subject: Imagine Attributes and Fog
Date:    Thu, 25 Jul 91 12:21 EDT
From: "Marc Rifkin" <[e-mail]>

Whew! I just got done reading 80+ Imagine messages and now I can start
posting (and be up to date).
So my first question is how to make objects more or less difuse in
Imagine - I use Lightwave too and that has Difuse, but in Imagine
all it seems I can do is change the size and brightness of the
hot spot.  My problem is I am making buildings and their sides
are all coming out the same color looking like a big grey splotch
on the screen.  I would like them to have distinct light and
dark sides.
Also- what does Shininess do?
I've rendered objects with and with it, with other attributes changing
and I can't get any result.

Someone asked about fog- well the technique I found can also be used for
cloud layers.  Make an IFF of clouds (in greyscale) or very fuzzy
clouds for fog and map it onto a plane as a filter map.  With the Full
Scale Value set at 255, anything white in the IFF will be clear and
the darker shades will create more opaque levels (thicker) of cloud/
fog.  Put the plane between you and some objects.
This worked well when I did a plane flying above the clouds with
the ocean underneath.

My final question for this broadcast: How can we get NewTek to make
Lightwave not a standalone product, but runnable w/o a Toaster?
I REALLY need to do this.  I can't afford another toaster!

Also, I WANT TO GO TO SIGGRAPH and AMIEXPO!!
But I can't.


Marc Rifkin, [e-mail]
Computer Graphics and Integrative Technology, Penn State Univ.
"I thought character animation had something to do with fonts!"

##

Subject: Lightwave Obs
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 91 12:37:28 EDT
From: [e-mail]

I downloaded Mark's lightwave objects and looked at them in Imagine.

Couple of comments about the conversion program output.

1) There was a default flat white color for EVERYTHING. You warned
that surface coloring might not make it through the the conversion,
and none did.  This is true for indiviual triangles as well as overall
surface attributes.

2) Big problem with scale. Without exception, the objects were FAR FAR
FAR too small. Normally not a problem, but the size of the objects was
on the order of .1 to .5 units. This means that if you had a lot of
detail in the object, you might be skirting the quantum limit of point
positioning in Imagine.  There really has to be a fix for this: I saw
a couple of shaggy objects that were probably rounded off, including
the keyboard.  This is strange, because Imagine's resolution is
1/65536'th of a unit. Perhaps the conversion program has a coarser
internal resolution?  The typical size of Imagine objects is about two
orders of magnitude larger. (on the order of 10 to 100.)  What kind of
scale does Lightwave normally use?

3) The points and faces seemed to be added in a nearly random order.
Instead of the first point being near the second, it could be ANYWHERE
in the object. This does not affect the image or manipulation or any
practical matter other than the disconcerting view when a wireframe
image is rendering: it "teleports" in with a shower of sparkles.  The
weird ordering would make clean morphs impossible, as well.

The big news is that yes, the convesion program works. Every object
loaded and looked like what it was supposed to.

Thanks for the objects, Mark!

-Steve

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

##

Subject: RE:The Imagine Companion Review
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 91 14:26 +0200
From: "Arthur van Rooijen, PTT RESEARCH, The Netherlands"
 <[e-mail]>

> okay, as promised, my review of The Imagine Companion.
> a quick summary of what follows:
> (this may well sound like an ad, but since i have found
> the book to be enormously helpful in my coming to understand/use Imagine
> more fully, it seems only reasonable)
>
> if you're a relative newcomer to Imagine, and feel that a lot of what
> can be done with the program is missing you, or that you're wallowing
> around in inadequate documentation, send your $29.95 (plus $2.17 sales
> tax if you're having it mailed within California) to:
>
> Motion Blur Publishing
> 915A Stambaugh Street
> Redwood City, CA  94063.
>

Is there anybody who knows the telefax/telephone number of this publisher.
So I can ask them how much it cost to send it overseas. Or is there a
publisher in Europe who is selling this book.
--
                        Arthur van Rooijen

 PTT Research Neher Laboratories,    Phone  : [phone]
 2260 AK Leidschendam,               Telefax: [phone]
 P.O. box 421,                       Telex  : 31236 prnl nl
 The Netherlands.
                                           +----------------------------------
 Domain        : [e-mail]     |  As the people here grow colder
 EARN/BITnet   : [e-mail]    |  I turn to my computer
 PSS (DATAnet1): [phone]::ROOIJEN |  And spend my evenings with it
 SURFNET-2     : [phone]::ROOIJEN   |  Like a friend       "Kate Bush"

##

Subject: To un-lzh a file in Unix
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 91 12:51:43 CDT
From: Wayne Haufler 283-4160 <[e-mail]>

Hello,

I have been playing with pbmplus, the Extended Portable Bitmap Toolkit,
on a Sun 4 workstation, to convert and then view IFF ILBM files to
other formats.  I have just acquired markLWpic.lzh and CastleRoom.lzh
from ab20.  My question is does anybody know of an easy way to 'un-lzh'
(I forget the name of this compression scheme) a file on a Unix
machine, like a Sun?  Yes, my Amigas are still unavailable, but it
would also be great to display IFF pix at work! :^)

I could probably find a way if I looked around, but am lazy today.

Thanks a bunch.
===============================================================================
          ____  Wayne A. Haufler     ([e-mail])
\\   /\\   /\\   //    McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Company - Houston Div.
 \\ /--\\ // \\ //--        [Christian/SW Engineer/Amigan]
  \//   \//   \//___   "Exploring the Use of Computer Graphics and Animations"
        //                   "To Serve and Support Christian Endeavors"
       //
            Standard Disclaimers Apply.
===============================================================================

##

Subject: Re: New object stagnation
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 91 11:15:34 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis ~)

>>>>> On Fri, 19 Jul 91 18:28:22 EDT, [e-mail] (Steve Worley) said:

Steve> I've noticed that nobody likes putting anything on hubcap,
Steve> especially objects and projects. I'd really like to encourage
Steve> people to upload their work: it gives the rest of us new toys to
Steve> play with or scenes to inspire new ideas. I'd especially like to
Steve> get a HUGE object library. There are about 100 objects on hubcap
Steve> right now, but I'd like everyone to upload their best couple of
Steve> objects just for something new to play with. Please?

Steve> I am working on a couple very complex models: one is a space
Steve> station, and one is a jet engine. [Imagine putting this on the
Steve> back of the wimpy VW bug model!]


    Steve and I have been working on the TTDDDLIB, as you know.
With Release5, we are now able to load in Turbo Silver objects with EXTR
objects in them and embed these objects into the main object.  What does
this mean?  Now, you can load these objects directly into Imagine with
no problems.

    What does this also mean?

    I can now release the Steam Engine that I created to you all.
Big deal?  It was for me.  It took a *long* time to create this object,
and a long time to create a short animation with it.

    Here is the README file I have included with the archive I have
placed on hubcap.clemson.edu in:
pub/amiga/incoming/IMAGINE/OBJECTS/SteamEngine.lzh

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

                SteamEngine

        Created by, and Copyright 1991, Glenn M. Lewis

            Created with the aid of TTDDD


    This steam engine is a replica of the locomotive in use at Disneyland,
Anaheim, CA.  It took over two hundred hours to create (at which point I lost
track).  With it, I created a short animation (with the help of Tomas Rokicki,
who offered to render the frames on his accelerated Amiga system... thanks,
Tom!) with Turbo Silver.

    I used my TTDDD package (which can be found on ab20.larc.nasa.gov
[128.155.23.64] in one of the subdirectories... take a look at FILES.Z for the
exact location) to assist me in creating the complex object. TTDDD is
shareware, which you can register with me for $10.00.  What better place to put
in a plug for my Textual Three Dimension Data Description package!?!

    Steve Worley and I have recently been working on an addition to the
TTDDD project... TTDDDLIB.  With Release 5, I converted this Turbo Silver
object, which included EXTR (external) objects, to 100% compatible Imagine
format, which has no EXTR objects.

    I have also included a PostScript preview of this object, also created
with the new TTDDDLIB.  Check out hubcap.clemson.edu [130.127.8.1] for the
latest revision in the pub/amiga/incoming/IMAGINE/TTDDDLIB directory.

    You may use this object or any of its parts in any manner that you
wish, provided that you give me, Glenn M. Lewis, and TTDDD full credit for the
creation of this object in a place that can be seen by anyone viewing this
object or any of its parts.

Glenn M. Lewis
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: Lightwave Obs
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 91 13:30:21 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> 1) There was a default flat white color for EVERYTHING. You warned
> that surface coloring might not make it through the the conversion,
> and none did.

This is most unfortunate.  I had done conversions to Sculpt format, and
although the colors got screwed up, at least some surface differentiation
was there.

> 2) Big problem with scale. What kind of
> scale does Lightwave normally use?

LightWave uses real world metric units for everything (which I really
appreciate). Sounds like another converter problem.

> 3) The points and faces seemed to be added in a nearly random order.
> Instead of the first point being near the second, it could be ANYWHERE
> in the object.

Not sure about this one. I would have expected LightWave to have the points
ordered in a logical (in the order of creation) fashion, but I have never
checked. I'll look into it.

> Thanks for the objects, Mark!

And thanks for the VERY valuable comments! I'll be forwarding them to John
Foust to aid in getting the conversions right. I'll probably be getting a
newer version shortly and I'll redo the objects and we'll see how they go.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Re: black triangles
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 91 16:59:27 EDT
From: [e-mail] (John J Humpal)

You could try the "Fracture" feature on your 2-polygon plane.  First,
select your ceiling, then enter "Pick Edges".  Hit Right-Amiga-A (for
Select All) and then select Fracture from the menu (I forget which menu it
is hidden in, but it's up there somewhere!).  This will subdivide your
edges (and faces).

Good luck!

John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer

##

Subject: Why does SCANLINE take more RAM than TRACE?
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 91 18:38:08 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Bob Lindabury - SysAdm)

rutgers!pro-party.cts.com!seanc (Sean Cunningham) writes:

> I'm sure this has been asked before, so please bare with me :)
>
> An object I'm working on (human figure...sorta) is progressing nicely, but
> I've just run into a major problem.  When I try to do a scanline rendering
> of the object, not all of the pieces render (I'm assuming that a low memory
> situation causes truncation of parts), BUT I can render the whole thing if
> I go to full trace.  Why is this?  Why would scanline take more memory to
> render than raytrace, when I'm dealing with the same object under the same
> staging file?
>
> Note: I'm running on a 4M A3000-25/50 (2M Chip, 2M Fast).  Because it won't
>       render at all if I run from WorkBench, I have a script in my S:
>       called "IMSHELLSTART" that makes all the necessary assignments,
>       runs CPU, and starts the program.

I had this exact same problem with my world object which was around
800k in size.  I even called up Impulse and told them about it and
they said they never heard of the problem.  They said they heard of
it the other way around...rendering possible in scanline but not in
trace mode.  I think it has something to do with the screens they
open.  I don't know much about it but they said something about
opening multiple screens when rendering in scanline mode.

If anyone knows why this would happen please post it as I'm sure
others will experience it when they begin to use very large complex
objects in a scene.

-- Bob

 The Graphics BBS  908/469-0049  "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!"
 ============================================================================
  InterNet: [e-mail]                | Raven Enterprises
      UUCP: ...rutgers!bobsbox!graphics!bobl      | 25 Raven Avenue
    BitNet: bobl%graphics.rent.com@pucc           | Piscataway, NJ 08854
    Home #: 908/560-7353                          | 908/271-8878

##

Subject: FTPing objects TO Hubcap
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 91 18:56:17 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Bob Lindabury - SysAdm)

A question.  I have successfully received files from Hubcap but how
do I go about putting files up there?  I currently only have a dialup
UUCP connection and all my FTP transfers have to be done by mail.  I
was using BITFTP but now it's gone.  I know of other mail servers for
transfer to my system but how about if I want to send something up?

What are the steps I would use and is it even possible to send up
some objects and images?a

Perplexed...

-- Bob

 The Graphics BBS  908/469-0049  "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!"
 ============================================================================
  InterNet: [e-mail]                | Raven Enterprises
      UUCP: ...rutgers!bobsbox!graphics!bobl      | 25 Raven Avenue
    BitNet: bobl%graphics.rent.com@pucc           | Piscataway, NJ 08854
    Home #: 908/560-7353                          | 908/271-8878

##

Subject: Re: black triangles
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 91 18:54:02 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Bob Lindabury - SysAdm)

rutgers!jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu!johnh (John J Humpal) writes:

> You could try the "Fracture" feature on your 2-polygon plane.  First,
> select your ceiling, then enter "Pick Edges".  Hit Right-Amiga-A (for
> Select All) and then select Fracture from the menu (I forget which menu it
> is hidden in, but it's up there somewhere!).  This will subdivide your
> edges (and faces).
>
> Good luck!
>
> John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer

Fracture.  Is this yet another non-standard term for a standard
process called sub-divide?  Beats me why Imagine terminology has to
be so different from the rest of the world.

-- Bob

 The Graphics BBS  908/469-0049  "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!"
 ============================================================================
  InterNet: [e-mail]                | Raven Enterprises
      UUCP: ...rutgers!bobsbox!graphics!bobl      | 25 Raven Avenue
    BitNet: bobl%graphics.rent.com@pucc           | Piscataway, NJ 08854
    Home #: 908/560-7353                          | 908/271-8878

##

Subject: Re: wood
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 91 18:44:55 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Bob Lindabury - SysAdm)

Mark Thompson <rutgers!westford.ccur.com!mark> writes:

> > I DON'T HAVE 24BIT WOOD BRUSHMAPS! I DON'T HAVE 24BIT WOOD BRUSHMAPS!
> > maybe that'll work.
> > I HAVE HAM WOOD BRUSHMAPS! I HAVE HAM WOOD BRUSHMAPS!
> > that should definately work.
> > If you want 24bit wood brushmaps, you'll have to get them yourself.
>
> Juan,
>
> Could you include me on those 24bit wood brushmaps. Please send them ASAP.
> No HAM ones please.
> :-] :-] :-] :-] :-] :-] :-] :-] :-] :-] :-] :-] :-] :-] :-] :-] :-] :-] :-]

Gulp!  Sorry.  I thought the brushmaps originated as 24bit and were
being uploded as HAM.  My mistake.

-- Bob

 The Graphics BBS  908/469-0049  "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!"
 ============================================================================
  InterNet: [e-mail]                | Raven Enterprises
      UUCP: ...rutgers!bobsbox!graphics!bobl      | 25 Raven Avenue
    BitNet: bobl%graphics.rent.com@pucc           | Piscataway, NJ 08854
    Home #: 908/560-7353                          | 908/271-8878

##

Subject: re: Colorburst
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 91 00:00:43 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Aaron Tucker)

I am not sure of the Colorburst will work with the CBM Display Enhancer. As
long as it does nothing to the external RGB port, I don't think there should
be a problem.

As for the paint program, it has some really nice features and is actually
fairly powerful. The problem with it is the interface. There are also some
bugs that need to be worked out.

It has features such as real airbrush, most of the modes that DP3 has, most
of the tools of DP3, 24bit range stencil, undo, spare page, + many loading
and saving options.

Juan Trevino
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Goodies
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 91 12:54:21 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Fun toys on hubcap!

1) An icon I drew for Imagine Objects. It looks slick in 2.0. It's in the
   MISC directory.

2) A quick scanline pic of Glenn Lewis' steam train. You can see what this
   cool puppy looks like. In PICTURES.

3) My triplane object that I posted a picture of a few days ago. In
   OBEJCTS. Mark Thompson and Glenn Lewis posted some of their obs, like
   I asked for ["New Object Stagnation"]. If others follow suit, I'll
   post my space station...

Have fun with your new toys!

-Steve

##

Subject: Re: Why does SCANLINE take more RAM than TRACE?
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 91 14:42:26 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> > Why would scanline take more memory to
> > render than raytrace, when I'm dealing with the same object under the same
> > staging file?

> I even called up Impulse and told them about it and
> they said they never heard of the problem.  They said they heard of
> it the other way around...rendering possible in scanline but not in
> trace mode.
> If anyone knows why this would happen please post it as I'm sure
> others will experience it when they begin to use very large complex
> objects in a scene.

