Amiga Tools 3/Amiga Tools 3.iso/grafik/raytracing/imagine/tips/iml_july64.txt

Text File | 1995-08-02 | 1MB | 29,597 lines

Date:    Sunday, 02 July 1995 14:09:09
Subject: FAQ's
From:    [e-mail]


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

Could someone post a message as soon as Imagine FAQ#7 is available
on aminet?  Also, has anyone had trouble with system lock-ups while
doing directory listings while accessing aminet via FTP: ftp.netnet.net?
(And is there another aminet access FTP that might be less troublesome?)

                    -- Dave ([e-mail])


Date:    Sunday, 02 July 1995 14:11:10
Subject: Fuzz texture and Fur
From:    [e-mail]


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

In light of the recent disscussion about representing hair
(something that I've been trying to do too), does anyone know
anything about the "Fuzz" texture and how it works?  It seems like
it could be used to simulate fur, but I can't find any reference
to it in the manual or in any of the "readme" files for 3.0
through 3.2.

                         -- Dave


Date:    Sunday, 02 July 1995 17:00:05
Subject: RE:ImageFX Arexx
From:    James Cheseborough <[e-mail]>


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

I must have missed the posting with the script. Would you please
post your "updated" script. Thanks!

On Thu, 29 Jun 1995, Peter Borcherds wrote:

>
>
> Hi there Fernando
>
> I tried out your arexx script.  It worked fine, except for the following
> items :
>
> Imagine's format is pic.#### - note that there are four numerals after
> the point.  This means that the line reading......
>
> frnum = RIGHT(frame,3,'0') should read.....
>
> frnum = RIGHT(frame,4,'0').
>
> The only other problem I found was that for the frames I used to test
> the script, I needed to lock the palette.  This I added as.....
>
> Gadget.7 = 'Lock Palette'.  I then changed the ListRequest from 6 to 7.
>
> I added the line.....   WHEN numcol = 7 THEN LockRange 0 On
>
> But apart from those two problems, the script was fine. Good work....
>
> Here is the modified script, with arrows pointing to new or changed
> lines.
>
> Cheers......
>
>
> Peter Borcherds                  E-Mail: [e-mail]
>
> =========================================================================
>               ---Greetings from the Southern Hemisphere---    :*)
>
>              Amiga 4000/030  68882/40mhz  540mb HD  10mb RAM
> =========================================================================
>
>
>
> /*-----------------------<START OF MODIFIED SCRIPT>--------------------*/
>
>           /* $VER: MakeAnim 1.0 (25.3.95)
>            *
>            * Arexx program for ImageFX
>            *by Fernando D'Andrea.
>            *
>            */
>
>            OPTIONS RESULTS
>
>            Message 'Anim Compilator 1.0'
>
>            Saveundo
>            Undo off
>            Redraw off
>            LockInput
>
>            RequestFile '"BASENAME without ###:"'       /* Basename */
>            If rc ~= 0 THEN EXIT
>            basename = result
>
>            RequestFile '"Output ANIM:"'                /* Output name */
>            If rc ~= 0 THEN EXIT
>            output = result
>
>            If EXISTS(output) THEN DO
>            RequestResponse 'Output Animation already exists. Overwrite?'
>            If rc ~=0 THEN EXIT
>            ADDRESS COMMAND 'C:Delete >NIL:' output
>            END
>
>            Gadget.1 = 'Anim Format:'                    /*Anim Format*/
>            Gadget.2 = '256 Colour'
>            Gadget.3 = '32 Colour'
>            Gadget.4 = '256 Greyscale'
>            Gadget.5 = '16 Greyscale'
>            Gadget.6 = 'Black & White'
> ------>    Gadget.7 = 'Lock Palette'
>
> ------>    ListRequest 7 gadget
>            If rc ~= 0 THEN EXIT
>            numcol = result
>
>            RequestSlider '"Choose % of Width"' 25 100 50
>            If rc ~= 0 THEN EXIT
>            xnum = result
>
>            RequestSlider '"Choose % of Height"' 25 100 50
>            If rc ~= 0 THEN EXIT
>            ynum = result
>
>            frame = 1
>
>            DO FOREVER
>             Message 'Frame' frame
>             Render Close
> ------>     frnum = RIGHT(frame,4,'0')
>             LoadBuffer basename||frnum Force
>             If rc ~=0 THEN LEAVE
>             Scale Percent xnum 100
>             Scale Percent 100 ynum
>            SELECT
>             WHEN numcol = 2 THEN Render Color 256
>             WHEN numcol = 3 THEN Render Color 32
>             WHEN numcol = 4 THEN Render Color 256
>             WHEN numcol = 5 THEN Render Color 16
>             WHEN numcol = 6 THEN Render Color 2
> ------>     WHEN numcol = 7 THEN LockRange 0 On
>             OTHERWISE NOP
>             END
>            SELECT
>             WHEN numcol = 4 THEN Color2Grey Luma
>             WHEN numcol = 5 THEN Color2Grey Luma
>             WHEN numcol = 6 THEN Halftone 2
> ------>     WHEN numcol = 7 THEN LockRange 0 On
>             OTHERWISE NOP
>             END
>             Render Go
>             SaveRenderedAs 'ANIM' output KEEP APPEND
>             SaveRenderedAs 'ANIM' output CLOSE
>             frame = frame+1
>             END
>
>             Redraw
>             UnLockInput
>             RequestNotify 'DONE.'
>
>             EXIT
>
>
> /*-----------------------<END OF MODIFIED SCRIPT>---------------------*/
>
>  * AmyBW v2.11 *
> ...                            29 Jun 95   9:36:38
>


Date:    Monday, 03 July 1995 01:24:30
Subject: Re:All that we want...
From:    [e-mail] (Michael Rivers)


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


TS> On Sun, 25 Jun 1995, Fernando D'Andrea wrote:

TS> >
TS> > 10. An vertex reduction: simply cut out any useless vertex, and save
TS> > precious memo too. :)

TS>   PixelPro3D V2 does a fairly good job of this. Interchange also has a
TS> point reduction module which does a fairly decent job. But this type of
TS> operation can get tricky for the software. Oh, yeah, Vertex 2.0 also has
TS> this feature.

It should still be in Imagine, this is probably the most annoying, most time
consuming, and most often neccessary thing that I do when editing objects.

TS> > 11. A better "Load IFF" routine. Some brushes, even 2 color ones,
TS> > simply generete a strange jungle of edges.(I hope it occurs only with
TS> > 2.0).

TS>  Might be your choice of colors. If you use Black and White as the 2
TS> colors, it should work fine. I think the Load IFF was improved in 3.0,
TS> also.

It's not the colors, the problem occurs(atleast for me) if the brush has
non-background colors at the edge of the brushmap.  In other words,
when you save the brushmap, make sure that there is 'space'(color 0) all
the way  around the image.

TS> > 12.Organic modeling metods.

TS>   Deformation tool? Became available in 3.0.

The realtime deformation tools need a LOT of work, it is such a pain
to have to move,rotate,scale the objects axis, do the deformation,
replace the axis, etc..