Stephen Menzies had this same problem and there is no reason whatsoever
that this should happen other than  *:0)  (programmer is a Bozo). Just
kidding. No flames intended, just stating that algorithmically speaking,
there is no justification for it.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Re: Goodies
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 91 15:12:58 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

[e-mail] writes:
> Fun toys on hubcap!
> 2) A quick scanline pic of Glenn Lewis' steam train. You can see what this
>    cool puppy looks like. In PICTURES.

The one labelled train.gif is NOT a GIF. It is an IFF but I am not sure
what type. It was created with ADPro according to a hex dump on it. I
believe it is a 24bit IFF.

> 3) My triplane object that I posted a picture of a few days ago. In
>    OBEJCTS. Mark Thompson and Glenn Lewis posted some of their obs, like
>    I asked for ["New Object Stagnation"].

Glenn's SteamEngine is very nice. Good job Glenn. I haven't had a chance
to try out the triplane yet.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Scan vs Trace memory
Date:    Fri, 26 Jul 91 16:37 EDT
From: "Marc Rifkin" <[e-mail]>

My aspiring graphics programming friend claims that trace mode
creates a 3d array and traces "brute force" by tracing light
rays trhough that array, lighting points that they touch which
contain surfaces.  Scanline, however, he says, scans each object
independently, taking into account which objects are in front
of which along the way- this accounting (called Z-buffering in
the videoscape 3d manual) can be potentially memory consuming.
It is faster than trace since it doesn not consider points in
space that are not part of object surfaces.

Thats what he said.  (Obvious disclaimer to any legitimacy, intended
                      coincidental.)
Marc Rifkin, [e-mail]
Computer Graphics and Integrative Technology, Penn State Univ.
"I thought character animation had something to do with fonts!"

##

Subject: Re: Why does SCANLINE take more RAM than TRACE?
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1991 19:43:37 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

[e-mail] (Bob Lindabury - SysAdm) writes:

>rutgers!pro-party.cts.com!seanc (Sean Cunningham) writes:
>[stuff deleted]
>> I go to full trace.  Why is this?  Why would scanline take more memory to
>> render than raytrace, when I'm dealing with the same object under the same
>> staging file?
>>[more deleted]
>I had this exact same problem with my world object which was around
>800k in size.  I even called up Impulse and told them about it and
>they said they never heard of the problem.  They said they heard of
>it the other way around...rendering possible in scanline but not in
>trace mode.  I think it has something to do with the screens they
>open.  I don't know much about it but they said something about
>opening multiple screens when rendering in scanline mode.
>[and more deleted]
>-- Bob

> The Graphics BBS  908/469-0049  "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!"
> ============================================================================
>  InterNet: [e-mail]                | Raven Enterprises
>      UUCP: ...rutgers!bobsbox!graphics!bobl      | 25 Raven Avenue
>    BitNet: bobl%graphics.rent.com@pucc           | Piscataway, NJ 08854
>    Home #: 908/560-7353                          | 908/271-8878

As scenes get larger they seem to take twice as much Ram to generate in
Scanline than in ray-trace. The last scenes I was working on in Imagine
were over 75,000 polys and were taking 12 megs to trace and about 24 megs
in scanline(RCS 040 board). The difference in time was incredible though.
Many, many hours compared to just a few minutes (no reflections, no
refraction). If Impulse claims anything diferrent, i can only assume they
don't use their software. Scanline has *always* taken more memory. I guess
there are more precalculations. I know that with Caligari for instance,
upto 15megs of temporary files are created (for my detailed pics) either
on the HD or Ram (if i have it) before the pic is generated. I guess
something similar is going on with Imagine's scanline. If this is the case
why doesn't Impulse give the option of creating these files on the HD? It
would be slower but faster than ray-tracing your previews.

cya -stephen

--
Stephen Menzies
Email: [e-mail]

##

Subject: Colorburst and Commodore de-interlacer
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1991 18:22:41 -0500
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

Well, I can tell you FOR SURE that it works with the Commodore de-interlacer
because I'm doing it!

Juan is right that it needs a few bugs worked out, but they are mostly
software and solvable.

HEY JUAN!  How do you get REAL airbrushing?  I only get that dot effect.

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])

##

Subject: More stuff
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 91 21:06:51 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Steve Worley)

I just uploaded a picture of my nearly complete space station to hubcap.
It's in the PICTURES directory, called station.lzh. As before, I urge
you to upload your own objects, pictures, brushmaps, PROJECTS, whatever!
I think a larger library would be terrific!

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

For those who were interested in C code hacking Imagine objects, Glenn
Lewis and I have put the very basic form of the library on Hubcap in a
new directory called TTDDDLIB. For those who responded to us via
E-mail, we got your replies, Glenn and I are trying to get organized
before we set up a sub-mailing list or something. For now, you can
check out the library as it stands. Glenn and I have a bunch of
brainstormed ideas: right now we're working on an ambitious morph
substitute, one that can morph ANY objects. Not easy, but we have some
good ideas... Anyway, check it out if you know how to code. No docs,
but, hey, it adds adventure!

Looks like I WILL make it to SIGGRAPH! Thursday and Friday only.

-Steve

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

##

Subject: New icons.
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 91 01:10:53 -0600
From: [e-mail] (Steven Lee Webb)

Hello.

Just thought I'd re-vamp the Imagine Icon that I did before.

Switched the 1 & 2 colors for DOS2.0 users, and did both a 1.0 & a 1.1 version.



                            FTP them today!
                          (hubcap.clemson.edu)

Listing of archive 'Imagine_Icon.lzh':

Original Packed Ratio  Date      Time   CRC  Name
-------- ------  --- --------- -------- ---- ------------
    3962   1218  69% 01-Jan-80 01:06:18 423C Imagine1.0_Dos1.3.info
    3962   1220  69% 01-Jan-80 01:06:56 7882 Imagine1.0_Dos2.0.info
    3962   1211  69% 01-Jan-80 01:08:58 65F9 Imagine1.1_Dos1.3.info
    3962   1217  69% 01-Jan-80 01:09:40 EDC5 Imagine1.1_Dos2.0.info
-------- ------  ---
   15848   4866  69%         4 file(s)

-- Steven Webb
([e-mail])

##

Subject: Re: wood
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 91 01:14:12 -0600
From: [e-mail] (Steven Lee Webb)

I looked on clemson.hubcap.edu, and couldn't find any wood brushmaps of any
kind!

Sorry to be redundant, but how can I get them again?

I have ADPro, and can do some 24-bit "cleaning-up" of them if anyone is
interested.

-- Steven Webb
([e-mail])

##

Subject: Re: Why does SCANLINE take more RAM than TRACE?
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 91 12:01:34 PDT
From: [e-mail]

> rutgers!pro-party.cts.com!seanc (Sean Cunningham) writes:

> I'm sure this has been asked before, so please bare with me :)
>
> An object I'm working on (human figure...sorta) is progressing nicely, but
> I've just run into a major problem.  When I try to do a scanline rendering
> of the object, not all of the pieces render (I'm assuming that a low memory
> situation causes truncation of parts), BUT I can render the whole thing if
> I go to full trace.  Why is this?  Why would scanline take more memory to
> render than raytrace, when I'm dealing with the same object under the same
> staging file?
>
> Note: I'm running on a 4M A3000-25/50 (2M Chip, 2M Fast).  Because it won't
>       render at all if I run from WorkBench, I have a script in my S:
>       called "IMSHELLSTART" that makes all the necessary assignments,
>       runs CPU, and starts the program.

One minor suggestion: You can adjust the config file to not load all
modules of Imagine at once, but only the one you are currently using.
You might try using this option to save yourself some memory.

=======================================================================
Sean Schur                        USENET: [e-mail]
Assistant Director Amiga/Media Lab        Compuserve: 70731,1102
Character Animation Department
California Institute of the Arts
=======================================================================

##

Subject: Archivist
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 91 16:29:50 EDT
From: [e-mail]

It looks like Doug Dyer, who was keeping the archive of the post on this
list, has tuned out of netland- I can't get a hold of him.

Also, the archive has not been updtated since June!!!

Not to fear, I have my own archive, but it's not edited yet.

Therefore, I hearby open up the post of List Archiver... it involves
removing mail headers, deleting a few "this is a test" and "Sub me to
the list" messages, and concatinating the real posts into a file and
uploading them to hubcap on a somewhat regular basis. I COULD do this job,
but I'm pressed for time as it is. Any volunteers? You'll get a lot of gratitude from me and the list members (membership has climbed to 125 summer
members!). If so, E-mail me.

I'm also going to soon copy the entire archive on hubcap to another site
for backup purposes. Ab20 is out, they are too unstable. Any ideas?

I also have a personal reorganization of the object library. Each
object is merged, given a name, and has an icon. They are sorted by
class (Furnature, Air & Space, Organic, SciFi, KnickNacks,
Architecture, Vehicles, etc) in their own directories. It's the same
objects that are on hubcap now (plus a couple more), just reorganized.
I will upload them sometime soon, and that should give us a little
more order to the object library.

Thanks for all the complements on the space station picture. For those of
you who asked, it was a scanline picture.

-Steve

##

Subject: SIGGRAPH
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 91 16:55:42 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Steve Worley)

I definately WILL make it to SIGGRAPH! I will arrive early (5 am!) on
Thursday morning after driving all night from Menlo Park. :-(

I'll be staying at the Stardust hotel: give me a ring (more likely a
message!) there, for any of you attending. I'll be staying till Sunday,
so if you're staying an extra few days, great!

I'd really like to get together with some Amiga graphics people: I know
I won't be there for Mark's Wednesday get-together, but maybe some of
us could meet on Thursday or Friday (or Saturday!) as well.

If any of you will be there, send me E-mail with your hotel name. I know
Rick Rodriguez and Mark have already. Sean, I know you're going too:
where are you staying?

Needless to say, I'm excited... Give me a call at the Stardust.

-Steve

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

##

Subject: Problem with child object
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 91 17:57:30 -0600
From: [e-mail] (Steven Lee Webb)

                                  Hello.

I've been having a problem with rotating and moving a child object through
a series of frames.

I've put an archive up @ hubcap.clemson.edu, and was wondering if someone
could get it, and look at it, and tell me what I'm doing wrong.
It's in the tutorial directory.

The archive isn't very big, and it'd only take a few minutes to do.

              Parent-ChildProblem.lzh  --  2161 bytes total.

I have a pyramid that I want to rotate 45 degrees, and lift up over a series
of 10 frames.
The catch is that it has to be the child of another object (in this case,
a square).

Since you can only manipulate parent objects in the stage editor, I have
to morph the grouped object from one place and rotation to the other.

People from the Imagine mailing list have told me that it is possible to
do this, and I'm just over-looking the obvious.

The archive that I have sent with this note should be un-lharced with
full-pathnames, and you should assign "d:" to the directory that you un-pack
the archive to.  Then go into Imagine and pull up the scene.

If anyone successfully does this, please uuencode the result, and mail it to
me.  I will be most appreciative.

-- Steven Webb
([e-mail])

##

Subject: more SIGGRAPH
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 91 17:06:59 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Steve Worley)

Hey, I'm driving, so I can bring a VCR (Mitsubishi stereo VHS machine)
as well as an Amiga! I'd like to bring my floppy based A500, but if
people have something they'd like to show or do, mail me, and I might
be convinced to bring my 14Meg 25Mhz A3000 and monitor. I don't really
have anything new to show, but someone else might.

At the very least, I could set up my "Imagine Goodies Disks" by then and
everyone could copy them. It looks like about 6-10 disks worth of stuff.

Either way, everyone bring floppies of your Imagine work, pictures, and
objects, so I can steal them. :-)

-Steve

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve "Going to SIGGRAPH!" Worley                [e-mail]
------------------------------------------------------------------------

##

Subject: Re: FAQ
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1991 08:51:24 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

Mark Thompson <[e-mail]> writes:

>Hi Stephen,

>A while back in one of your posts to me, you mentioned being rather >enthralled with Caligari Broadcast.

>[stuff deleted]

>I was wondering what it is about this package that makes it really
>shine above the others.  Care to comment on what makes it so special?
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi Mark,

    I can only comment on Caligari Broadcast v2.01 as I'm not familar
with any of the lesser Caligari packages or previous versions. I am
working with and beta testing Caligari primarily on 12meg A3000/25 and
have access to a 32meg RCS 040 on a A2000. I do not have a Targa/Tips
combo (Octree promises direct support to Amiga frame display devices
in a future release).

    Briefly, I suppose what makes Caligari so special on the Amiga is
it's superior interface, real-time point editing/object transformation
(no bounding box), and a very high quality renderer. It's weakest points
are in the animation editor (no hierarchical animation) however Octree
is concentrating right now on this area of the software. This is not to say
that Caligari animation editor is non-existant. Among other things, it does offer splined key-framable motion/transformation with (de)accelleration
making it more real than Imagine and a forward/reverse shuttle and jog
playback, (controlled dynamically via mouse movement) more interactive
than Lightwaves as well as everything thats required for production from
direct printing of images (for storyboarding) to single framing to a
VCR or saving to HD etc.

    As I have seen very little discussion (none) on Caliagri, I will try
to give a concise list and description of Caligari's present set-up and features.

General Interface:

    -2 moduals (object design/ scene setup and animation).
    -4 full overscan views (top,front,side and perspective-no Tri or Quad).
    -*very* fast redraws when jumping view to view (why? I don't know)
    -excellant choice of screen colors.
    -stackable menus (point and click gadgets), similar to highend
     paintboxs. Stacks according to order of selection. Any block in
     stack can be removed. Whole stack maybe temporarily removed.
    -point & click gadgets/sliders only. No pulldowns/hotkeys (finally!).
    -all requesters well thought out, ie: retain info when they should,
     stay open when you need them to (multi-object loading), allow for
     deletion of files, auto rename of duplicate files etc.
    -erase/undo function
    -numerically marked grid
    -3 coordinate systems:world,object and screen
    -screen,world,object, polygon &  point transformations in real-time
     via mouse.
    -interactive assignment of color attribute to object or to a face,
     (a bit awkward on very large objects but I'm not sure if I'm using
     it correctly)


OBject Design Modual:

    -User definable threshhold for switching between the full wireframe
     representation of the object and it's bounding cube. How complex
     you can make your object while still maintaining the full wireframe
     representation along with a smooth realtime response, is entirely
     dependent your processor.(Threshold can be set on the "fly")
    -dynamic selection of object (click anywhere on object)
    -realtime single point editing allows you to select vertex, edge, face
     or part of object for realtime translation,scaling & rotation.
    -create new vertex on existing edge, new edges on face and new polygons
     on an object.
    -Define cross sections for transformation and cutting planes to slice
     an object. Cross sections may be duplicated through out the object
     to add resolution (where needed) and transformed (realtime)as you go.
    -Extrusion of faces and whole parts of object.
    -simple object extrusion and lathing (not as powerfull as it should be).
    -objects can be glued heirachcially (grouped), unglued, copied,mirrored.
    -(in)visible and transformable object/polygon axis
    -objects may be imported via Interchange (accepts .Geo files)
    -objects maybe saved in ascii/binary

    To summarize, the method of object editing was new to me. It requires
more preplanning than other editors as there is no point/polygon deletion
and appears to be more of an euclidean/mechanical shape modeller than
organic one. There are some very powerful and interesting features forthcoming
in this area though. I have been able to model some quite complexly shaped and
technically detailed objects. In most cases
a complex object is created as the result of the manipulation of a simple
primitive or/and lathing or extrusion. This method has it's appeal as it
results in less detail in the workspace in the beginning and places the
resolution of the object where and when you need it. Worth mentioning is
that the interactive manipulation of a full wireframe representation allows
for accurate transformations ,first time,(without undoing and repeating)
as well as avoiding those disturbing redraws.


Scene Design Modual:(Animation)

    - spline or linear keyframed movement/transformation.(At present
      you cannot interpolate spline and linear together).
    - no heirarchical animation :(. (The gadgets are there but it hasn't
      been plug in yet. It is coming though and alot of thought is
      being put into how it will work)
    - playback in wireframe or boxes.
    - (non)looped playback.
    - Interactive (via mouse movement) forward and backward shuttling. Rate
      set interactively/dynamically . Direction interactively changed at
      any time.
    - JOG (!): extention of shuttle. Dynamic movement of the mouse will
      throw the playback into Jog (fast forward/reverse thru frames). Frames
      fly by to point you're looking for.
    - any frame in the wireframe playback can be rendered (color shaded)
      immediately during playing back. (Click on frame as it goes by)
    - Scene may have different scripts that may be saved and reloaded.
    - Compiled animations produce a script that can be further text edited
      to add special effects, details etc. (I would imagine that these
      effects will soon be apart of the Interface itself. Unfortunately,
      Caligari does not mutitask and there is no provision to edit the
      script further from within Caligari.
    - some effects that can be added to script with a simple syntax:
            -(de)acceleration by adding a pos/neg value to Move/scale/rot;
            -sequentially animated textures;
            -attribute morphing
            -visible/invisible objects
            -pausing/skipping
            -changing rate of part/all of the animation. (this nice
             feature can reconstruct any part of a script, automatically
             in(de)creasing the number of frames.)
    - scene itself may be saved in ascii/binary.




Scene Design Module:(Renderer)

    - the renderer is called Rendition and is licenced from Numerical
      Design (Turner Whitted).
    - Shadows (shadow volume algorithm, Crow77)
    - Transparency/ HSV & RGB/ control over each objects ambient reflection
      diffuse specualar coefficient ratio and shininess. The same applies
      to individual faces.
    - Surfaces: Smooth, Simple Facet, Complex Facet(preserves highlights)
    - Shaders: Flat, Gouraud, Phong, Metal.
    - Environment Mapping: 1D =vertical elevation map.
                           2D =cubic map (6 views) generated from a view
                               point within the scene.
    - Texture mapping : high quality map interpolation (mip-mapping),
                        maps to the polygon, but restrictions on the
                        kinds of objects it presently maps to. (*Needs
                        more work* but quality is high)
    - Lights: infinite(vector), local, spot (control cone size, softness
      (haven't tried softness yet)and targeting).
    - Anti-aliasing: fantastic(!) and may even go higher in the future.
    - Targa images may be viewed without leaving module. The same should
      apply to Amiga display devices when supported.
    -Animations rendered to disk or single framed to tape.
    -definable resolutions from 2x2 to 8,192x8,192
    -can display five 1/4 sized and one 1/2 sized images simultaneously
     for comparisons (with targa).
    - Caligari will render a small/large sphere with attributes if desired
     for previewing attributes.

    To summerize, the quality of the rendering is very high, clean and
fast. The default lighting (any single light source) is usually sufficient
for setting up. Additional lights and tweeking can be done later.  Any
object/face can be selected and rendered separately. First rate lighting
and shading. In short, continual fast feedback and satisfaction(:))


To wrap up, Caligari was designed with production in mind. It is an
extreamly interactive and visually comfortable environment that makes
maximum use of the Amiga's available horsepower and it's display
potential. While my preferred system would be a single module
(model/anim/render) with only the gadgets changing (:)), two modules are
the next best thing. Rendering directly from the animation module is the
way to go. I believe it's important to not loose sight of the
work (as much as possible) and Caligari seems to accomplish that with
it's overscaned views, stackable menus, and realtime, full representation
manipulations. Where it does have it's faults (as discribed above), these
are all being adressed (although I can't discuss them at this time).
    While I look forward to more features being put into it, (ie: bump
mapping) I have come to realize that good software is not a list of
features. When I think of what I could do with just 3 procedural textures
in a highend software (wood, clouds, marble) compared to ALL the procedural
textures available on the Amiga, I'm left exasperated. But I am also very
pleased with what I have seen of Lightwave and JMan (atleast I like
the possibilities available with JMan, but I hate the interface, module
hopping, and banks of gadgets (the Amiga screen is too small to do it
that way)). Anyway, long but I still remember back when you typed out
the full Real3D specs for me:)

--stephen



--
Stephen Menzies
Email: [e-mail]

##

Subject: Attribute files
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 91 18:51:37 EDT
From: [e-mail]

I've placed a set of about 20 attribute files I use in a new directory
on hubcap called ATTRIBUTES. Enjoy.

The caucasian "skintone" attribute has been tweeked and retweeked, as well
as "chrome." I, too, am playing with Terminator 2 morph- like effects. :-)

-Steve

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

##

Subject: Re: Why does SCANLINE take more RAM than TRACE?
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 91 14:51:56 CDT
From: mit-eddie!harvard!scubed!pro-party.cts.com!seanc (Sean Cunningham)

I've already modified the configuration to only load the currently needed
module (the time delay is hardly noticeable).  Also, I have it defaulting
to a non-interlaced screen so that I have enough memory to render (I
wouldn't dream of using a 640x200 screen to work on objects (ick!))  But if
I come up with an interlaced screen, I get a memory-low error when I try to
render.

Sounds like I need to invest in more RAM, eh? :)

Sean

                                        /\
 RealWorld: Sean Cunningham            /  \     "Doing our business is what
      INET: [e-mail]   VISION                Amigas are for."
     Voice: [phone]             \  /
                                 //     \/      "Hasta la vista, baby."
    KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/   GRAPHICS         the Terminator, CSM101

##

Subject: HELP!  My objects are turning inside out!
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 91 17:52:30 CDT
From: mit-eddie!harvard!scubed!pro-party.cts.com!seanc (Sean Cunningham)

I don't know, I might just be dense but I haven't been able to figure this
one out yet:

I have a hierachically (sp) grouped human figure, composed of a head,
upper-body, waist, etc.  I'm animating the figure walking, and will
eventually do some other stuff with it as well.

My problem is, parts of the arms (forearm, hands, and fingers) all go flat
and turn inside out during the movement!  This is most curious because I
was doing the same motion with the body at an earlier stage of development
(no legs or forearms with hands...just upper arms, head and torso) with no
problems what-so-ever.

Since, as someone pointed out earlier, the STAGE editor can only handle
parent object movement, I have combined all parts into one object for each
keyframe (in select group mode I ungroup all parts and while still selected
JOIN them, producing one object with the axis of the parent object of the
group).  Also, each part has already been merged.

Why is this happening?  And why only with the arms and not the rest of the
body?

Any help would be appreciated, and fast (I've got a project coming up that
has to be done quickly and will require this figure to move).

Sean
                                        /\
 RealWorld: Sean Cunningham            /  \     "Doing our business is what
      INET: [e-mail]   VISION                Amigas are for."
     Voice: [phone]             \  /
                                 //     \/      "Hasta la vista, baby."
    KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/   GRAPHICS         the Terminator, CSM101

##

Subject: Hinge?
Date:    Mon, 29 Jul 91 12:26 EDT
From: "Marc Rifkin" <[e-mail]>

Could someone please explain what hinge does and what it could be used
for?


Marc Rifkin, [e-mail]
Computer Graphics and Integrative Technology, Penn State Univ.
"I thought character animation had something to do with fonts!"

##

Subject: Re: HELP!  My objects are turning inside out!
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 91 12:58:19 CDT
From: mit-eddie!harvard!scubed!pro-party.cts.com!seanc (Sean Cunningham)

Well, I've got the problem taken care of on the arms (don't ask me what I
did though!).  I think it has something to do with the point morphing
choosing the shortest path to the next key (really lame, considering it
doesn't doesn't morph between child object positions and rotations).

Now the head "deflates" as I turn it from side to side!  Everything else in
the movement looks cool, but now the head looks like a balloon with the air
being let out in the frames where it turns from the left side to the right
side.

I guess the two positions are too extreme for point morphing to be
effective.  Please don't suggest turning the body into a Cycle
object...I've dealt with enough headaches on this sucker.  Cycle might be
okay for simple objects, but I don't need to be worrying about arms passing
through the torso, etc.  They need to update the Stage editor to work with
child-object movements, like most other packages that support heirachial
objects.

Anyone know if they're planning this for a future upgrade?  From the sound
of the text file that came with v1.1, they were happy with the way it is
now and didn't want to be bothered.  Maybe it's just me, but that's how I
took it.  They need to get on the ball and keep adding to Imagine.  You
don't see Alan sitting on his laurals with Lightwave, and Hash is
constantly updating JMan.

Anyway, all this is academic since I've just reached the memory barrier and
won't be able to do any more serious work on this figure.  I ran out of RAM
for Scanline rendering when I added the head.  Now that I've added hands
and legs I can't even Trace the object.  I might be able to if I took out
the environment map, but since this is an all chrome figure what's the
point?  I would move the staging file over to my partner's machine, but
since he lives out of town, and it contains over 3M of objects (several key
positions) I wouldn't be able to do much anyway.

Maybe I'll get lucky and get a couple more megs for my birthday...that is,
if I get anything after the phone bill comes in from calling Amiga 3D
Studio (ouch!) :)

Sean
                                        /\
 RealWorld: Sean Cunningham            /  \     "Doing our business is what
      INET: [e-mail]   VISION                Amigas are for."
     Voice: [phone]             \  /
                                 //     \/      "Hasta la vista, baby."
    KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/   GRAPHICS         the Terminator, CSM101

##

Subject: Re: FAQ
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1991 05:33:20 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

I have been asked by some if I could follow up this mini review
of Caligari's features with a contact#. It is as follows:

    Octree Software,
    311 W. 43rd St.,
    Ste 904,
    New York, NY.
    USA 10036
    Tel:[phone]

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

##

Subject: ???
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 91 1:22:05 PDT
From: Daryl T. Bartley <[e-mail]>

A few posts back, someone mentioned setting the config file to only load the
modules it uses...that would be a great help to me, but I can't find a flag in
the config that sound like the right one...is it a feature new to 1.1? I am
still back in the 'dark ages' with 1.0...any help would be appreciated.

Oh, also, is there any way to get an object, say a letter, where the sides are
nice and flat, but the face is rounded and smooth? Phong shading looks horrible
with the chrome settings, and the sides aren't flat either...

Thanks in advance.

##

Subject: Cycle setup & shuffle
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 91 15:34:56 EET DST
From: Juha Kallioinen <[e-mail]>

I'm trying to make an animated human figure, but I'm having difficulties
with the cycle setup & shuffle stuff.
 Those doodles down there are representing that human of mine (blush). Well
The first one is a side view of that fellow which I "cycle setup" and save
and the other is supposed to be him running, which I then try to "cycle
shuffle" but then all the arm parts and things I have rotated end up to be
in seemingly random places. I have grouped things like they said in the
1.1 textfile.

               O        O
               |      \ |/\
              ||       \/| \
              ||        ||
              ||        / \/
               |       /
              ==

               1         2

- Juha


--
o------------------------o-----o-------------------------------------------o
| [e-mail] /   __ |  Those who can't write, write manuals.    |
| Juha Kallioinen      / __/// |                                           |
o---------------------o  \\X/  o-------------------------------------------o

##

Subject: Re: ???
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 91 06:35:37 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Edward Chadez)

On Jul 30,  1:22am, Daryl T. Bartley wrote:
} Subject: ???
}
} A few posts back, someone mentioned setting the config file to only load the
} modules it uses...that would be a great help to me, but I can't find a flag in
} the config that sound like the right one...is it a feature new to 1.1? I am
} still back in the 'dark ages' with 1.0...any help would be appreciated.

Yes, this is a feature of 1.1.  It's time to give Impulse a call, Daryl, to
get the details on how to upgrade.  (FYI:  you'll just have to send in your
original 1.0 disk to get a 1.1 disk, but you'll need to include a self
address stamped mailer....)

[Someone else will have to give your other question a shot....]

}
} Thanks in advance.
}
}
}-- End of excerpt from Daryl T. Bartley


-Edward Chadez

--
+--//-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|\X/ [e-mail]/Edward Chadez                CARL Systems(303)861-5319|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

##

Subject: Re: Cycle setup & shuffle
Date:    Tue, 30 Jul 91 09:53 EDT
From: "Marc Rifkin" <[e-mail]>

When you create the pieces of the human figure, you must move their
axes to the end of the piece furthest from its joint to its parent and
with the Z axis aimed at the parent.  Doing a cycle setup will lengthen
the Z axis to the full length of the object, ending at the joint.
From there, rotating your pieces is a bit awkward- moving the axis and
then re-aiming it at the joint (which can also be done with cycle
shuffle), which I thought should have been called "Re-Cycle" 8-)

Now you can Imagine (-8 a shoulder with its axis at its outward end,
its z axis aimed and touching the neck, the upper arm with its axis at
the elbow and its axis aimed at and touching the shoulder and the lower
arm, with its axis at the wrist and its z axis touching the elbow.

When I finally figured this out after doing my personal Luxo lamp anim
(which I promise to upload the object as soon as I can use my Amiga
instead of a VT330), I thought, "There must be a better way!"  There
was, I found: build your cycles upside down.

Marc Rifkin, [e-mail]
Computer Graphics and Integrative Technology, Penn State Univ.
"I thought character animation had something to do with fonts!"

##

Subject: Objects for Rooms?
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 91 13:03:33 CDT
From: mit-eddie!texbell.sbc.com!tnessd!mechrw (Robert Wallace )

Hello,

I don't think I'll have the time to create a whole room, but what
about some objects for the various rooms?  I imagine that a pool
of normal and not-so-normal objects would come in handy in any
house fly-through.

Robert Wallace
mechrw@tnessd

##

Subject: Cycle objects
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 91 14:05:21 PDT
From: Michael Gibson <[e-mail]>

Hello everyone, This is my first post on the list. Someone was asking about
cycle shuffle because they were making a person-shaped object for an
animation. Well, I struggled with this for quite a while, and I finally
figured out that you cannot place the axes where you think they would
naturally go. Instead of placing an object's axis at the center of its
rotation, you have to place it at the end. This means that if you have a
leg, you must place the axis for the leg at the foot, and make it a
child of the object that you want to rotate it around. Otherwise, your pieces
have a very strange axis of rotation. I have a human shaped object that
demonstrates this kind of axis placement. It's not finished yet... I
need to do the hands and feet and add some facial features, but the
limbs are all set up to go into the cycle editor. The figure is
currently a detail object, but if you load it into the cycle editor, it
will automatically convert it to a cycle object that moves properly. I
will post this unfinished object on hubcap later tonight. If anyone has
any hands or feet that they'd like to slap on it, I'd sure appreciate
it. In the meantime, I will continue to work on it.

                                             Michael

P.s.  **** if anyone from Impulse is reading this -- an interactive scaling
      of selected POINTS rather than just objects would have helped me
      tremendously in this project. If it is possible to scale selected
      points from the transformation requester, why not have it usable
      from the mouse as well? I thought that mouse usage one of the biggest
      points about Imagine over turbo. This operation really feels like
      I am using Turbo instead of Imagine. This is a feature that even
      the old Sculpt-3D has. The Sculpt way of extruding and magnetism would
      also be extremely welcome additions to Imagine. It's really kind of
      wierd that Imagine has all of these really advanced features, (like
      slice) but lacks some of the simpler point-manipulation ones.

##

Subject: Objects on hubcap
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 91 15:42:27 -0600
From: [e-mail] (Steven Lee Webb)

                                  Hello.

This is a collection of objects that I and a friend have made.  The really big
one might be an over load on low-Ram machines, but they look good.
I like using the space-ship objects, and making them do dog-fights, and stuff.

The objects are located on hubcap.clemson.edu
in the /pub/amiga/incoming/IMAGINE/OBJECTS directory.

Listing of archive 'WebbObjects.lzh':
Original Packed Ratio  Date      Time   CRC  Name
-------- ------  --- --------- -------- ---- ------------
  192684  92354  52% 23-Jul-91 20:03:16 7B71 Robotech.iob
   16050   6419  60% 18-Jan-91 21:57:34 5089 Spaceship.total
   20588   4896  76% 01-Jan-80 00:06:02 00A4 Spaceship.total.3
   18126   7357  59% 26-Mar-91 16:49:24 5C98 Spaceship.total.new
-------- ------  ---
  247448 111026  55%         4 file(s)


                        PLEASE UPLOAD MORE OBJECTS!
         The animation community is sick of using the @#$% teapot!

-- Steven Webb.
--
Only  ///|Steven Lee Webb  +---------------------------------------+  /\__Luxo|
Amiga/// |CSU - Comp. Sci. |  11-XAV a edisni deppart ma I !pleH   |  \\ /\ Jr|
 \\\///  |Amiga 500-5M Ram |     [e-mail]     |  /|/\ _  |
  \XX/   |50M Hard Drive   +---------------------------------------+ // \ (_) |

##

Subject: Re: Objects on hubcap
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 91 14:54:10 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Edward Chadez)

On Jul 30,  3:42pm, Steven Lee Webb wrote:
}                                   Hello.
}
} This is a collection of objects that I and a friend have made.