TS>   Have information from a reliable source that 3.3 will have a new Boom
TS> effect which will replace the Explode effect, for all intents and
TS> purposes.

Cool. huhum... excuse me... Kewl :)

Things I'ld like:

I'ld like to see is a Hide command that replaces the Hide Points Mode.
Instead of switching between Hide Points and Points or Edge or Face or
Object  modes, I'ld rather select the faces, edges or points(or objects),
and then select the 'Hide' command to hide what I've selected.

ASL filerequesters.

A 'Ghost' command, which would  make face, edges and/or points not be
selectable (just like Hide) but still show up dimmly on the screen(ie,
render them in the grid color), this way you can still see the points,etc.
but they don't get in the way.

ASL filerequesters.

Remove all the 'One Entry Requesters'. Namely the Brush/Texture priority
requester, the frame requester in the stage & cycle editors.

ASL, ASL, ASL, settledown Beavis!

Replace the the  'Start, End, Step' requesters with appropriate requesters
the have seperate entries for start, end and step.

Fix ALL of the string/number gadgets, Does anyone know why they are so
bloody slow?(When you hit enter in one gadget it takes FOREVER before
the next gadget is activated)  I'ld also like to see these gadgets
support TAB and Shift/TAB cycling (BTW, this is built into the OS, so
it shouldn't be anything major).

The color box(like in the attributes requester needs to take advantage
of AGA Amiga's 24 bit color palette, instead of dithering 3 or 4 12 bit
colors. (Compare the render object's color to the color in the
attributes requester, they rarely match)

I'ld also like to see Moving & Rotating enchancements, for example,
instead of using the Mov or Rot buttons, if you want to move an object,
simply grab it by the center of its axis and drag it, if you want to
rotate it, grab the object by one of its axii and drag it,
(for ex. to rotate an object around its X axis, grab and drag the 'X'
 on the objects axis)
if you want to rotate around would axis you could use the "World Axis"
(in the bottom lefter corner of the Top, Front, and Right views)

Perhaps most of all, I would like a Stage & Project editor that doesn't
reload every object for every frame.
          A4000/040 25mhz  14megs 1,451meg hd

--------------------------------------------------------------
|  Commodore failure. Press left mouse button to continue    |
|     Guru Meditation  $8100000C     Task : $416C6920        |
--------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Monday, 03 July 1995 01:25:32
Subject: Re:mapping & light
From:    [e-mail] (Michael Rivers)


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

DS> Alright, you Imagine gurus, give me your best stuff:

DS> (I'm using 3.2 on a pc)

DS> I've created an altitude map ("John" written in bold black letters on
DS> a white background).  Made a default sphere added the quick
DS> attributes of gold and applied the altitude map as a wrap x & z.

DS> The render makes the letters engraved into the gold metal ball like I
DS> wanted, but they look like they were engraved with a chisel.  All the
DS> letters are real bumpy, not smooth, where the engraving took place.

Use a bigger brushmap, then smooth out the colors.  Also use grey
(127,127,127) for the background.

DS> Also what is the best way to create this effect:

DS> A box with a bright light inside it.  As you lift up the corner of
DS> the box, the light beams and bright light are discovered and
DS> gradually seen.  The more you open the box, the brighter the light
DS> gets and the wider and longer the light beams get.

DS> I've played with some fog/filtered objects as light beams, but it
DS> just isn't looking all that real.  Any suggestions?

Well, you'll need a lens-flare on the light, which may or may not
work correctly in 3.2(I know it doesn't in 3.0). Make the light
extra-bright, make it cast shadows, and ray-trace.  (makes 5-6
10oz. servings:)

DS> Thanks,

DS> Internet:  [e-mail]

--------------------------------------------------------------
|  Commodore failure. Press left mouse button to continue    |
|     Guru Meditation  $8100000C     Task : $416C6920        |
--------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Monday, 03 July 1995 07:06:54
Subject: 3.3 & no IML for a while
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


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

 does anyone know if 3.3 is 'packing' or 'shipping' ????

  also i havent had any email from the IML for a few days now is it possible
that ive been unsubscribed or that the IML is having trouble

 dunacn
..............................................................................
..                                                                           .
..                                [e-mail]                    .
..                                                                           .
..............................................................................


Date:    Monday, 03 July 1995 15:06:43
Subject: States???
From:    [e-mail]


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

Hi all,
Boy I've been busy tring to keep up with all the interesting posts.

Anyway, I have just started doing some simple animations, and was wondering
how to use states. The Imagine manual isn't too helpful with the
functions in the states menu.
Here is my problem:
      I have a logo with the crumpled texture, and I just want to
animate the differences between two noise settings.
What I try to do is set-up the texture, the create a default state, the
change the texture and make a new state. After I do this I tell Imagine
to set my object back to default then I check the texture settings, they
should be as I set them for default, but they have changed to the new
states settings.
I have tried to do this in different orders but the settings still remain
the same in both states.

1. Can you define different texture states?
2. Has the tween button in the states menu got anything to do with it
(the manual says that the action editor chapter explains this function,
but I couldn't find it -- what's it doing there anyway 8->)?
3. Should I just shoot myself if I ever think of picking up the manual again?

Sorry if all this has been discussed before, I've checked dare-2-imagine
and the FAQ and didn't find anything relating to my problem.
Just flame me if States should be self-explanitory! BTW, the manual says
what a wonderful thing state is, and recommends learning this until you
master it, then they tell you very little about the functions 8-(
My wish list for Imagine 3.3-4.0 would be a descent manual, perhaps
writing by a few people on this list  who know how to explain things
properly.

Phew,
Rod Macey
[e-mail]




Date:    Monday, 03 July 1995 17:40:16
Subject: Anyone have 3.3?
From:    Ian Smith <[e-mail]>


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

Has anyone found 3.3 in their mailbox yet?  :-)

--
[e-mail]         Visit Below!
My HP48/Imagine Home Page  -->  http://moose.erie.net/~iansmith/
Come Visit Africa Imports! -->  http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/



Date:    Monday, 03 July 1995 17:51:05
Subject: Test post
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

Anybody else losing posts?  I dropped one in on Saturday, and it hasn't
shown up yet.  (It was a pretty reactionary post, so maybe my karma cut
me off at the pass).


Date:    Monday, 03 July 1995 19:45:59
Subject: Anybody out there
From:    Wayne Waite <[e-mail]>


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

Sorry to post this onto the mailing list. But is there anybody out there.
I haven't had any mail for 4 days from anywhere.



Date:    Monday, 03 July 1995 22:26:12
Subject: Wish list.
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

I wish I could use the left hand alt key. Please !!!!
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          40 05 17 37 35 07                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Monday, 03 July 1995 23:35:39
Subject: Problem trying to outline fonts (Font within a font look)
From:    James Cheseborough <[e-mail]>


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

What's the best way to get an font object that has a "bigger"
version of itself laid on top of itself?
I see this all the time in the commercial world, but I'm having problems
doing it with Imagine. I'm trying not to rebuild the whole character by
hand. Sizing in the spline doen't do it, of course.