Mr. Worley now has no excuse from uploading his space station.  (Unless
he's waiting on me to upload mine!! ;-) )

All kidding aside (don't throw anything at me steve w.), thanks and a tip
o' the hat to Steven Webb.

}
}                         PLEASE UPLOAD MORE OBJECTS!
}          The animation community is sick of using the @#$% teapot!

So true.

}
} -- Steven Webb.
}
}-- End of excerpt from Steven Lee Webb


-Edward Chadez

--
+--//-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|\X/ [e-mail]/Edward Chadez                CARL Systems(303)861-5319|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

##

Subject: Re: New Object Stagnation
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 91 19:42:13 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Looks like my drive to get new objects uploaded is working. Using
cool files as bait seems to be effective!

Steven Webb has uploaded three new non-cheesy objects. Therefore, I have
uploaded my space station to the hubcap OBJECTS directory. This is
the same object that is in the "station" pic I uploaded a few days ago.

I have also uploaded two semi-new pictures that a lot of people have
not seen. They are "Ocean Sunset" and "Craftsman", which were included
as sample pictures in my Forms tutorial. Now you can download them
seperately. I am especially proud of "Ocean Sunset", despite a shot
a levitating boat in the distance... :-)

As bait for the NEXT round of uploads, I offer one of my best sneaky
tools: An incredibly useful brushmap for making surfaces like ocean
waves, cloth, and burnished metal. You can see it used to make the
ocean waves in "Ocean Sunset." This little gem is one of my prize
tools: It takes some RAM to use, but it's output is amazing. I will
upload it as soon as there are enough new significant uploads from
others. Carrot before the horse? You bet!

Have fun with the space station and the new pictures, guys!

-Steve

Rob Borsari, you should upload your ship! It looks great! And Ed, I'll
nag you for YOUR space station.

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

##

Subject: RocketBank object
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 91 23:02:13 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Rob Borsari)

Sorry Steve I can't distribute the ship (that one pays for grocerys) but here
is a rocket that I did from a bank I have. (here = hubcap.clemson.edu)
 The Bank is a 50's coin bank.  The object dosn't have the bank shooter on it.
 I saw the bank in the Movie "Scrooged" when Bill Murry goes back to visit
 himself.  It is sitting on the floor behind the child.  I love the 50's
 future style.  I am considering a rocketeer object but I don't think I have
 time.  If anyone has a person I can make the jetpack.  The only man figure
 I have is a copy of a modelers dummy I use for scale on the ship. (not very
 person looking but ok for scale) -R-
 P.S.  anyone have a good looking rocket exhaust or other flames?

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

##

Subject: Brushmaps..
Date: 30 Jul 91 23:57 -0500
From: "Jeff A. Bell" <[e-mail]>

This is in regards to Steve's message about using objects/brushmaps as
bait to get increased upload activity..

Sneaky :)

I've got some brushmaps that were digitized with DCTV and converted to
interlaced Ham.  They include 4 marble-like textures, an 'OK' wood texture,
and 2 or 3 other textures that might prove useful.  Would this help entice
you to send your brushmap to Hubcap?  I'd send the 24bit IFF's, but they're
huge, and I'm a very impatient type :).

As an aside: anyone out there own a DCTV?  I've got a few peeves with the
current software, and I was wondering what other owners thought.  I can't
understand why DC doesn't use normal IFF brushes, rather than a 'clip', as
they put it.  An undo would be nice, althought I've heard that's coming,
and in the meantime the quicksave option works well.  Has anyone heard
about the 2D animation package that they had talked about offering?  I know
that I for one would find that EXTREMELY useful for doing work where using
a 3D rendering package is overkill.  Last point: any word on the RGB encoder?
T'would be very nice to be able to genlock the output..

Blahblah.  Sorry for going off on a tangent: it's just that there's so
much potential in the DCTV box that's not being tapped at the moment..

Ciao,

Jeff
--
[e-mail]

##

Subject: human-cycle-object
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 91 2:23:26 PDT
From: Michael Gibson <[e-mail]>

Ok.. I put my unfinished human object on hubcap. It's called
human-object.lzh, and it can be loaded into the cycle editor. It
demonstrates how to place the axes on a cycle object to get proper
movement.

##

Subject: You CAN "bend" points...
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 91 20:30:50 CDT
From: [e-mail]

You can resize, rotate, etc. points, but you have to use the transformation
requester (Amiga-T).  Of course, all operations are done about the object's
axis, and it isn't realtime altering, but think of it as a throw-back to silver
days when everything was that way.

Hope this helps.

##

Subject: DCTV (was:Brushmaps...)
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 91 14:59:35 CDT
From: mit-eddie!harvard!scubed!pro-party.cts.com!seanc (Sean Cunningham)

I too have a DCTV.  I've been thrilled with the results I've been able to
achieve with both its digitization and paint capabilities.

For digitizing, I've been using a little Sony effects box with digital
freeze.  It only gives me a field capture, but that's all a paused VTR will
do as well...it's rock steady.  I've been able to get really nice full-rez
captures using a friends RCA ProEdit camcorder, which surprised me for a
VHS unit.  One of these days I'd like to have access to a Hi8 camera.

Not having an Undo is definately a problem, and has caught me off-guard
several times.  The last time I'd talked to someone at DC, they said it
would be the end of August before v1.1 of DCTV Paint was released...no
mention of DCTV Animate or DCTV 4:4:4:4 or DCTV Paint RGB.  Nix on the RGB
adapter as well.  To tell the truth I take their release dates with a grain
of salt...I waited 6 MONTHS for my DCTV after paying for it.   But it _was_
worth the wait.

In addition to Undo and ARexx support, I hope they fix the bug in the
software that leaves the "cookie" on the left-hand side of the screen, even
when you save to an IFF24.  It can really screw up images intended for
mapping.  I also hope that ASDG hurries up and gets a DCTV
Loader/Saver/Operator out the door.  Since I've been using DCTV, I've
hardly touched any "standard" display modes, and cringe everytime I look at
a HAM screen.  Even my small, test renders I do to 24bits since they don't
take any longer than HAM (maybe even less time).

I really hope that DCTV also gets on the ball with DCTV Animate.  If it has
all of the abilities of DPaintIII (and more) it'll be _the_ hottest thing
going.  Getting mighty close to having a little Quantel Harry, or
Electronic Graphics Pistache here :)

Sean
                                        /\
 RealWorld: Sean Cunningham            /  \     "Doing our business is what
      INET: [e-mail]   VISION                Amigas are for."
     Voice: [phone]             \  /
                                 //     \/      "Hasta la vista, baby."
    KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/   GRAPHICS         the Terminator, CSM101

##

Subject: hubcap
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 91 9:04:45 EDT
From: cbmtor![e-mail] (Caleb J. Howard (Product Support))

Hi there Imagineers (what a silly word)
I have been working with Imagine for a while now, and have some objects that
might be of general interest.  Unfortunately, I don't have Internet access,
and thus cannot ftp directly.  A while ago, someone showed me how to use
another site to get at internet indirectly.  At the time, I couldn't get it
to work, and let it slide until now.  Now it seems that I'm missing out on
lots of neat stuff.  Any suggestions on how I can get my stuff to hubcap,
and your (plural) stuff from hubcap?
Gracias
-caleb

##

Subject: hubcap object status
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 91 01:24 MST
From: "Vax Headroom (Dave E Martin)" <[e-mail]>

I have some questions about the objects being uploaded to hubcap.

Are they considered public domain or copyright but freely redistributable?
And what are the requirements for crediting the author?
Can I USE these objects in my own projects?

I would propose that a readme be included with pictures or animations that
mentions each object used and credits its source; and that no objects
be used for monitary gain without permission of the author/source-
of-the-object.  Is this how these objects work?

I have some objects I'd like to upload but I want to know what their status
will be if I do.

I know crediting and so forth would seem to be obvious, but I think we need
a formal understanding about third party usage of objects/pictures/projects etc.
I have an anim that is using someone else's picture from hubcap as wallpaper.
Is this O.K.? (as long as I credit the picture in a README?)


For objects meant to appear "indoors" I have been using 1 imagine unit = 1
centimeter.  Is this reasonable?  What scaling values do you use?
I have designed some objects at 1 IU = 1 decimeter, but my objects got too
detailed for that.  Can't zoom more than a factor of 100, and might have
problems with floating point accuracy.

Would anyone be interested in somewhere to ftp completed anim-5 and maybe
impulse format animations?  Would people be interested in this?  I MIGHT or
might not be able to arrange something.


[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Black blotches on objects...
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 91 00:47:51 PDT
From: [e-mail] (E. John Love)

I'm at a loss to explain why this is happening, but I'm hoping someone can help
me out.

I've been working through the first tutorial in "The Imagine Companion", where
you create a wine goblet using the "Mold/Spin" command.  In the manual, it
suggests using 12 sections for the 360 degree spin, which I did, and it
rendered fine in scanline, HAM quarterscreen.
I later decided that 12 sections was too coarse, so I changed the # of
sections to 24 and re-spun another goblet using the same profile.  When I
render this 24 section goblet, it had black shadows (or blotches) on every
second outer face around the outside of the cup part of the goblet!
I found that the fewer # of sections I made a goblet with, the smaller the
shadow-blotches became.

Is there some bug in version 1.0 that I am unaware of? Moving the lights
changes nothing - the black blotches don't seem to be any kind of shadow, and
all the attributes for all goblet faces were unused except for colour.
Different colours were tried, but to no avail...

Please help!

"Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Television..."
-------------------------------------------------------
E. John Love   The Ice-Cave BBS  Vancouver BC Canada
[phone]   [e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: Black blotches on objects...
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1991 18:20:26 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

[e-mail] (E. John Love) writes:

>[stuff deleted]
>Is there some bug in version 1.0 that I am unaware of? Moving the lights
>changes nothing - the black blotches don't seem to be any kind of shadow, and
>all the attributes for all goblet faces were unused except for colour.
>Different colours were tried, but to no avail...

Yes, there is. In 1.0 the polys often get "flipped". The bug was looked
after in 1.1

>Please help!

>"Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Television..."
>-------------------------------------------------------
>E. John Love   The Ice-Cave BBS  Vancouver BC Canada
>[phone]   [e-mail]

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

##

Subject: Re: what!!!!
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 91 12:12:48 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Edward Chadez)

On Aug 1,  2:53pm, <[e-mail]> wrote:
} Subject: what!!!!
}
} I am scared... it turns out Gold Disk, Byte by Byte, Pixar, etc. produce
} software for the evil mac empire....

This is true.  Byte by Byte ported their popular Amiga program, Sculpt 3D,
over to the "evil mac empire" several months ago.  I saw an announcement of
it in Byte at the time.  But this should come as no suprise to anyone.  As
much as I don't care to own a MAC, you have to realize that there are
thousands upon thousands of MACs out there, and if Byte by Byte were
"profit oriented," they could easily see how a successful _Amiga_ program
would make more bucks in a larger market.  I don't want to start a flame
war (I have my own reasons for not owning the "popular" machines), but you
have to see the advantages to marketing to the masses.  Make sense??

} let us pray that Imagine never
} ever gets ported to the devistator of technology, the computers produced
} by Apple!!!!

I don't think there's any reason to be worried.  IBM (and the Clones) and
Apple have been around for a long time, and so has Commodore.  Even the
news of a cooperative agreement of IBM and Apple doesn't scare me.  The
Amiga market will continue (just like the C64 market is still out there)
and with more Amiga500 being dropped onto the marketplace, the Amiga will
remain a strong 3rd place machine.

At this time, all that I've heard is that Impulse, Inc. is actively
developing for the Amiga, while Byte by Byte is on hold.

}
}
}                                         J.Norell Guttman
}                                         [e-mail]
}


Edward Chadez
 -Amiga3000-

--
+--//-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|\X/ [e-mail]/Edward Chadez                CARL Systems(303)861-5319|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

##

Subject: Impulse policies
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1991 21:35:17 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

    Afew months back I posted a message to the effect that Impulse
Inc (Imagine) was not informing registered users outside of the
US of the availiability of software upgrades and had ceased (for
sometime now) to mail their product information bulletins to
users outside the US inspite of the fact that Impulse says on their
Errata Sheet:

    "...it is also very important that you fill in your warrenty
card. If you don't we won't be able to let you know about new
versions of Imagine, as well we will not be able to let you
know of new products that we are working on......it will help
us to help you.....bla..bla..bla....."

----start of forwarded message---

    Well things seem to have taken a turn for the worse. Here is
part of a forwarded message from a local Quebec bbs:


"....I faxed them yesterday and last week (July 4) asking them to
to send the upgrade UPS at my expense. Before that I had called
every two weeks or so, three times, to inquire about the two dollars
(postage) and the original disk that I had sent them....."

" ....Will I have to pirate a program that I already bought?!....."

      (and he still hasn't received it!(Aug 01) -steve)

----end of forwarded message---

    I hear many, many complaints about Impulse's upgrade policy
from users outside the US. Infact, since the release of Imagine1.0,
I have not heard ONE(!) instance where the customer has persued an
upgrade (to v1.1) and received a satisfactory response from Impulse.

        Although I have used Impulse products extensively over the
last few years, won several competitions (1st place:AmiExpo91 & 90,
AW tape #1, FIFOM..), teach with the product (University of Concordia),
and been a part of broadcasts (U*NET, Molson Dry commercials) where I
have used the product etc, I can no longer with a clear concience,
endorse or recommend the purchase of ANY Impulse products to ANY user
outside of the United States until Impulse has done the following:

1. Informed ALL registered users OUTSIDE the US of the availability
   of new versions/products (they have done for their US users);

2. Provided a *respectful* method of upgrading (a self addressed
   mailer with _US postage_ is alittle hard to come by outside
   the US:)

3. Got the upgrade back to ALL users within an *acceptable* span
   of time.



Infact, while my name is credited in the manual, I don't use it anymore.
Impulse SAID they would send the upgrade to me but never did:). This
got me looking and testing and I must say there's a variety of
interesting 3D software out there now particularily for those with
accelerated machines. And to those companies all I can say is , make
sure your upgrade policy is satisfactory one for ALL users. Few are
going to excuse a bad, or disrespectful  policy these days particularily
with the amount/cost of hardware now sitting on many a serious 3D user's
desk.

This message has been crossposted to comp.sys.amiga.graphics as well as
to regional Canadian bbs's.

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

##

Subject: RE:Impulse policies
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 91 09:53:20 JST
From: [e-mail] (Manjit Bedi)

This is so bloody wonderful.  I at times haved cursed Impulse under my
breath for the total lack of consideration they had in supporting me
as a 'supposedly' registered user.  When I bought the program last
year, the guy who sold it to me said be sure to send in your warranty
card right because of bugs in the version 1.0 software which I did of
course!

Steve do you think a strongly yet business-like worded letter writing
campaign is in order?  Not only would I and whoever would write to Impulse
but say fire off letters to Amiga related publications like AmigaWorld.


Manjit Bedi ( [e-mail])

Aspiring renaissance man - software programmer/ amateur actor/ social misfit?

##

Subject: Re: Impulse policies
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1991 17:49:42 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

[e-mail] (Manjit Bedi) writes:

>This is so bloody wonderful.  I at times haved cursed Impulse under my
>breath for the total lack of consideration they had in supporting me
>as a 'supposedly' registered user.  When I bought the program last
>year, the guy who sold it to me said be sure to send in your warranty
>card right because of bugs in the version 1.0 software which I did of
>course!

>Steve do you think a strongly yet business-like worded letter writing
>campaign is in order?  Not only would I and whoever would write to Impulse
>but say fire off letters to Amiga related publications like AmigaWorld.


>Manjit Bedi ( [e-mail])

>Aspiring renaissance man - software programmer/ amateur actor/ social misfit?

Yes, Manjit, I certainly do think a letter writing campaign is in order. The
present upgrade policy for non-american registered users is UNFAIR and
reeks of disrespect (among other stronger smelling things). I suggest you
openly ask others on the net for some support (that what this group is
supposed to be about).  For myself, I've moved on to other softwares that
are better supported and more interesting to use (although most other
"more interesting" softwares are also "more expensive". (I guess there
really isn't any _free lunch_).
    Imagine is a fine software at a price where everyone can make
3D animations. But the software still requires *alot* of work on the
part of Impulse. This requires *alot* of patience on the part of the
user particularily when the user sees some of the interesting  work
thats been done by Hash, NewTek and Octree. But patience where's very
thin when you're treated "second class" or worse yet, like you don't
_exist_(!).
    You may use my original post (and this one) for any purpose
you have in mind. I really don't have further time to invest into
problems with Impulse other than if they happen to refute what I've
already said. Good Luck and I hope you are supported.

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

##

Subject: Upgrade
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 91 11:47:09 EDT
From: cbmtor![e-mail] (Caleb J. Howard (Product Support))

Hi there.  Just thought I'd startle everyone out there with a happy story
about getting the Imagine 1.1 upgrade.  I received my upgrade from a gentleman
who is regularily in contact with Impulse.  He was authorized by the head dude
there to copy the 1.1 upgrade onto any ORIGINAL Imagine 1.0 disk.  I had one,
he copied it for me, and let me look at his assosciated addenda sheet.  All
this took place about two months ago, and I have no complaints at all.
-caleb

##

Subject: Re: Upgrade
Date: Sat, 3 Aug 1991 19:48:00 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

[e-mail] (Caleb J. Howard (Product Support)) writes:

>Hi there.  Just thought I'd startle everyone out there with a happy story
>about getting the Imagine 1.1 upgrade.  I received my upgrade from a gentleman
>who is regularily in contact with Impulse.  He was authorized by the head dude
>there to copy the 1.1 upgrade onto any ORIGINAL Imagine 1.0 disk.  I had one,
>he copied it for me, and let me look at his assosciated addenda sheet.  All
>this took place about two months ago, and I have no complaints at all.
>-caleb


        WELL,WELL. So you have a *contact*! I too, have been in
regular contact with Impulse to the tune of $200-300 in phone
bills each year over past 3 years ( that 800 number is no good to
users outside the US). I have NEVER(!) been informed of an OFFICIAL
IMPULSE UPGRADE OUTLET here in Canada. I certainly have never
received any newletters from this person. What you are suggesting
in your message is second only to SOFTWARE PIRACY itself. We ALL
have "contacts". The problem with this:

        1. It's possibly ILLEGAL;
        2. You have to find a/the contact with the upgrade and it's
           associated documentation and it's no surprize to me that
           you were upgraded in May and not in January, when users
           in the US were (if your business was 3D animation, you'd
           be broke);
        3. You have to be AWARE that the upgrade is available (many
           users use the software in Production(+/-$) and yet do not
           follow the Amiga scene. They buy the software on the
           assumption that a Warrenty Card is all that's required;
        4. This is of NO help whatsoever to the NEW user who has
           no *connections* at all other than buying a C= machine,
           a piece of software and sending in all his Warrenty Cards;
        5. IT'S NOT PROFESSIONAL!

        If this story of an official upgrade outlet in Canada is
true, then SHAME on IMPULSE for not informing it's registered
users, and SHAME on the "gentleman" for not doing his job of upgrading
ALL users.
        Whether or not this "gentleman" is an official upgrade
outlet, SHAME on you for accepting the current situation as a
suitable upgrade path for non-US users in general and thereby
(un)consciously putting into question the needs of ALL and attempting
to _snip in the bud_ a concerted effort to get Impulse to live up
to it's documented Upgrade Agreement, one made to ALL users upon
purchasing their software!
        I think you owe an explaination.

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

##

Subject: wood textures
Date: Sun, 4 Aug 91 14:01:32 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Aaron Tucker)

The wood textures I d/led from a BBS are now up on hubcap.clemson.edu.
The HAM files are in one file called woods.ham.lzh. I used ADPro to convert
the HAM files to 24bit files, in case anyone wants them in that format.
Although I don't think the color definition will be much better since they
originated in HAM. The 24bit files are wood1.lzh through wood7.lzh. Wood5.lzh
is missing, I didn't get it in the download.

I deserve no credit for these images as I did not create them, I am just
passing them along. No readme was included with the pics I got describing
thier source, or how they were digitized/scanned/grabbed.

Any questions? Answers? or Celery?


Juan Trevino
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Hot Air Balloon Objects on hubcap
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 91 09:34:40 MST
From: [e-mail] (Marvin Landis)

I just ftp'ed several of my Hot Air Balloon objects to hubcap.  These are
modified versions (more points and faces, smoother surfaces) of objects
I created for a Turbo Silver object disk entitled "Flight Without Wings".
Impulse discontinued selling my disk, so I modified some of the balloons
for use in Imagine and am releasing these objects for non-commercial use.
These make great objects to add to Vista and VistaPro backgrounds.

The objects can be found in the directory labelled Balloons in
pub/incoming/amiga/IMAGINE/OBJECTS.  There are 8 Hot Air Balloons, a detailed
gondola object, and a ReadMe file.  The gondola object is a new object not
included on the "Flight Without Wings" disk.  I created it because the
gondolas in the balloon objects are not very detailed since most of the time
the balloons are viewed from a distance.  However the gondola object is
fairly detailed for close-up viewing, and includes a nice repeating brush map
for the weave of the basket.

I have also uploaded a 768x482 24 bit image called Balloons.lzh in
pub/incoming/amiga/IMAGINE/PICTURES that displays all of the objects.


Here is a short description of each of the files:

  These are balloons that do not use brush maps, the faces of these balloons
  are individually colored to create the patterns.

  Balloonacy
  GentleGiant
  RGB
  RainbowRyder
  Twister

  These objects use one or more brushmaps (brush mapping is so much nicer
  in Imagine than it was in Turbo Silver).  You will probably need to create
  an assignment for Imagine: since the objects are expecting to find the
  brushes in the Imagine:Balloons directory.

  AcesHigh   (includes Club.brush, Diamond.brush, Heart.brush, and Spade.brush)
  JollyRoger (includes Roger.brush)
  SmallWorld (includes World.brush)
  Gondola    (includes Basket.brush)


I hope someone else can find some use for these objects.  And a big thanks to
all the others that have uploaded their objects to hubcap.  They are all
greatly appreciated.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marvin Landis
[e-mail]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
##

Subject: help
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 91 12:04:18 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Randy Carris)

Help!
I put up a project to hubcap in the pub/incoming/IMAGINE/PROJECTS dirrectory
called ovp.imp.lzh.  I'm having problems getting it to trace the way I want it.
I set it up to trace a highres overscan image in 24-bit ILBM.  What I'm getting
is a really funky artifacting around the front of the eye.  While this is sort
of neat (it looks like shards of the eye are spraying off), it is not what I
am going for.  It is causing the trace time to be VERY long.  It took over 12
hours to trace on my 2000 with a 28Mhz '030 with 4M 32-bit mem. and 3M 16-bit.
This is much longer than usual.  It doesn't show up in scanline renderings, but
does show up in quarterscreen highres 24-bit ILBMs.  I'm not using any effects,
such as explode.

If anyone could tell me what is causing this, I would really apreciate this.
It is going to be part of an animation but I can't deal those trace time on my
time budget.

Thanks,
Randy Carris
[e-mail]


P.S.:
SIGGRAPH was fun.  It was good to see so many Amiga enthusiasts there despite
Commodore's absence.  Both meetings were very interesting, it was good to see
some of you in person.  By the way, those were awesome tapes everybody!

##

Subject: Objects, copyrights, etc
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 91 14:48:56 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Dave Martin asks:

>I have some questions about the objects being uploaded to hubcap.
>Are they considered public domain or copyright but freely redistributable?
>And what are the requirements for crediting the author?
>Can I USE these objects in my own projects?

>I have some objects I'd like to upload but I want to know what their status
>will be if I do.

>I know crediting and so forth would seem to be obvious, but I think we
>need a formal understanding about third party usage of
>objects/pictures/projects etc.  I have an anim that is using someone
>else's picture from hubcap as wallpaper.  Is this O.K.? (as long as I
>credit the picture in a README?)

Almost without exception the objects on hubcap have README files
describing what the objects are and any special requirements. I always
say "Here's my object (or whatever), use it any way you want, just give
me credit, and if you distribute the object, include this README."
Notice that you are given the freedom to use the object even in a
commercial work, and that you can give the object to anyone you wish.
In fact, you could even sell it.. though the buyer would be much better
off getting a free copy.

Each object (or picture, or whatever) should probably be treated the
way it's README asks; I seem to remember that Steve Menzies' "Exploded
Garden" had a more severe notice, saying that you could view and
distribute the pic, but not use it yourself.

This is perfectly legitimate as well, and I will certainly respect his
README wishes, and just thank him for letting us see his terrific
picture. Different people have different ideas about how they want
their objects and pix used, and they make this known by their READMEs.

Objects, pictures, etc, without READMES or that do not say anything
about distribution are pretty much fair game: the creator probably
made a concious decision to enrich the public domain, or they would
not have uploaded the files. Even so, a credit is nice if you know the
source, but not absolutely required.

If we want to talk legally, it turns out that it is pretty tough for
an author to control limited distribution. You MUST explicitly have a
copyright notice, with the work "COPYRIGHT" spelled out, the year, and
your full name. In this case, the author OWNS this file, and can be as
arbitrary as he or she wants. Steve Menzies did this correctly:
legally, the "README" on most of my pix and objects mean nothing
because I didn't bother with a copyright notice, and just put in a
polite request. It would be bad form to just steal my pix and use it
without credit, but it would be legal. It would NOT be legal to do
this with "Exploded Garden".

The only times I've copyrighted is with the text of my tutorials; they
are too easy to steal and put in a newsletter or even a book and not
give me credit. I include the full copyright notice, but give a
distribution license as follows:

(From my Detail Tutorial)

>This file and the text therein is Copyright 1991 by Steven P. Worley.
>All rights reserved.  This file may be distributed freely in computer
>or paper form as long as 1) It is unchanged and unedited 2) is
>distributed in its entirely 3) gives proper credit to the author,
>Steven Worley.

Note that this protects me, as I will always keep my name on the
tutorial, which is all I am trying to do. Several people have asked me
if they could use it in newsletters, etc, and I told them to feel free
to use it and do minor editing if they wanted a different intro or
something. In fact, they didn't have to legally ask me, though the
unedited text might be a little jarring because of the introduction
that rambles about "being distributed in three files.". :-)

A side note: this lists (and it's posts) are public domain; unless you
put a copyright notice is your message, it's fair game. I mention this
in the monthly intro posting.

This gets us to another legal question: what CAN be copyrighted? This
is an answer I know too well, because of a friend's involvement in
software publishing. Any text or picture can be copyrighted.  A
proprietary algorithm can also be copyrighted. VERY interesting,
because FONTS ->CANNOT<- be copyrighted. Don't start giving out your
proprietary Postscript fonts, though, because Adobe Postscript fonts
are interpreted as an algorithm for drawing glyphs (characters) in a
certain style. However, bitmaps of the fonts, pictures of the fonts,
and even the exact shape of the font is not copyrightable. What Adobe
licenses is the set of commands needed to draw each letter; the
algorithm.

Notice that this means that any 3D object is then placed in the
"uncopyrightable" category, as long as it is just a set of points,
lines, faces, colors, etc. If the object contained programming code to
render itself, it WOULD be copyrightable, but the object itself is
not. Thus, legally, you can't own an object, you can own a renderer.

A name or label can also be protected by a trademark. Thus, the Adobe
font "Times-Roman" has a trademarked NAME. You cannot use this
name on your own work. This gives Adobe some protection, since a
"clone" Times-Roman must name itself something different. Some
words are in the public domain, like "Webster's". Yes, YOU can make
a dictionary and name it "Webster's Dictionary" or "The Official
Webster's Dictionary". Don't try this with the trademarked
"Mirriam-Webster's", though.

Trademarks must be registered by the patent office, and it costs $35.
Copyrights are easier to arbitrarily assign, and it is free. This makes
it easy to claim anything as copyrighted: "The state of California is
Copyright 1991 by Steven P. Worley, all rights reserved", but it won't
mean anything unless it is legitimately copyightable and you created/own
it. This also means you can't take and copyright Shakespeare's plays.

Also, note that a computer picture, like "Exploded Garden", is
copyrighting not the sequence of bytes that make it up, but the actual
visual image that those bytes represents. Thus, a photograph of your
screen displaying "Exploded Garden" is STILL protected by the
copyright.

I am not a legal consul, but I am pretty sure of my facts. Most people
will not abuse your README wishes, but protecting yourself is pretty
hard to do.

I'd not like to see a big flame war about copyrights and Adobe and
"look and feel" come up; I wanted to help people understand how their
3d objects and images should be treated and how they legally MUST be
treated.

-Steve

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

PS- Dave, what picture did you use as wallpaper? Just curious.

##

Subject: ROOMS etc.
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 91 15:00:37 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Alan Price)

HI! I've just returned from a two week vacation only to find 144 messages
waiting!

I just wanted to make note that I'm here if anyone has any questions or ideas
concerning the new Room project proposal that Udo posted on Friday, the 19th.
(Or anything else for that matter) Please send a note if you are interested in
creating a room or rooms.

I would also like to reiterate that I do not think of this project at all as
MINE but as a COMMUNAL project that I would love to see happen> (reread the
opening paragraphs of the proposal) It just seemed that the rooms idea needed
some uniform direction in order for it to actually happen. The lenghty rules
and standards in the proposal should create no limitations at all in the flow
of everyone's creative juices (sic).

I likewise would like to see the logo idea take place. I have one now, but it's
an animation and would look pretty lame as a single still. What are the
parameters for this project?

While I'm catching up, a few notes:

SIGGRAPH: My boss and fellow employee went (Mr.Mac and Mr.IBM, respectively).
          They came back saying "Gee, there wasn't any Amiga stuff to be seen
          anywhere." (I could discern a slight grin.) OUCH! IS that true. What
          a sad state of events. I thought someone said NewTek was there. Was
          it just them showing their new magic "custom CPU"?

COLORBURST:  IS it out? Can I buy one? Does it really work with the A3000's
             31Hz 9-pin output? By the gods, I hope so.
             What about conversion software and such? Does it display it's
             own proprietary format like DCTV and HAM-E or will it show
             an iff-24 outright? Does both the IP and the Paint software
             support Arexx? Should I shutup and just call them and find out
             for myself?

DCTV RGB: Someone said they are still awaitng this. I am going to play devil's
          advocate and say "It'll never happen." Or, at least it will never
          be offerred at a price less than what you paid for the original DCTV
          unit in the first place. Here at work, we have a video system with
          a universal chroma-key unit. It requires a NTSC to RGB decoder, it
          is by no means top-of-the-line and it cost well over $1000.
          Encoding RGB to NTSC is not a very expensive endeavor (even CBM's
          $23 encoder looks halfway decent, considering.) But going the other
          way is, and doesn't make a lot of sense, either.

##

Subject: Colorburst
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 1991 14:42:20 -0500
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

In a message From: [e-mail] (Alan Price)

>COLORBURST:  IS it out? Can I buy one?

NTSC units are being manufactured as we speak.  As of Friday, FCC hadn't
granted class B yet.  As soon as this comes through, and those folks with
orders already in get their units, YOU can get one.

>Does it really work with the A3000's
>             31Hz 9-pin output? By the gods, I hope so.

Geesh!     **********  N O W   H E A R   T H I S ! ! ! !  ***********

To date, NO extended color board works with the de-interlaced output.  ALL
available extended display boards output FULLY STANDARD NTSC 15.75 KHz video
and they ALL FLICKER!

The only ones that I know of that are in the works for a 31.5 KHz output are
the GVP board (probably over $2000) and the Harlequin board (also expensive
and not available in the U.S.).

24 bit (and nearly) images don't flicker any more than your TV.  If you can
stand that....


>             What about conversion software and such?

What is the big deal with this?  If the conversion software comes with a piece
of hardware, then everyone who has the hardware can convert it.  In some cases
(DCTV and HAM-E) the proprietary format produces MUCH smaller files than the
IFF 24 versions (little effective compression on most images).

>Does it display it's
>             own proprietary format like DCTV and HAM-E or will it show
>             an iff-24 outright?

YES and YES.  CB has a proprietary "fast-load" format, but it is not compressed
and thus produces large files.  THE SOFTWARE (the point being that given source
YOU can do what you want - even load other formats) will also load and convert
on-the-fly IFF 24 images.  I'm trying to "adjust" the CB fast-load format with
some compression with MAST (if I can get them to cooperate), and with that the
size of the 24 bit files shouldn't be too different, but the fast-load will
be faster.

> Does both the IP and the Paint software
>             support Arexx?