Date:    Tuesday, 04 July 1995 07:15:54
Subject: Hello?
From:    Ian Smith <[e-mail]>


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

I have not recieved a single IML message in 4 days... have I been
erased from the list somehow?  Please respond via e-mail if anyone
sees this... thanks!

I miss the IML! :-)

--
[e-mail]              Visit Below!
My HP48/Imagine/ImageMaster Page --> http://moose.erie.net/~iansmith/
Come and stop by Africa Imports! --> http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/



Date:    Tuesday, 04 July 1995 09:46:12
Subject: Re: For those who want to UNSUBSCRIBE
From:    [e-mail] (Mikael Wirde)


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

>Help! I do not wish to leave! Some how my mail has STOPPED! Can any one hear
>me? please send me something or help me subscribe agian. THANK YOU.
>
>

If it makes you feel better, I can tell you that I haven't got any mail myself
from the IML lately. However, rather than making you feel better, it may make
me feel worse. Where is everybody anyway? I am sending this mail in two
versions, one personal reply to [e-mail] and one to the list, so
you should be getting two copies of this, if you are still on the list
(I should also get one extra copy of it, which proves that I am also on the
list). Hope it works. Here goes.......

M Wirde



--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mikael Wirde                    Mail: Box 530
Dept. of Physics                Deliveries: Villavaegen 4B
University of Uppsala           Visitors: Thunbergsvaegen 7
Phone: +46 18 - 18 36 03        S-751 21 UPPSALA
Fax: +46 18 - 18 36 11          SWEDEN
E-mail: [e-mail]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:    Tuesday, 04 July 1995 10:39:04
Subject: TEST - do not read
From:    [e-mail]


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

Just testing my connection to the IML

*---------------------------------------------------------------*
|   Conny Joensson   |   Swedish Space Corp. Esrange            |
|   Kiruna           |   Satellite operations - Telecom Div.    |
|   Sweden           |   [e-mail]              |
*---------------------------------------------------------------*


Date:    Tuesday, 04 July 1995 10:55:45
Subject: Hello there
From:    [e-mail] (joop van de wege)


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

Hi All,

Is this lists still alive ????????

I haven't had a single mail since friday evening (june 30)

I did have a mail bounce but not from this list so I should still be on it.

Anyway Announcement:

The IML archive of June will appear on Aminet within a couple of days.
Again both in guide and text format and I'm thing of making a html version
although you can use 'ag2html' to convert from AmigaGuide to HTML.

The idea to make a windows helpfile from the archive is still alive but I
don't have much time to work on it.

Greetings Joop


Date:    Tuesday, 04 July 1995 11:53:44
Subject: Font problem. How to outline it!
From:    James Cheseborough <[e-mail]>


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

What's the best way to get an font object that has a "bigger"
version of itself laid on top of itself?
I see this all the time in the commercial world, but I'm having problems
doing it with Imagine. I'm trying NOT to rebuild the whole character by
hand. Sizing in the spline ed doen't do it, of course.


Date:    Tuesday, 04 July 1995 16:16:08
Subject: IML Outage
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


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


Hi all (if anyone is out there)
      My IML mail has dropped to zero.  I've noted a few other folks with
this problem in the past.  So I'm sending this out to see if it doesn't
bounce.  If anyone cares to, please drop me a note confirming you saw
this so I can begin to track down the problem.

Thanks,
Greg Denby
[e-mail]


Date:    Tuesday, 04 July 1995 22:10:55
Subject: Re: sale
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

>I'm afraid that due to certain financial situations (namely me losing
>my job), I'm forced to part with my treasured Imagine 3.x software
>under strict order's from "She who take's no crap".
>I'm selling as a result my Imagine 3.0, 3.1 update disk's, 3.2 update
>disk's and the two future update's I've paid for and I'm still awaiting
>all for the Amiga computer.
>
>It's fully working with manual etc. and has got to be
>worth....mmmmm.... 350 pound's ONO.
>Any taker's, i'll chuck in a couple of disk's of PD object's and
>textures :)
>
Hi there.
        I see that you live in the UK and would be interested to know where
you get the update disk's from. I would buy yours but I use imagine on a PC.
        C U later.
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          40 05 17 37 35 07                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Tuesday, 04 July 1995 22:11:04
Subject: IML-FAQ#07 preview
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

>>From [e-mail] Tue Jun 27 08:20:15 1995
>From: "Calcolo Numerico 01" <[e-mail]>
>Organization:  Math. Dept. of Genoa Univ., Italy
>To: [e-mail]
>Date:          Tue, 27 Jun 1995 08:25:57 GMT+1
>Subject:       IML-FAQ#07 preview
>Priority: normal
>
>Hi fellows,
>        this is the 'what's new' for IML-FAQ#07, I'm waiting for Dave
>reply to upload the latest FAQ release to Aminet, read Ya soon!
>
>
>========================================================================
>Last Update   : June 24, 1995 Saturday
>Issue Number  : 7
>What's New    : Section 2, No 18.  Help with bones
>                Section 2, No 19.  Halo around light
>                Section 2, No 20.  Reflective object inside a glass tube
>                Section 2, No 21.  Slice function tips
>                Section 2, No 22.  Undersea fog spotlight
>                Section 2, No 23.  How can I create a disco ball?
>                Section 2, No 24.  Modeling candle flame
>                Section 6, No 7.   Sway FX
>                Section 7, No 15.  Fog: the 'cancel' problem
>                Section 8, No 9.   Sludge Attribute using default
>                                   Imagine 2.9 (or higher) textures
>                Section 8, No 10.  Marble (Imagine 2.0 or high)
>                Section 8, No 11.  Starfield (Imagine 2.9 or high)
>                Section 8, No 12.  Photon Torpedo (Imagine 2.9 or high)
>                Section 8, No 13.  Spaceship shield Attribute
>                                   (Imagine 2.9 and higher)
>                Section 9, No 4.   Hex edit for high res video change
>                Section 9, No 6.   Motion blur
>                Section 9, No 7.   3D stereograms
>                Section 9, No 8.   Working with bitmaps

Is this up yet and if so in which directory please ?
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          40 05 17 37 35 07                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Wednesday, 05 July 1995 01:04:55
Subject: More Textures for I3.0
From:    [e-mail] (Michael Rivers)


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

Just for your rendering pleasure, I've uploaded a few new textures to Aminet.

Look for:
gfx/3dobj/FXtextures.lha

The textures are basically a set that replaces my older 'Alpha' texture,
this new set should be considerably easier to use, and alot easier for
me to expand upon.  Also includes a Flare texture, which creates a
hotspot 'inside' the object (similar to AnmFlare from Ian?)

PS.  This archive contains only Amiga(fp) textures for I3.0.
PPS. The FX_ textures cannot be ported to Imagine for DOS. :(
     (because DOS doesn't have public (or any) semaphores)


Date:    Wednesday, 05 July 1995 09:36:55
Subject: Is there any mail
From:    Carsten Bach <[e-mail]>


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

I have not received any mail the last week. Is it just me or, has there not
been any?





Date:    Wednesday, 05 July 1995 11:31:04
Subject: Anim newbie probs
From:    [e-mail]


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

Hi everyone
As I mentiontioned in my previous post, I've just started to try some
animations.
Today's problem is:
I create a simple animation with 30 frames of a spining logo, with a
primitive plane in the backgound that is a little bit reflective with
the crumpled texture.
The first 20 frames seem fine, but towards the end the scene seems to
"shrink" down to a small box area in the middle of the frame with the
sky colour showing around this small box area.
The only thing I can think of is the world size is shrinking. I have set
it's size to 0,0,0. But why is the first 20 or so frames OK?

Are there any tutorials around for creating animations?

And finaly, is my server acting screwy or have there been no posts for
the last three days? If there has been posts, would some kind soul who
has kept the last few days posts mind forward them to me.

Thanks
Rod Macey
[e-mail]

"Sometimes the hard way is the only way"





Date:    Wednesday, 05 July 1995 12:35:33
Subject: FORM TDDD
From:    Wizard <[e-mail]>


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

Yaba daba doo Imagineers,


        I have two question on TDDD iff sub-chunk:

 i)  there can be two or more OBJ chunks into an Imagine TDDD file
     (I've got an Imagine obj with more OBJ chunks and Imagine Detail Ed
     have some problem manage it)?

ii)  what data contains the following TDDD sub-chunks:
        TPAR, SURF, MTTR, SPEC, PRP0, INTS  (I've found these into
     another TDDD Imagine objects).

PLEASE REPLY TO [e-mail]



Date:    Wednesday, 05 July 1995 12:47:37
Subject: Guides & htmls in Aminet
From:    [e-mail] (ERNESTO POVEDA CORTES)


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

Hi to all

      i have uploaded today in wuarchive (aminet) the following files:

      - d2iguide.lha   Guide version of dare to imagine.
  - d2ihtml.lha    HTML version of the above.
  - faq6guide.lha  guide version of IML FAQ #6
  - faq6html.lha   HTML version of IML FAQ #6 (also on the Ian Smith Page!)

  I think there will be in the recent in a few days, hope you enjoy it!!

--
email: [e-mail]  --> Ernesto Poveda Cortes (I am not a number :)

NOTE: .Sig under reconstruction ....


Date:    Thursday, 06 July 1995 02:08:00
Subject: What happened?
From:    [e-mail]


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


I haven't received any mail from this list for six days. Is there a
problem with the server or did I get accidently unsubscribed? If this
appears on the IML and there hasn't been a complete shutdown of the
list, please Re-Subscribe!

Floater


Date:    Thursday, 06 July 1995 05:01:31
Subject: Test (do not read)
From:    [e-mail]


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

This is a test, only a test



Date:    Thursday, 06 July 1995 06:43:35
Subject: Converting to pc
From:    [e-mail] (Gareth Qually)


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

I am thinking of getting a 486DX2-66 with 8megs of ram and a half gig
drive. Has any one else who has changed platforms had a problem
converting. By this I mean using equivalent programs on the pc.

I am getting Imagine for the pc, but what program is most like Deluxe
Paint. The same with Opal Paint (I have looked at Photoshop and Fractal
Design Painter, Which is better for animation design).

And is there a program that I can use to connect the pc to my Amiga to
do file transfers.

By the way does imagine use the memory space on the pc like it does on
the Amiga. By this I mean if I create a project that uses 8megs of
memory on the Amiga, will the pc run the same project?

Thanks...

Chow...

[e-mail]


Date:    Thursday, 06 July 1995 08:49:01
Subject: No postings coming through....
From:    "JOSEPH F. HART" <[e-mail]>


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

     I am not seeing any postings to this mailing list any more.
I have not seen any for at least a week.  I have attempted a
resubscription without any response.  Is anyone still here ?
Am I still on the list ?

___________________________________________________________________
                  |         Internet: [e-mail]
Joseph Hart       |     /// Plink   : OSS542
Niagara Falls, NY | \\\///  Ham call: WA2SND
                  |  \XX/   FreeNet : [e-mail]
                  |     *** AMIGA - Computers for REAL MEN ***
===================================================================


Date:    Thursday, 06 July 1995 14:18:18
Subject: Hello?
From:    --Craig <[e-mail]>


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

I know it's a holiday weekend, but I haven't gotten any IML mail since
last week. Is it something I said?

Hate to send to everyone on the list, but this is a test to see if I
get a bounce. Has anyone been getting returns from my address?

Just to make this a worthwhile message, how about a little help: I've
been trying to light a room as if from a single window opposite the
camera. I've had several ideas, one of which was to do the standard
three lights, but at lower intensity (say 48,48,48) plus one bright
shadow-casting one just outside the window. This looks okay, but
something is still a little bit off. Has anyone had success lighting
this sort of situation well?

Hoping this message makes it through.

  --Craig
[e-mail]


Date:    Thursday, 06 July 1995 20:01:49
Subject: Why?
From:    Thomas Gaiser <[e-mail]>


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

To whom it may concern:
Why do I receive no articles from the imagine mailing list anymore?
Do I have to subscribe once again?

           ---------------------------------------------------------
          | Thomas Gaiser                          |home:           |
          | [e-mail]         |Elchstr. 21     |
          | Universitaet Tuebingen                 |72768 Reutlingen|
          | Seminar fuer Sinologie und Koreanistik |Germany         |
           ---------------------------------------------------------



Date:    Thursday, 06 July 1995 21:34:44
Subject: Re: New Feature Administrator
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

All right.  Does this post mean that the IML is up and running again?
This is the first post I've gotten from the list for five days!  Several
others were locked out, as well, yet this string has the tone of
continuity about it.

Was there a regional blackout, or was everyone effected by this lapse?


Date:    Thursday, 06 July 1995 21:39:44
Subject: Re: Hello there
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Tue, 4 Jul 1995, joop van de wege wrote:

> Hi All,
[snip]
> The IML archive of June will appear on Aminet within a couple of days.
> Again both in guide and text format and I'm thing of making a html version
> although you can use 'ag2html' to convert from AmigaGuide to HTML.
>
Aloha!

I know this is a super dumb PC user question, but is it pretty easy to
convert the AG format to HTML for us PC dorks?  I'd be happy to post them
up off of websharx, or write something to convert them to HTML if nothing
in the UNIX or PC world is currently available to do this.

Where on Aminet should I look to pick it up?

Sorry for being a bit naive about this....

Sharky

[e-mail]/CIS#70614,2011 __   v  Home Page : http://aloha.com/~sharky
WebSurfer & Fun Guy,Funky    __/  \ >*< Hawaii Related Links and Etcetera's
WWW Page Designs,       ____/    ) | ^  3D Modelling & Animation Art,Objects,
Tech. Planning  /\_____/          } \   Home Server:http://www.websharx.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(_________ALOHA!_______)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~






Date:    Thursday, 06 July 1995 22:09:50
Subject: Re: Test (do not read)
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

I'm running tests, too.  I haven't gotten a post from the IML since
Saturday.  I'm using the new unisysg address, but everyone else seems to
be using the above string.  Were you blanked out too, for the last five days?