Good question.  It doesn't appear that the Paint program does.  The IP (I
assume that's ImPort) programs are all CLI based, so AREXX shouldn't have
a problem with them.

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])

##

Subject: Textures through transparency?
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 91 15:56:42 EDT
From: [e-mail]

       G'day Steven,
                     Could you please add me to the Imagine mailing list
        .  I currently own Imagine V1.1 and use it with ADPro, Pixel 3D
        and Interchange (I used to own Videoscape 3D before :).  I am
        also part of a small group of people who own Imagine but have no
        access to Usenet (5 in total).  I have only had Imagine for one
        month now and it's great!  I have one problem though - I have
        ftp'd your brushmaps (Grass,Sidewalk,Lattice) and used them in
        a couple of renderings (they're great!) unfortunately I can't
        seem to get Imagine's texture maps to show through the filter
        map.  I have done the following : Blue sky, Lattice with a golden
        sphere behind it and a disturbed water texture as the ground. The
        Sky shows thru, the sphere shows thru but the ground does not. Is
        this a bug?  I am running on a A2000, with A2630 - Wb 1.3 - 1Mb
        chip, 8mb fast.

        Thanx, Kev

        [e-mail]
        Borg on IRC


-------

Hmm, I haven't seen this happen, but I don't think I've ever had a setup
like this. Anyone else? Description sure sounds like an Imagine bug.


-Steve

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

##

Subject: Impulse upgrades: reply
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 91 16:08:54 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Forwarded through me from Steve Gillmor of Impulse.

-Steve



-----------

To those who are concerned:

>>     Afew months back I posted a message to the effect that Impulse
>> Inc (Imagine) was not informing registered users outside of the
>> US of the availiability of software upgrades and had ceased (for
>> sometime now) to mail their product information bulletins to
>> users outside the US inspite of the fact that Impulse says on their

more

>> have used the product etc, I can no longer with a clear concience,
>> endorse or recommend the purchase of ANY Impulse products to ANY user
>> outside of the United States until Impulse has done the following:

and

>> This message has been crossposted to comp.sys.amiga.graphics as well as
>> to regional Canadian bbs's.

>> --Stephen Menzies

We have read Mr. Menzies' letter and find the form and content of it
interesting.  We continue to support his efforts as it relates to 3d rendering
and wish him the greatest success.  As it relates to those customers outside
the continental United States, we have attempted, through numerous means that
Mr. Menzies fails to acknowledge, to inform these people that they should send
the original Imagine 1.0 disk and (based upon calculations from their Postal
Service) an amount of funds equal to what their Post Office indicates is the
return postage cost.  We would then send them back the new software.

It seems that all but a few have gotten this message.  In Europe, we have a
distributor who recently met with the financial hardship of bankruptcy.  It
was the job of this distributor to facilitate the 1.1 upgrade in Europe.  This
in no way excuses us from our responsibility, and we are in the process of
finding a new Euro-partner.  In our upcoming newsletter, which will be mailed
planet-wide, we will reiterate this offer.

As to specific cases, where someone has not received a disk, we can only say
that undoubtedly the disks have met their demise someplace between here and
their destination.  As in the past, if any of our customers do not receive
their disk, we have been more than glad to ship them another set at no charge,
even if the fault lies with the shipper.

We are saddened, however, to hear that due to our being human, Mr. Menzies is
no longer going to be using our product.  He was and still is, a respected
artist.  It would seem, however, that he no longer wishes to use Impulse
products.  This should in no way affect any other user's decisions regarding
the products they use.  In the past several years, Mr. Menzies has talked
directly to the President of Impulse; in the past few months, Mr. Menzies has
NOT bothered to call Impulse to express his dismay.  He has instead spent his
time writing letters such as this, for what negative reason we cannot
ascertain.  We recognize that Imagine and other Impulse products are not going
to be the end-all or be-all for all people.  We are glad to hear that Mr.
Menzies continues with his incredible talent.

Here, publicly for those of you who would care, we extend to you an invitation
to call Impulse and register your complaint or concern regarding our upgrade
policy.  As always, we will do our best to do the best for you.  We further
extend to Mr. Menzies an invitation to call and share with us his concerns so
that they can be addressed in the professional manner that they deserve.  Our
goal is to encourage positive communication among various people through the
use of graphic arts communications.  We recognize that we can always improve
on our services for you.

We do not single out any one individual as being any more important than
any other, nor would we be accused of the atrocity of bigotry in ignoring
anyone who does not live in the United States.

We are indeed listening, and here-in lies the proof of our concern.

We eagerly await your positive reply, Mr. Menzies.

Sincerely,

Steve Gillmor
Director of Software
Impulse, Inc.

##

Subject: Quick one on SIGGRAPH
Date:    Mon, 05 Aug 91 13:20 PDT
From: "Ivan I." <[e-mail]>

As i seem to be one of the first to make it back from SIGGRAPH aside from
Steve (maybe everyone lost their return airfare at the gaming tables...), i
thought i'd answer Alan's question.

Yes, NewTek was there & seemed to be doing quite well with their audiences;
as two demos went on on either side of their partition, a woman was handing
out little plastic film viewers to lots of grasping, sweaty palms. Many of them
were attached to bodies in business suits so it seemed to be a fairly serious
crowd as opposed to say me for example.  The guy doing a step by step demo
on that side was, i thought, talking down to the crowd a bit compared with
the other animation displays i saw, which were aimed at a more knowledgable
audience.  The woman opposite him did quite well in her presentation,
however, and i thought they came off fairly professional.

i did ask her why they had stripped any mention of Amiga from the CPU box &
from their literature, and before she leaned down to answer me she carefully
covered up her microphone and lowered her voice to tell me that they were
careful to make sure that people who were afraid of computers wouldn't be put
off by buying a computer system. She also admitted that it was a way of
getting more of a hold onto the Mac & Ibm markets, which certainly makes
marketing sense.  It does seem rather a waste to have a beautiful computer
hiding when there are so many other things a production hosue could be using
it for, from budgeting to archival storage records.  But it was especially
funny to see her reaction when the question was asked.  Apparently they are
extremely leary of any Amiga connection, which is just a damn shame.  They
incidentally were handing out copies of the Todd Rundgren video & taking names
down to be sent a Toaster demo reel.

There was only one other Amiga related booth i saw, and unfortunately i don't
recall the name of the company, but i do recall that it was for a 24 bit
graphics card and that the salesman was being pretty vicious towards the
NewTek people, so i left the booth.  Don't care for nasty sales tactics.

i am extremely sorry that i didn't get to meet up with anyone else from the
list; apparently most of you found the messages on the bulletin board that i
could not.  i was too busy losing the lunch money to quarter slots anyway.
but was there enough material to warrant being made available on videocassette
sometime?  it would be nice to see.

-------------------------TEXT-OF-FORWARDED-MAIL--------------------------------
From: [e-mail](Alan Price)
Subject: ROOMS etc.

While I'm catching up, a few notes:

SIGGRAPH: My boss and fellow employee went (Mr.Mac and Mr.IBM, respectively).
          They came back saying "Gee, there wasn't any Amiga stuff to be seen
          anywhere." (I could discern a slight grin.) OUCH! IS that true. What
          a sad state of events. I thought someone said NewTek was there. Was
          it just them showing their new magic "custom CPU"?

##

Subject: Re: Quick one on SIGGRAPH
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 91 16:57:31 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> As i seem to be one of the first to make it back from SIGGRAPH aside from
> Steve (maybe everyone lost their return airfare at the gaming tables...), i
> thought i'd answer Alan's question.

I'm back, just VERY busy catching up at the moment.

> There was only one other Amiga related booth i saw, and unfortunately i don't
> recall the name of the company, but i do recall that it was for a 24 bit
> graphics card.

I assume you are talking about the Digital Micronics board. It is an 8bit not
24bit and is really aimed at a totally different market from the Toaster. It
is similar in many ways to the A2410 ULowell board (which was on display
running color XWindows in the ULowell booth).

> i am extremely sorry that i didn't get to meet up with anyone else from the
> list; apparently most of you found the messages on the bulletin board that i
> could not.

In fact there were 3 Amiga gatherings which all sortof blended into one another
running Wednesday from 1pm to about 7pm. I'll be writing a summary of who
was there, what happened, and key items of note at the exhibit (probably
tommorow).

> but was there enough material to warrant being made available on
> videocassette sometime?  it would be nice to see.

Yes, there was. In fact one company was soliciting individuals to send
their animations for inclusion into an Amiga video portfolio. More on
that later.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Textures disk set.
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 91 17:33:25 -0400
From: [e-mail] (BRANHAM,JOSEPH FRANKLIN)

I just got a quote on a (I reckon) new product called Pro Textures.
Apparently, for $40 you get *10* disks worth of 24-bit brushmapped textures
to play with in you favorite rendering program.

Has anyone ever heard of this product. At only $10-$15 more than Surface
Master, it sounds like it might be worth it.

Moo.
Frank Branham

##

Subject: Re: Textures disk set.
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 91 18:12:22 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> I just got a quote on a (I reckon) new product called Pro Textures.
> Apparently, for $40 you get *10* disks worth of 24-bit brushmapped textures
> to play with in you favorite rendering program.
> Has anyone ever heard of this product. At only $10-$15 more than Surface
> Master, it sounds like it might be worth it.

Yup, I bought it two weeks ago. It consists of 8 24bit textures (one per
disk) and ham versions of the same on the two remaining disks. Of the
eight two are intended as reflection maps. What is nice about them is
not only are they 24bit (Surface Master and Map Master are only 4bit),
but they are continous from left to right and top to bottom so that a
surface tiled with multiple copies will smoothly flow from one instance
of the image to the next without a highly visible edge discontinuity.
They are quite nice. The images included are:
Marble #1
Marble #2
Rock
Water
Bricks
Gold    (reflection map)
Clouds  (reflection map)
and one other I forget

Also, for those of you lucky few who have CD Roms, ImageCELs from IMAGETECTS
provides a massive library of 24bit texture images which are also continuous.
The CD is around $400 or $500 but has thousands of images in several formats
including Amiga IFF.

By the way, is it true that Imagine does not support 24bit image maps?
That would be most unfortunate.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Re: Textures disk set.
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 91 18:39:51 EDT
From: [e-mail] (John J Humpal)

>
> I just got a quote on a (I reckon) new product called Pro Textures.
> Apparently, for $40 you get *10* disks worth of 24-bit brushmapped textures
> to play with in you favorite rendering program.
>
> Has anyone ever heard of this product. At only $10-$15 more than Surface
> Master, it sounds like it might be worth it.

    That's Map Master.  Surface Master dealt with textures, reflection,
refraction, etc.  Map Master has some nice gray scale images.
    Forty bucks for 10 disks sounds too good to be true.  I wonder if
the images are any good?


John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer

##

Subject: Colorburst software
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 91 18:53:54 EDT
From: [e-mail] (John J Humpal)

Rick Tillery writes (re: Colorburst):
>
>
> In a message From: [e-mail] (Alan Price)
>
> >             What about conversion software and such?
>
> What is the big deal with this?  If the conversion software comes with a piece
> of hardware, then everyone who has the hardware can convert it.  In some cases
    Well, it would be nice to work on a Colorburst image with another,
possibly superior paint program, for instance.  Or one might want to load
and display a colorburst pic from within a multimedia app.  Commodore
really needs to address the issue of a standard interface for 24-bit color
devices.  IFF24 just doesn't cut it.

>
> > Does both the IP and the Paint software
> >             support Arexx?
>
> Good question.  It doesn't appear that the Paint program does.  The IP (I
> assume that's ImPort) programs are all CLI based, so AREXX shouldn't have
> a problem with them.

    I read IP == image processing.  One of ADPro's real strengths is
its ARexx interface.  I keep on hoping Impulse will add ARexx capability to
Imagine one of these years.


John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer

##

Subject: texture map disk set
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 91 19:18:38 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Ordering info, anyone? (Mark!)

Mark: Of Imagine's many problems and deficiencies, brush mapping is
luckily not among them. Imagine has no problems with 24 bit IFFs,
though you need the RAM to load them in.

-Steve

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

##

Subject: Pro Textures
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 91 16:54:37 PDT
From: Michael Gibson <[e-mail]>

About the Pro Textures package -

I got the package about a week ago, and I haven't had a chance to use it
yet, but it looks great. It has 8 24-bit hi-res pictures for wrapping,
and it also has ham versions as well. This is not the same package as
map master.

For ordering info, the company that is selling this is:

AMAZING EXPRESS
1441 E. Fletcher Ave.
Tampa, FL.  33612

Order Only line:  1-800-323-6511

The ad that I got this information from is on pg. 102 of the july 91
Amiga World. It also says that the suggested retail is $59.95, but
that there is an introductory price of $39.96

                    Michael

                    [e-mail]

##

Subject: DCTV Brushmap Problems
Date:    Mon, 05 Aug 91 17:35 PDT
From: "Ivan I." <[e-mail]>

well, good, someone else is having the same problem i am (sorry to be gleeful,
Jeff) with DCTV, which is:  i can't seem to save something correctly as a
24 bit IFF file.  Works fine from the DCTV end, i'm clicking on the right
button and everything, but the result when mapped onto Imagine objects is that
i get part of the picture but also a lot of junk attached.  the last two times
i tried it i got the picture okay, but with semicircular whit lines on half the
picture (corresponding to 1 face of the plane i was mapping it to, it was as if
the circles were sliced off where the second face began).

any ideas?

ivan i.
esrlpdi@uclamvs

-------------------------TEXT-OF-FORWARDED-MAIL--------------------------------

Subject: Re: Brushmaps..

Sorry, I haven't had much luck with using 24bit IFF's generated with DCTV
either.  I've got a few pics that would look very nice as brushmaps, but
I've run into the same problem as you.  It almost looks as if DCTV is
saving the display format pic out, rather than a 24bit IFF.  I can't
understand why this would be happening, especially since I clicked on the
selector for 24bit IFF in the save requester.  Strange stuff indeed.

If I figure out the problem with using DCTV pics in IFF24 format as brushes,
I'll let you know.  This was one reason that I complained about not having
a standard IFF brush option, as I don't always want to use a whole picture
as a brushmap, just parts of it.

##

Subject: Re: Quick one on SIGGRAPH
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 91 20:53:34 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Brian Reynolds)

    There was also a company called Viewpoint Animation
Engineering (140 S. Mountain Way #1; Orem, UT 84058; [phone])
giving out "free" disks of 3D objects at SIGGRAPH.  If you filled out
an information card from them they'll get in touch with you about your
paying for shipping and handling on a disk with five free objects.  I
think there was a human head, a biplane, a car and a couple of others
that I forget included in the free disk.  In the list of object
formats they included Imagine and Sculpt 3D/4D.  They had a list of
airplanes, cars, and other vehicles that they sell.  When they get in
touch with me I'll let you know what their prices are.  Their policy
was that you could use their objects in your animations, and
redistribute the animation, but you couldn't redistribute the objects.
I don't remember if you had to give them credit for creating the
objects.

    This brings up an interesting point.  In the recent past (six
months to a year) the Big Three Auto makers, and a few aerospace
companies, have started requiring license fees from any company that
makes a product based on their product.  This came up when several of
the plastic model manufacturers where approached for license fees.
The car companies say they are doing this to protect themselves and
weed out the companies that are making inferior products (models and
toys) based on the original vehicle.  This caused a big stink among
the model builders who were worried about price increases, models
becoming unavailable, and companies closing.  Eventually it worked out
that the model manufacturers complied willingly (their models are now
"official"), and that the fees were small enough not to effect the
price of mass marketed models.  I don't know how, or if, they effected
the smaller specialty companies.

    The reason I bring this up is that Viewpoint's list of objects
starts with a list of Boeing (the only aerospace company I know for
sure is looking for license fees) airliners and includes a whole bunch
of American cars.  Does anyone know if any of the companies
selling, or redistributing, 3D objects is getting official approval
from the original manufacturer of the vehicle (or whatever)?  I know
that last year someone who was trying to put together a disk of famous
spacecraft from the movies and reality was not able to get MGM's
approval to use the Discovery from 2001, so at least one company is
checking into these things.