On Thu, 6 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> This is a test, only a test
>
>


Date:    Thursday, 06 July 1995 22:11:09
Subject: Re: Is there any mail
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

There's apparently been mail, at least to some of us.  Because the two or
three posts I got today seem to be continuing threads of discussion that
were never interrupted.  But I sure haven't seen diddly from the list
since Sat.

On Wed, 5 Jul 1995, Carsten Bach wrote:

> I have not received any mail the last week. Is it just me or, has there not
> been any?
>
>
>
>


Date:    Thursday, 06 July 1995 22:25:00
Subject: Output/video
From:    Marty Nussbaum <[e-mail]>


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


Hello All,
      I need to make a demo tape and don't have access to the equipment on
campus. What I want to do is buy what I need to output to video from my
home computer. What equipment do I need to purchase? I'm running Imagine 3.2
on a Pentuim 90 w/40 megs Ram. I'm also using Adobe Premiere (?spelling)
to make AVI files. I could use the equipment in the art department at
school but since I'm NOT an art major I get put on the bottom of the
list. If an art major comes in and needs to output to video, his/her name
gets put above mine. Therefore it would be a cold day in hell before I
could use the equipment. Any help and/or suggestions will be deeply
appreciated. Thanks,


              Marty

              ***************         _ _ /|
              *    ACK!!    *         \'o.O'
              *  Hairball!  *         =(___)=
              ***************            U






Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 01:44:21
Subject: Re: What happened?
From:    Rodney McNeel <[e-mail]>


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

There is Definitely some problem with the list. Don't feel alone.


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 03:13:07
Subject: New Web Stuff
From:    Ian Smith <[e-mail]>


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

Glad to have the IML back!

I have added an HTML version of Dare To Imagine that was sent to me
by Ernesto Poveda Cortes to my home page as well as updated all
the refrences to Aminet to the Web version which will not have
the delays and problems that wuarchive does.  A link to the nice
raytracing tutorial is there as well.

Can't wait for 3.3!  Impulse said to expect them any day as they
are currently shipping them...

--
[e-mail]              Visit Below! :-)
My HP48/Imagine/ImageMaster Page --> http://moose.erie.net/~iansmith/
Come and stop by Africa Imports! --> http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/



Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 03:21:10
Subject: ------=> Sorry NO Subject!
From:    [e-mail]


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

I'm afraid that due to certain financial situations (namely me losing
my job), I'm forced to part with my treasured Imagine 3.x software
under strict order's from "She who take's no crap".
I'm selling as a result my Imagine 3.0, 3.1 update disk's, 3.2 update
disk's and the two future update's I've paid for and I'm still awaiting
all for the Amiga computer.

It's fully working with manual etc. and has got to be
worth....mmmmm.... 350 pound's ONO.
Any taker's, i'll chuck in a couple of disk's of PD object's and
textures :)


--
~===========================================================================~
 Darren Priestnall - [e-mail] (P&GImaging)
     3D imaging and FX for carbon print's and video

               WWW demo page coming on-line soon



Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 04:03:44
Subject: Re: mapping & light
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Derek Shenk <[e-mail]>
>
> I've created an altitude map ("John" written in bold black letters on
> a white background).  Made a default sphere added the quick
> attributes of gold and applied the altitude map as a wrap x & z.
>
> The render makes the letters engraved into the gold metal ball like I
> wanted, but they look like they were engraved with a chisel.  All the
> letters are real bumpy, not smooth, where the engraving took place.

There's a strong chance that the bumpy look is caused by jaggies in your
bump map. Since Imagine converts everything to 24-bit internally, you do
_not_ want to simply increase the map's resolution. Well, you do, but
then, you'll want to average it back down to a manageable resolution,
using any decent image processor. The anti-aliased pixels that result
will give the same visual impression as the ultra-sharp, high-res
version of the map before shrinking.

While you're at it, you can also use a nice Gaussian blur, after
shrinking the image down, to give the appearance of a bevelled slope to
your letters.


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 04:04:10
Subject: Re: More'n'more things...
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Fernando D'Andrea <[e-mail]>
>
> *.Possibility of change an cycle object in the stage editor. I want
> to do a moving man, but he always don't move to the exact point that
> I planed. If the editions on the movements of the model are made in
> the same editor which I move all the other models, everything gets
> easy.

Imagine 4.0 is supposed to have a single screen, rather than separate
editors.

>  *.Morph and cycle at same time.(!!!)

But -- you can already do that! For example, create a walk cycle, and a
similar run cycle. Morph from walk.iob to run.iob in the Actor bar, and
you'll see the motion smoothly transform from a walk to a run!

> *.Transformthe 'Phiong shade' switch get in a
> 0-255 slider. Do the same with bright. It helps on smooth morph effects.

Why would you want partial Phong? To get that computerish, faceted look,
but in a more subtle way? Please explain.

And 3.3 will have a 0-255 slider for Bright. As GreG Tsadilas told me,
this will do *wonders* for those hard-to-light objects, where part of
the object you worked so hard to model, is lost in dark shadows. Rather
than cranking up the ambient light, or adding focused fill lights, you
can simply make the object, say, 20% bright. Presto, more visibility in
the shaded areas, and this has no effect on other objects.

> *.A tool to put faces betweew edges.

3.2 has implemented this feature, called "Edge fill". You multi-select
the set of edges on one side of a hole/gap/chasm, Set Edge Line, then
multi-select the edges on the other side, and Fill To Edge Line.
Kablooey, faces are immediately created that join the two sets of
edges.

> *.An preview of a texture.

This is the major change in 3.3. Haven't you been paying attention to
the IML? (Sorry, didn't want to stifle your creativity, but a gentle
nudge seemed in order)


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 04:04:30
Subject: Re: brushmap tacking
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> I'd like to be able to have a yellowish map with reddish vertical
> stripes, map it to a tulip petal, then have the stripes remain the same
> position and size while the yellowish (not simply a solid color)
> stretches as the petal enlarges and unfolds.

As far as I know, there is no way to do this in 2.0. It's child's play
with 3.x, however.


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 04:04:56
Subject: Re: REALISTIC MATERIALS!
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>
>
> A rule of thumb is, do not use very high specular settings, this will
> make your render look plastic, seconf be very carefull with hardness, a
> high hardness setting only aplies to very "hard" such as new glass,
> diamonds crystals. These two settings are the most frequently reasons why
> it is so hard to set the light in a scene. And the result is often that
> you end up with a huge numbers of lights, witch will slow down the
> rendering.

Great message, Tom. Thanks for the advice; this is going to my archive
file. I wonder, though: why do improper specular/hardness lead people
into using too many lights?




Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 04:17:08
Subject: Font problem. How to outline it!
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: James Cheseborough <[e-mail]>
>
> What's the best way to get an font object that has a "bigger"
> version of itself laid on top of itself?
> I see this all the time in the commercial world, but I'm having problems
> doing it with Imagine. I'm trying NOT to rebuild the whole character by
> hand. Sizing in the spline ed doen't do it, of course.

If you want the classic "outline" effect on the front of the object, Add
Points to your outline using the Raise bevel type. This creates a
constant-width outline, offset slightly from the main front part of your
object. Save Points, then enter the Detail editor and load the objects.
By using Drag Box in the Right view, it's a piece of cake to select only
those faces which comprise the front outline, and make a subgroup out of
them.



Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 04:21:19
Subject: ------=> Sorry NO Subject!
From:    [e-mail]


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

Hi,
      I just got a copy of ImageFX 1.5 from the CU Amiga Coverdisk.  I seem to r
ecall
that there was an Arexx script that someone wrote which could be used with Image
FX to
create MPEG's.  I looked for it on Aminet but couldn't find it there anymore.  C
ould someone
out there tell me where I can get this, or better yet send me a copy as an e-mai
l attachment.

                              Thanks in advance for any help,

                                              Kurt
                                              [e-mail]



Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 04:21:55
Subject: No messages for a week
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello All,

I have'nt received any IML mail since the 30th June, has everything shut
down for the 4th of July celebrations?

-- Bob


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 04:40:16
Subject: Making Imagine pay....
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Douglas Smith <[e-mail]>
>
> OK time to show off.
>
> tell us all about the stuff that you have had published/
> printed or been paid for.

Douglas,

what a great idea. This thread should prove interesting, to say the least!

I'm currently a hobbyist, so I don't actively pursue customers as if my
rent depended on it. I've done a flying logo for a national brewery's
annual sales meeting, with Superman-type extruded text snapping into
place, followed by a dazzling flare/glow/star filter, curtesy of
Imagemaster and an ARexx macro. Length: 10 seconds. Rate: $400. (Yes, I
know, I should be shot for working this cheaply)

#2: Flying logo for a brewers' retail organization. (And I don't even
LIKE beer!) Scanned a shopping bag logo on a Mac at Kinko's, used
Pixel3D (yuck) to create an Imagine object. Created a rounded marble
slate to allow for superimposed CG titles. In Imagemaster, created the
smoothest blurred version of the logo I could manage; this, tiled as an
altitude map on a beige background, created a flawless embossed look.
Finally, a soft-edge spotlight, aimed diagonally at the background. This
was my last non-field-rendered animation! 2 days' work, 5 seconds, $300
I believe.

#3: For a year and a half, I've been working off and on (mostly off) on
a cutesy romantic animation, showing two upscale hearts on a seaside
patio. Champagne bottle, bucket, and glasses; marble columns. Very
cinematic, as the 40-second animation is split in several shots
(establishing, close-up, dolly, etc.) Background brushmaps are pitifully
low-res, which makes them naturally out-of-focus. The hearts were
created a long time ago, so no bones. They move, but don't bend or twist.

This animation was designed to be one of the high points of my
eventual demo reel, so I kept refining everything. The original rate of
$300 is completely ridiculous, but a deal's a deal. My client is going
to love what his $300 is buying, and I'll get a much better-looking
animation for my reel than if I'd settled for the quality level we
originally discussed.

(Side note: he's getting a little musical score composed for it, but for
my reel, I whipped up my own soundtrack, with canned music and full sound
effects. Needless to say, this adds greatly to the quality of the
animation! Best of all, it only took one evening to digitize, synchronize
and mix everything together! When my client comes to pick up the
animation, I'll play him _my_ version, and watch his jaw drop. If he
wants my soundtrack, no problem -- that'll be another $300. <g>)

#4: Last year, Wal-Mart invaded Canada. To boost the morale of the troops
working for another large retail chain, I created two short (5-10
seconds) animations showing "their" logo wreaking havoc on a Wal-Mart
store. (Standard Imagine explosion, for example) This was lots of fun to
do, and I was told the clips raised a hearty laugh out of the audience.
Again, $300-500.

#2-4 were all for the same client, whose budgets are always quite low.
Fortunately, I've been raising my rates as time went by and my
confidence improved. An example of where I'm at right now is the 2-day
flying logo, which I charged $500 for.

There have been 2-3 simple DPaint animations for that client, too. As a
matter of fact, I've just finished work on one an hour ago, a cheerful
5-second clip detailing what makes the "Perfection" pizza pan so special.



As you can see, I have a long way to go before I can forget my day job!
Fortunately, I've managed to enter a rate level which doesn't make me
feel exploited anymore.


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 04:48:54
Subject: Re: 3.3 & no IML for a while
From:    Ian Smith <[e-mail]>


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

On Mon, 3 Jul 1995, [e-mail] wrote:
>  does anyone know if 3.3 is 'packing' or 'shipping' ????

I called Impulse on Wed and they said it was shipping.

--
[e-mail]              Visit Below! :-)
My HP48/Imagine/ImageMaster Page --> http://moose.erie.net/~iansmith/
Come and stop by Africa Imports! --> http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/



Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 05:47:33
Subject: Re: Why?
From:    Rodney McNeel <[e-mail]>


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

I believe people out there got the newest version of Imagine and are too
busy exploring to write to the list ;)


On Thu, 6 Jul 1995, Thomas Gaiser wrote:

> To whom it may concern:
> Why do I receive no articles from the imagine mailing list anymore?
> Do I have to subscribe once again?
>
>            ---------------------------------------------------------
>           | Thomas Gaiser                          |home:           |
>           | [e-mail]         |Elchstr. 21     |
>           | Universitaet Tuebingen                 |72768 Reutlingen|
>           | Seminar fuer Sinologie und Koreanistik |Germany         |
>            ---------------------------------------------------------
>
>


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 07:45:17
Subject: New Program
From:    [e-mail]


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

What did everyone die and go to Truespace Land?  (That's Hell in case you
didn't know).  Seriously the mail box has been so empty lately I am starting
to feel lonely.  I guess everyone must be playing with 3.3.

 Well just to say something productive here, I have come across a software
package that converts images from 16 mil. color to 256 color or less.  You
are probably thinking "so what".  Well, this software uses a dithering
algorithm that makes most images look nearly as good the 24 bit version.  I
have not seen anything that does this good a job or even comes close.  It
also chooses a pallete of colors that best represent the image.  How does
this relate to Imagine?  #1. I use it to convert textures to 256 so they
don't take up as much room.  #2.  Instead of having to use 24 bit for
backdrop images I can create a fairly hi-res 256 image instead.  #3.  If you
want to create an animation straight out of Imagine, you create an optimized
pallete from a 24 bit frame, and then lock the pallete to it.  #4.  It has
batch conversion, so you could convert an entire animation to 256 and the
compile it using DTA.

This program works with most 24 bit formats, and it only runs under Winders.
I am not a reseller nor do I have any affiliation with this company so if you
want the name and phone number,  you'll have to E-Mail me.  I posted the name
and number on C-Serve, and one of the Sysops took it off so I don't want to
offend any more people.  This program has been of use to me and it is fairly
inexpensive.  $50.00.

Please out of respect to the rest of the people on this mailing list DO NOT
post a Me TOO! message.  Respond privately via E-mail.

Hope I didn't affend any TrueSpacers out their either, it was only a joke.

Stephen G.


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 08:01:16
Subject: Re: REALISTIC MATERIALS!
From:    "DEBEAUMONT, GEORGE" <[e-mail]>


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

>I just want to give some advice about how to make realistic material and
>lighting setup...
>One of the best textures Imagine have to achive realism is the dirt texture, I

>use it in every way I can to get to my desired effect.