Brian Reynolds "... a drone from sector 7G."
Fusion Systems Group
[e-mail] -or- ...!uupsi!fsg!reynolds

##

Subject: Re: ROOMS etc.
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 91 01:09:02 PDT
From: [e-mail]

> SIGGRAPH: My boss and fellow empl> oyee went (Mr.Mac and Mr.IBM, respectively).
>           They came back saying "Gee, there wasn't any Amiga stuff to be seen
>           anywhere." (I could discern a slight grin.) OUCH! IS that true. What
>           a sad state of events. I thought someone said NewTek was there. Was
>           it just them showing their new magic "custom CPU"?


This is completely false. Commodore, themselves, were not there. They
pulled their booth a week or so before Siggraph stating that they
wanted to spend their money elsewhere. The Amgia itself was quite
prominent. Everytime I turned around there was an Amiga in
another booth doing something or other. Many of them had Toasters
in them. Newtek had a large booth as usual. They were giving out
copies of the Todd Rungren video and also had made a best of version
which was given out in the form of those little film viewers normally
used for old cartoons. You know the ones with the tiny, removable film
cartridge. It was a really great idea.

So for those not looking very hard, I suppose they could say that
they didn't see any Amigas, but they were everywhere.

=======================================================================
Sean Schur                        USENET: [e-mail]
Assistant Director Amiga/Media Lab        Compuserve: 70731,1102
Character Animation Department
California Institute of the Arts
=======================================================================

##

Subject: Imagine & AREXX
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 91 09:37 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Scott Busse)

>> John J. Humpal writes:  "I keep on hoping Impulse will add ARexx
>> capability to Imagine one of these years."
Ditto! When I brought this up in conversation with Mike Halvorson, he seemed to
think that the typical Imagine customer was not going to make use of an AREXX
port. So it seems that for that reason, Impulse doesn't feel that the effort
required to implement and support AREXX for Imagine is not justified. Of
course, he could be right, but this is certainly the forum to find out.
  I suggest that everyone who has any feelings about Imagine and AREXX, make
them known here on this list. I'm not asking only for support in getting AREXX,
but for all views on the subject. I believe that the list is forwarded to
Impulse (Steve?), so they will then have some gauge of what direction to take.
I hear that Steve Gillmore (sp?) is responsible for the AREXX port in
Foundation, another product (or future product) from Impulse, so perhaps it
won't require too much pounding to get Imagine AREXX equipped.
--
* Scott Busse email:           O    O   O_     _      ___ .....
* CIS 73040,2114              |||  /|\  /\   O/\_     /         O    )=|
* [e-mail]    l   | |   |\    / \   /\                _\
* [e-mail]                  Live Long and Animate... \

##

Subject: Re: Colorburst software
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1991 11:12:07 -0500
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

In a message To: [e-mail]

>Rick Tillery writes (re: Colorburst):
>>
>>
>>> In a message From: [e-mail] (Alan Price)
>>>
>>>             What about conversion software and such?
>>
>> What is the big deal with this?  If the conversion software comes with a piece
>> of hardware, then everyone who has the hardware can convert it.  In some cases
>       Well, it would be nice to work on a Colorburst image with another,
>possibly superior paint program, for instance.  Or one might want to load
>and display a colorburst pic from within a multimedia app.  Commodore
>really needs to address the issue of a standard interface for 24-bit color
>devices.  IFF24 just doesn't cut it.

Well, in the case of CB, it will deal with IFF 24 images. But I still don't see
the difference.  Any viewing program can be called by a multimedia application
like Amiga Vision.  The only problem is if the software relies on a hardware
hit to stop showing the image (as is the case with CB which relies on a LMB
click to stop the image - I'm working on that).

I also agree that the IFF 24 needs some help.  I'm going to try applying my
ByteRun1Plus extension to ByteRun1 compression to 24 bit images and see if
that helps any.  However, I don't think it will help much with images stored
as 24 bitplanes.  It would be best to store the images as all the red bytes,
all the green bytes, and all the blue bytes for compression sake (I have
an image in three separate 800+K files from Sculpt that compresses to 200K
or so).  However, conversion to bitplanes at view time would slow things
down considerably.

>        I read IP == image processing.  One of ADPro's real strengths is
>its ARexx interface.  I keep on hoping Impulse will add ARexx capability to
>Imagine one of these years.

Again, the IP programs can be called from an ARexx program since they are
all CLI based.  Since they are all command line controlled, the command
line can be constructed in the ARexx program and then the IP program called.

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])

##

Subject: Imagine & AREXX
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 91 11:34:59 PDT
From: Mark Davis <[e-mail]>

I was just thinking that it sure would be nice to have
an AREXX port on Imagine.  I could automate object scaling,
loading, etc...

mark

##

Subject: Arexx
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 91 14:42:41 -0400
From: [e-mail] (BRANHAM,JOSEPH FRANKLIN)

I've been putting some exploration into a project involvinfigure animation
using lava notation. (For some reason I'm not suddenly sure of how it is
spelled.) It would be very useful to have Arexx support to do any computation
intensive rendering.

I haven't looked very hard at all, but is there any documentation on
writing effects? I'm sure that everyone has some really devious ideas
which could be added using what seems to be our only program-controlled
interface.

Moo.
Frank Branham

##

Subject: DCTV files size and Diskanim info sought
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 91 16:04:07 -0400
From: [e-mail] (BRANHAM,JOSEPH FRANKLIN)

I don't have posting privileges, so I'll try to ask my sily questions in this
group.

1) Are anims produced using DCTV approximately the same size as HAM animations
of the same length. I'm assuming that a 3bit DCTV image has about the same
basic amount of information as a HAM image. (DCTV images are twice the
horiz resolution and 1/2 the bitplanes.) But it seems to me that the delta
compression in anims would cause the final anim size to increase pretty
dramatically on DCTV images. (Wild guess, really) Has anyone who has
rendered Imagine > DCTV anims noticed any file size changes in anims?

2) What info does anyone have on a program called DiskAnim. The idea sounds
great, but none of the dealers in the known Universe (Atlanta, anyway) seem
to have heard of it.

Moo.
Frank branham

##

Subject: Imagine & Arexx
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 91 13:27:00 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis ~)

>>>>> On Tue, 6 Aug 91 14:42:41 -0400, [e-mail] (BRANHAM,JOSEPH FRANKLIN) said:

Frank> I haven't looked very hard at all, but is there any documentation
Frank> on writing effects? I'm sure that everyone has some really
Frank> devious ideas which could be added using what seems to be our
Frank> only program-controlled interface.

    I wrote to Impulse on three occasions, asking them to put ARexx
into Turbo Silver, and then, Imagine.  I enjoy creating objects and
animations algorithmically, and an ARexx port (implemented correctly, of
course, which I doubt Impulse could do) would have helped tremendously.
Since I received no replies to my letters, and two phone calls with
Mike Halvorsen confirmed that Impulse had no intentions to add an ARexx
interface to their renderers, I went ahead with my TTDDD project for
algorithmic object/scene/animation creation.

    Yes, a properly implemented ARexx port on Imagine would be
ideal.  I highly doubt that Impulse will add one, or if they do, that it
will be useful.

                            -- Glenn Lewis

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

##

Subject: Re: Imagine & AREXX
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 91 16:53:02 EDT
From: [e-mail] (John J Humpal)

>
> I was just thinking that it sure would be nice to have
> an AREXX port on Imagine.  I could automate object scaling,
> loading, etc...
>
> mark
>
    Wouldn't it be nice to set up the Stage with your very own
defaults? I'd start with Camera View, a tracking axis, and at least one
light source.  It's annoying to have to set things up *every* time I start
up a new project.


John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer

##

Subject: Re: Imagine & AREXX
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 91 16:59:05 EDT
From: [e-mail] (John J Humpal)

Scott Busse writes:
>
> >> John J. Humpal writes:  "I keep on hoping Impulse will add ARexx
> >> capability to Imagine one of these years."
> Ditto! When I brought this up in conversation with Mike Halvorson, he seemed to
> think that the typical Imagine customer was not going to make use of an AREXX
> port. So it seems that for that reason, Impulse doesn't feel that the effort
> required to implement and support AREXX for Imagine is not justified. Of
> course, he could be right, but this is certainly the forum to find out.

    I'm not sure who Mike Halvorson thinks the "typical" Imagine user
is, if there is such a beast.  I'm not a professional graphics/animation
person, but I just want to be able to automate some of the drudgery of
working with Imagine.  I'm thinking particularly of the Stage editor.  Why,
oh why does Imagine default to a head-on view of your scene when a camera
view makes so much more sense?

>   I suggest that everyone who has any feelings about Imagine and AREXX, make
> them known here on this list. I'm not asking only for support in getting AREXX,
> but for all views on the subject. I believe that the list is forwarded to
> Impulse (Steve?), so they will then have some gauge of what direction to
take.

    Here's my vote for a full-blown Arexx port in Imagine.  I'd think
that with Arexx in the OS 2.0 ROMs, that any serious program *should* be
ARexx capable.


John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer

##

Subject: Re: DCTV files size and Diskanim info sought
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 91 14:05:01 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Edward Chadez)

On Aug 6,  4:04pm, BRANHAM,JOSEPH FRANKLIN wrote:
} Subject: DCTV files size and Diskanim info sought
}
}
} I don't have posting privileges, so I'll try to ask my sily questions in this
} group.

[question about dctv deleted, 'cause I don't can't answer it]

}
} 2) What info does anyone have on a program called DiskAnim. The idea sounds
} great, but none of the dealers in the known Universe (Atlanta, anyway) seem
} to have heard of it.

I have a program call DiskAnim which runs animations from your HardDisk.
In theory, I could have a 50 meg animation running on my A3000.  But
remember, in theory, EVERYTHING works.  I tried it once with a very slow RLL
Hard Disk, and there were noticable delays while the disk was reading the
data.  I haven't played with it on my 3000...yet.

DiskAnim IS available with a commercial product, but I don't have the info
with me.  If you wish to persue finding DiskAnim, write me back and I'll
look up the info on it.  I got my copy from a DiskMagazine.

}
} Moo.
} Frank branham
}
}-- End of excerpt from BRANHAM,JOSEPH FRANKLIN


-Edward Chadez

--
+--//-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|\X/ [e-mail]/Edward Chadez                CARL Systems(303)861-5319|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

##

Subject: Wood maps at hubcap
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 91 17:12:40 EDT
From: [e-mail] (John J Humpal)

I have some possibly bad news about those HAM wood brush maps that someone
recently uploaded to hubcap.  I'm pretty sure they come from a copyrighted
package of texture maps put out by the company that released Photon Paint.
I'm not sure they're the same images I saw a year or two ago, but they sure
looked familiar, and they were definitely part of a commercial package.


John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer

##

Subject: Mark was scanned!
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 91 14:13:04 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis ~)

[stolen from a thread on Usenet in comp.graphics, talking about the special
 effects seen in Terminator2...Mark Thompson wrote:]

> Well at Siggraph this past week, I had the opportunity to get scanned in
> by Cyberware's 3D laser color digitizer. The system required that I sit still
> in a stationary chair while the laser scanned around me (about 20 seconds).
> It produced a nearly flawless scan with only 2 minor errors due to uncontrolled
> lighting on the exhibition floor. Note: I am not a gymnast or olympian weight
> lifter :-)
> %~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
> %      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  %
> % --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   %
> %      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   %
> %     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   %
> %                                                                          %
>  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    This is great, Mark!  How much did it cost?  What format is the data
in?

    When will you upload yourself to hubcap (in Imagine's object format,
of course)?   1/2 :-)
                            -- Glenn

##

Subject: Re: Colorburst software
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 91 17:07:09 EDT
From: [e-mail] (John J Humpal)

Rick Tillery writes:
>
> Again, the IP programs can be called from an ARexx program since they are
> all CLI based.  Since they are all command line controlled, the command
> line can be constructed in the ARexx program and then the IP program called.
>

    I'm (obviously) not familiar with the CB software so I don't know
how much can be done through the command line, or whether the IP software
has any kind of user interface.  That is, is it CLI driven like PBM, or
Intuitionized like ADPro.  If the former, then any shell could control it.
The beauty of ARexx is its ability to allow one application to control
another so that, for example, the paint program could tell the IP program
to do something to the image one has been working on.  When the IP is
finished, it sends the image back to the paint program, or to the display
program or whatever.

John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer

##

Subject: Re: DCTV files size and Diskanim info sought
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 91 14:51:42 PDT
From: [e-mail] (John T. Grieggs)

> 1) Are anims produced using DCTV approximately the same size as HAM animations
> of the same length. I'm assuming that a 3bit DCTV image has about the same
> basic amount of information as a HAM image. (DCTV images are twice the
> horiz resolution and 1/2 the bitplanes.) But it seems to me that the delta
> compression in anims would cause the final anim size to increase pretty
> dramatically on DCTV images. (Wild guess, really) Has anyone who has
> rendered Imagine > DCTV anims noticed any file size changes in anims?
>
Well, it depends.  What I usually do for DCTV is render in 24-bit mode,
using the resolution and aspect ratio I want for the image (note that this
can vary widely).  A 24-bit ILBM can get quite large, a fairly hi-rez one
might be 500K or so.  I wrote an article on this stuff a while back - search
the archive for DCTV.  If you can't find it let me know and I will mail you
one (or re-post it if there is demand).

Now, when you convert the image to DCTV format, it will shrink dramatically.
Again, the exact amount of shrinkage depends on the resolution and the number
of bit-planes.  Which are pretty much independent of the original resolution.

A DCTV ANIM will be much smaller than a comparable 24-bit ILBM ANIM.  I am
not sure what you are after here - if you IFFTODCTV a bunch of HAM pics and
make them into an ANIM, the resulting ANIM will be smaller than the same
ANIM in HAM.  If you render a 24-bit ANIM of the same subject, it depends...

> 2) What info does anyone have on a program called DiskAnim. The idea sounds
> great, but none of the dealers in the known Universe (Atlanta, anyway) seem
> to have heard of it.
>
No idea.  If you find it let us know.

> Frank branham

_john

##

Subject: Ocean Sunset
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 91 16:48:23 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Steve Worley)

Allen Price wrote about "Ocean Sunset" and other people wanted to know
how the effects were done, so I'm posting the answer here.

>Steve:

>I saw your Ocean_Sunset pic when you posted your forms tutorial and
>was very impressed. I just got back from a trip up into Maine (Acadia)
>and it really takes me back when I look at it again.

>Anyway, I had wanted to ask a few questions about it, it you don't mind.

>First, since you state that this is a frame from an animation that you
>have in the works, I am assuming that the entire image is rendered by
>imagine and not a composite assembled in a paint program.

Yes. The pic is not retouched at all. It was rendered in overscan HAM
with maximum antialiasing. The pic you see is the exact output from
Imagine.

>How is the cliff with lighthouse done? My guess is it was a brush wrap
>to a flat 'cut-out' plane of the same shape. The lighthouse does not
>appear to be an imagi ne object but an iff source with no 'seams'
>between it and the cliff.(Though the light striking it matches the
>direction from the sun fairly well)

That's right. I used a picture of the cliff and lighthose from a
GIF on wuarchive.wustl.edu, called "lighthouse" (I think!). I flipped
it and changed the aspect a bit, and used The Art Department to make
an EHB 2K by 1K version of the pic. I loaded this into Dpaint III
and manually colored the sky and water background black. I colored
EVERYTHING else white. This gave me a mask that told me what parts of the
image I wanted displayed and what parts were opaque. I loaded this into
The Art Department, scaled it back to something like 320x400, flipped
the colors (I really should have used white for the background) and saved
the 24 bit image of the grey mask. This all took about an hour.

Then in Imagine, I make a flat plane with just two triangles. I mapped the
color picture (24 bit, converted in ADPro) onto the plane. I then mapped
the black-and-white version onto the same plane as a TRANSPARENCY map.
Boom! Opaque where I wanted to see the lighthouse, completely invisible
where there is sky.  To make sure the brushmaps registered exactly, I
wrote down the coordinates of the brushmap from the transform
requestor, and used them as settings for the second brush.

>The cliffs behind the first ones are different yet. Are these traced
>or brush- wrapped or both? I'm confused, the modelling seems so
>naturalistic.

Kudos to Virtual Reality Labs. That is a Vista Pro object you see
off in the distance. What a pain! The triangles are blatently obvious if
you get much closer. Also, the sucker took a minute to load every time I
changed frame numbers or left the Action Editor. The results are
satisfying, though; it does have a "real" feeling, and the reflections
off the ocean look great.


>How is the sky achieved? I've been trying clouded skies wrapped to
>flat planes but never got such sharp results. What is the secret?

Two planes, actually. A back plane with an image map at infinity
(well, really far away..), and a seperate pure white plane with a
transparency map halfway to infinity. The transparency map puts some
clouds in front of the sun, and gives you some parallax sky motion
when the camera moves. Ideally, a touch of fog would add a much less
sterile feel, but I can't really do that with Imagine 1.1....

>I assumed you used the 'disturbed' effect for the rippling water, but
>I'm not so sure, the ripples have a 'randomness' to them that I have
>not seen before, would you be willing to part wtih the parameters you
>used to acheive it?  In a recent posting to the Imagine list, you
>mentioned a brush-wrap you used for the water surface, how is a
>brush-wrap enhancing what is happening there?

No, Disturbed gives VERY regular results. Rick Rodriguez shows this in
his video.  Easy to implement , but not very realistic.

No, what you are seeing is a VERY custom altitude brushmap applied to
a ground. The brushmap was the output of a computer program I wrote to
simulate the wave heights of real ocean waves, based a physical ocean
model. The output is actually a sequence of brushes, that animate when
played sequentially. There is no color brushmap; it's just a default
black-blue. Most of the lighter color comes from reflecting the sky.
The custom altitude brush is 24 bit 1K by 1K. It was tricky to get it
tu seamlessly repeat, both at the edges and the beginning/end of the
animation loop of 50 frames.

>Sorry for so many questions, but it would be great to know the answers
>to at least a few. I would love to see the finished animation, but if
>you don't get around to completing it (as happens to too many
>projects, I know) I would really like to see a 24-bit version of the
>same pic.


I'd like to see it in 24-bit, too....  :-) But unless Impulse wants to
lend me a Firecracker or Rick Tillery visits with his ColorBurst, I
have to live with HAM...  Soon I'll have some cash, though, for new
hardware.

A couple of other answers to quesions you didn't ask.


Yes, the boat off in the distance _IS_ floating in the air. Sorry. I
didn't catch it until after I distributed the pic. I was under a time
crunch to get the Forms tutorial out.

The splashes were built in the Forms Editor, by the method my tutorial
describes. The boat hull as well.

The dolphins were modeled by guesswork in Detail. They definately look
like dolphins, but they aren't really good models.  Real dolphins are
less tubelike, have white underbellys, and have larger eyes closer to
the mouth.

Why haven't I finished it? I was working on the dolphins when I
started writing my first tutorials. The big problem is getting the
splashes to start and die out. In the middle of the splash, they look
great, but at the end, there is no easy way to transition from a big
chunk of splashing water to a smooth (with waves) ocean surface.
Everything I was experimenting with looks like a local violation of
the conservation of energy...

The pic was rendered in trace mode on my 14Meg A3000 in about 8 hours,
at overscan HAM with max antialiasing. Scanline looks very nice, as
well (The ocean relections are gone, but the sun and waves are nearly
unaffected), and takes about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, half of this
is loading in the mungo brushmaps and the Vista Pro object, so
rendering at small sizes doesn't save very much.

Glad everyone liked it.

-Steve

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

##

Subject: Ocean Sunrise
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 91 21:11:47 -0400
From: [e-mail] (BRANHAM,JOSEPH FRANKLIN)

Scary stuff. How many objects do we have to donate to get you to post the
source to the program for generating the waves?

Moo.
Frank Branham

##

Subject: What is the current state of Imagine extras and sutff out there
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 91 11:07:54 JST
From: [e-mail] (Manjit Bedi)

Manjit Bedi ( [e-mail])

Steve ( Worley), could you or whoever make a list of all those disks,
videos and books and other relavent things that are out in the world
that have been mentioned on the list since it's inception.  Prices and
so on would be nice.  I am starting to feel the need to get some of
these things like Glenn Lewis's program TDDD ( or is TTDDD).

An aside:

Was there anything in the way of HDTV at SIGGRAPH?  A few months ago I went
to 'Computer Graphics Osaka 91' and saw some amazing stuff.  The one thing
that really impressed me was something called Hyperdesign studio or something
like that.  It was a  3-d modeling/design/paintbox using an HDTV display
to do the editing on.  It was astouding in term of smooth integration between
it's different features.  But these things are so hard to put across in
ASCII.

Aspiring renaissance man - software programmer/ amateur actor/ social misfit?

##

Subject: Re: Upgrade
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 91 14:16:54 EDT
From: cbmtor![e-mail] (Caleb J. Howard (Product Support))

>         WELL,WELL. So you have a *contact*! I too, have been in
> regular contact with Impulse to the tune of $200-300 in phone
> bills each year over past 3 years ( that 800 number is no good to
> users outside the US). I have NEVER(!) been informed of an OFFICIAL
> IMPULSE UPGRADE OUTLET here in Canada. I certainly have never
> received any newletters from this person. What you are suggesting
> in your message is second only to SOFTWARE PIRACY itself. We ALL
> have "contacts". The problem with this:

One thing at a time.  You are rude.  I am not a pirate.  Your implication
that I am offends me.  My contact is through Commodore Canada, my employers.

>
>         1. It's possibly ILLEGAL;

As it was authorized by Impulse, I doubt that the legality of the deal is in
question.

>         2. You have to find a/the contact with the upgrade and it's
>            associated documentation and it's no surprize to me that
>            you were upgraded in May and not in January, when users
>            in the US were (if your business was 3D animation, you'd
>            be broke);

The contact found ME.  I just sat here, and the phone rang.  If my business was
3d animation, I would not be broke.  I would have used my native intelligence
and made do with the resources at my disposal, as I have done all my life.
What did 3d animators do prior to Imagine 1.1?  did they just sit and wait for
the product, or did they use what they had?  (That's rhetoric)

>         3. You have to be AWARE that the upgrade is available (many
>            users use the software in Production(+/-$) and yet do not
>            follow the Amiga scene. They buy the software on the
>            assumption that a Warrenty Card is all that's required;

The upgrade is NOT, (as far as I know) generally available.  I did not state
that it was.  I just offerred a small bit of change from the constant bitching
I read from people about a product that they like enough to use.  I just wanted
the world to know that at least one person in Canada received the upgrade with
a minimum of hassle.

>         4. This is of NO help whatsoever to the NEW user who has
>            no *connections* at all other than buying a C= machine,
>            a piece of software and sending in all his Warrenty Cards;

I was not attempting to be especially helpful.  I was hust telling my small
side of the tale.

>         5. IT'S NOT PROFESSIONAL!

Why not?  It works.  My job is to test Amiga products (amongst other things).
I get paid to do so.  In this case I acquired the product legitimatly, and
tested it.  I got paid.  I call that professional.

>
>         If this story of an official upgrade outlet in Canada is
> true, then SHAME on IMPULSE for not informing it's registered
> users, and SHAME on the "gentleman" for not doing his job of upgrading
> ALL users.

What bloody story of an official upgrade?!  I'm sorry, but you're putting words
into my mouth and then flaming me for them.  SHAME on you, you arrogant twit.
The gentleman in question was doing me and Impulse a favour.  He was not doing
it because it was his job, nor did I say he was.

>         Whether or not this "gentleman" is an official upgrade
> outlet, SHAME on you for accepting the current situation as a
> suitable upgrade path for non-US users in general and thereby
> (un)consciously putting into question the needs of ALL and attempting
> to _snip in the bud_ a concerted effort to get Impulse to live up
> to it's documented Upgrade Agreement, one made to ALL users upon
> purchasing their software!

Having carefully re-read my post repeatedly, I can find no mention of my
acceptance of my situation as excusing Impulse from anything.  If I
unconciously put anyone's quite valid expectations of Impulse, or nipped
anything in the bud, I certainly did not intend to.  I don't see that I did,
but extend apologies to any who feel as you do that I have sinned.

>         I think you owe an explaination.

As I have been informed by my employers, the fact that I am typing this on
Commodore's equipment, on Commodore's time disallows my telling you to ...
So I won't.

> Stephen Menzies
> Email: [e-mail]

My apologies to all but Mr. Menzies for this.  I would have limited my responce
to Mr. Menzies, but for the fact that he called me a pirate.  I, in my high-
school days, did copy software illegally.  I cannot excuse this, nor can I
change the fact.  However, I went to University of Waterloo for five years so
that I could get my degree and, therafter, a job working with the computer of
my choice so that I could get the software I could not afford without being
labelled a pirate.  For this reason, I felt that I could not let this
unprovoked slur go unanswered.
Jeez...  THis has set my Tsen training back months.
Oh, well... Toujours Gai, that's my motto!
-caleb

##

Subject: Siggraph Trip Report
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 91 10:13:02 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

As promised, here is a brief rundown of just a small portion of what went on
at Siggraph.

Buttloads of people showed up for the Siggraph Amiga gathering, some of whom
are on the Imagine mailing list. Unfortunately, the crowd was so large, I
didn't get much of a chance to talk to several people I had hoped to. Two
people were there soliciting Amiga animators for their demo tapes. The first
was Toni Staffieri who was looking to find prospective freelance animators
for clients of hers. If you are interested in possibly doing some freelance
work, send Toni a demo tape of your work to the address below. Also on hand
was someone from FRESH Video Portfolio. FRESH markets demo tapes of high-end
animation production houses all across the country. He was looking for Amiga
animations for a new volume in the FRESH portfolio. It was unclear whether
this volume was to be distributed to other Amiga animation enthudiasts or to
possible animation clients (as is the case with the other volumes). In any
event, the address is below.

FRESH Video Portfolio            Toni Staffieri
639 N. Larchmont Blvd. #201      7514 Girard Ave.
L.A., CA 90004                   La Jolla, CA 92037
[phone]

A number of people showed some of their work both at the Amiga gathering
as well as at the LA Video Toaster Users Group party held on Tuesday
at Siggraph. Also shown was Martin Hash's film "Joyride". While I thought
it was a good film, I don't feel it sufficiently showed off the capablities
of Animation Jouneyman (at least not enough to sell the product on its
own IMHO).

Amigas could be found all over the exhibition but the most visible displays
were Digital Micronics and NewTek. NewTek was showing off the latest version
of the Toaster software with some pretty funky new effects (from page rips
to falling sheep). The most notable enhancements were made in LightWave's
modeler including: twist, taper, cross section, split, magnet, any many
others. Digital Micronics showed off their 34010 based 8bit graphics board.
A 24bit version using the 34020 and up to four 34082s is in the works.
The University of Lowell also showed of the A2410 running color Amiga Unix.

As was already mentioned, Viewpoint was giving away 5 free objects. They
were a biplane, face, car, cow, and 3 wheel ATV. They currently have a
library of over 250 objects including: planes, trains, automobiles,
motorcycles, sea vessels, helicopters, misc vehicles, people, anatomy,
human organs, animals, dinosaurs, and miscellaneous stuff. They range in
price from a few hundred dollars to five thousand each and are available
in a variety of object formats. The only Amiga object format I recall seeing
however was LightWave (though I could be mistaken). You can contact them
at:  Viewpoint
     140 S. Mountainway #1
     Orem, Utah 84058
     1-800-748-4170

Jim Plant, editor/publisher of AVID was roaming about giving out free copies
of his magazine. For those who haven't seen it, it is a wonderful source
for tips and techniques for the Amiga video community. Contact them at:
Avid Publications
415-112 N. Mary Ave. #207
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
[phone]

While walking around the exhibition floor with Steve Worley, Steve mentioned
that Cyberware (the people who make the color 3D laser scanners) have in
the past scanned people and sold them the database. In fact, they agreed
to do it for free provided I supply them with a 1/4" cartridge tape.
The system required that I sit still in a stationary chair while the laser
scanned around me (about 20 seconds). It produced a nearly flawless scan
with only 2 minor errors due to uncontrolled lighting on the exhibition floor.
Using a Silicon Graphics machine, they brought up a full color solid model
of myself and rotated it about. It was quite impressive, and for only $40K
you can have one in your living room. Anyway, I am sending them the tape
today and should get it back shortly. It will be in Wavefront obj format.
I will either be writing a Wavefront converter or using the one that will
be coming with the next release of LightWave. I'm not sure how big the object
is because I was told two different numbers. Its either 250K bytes or 250K
polygons. If its the former, I'll upload it when its converted so you can
morph and mutate me into all sorts of hideous forms. Ctberware does perform
service work (I'm not sure of the fee) and if you are interested, they can
be contacted at:

Cyberware
8 Harris Court
Monterey, CA 93940
[phone]

Todd Rundgren was at Siggraph to announce the creation of a joint video
production company effort with NewTek called Nutopia. I got a chance to
talk to him briefly about the venture. He now has 30 Toaster equipped
Amigas to speed up rendering tasks. At a minimum of $6K each, thats at least
$180K. While I love the Amiga, at that price I think I would get a high-end
SGI box and the animation software from Softimage or Thomson Digital Image
(which by the way both win my award for the best 3D animation software
available).

Speaking of SGI, for those who haven't already heard, they released a new
low end workstation for under $8K. For those interested, I have included
a portion of the press release below.

A partial list of those who attended the Amiga gatherings include:

Richard Addison            Marvin Landis
Nicholas Alwin             Eric Lavitsky
Jason Andreas              Blake Mago
Larry Arnold               Marty Makward
Ray Brand                  Gene Miller
A J Broderick              Ernie Potvin
Randy Carris               Brian Reynolds
John Desveaux              Rick Rodriguez
Svante Gellerstam          Steve Segal
Tony Gomez                 Spence Shanson
John Grieggs               Vern Staats
Toshiaki Katoh             Mark Thompson
David Joiner               Eric Townsend
Al Kelly                   Alovie Widdowson
                           Tim Wilson

       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (July 22, 1991) - Silicon Graphics (NYSE:SGI)
today announced IRIS Indigo(tm), the first high-performance, color
RISC personal computer.

The IRIS Indigo system is the foundation of Silicon Graphics' new
computing strategy that makes visualization technology accessible to a
broad range of users.  Maintaining binary compatibility with the
entire IRIS 4D(tm) product family, the system runs close to 1,500
vertical and productivity software packages for the technical,
scientific and creative professional.  It also supports software and
networking standards for easy integration into existing computing
environments.  The IRIS Indigo system is compatible with the ACE
initiative's hardware specifications (also known as Advanced Risc
Computer, or ARC) and will be capable of running future ACE
application software.

"Compaq endorses IRIS Indigo as a key early development platform for
ACE," said Gary Stimac, senior vice president, Systems Engineering,
Compaq Computer Corporation.  In accordance with the ACE initiative,
the system incorporates the MIPS(R) R3000A(tm) processor, a 101-key PC
keyboard, 8-bit graphics, 16-bit audio, Ethernet, SCSI, serial and
parallel ports and little-endian byte ordering.  IRIS Indigo also
supports big-endian byte ordering.

The IRIS Indigo computer provides features not found in any other
system in this price range.  The system offers dynamic 2D and 3D
graphics capabilities, texture mapping and alpha blending.  Due to a
breakthrough architecture that enables a much lower price, IRIS Indigo
offers the full power of the IRIS Graphics Library(tm) (GL(tm))
application programmer's interface to a broad set of users and
application developers.

In addition to leading-edge graphics, IRIS Indigo delivers real-time
audio and video capabilities on the desktop.  The system ships with a
microphone, has built-in DAT-quality audio, and will offer optional
low-cost video.

"IRIS Indigo's audio and video capabilities let software developers
add new dimensions and create richer, more intuitive solutions," said
Michael Ramsay, general manager and vice president of Silicon
Graphic's Entry Systems Division.  "The explosion of new, exciting
applications will give end users innovative tools for understanding
and communicating information."

IRIS Indigo features a fast balanced 33Mhz R3000A RISC CPU, delivering
30 MIPS and 26 SPECmarks.  The system can be expanded by adding
real-time color video cards, memory, I/O and storage devices.  It has
five audio, one parallel, one SCSI II, one Ethernet and two serial
connections as well as a GIO Bus for additional expansion.  The IRIS
Indigo computer can be expanded up to 1.3 GB of disk space and up to
96 MB of RAM.

The IRIS Indigo base price is $7,995, including 8 MB memory and a 16"
color monitor.  Systems that add a 236MB formatted disk drive are
priced at $9,995.  IRIS Indigo will be available in volume in
September 1991 through a variety of distribution channels.

%~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
%      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  %
% --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   %
%      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   %
%     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   %
%                                                                          %
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~