I agree! Imagine's Dirt texture is indespensible. It adds a degree of
imperfection frequently seen in real life objects. Treat it as a seasoning
that should be added to most Imagine recipes.

>Dont over use light, often three light sources will do. Placement is easy, one

>straight above, one slightly offset from the camera, and one from either side,

>do not place them to close to the objects. If they dont cast as much light as
>you want to, do not move them, but crank up their values instead, this way you

>will know when they do cast enough light. Make only one or two of the light
>sources cast shadow, but leave the light that is closest to the camera alone.
>Please feel free to change the color values a bit to get that,
>cold,spookey,warm etc feel. If you have 3.X you would do yourself a favour by
>turning the light source that is placed at either side into a paralell one (not

>spot) only cross the paralell rays button and make a shadow casting source.

I've generally used the main/fill light approach as a starting point, but
look forward to trying your basic lighting setup. I'm curious, why do you
prefer parallel ray lights in your setup?

George



Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 09:29:22
Subject: Field render bug?
From:    Ed Totman <[e-mail]>


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

I have imagine 3.2 on a pc with a PAR.  I created a simple moving camera
animation to test field rendering, and when I reversed the animation on
the PAR I noticed that the new reversed animation was much smoother than
the original.  Many test animations later, I discovered that colorshade
and scanline animations are good, but traced animations are not - the two
fields are reversed so the animation appears jittery.  The "flip fields"
button in imagine doesn't fix the problem.  The PAR "field import order"
setting doesn't help either.  When the PAR reverses an animation it does
not change the field order, so this is the only way I can get a smooth,
traced animation.  Can any of you out there with a pc/imagine/par confirm
this problem?  Does the "flip fields" button do anything in trace mode?

Ed Totman
[e-mail]




Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 09:44:01
Subject: Re: Guides & htmls in Aminet
From:    [e-mail]


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

Ernesto Poveda Cortes wrote;

>     i have uploaded today in wuarchive (aminet) the following files:
>     - d2iguide.lha   Guide version of dare to imagine.
> - d2ihtml.lha    HTML version of the above.=20
> - faq6guide.lha  guide version of IML FAQ #6
> - faq6html.lha   HTML version of IML FAQ #6 (also on the Ian Smith Page!)
> I think there will be in the recent in a few days, hope you enjoy it!!

I got them, I installed them and I read them.

So, for those of you that are interested they are now online,
and, beleive it or not, this is the last time I will promote my homepages=20
on the IML; <http://www.kiruna.se/is/cjo/>.

I appologize to anyone who thinks I'm nagging about those pages, it's just=20
that I'm so darned proud of 'em.  :)

Once again Ernesto; THANKS!!!!!

See you all in a month or so; I have a vacation coming up. :-)

*---------------------------------------------------------------*
|   Conny Joensson   |   Swedish Space Corp. Esrange            |
|   Kiruna           |   Satellite operations - Telecom Div.    |
|   Sweden           |   [e-mail]              |
*---------------------------------------------------------------*


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 11:45:24
Subject: Renderbrat
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

We got a nice florid post last week from our Nordic blender, full of
pearls and condescension, and reminding me that the best advice I ever got
is to beware of people who give advice.

His lighting tips were predictably correct, and if you want a commercial
look, hey, go for it--but if you love the shadowy depths of artists like
Ridley Scott and Carol Reed, try a single shadow-casting light and a deep
blood-maroon ambient in your globals.

(Some creative soul on the list preceded me in that deep-purple ambient
light suggestion, and my gratitude to him/her).

As long as I'm spanking and thanking, still another creative soul earlier
last week mentioned hairy cows.  (Forgive me for destroying the header,
but I think it was Chuck Blackear).

Trying your hair-as-a-particle attachment idea, I stumbled onto the
realization that if I invoke an outside object as a particle, I don't
have to trace my render, but can scanline for the desired results.
Thanks, you, not only for a great idea, but for saving me eons of render
time.



Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 12:27:05
Subject: Re: New Feature Administrator
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


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


Doug Smith wrote, before the IML's looong weekend:

> Feature Administrator....
>
>I'll do that

Thanks!

Here are some of my wishes/votes

1.  The system beep.  As others have recently requested, this would be
quite nice.  I once wrote them (on paper, no less) asking for same,
and know at least one fellow in my area who did the same.  This must be
a convenience that many wish for.  It should be toggle-able.

2.  My own pet request, "Snap axis to point."  This would allow
one to quickly position the axis exactly at the edges, or wherever.
As an example of the utility of this: I recently needed to make
about 50 simple rectangular shapes to represent paintings.  Each
needed to be exactly the size of a real object.  The simplest way
I knew of to make the objects was to take a primitive plane, position
the axis at one corner, move the axis and object to 0,0,0, and begin
transforming the object over and over to make all the "Paintings."
However, since each work needed to be "hung" from the center, I
had to re-position all the axes.  This would have been much if I
could have just fractured the crossing diagonal, and snapped the
axis to the central point.

3.  Combine the forms and spline editor.

4.  Add import for Post Script objects, and allow fonts to be sized
by points.

5.  Allow particle objects to carry all attributes, such as
phonging, instead of just face geometry.

6.  "Stretchable" bars in Action, So that if you decide that an
actor should be still till frame thirty, and then move for sixty,
you can just adjust previous bars measuring twenty and forty, for
instance.

ect, ect.

Of course, Impulse will have to double their programming staff
for all this, but, hey, that's what cloning is for, isn't it.

Greg Denby
[e-mail]


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 12:35:56
Subject: Essence for PC ships
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


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


During the outage, I got the Apex newsletter.  Essence V I & II
now available for PC also.  New price, $280 for both, but
as a cross grade, $50 (I'm happy.)

Understanding Imagine 2, out of print.  Sorry, 2.0 owners.
Understanding Imagine 3, due late July.  Yay everybody.

Now the projects ported from the Ami can look just as good.
Now if someone would just port true multi-tasking...

Greg Denby
[e-mail]


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 12:38:00
Subject: Re: Hello?
From:    Michael North <[e-mail]>


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

> I know it's a holiday weekend, but I haven't gotten any IML mail since
> last week. Is it something I said?
>
well, it looks like everybody had this problem, and now we'll
fill up the list with confirmations.

> Just to make this a worthwhile message, how about a little help: I've
> been trying to light a room as if from a single window opposite the
> camera. I've had several ideas, one of which was to do the standard
> three lights, but at lower intensity (say 48,48,48) plus one bright
> shadow-casting one just outside the window. This looks okay, but
> something is still a little bit off. Has anyone had success lighting
> this sort of situation well?
>

Just exactly what is going wrong with this scene? I've had some decent
results with a setup fairly similar to the one you describe, plus a
visible light beam from the outside and with the softedge texture
used on an array of very dim lights on the inside to make a very diffuse
ambient light inside.  But it may be that I'm just easier to please,
or that you're looking for a very particular effect.

Michael


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 13:24:15
Subject: Making Imagine Pay
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

A couple of my images have been published in Computer Video. And one
of them was printed in the book Becoming a Computer Animator.



Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 14:00:26
Subject: Re: You are not alone
From:    Dave Rhodes <[e-mail]>


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

Hi Craig

> I know it's a holiday weekend, but I haven't gotten any IML mail since
> last week. Is it something I said?

By the sound of things, no-one did !

> been trying to light a room as if from a single window opposite the
> camera. I've had several ideas, one of which was to do the standard

  I had a good result with a parallel light source outside a hole in
the wall,  (the window wasn't _in shot_ in my scene, so I didn't have
to model it, just make a side wall with an aperture.) I just made the
light source slightly bigger than the hole it was shining through, and
made it shadow casting, (and used the venetian blind light texture, but
that's irrelevant here).My scene was of a fireplace with a fire in it,
and I wanted an evening/sunset type of effect, so I set the _sun_ low
down and reddish, with just enough brightness to stop it looking like
a hot day. (The fire was lit, so it wasn't cold inside  ;)  )

    I'd left the part of the _room_ behind the camera open, so I could
put a fill light a long way away, (not shadow casting) rather than use
an ambient light level, but that's a matter of taste.

  The effect of the soft edged venetian blind stripes across the chimney
breast, with an alcove either side was very pleasing - to me anyway !

 Hope this helps...


--

~===========================================================================~
 Dave Rhodes - [e-mail] - Yorkshire - England -
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 14:10:34
Subject: Realistic materials2
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi there!

First I want to say that my last paragraph of my last post regarding this, was a

joke, "you corroded apeshit!"-Also a joke!!
And this sentence only apply to those who havent got a sence of humor!

"Doesnt any one get a good joke now a days?"

Second I found a couple of faults in my mail regarding the glass tip.
1. I forgotten to make it transparent(filter)
2. When you do this you will lose the "spec." variation

To make up for this, here is a way to do it anyway.

Do the same thing, as my previous post said but make the specularity setting:
255.255.255. Go into the dirt texture and put these numbers in the filter
boxes:200,200,200. Put these numbers in the refl. boxes:20,20,20.

Make the whole object fully transparent. And if you like, put a refraction value

on it.

This tip needs my previous post, doesnt it?

If I did steep on any sour toes, I'm sorry. It was a bug, not a feature!?
(or was it the other way around...........I'm getting old, I cant remember)

later!
Tom


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 14:17:36
Subject: Stop it
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

HELP.....HELP....help...h..e..l...p... . .  .
My mail box is floating over with mail saying- There is something wrong...havent

got any post for the last days..etc..etc.!
Yes there was something wrong, had my mail bounce saying that the IML server was

down for 3 days. But now it's working again, so you can now resume your good and

sound mails again witch will regard IMAGINE in one way or the other. Thanks.

By the way, look up Steven Blackmons homepage, bril!

Later!

Tom RenderBrandt



Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 14:34:20
Subject: Paid for IM projects
From:    [e-mail]


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


     My last two tapes of theater performances had Imagine animations for
     their titles. The first was some words coming out of fog (Essence in
     those days), the next year's was a bunch of instruments marching in
     their own parade. These were very good looking-- trombone and trumpet
     objects with bones


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 14:35:37
Subject: RE:FEATURE ADMIN.
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi Doug!

It's nice to see that somone would do this, it is not an easy task. But then we

could get impulse's attention, towards a list, and one list only. By the way I'm

going to visit them at the binning of next month, so if every body on the list
with a discent feature request could mail this to this nice guy. So maybe he
could manage to set up a feature list we can vote for before I leave, I could
take that with me and see what they think?........ Wow I just recieved my own
mail, sent for only 5 min. ago. Is the list suddenly gone light speed?

Later!

Tom RenderBrandt




Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 14:43:40
Subject: Neon Effect
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi

I've seen some previous mail's about neon effects, so here is another one:

Make your Object, make it bright, put the fakely texture on it, adjust the
colors to your liking. Bright color in the center and a darker one at the edges.

If you use tubes(disk) object as your base for extrude's, It will not make any
difference to where your camera is placed, due to the fakely texture it will
make the vectores facing the camra brighter than the others(vector normals). Now

go to the global eff. and request the haze effect, and type in the same values
you've put in for the side color in the fakely texture. This way you get a good

neon effect even in scanline.

Cant wait for 3.3 and the new texture form?!? fab!
Later!

Tom RenderBrandt


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 15:04:41
Subject: Animate with background plate
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi!

I have just finished a project here at TV2, and during the project I discovered

some neat tricks, and here is one:

When you want to have a backdrop without using the backdrop feature in the
action editor"wrong size etc" but stick it to a plate, but you still want to
move the camera around, and maybe use animations/textures on the plate?
Hey what a nightmare? Nope! Here is how to do it. Make the plate,make it bright,

put the stuff on it at your liking. Take it into stage and drag it way back in
your scene so it doesnt interfer with other objects if you rotate it, then scale

it so it fills your screen. Go to action editor and to the alignment bar of the

plate and delete it, then add a "track to" wheras you will get a requester
asking for witch object, here you type "camera". Now if you want the plate to
follow the camra as you tilt/pan it, you would have to use the associate
function, I'm not quite sure how to use that one, but anyway, it would keep the

relative distance between your camera and your object intact. Another way to
fake this is to have the camrera track the plate as well, And shift pick the
camera&plate and move both of them! Ofcourse you could move it by hand without
caring about rotaion, the alignment bar will take care of this.
You could also use this method for a moving background. just use a huge and long

picture and map it on a slightly bent plate. But then you cant use the track to

option.

Later!

Tom RenderBrandt


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 15:06:56
Subject: 24bit Amiga + Imagine 3.2
From:    [e-mail] (Steve Gardiner)


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


Hello,

Any of you clever chaps (and chappettes) got an Amiga with a 2MB Picasso II
board running Imagine 3.2 in 800x600 without glitching or screen corruption ?

I'd be very grateful if you could tell how to do it... Interlace mode gives
me a headache...

Cheers
--
  +-----------------==============+================-----------------+
  |  Steve Gardiner               | Paying my debt to society...    |
  |  [e-mail]     | Working in Business Publishing !|
  +-----------------==============+================-----------------+


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 16:00:44
Subject: RE:Outlining Fonts
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi!

A good way to this is to use the "extra width" function with one of the beveling

types, works best with flat beveling without depth "zero". This will give you an

object you can select the outline in detail by selecting "pick faces" pick
subgroup and it's named front bevel, select this and use the split function. Now

you have two objects, a outline and the rest of the "logo" and it fit perfectly,

and it have sharp edges to!
PS:Remeber that Imagine will place the second axis on top of the first one!

Later!

Tom RenderBrandt


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 16:10:30
Subject: Re: Making Imagine pay....
From:    Dylan Neill <[e-mail]>


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

On Fri, 30 Jun 1995, Douglas Smith wrote:

> OK time to show off.
>
> tell us all about the stuff that you have had published/
> printed or been paid for.
>
> To ensure it's topical, give a few lines saying what
> features of Imagine were particularly useful or slowed
> you down.

OK Heres mine! I did work experience at and ad agency and was using SGIs
to make an ad for the State Bank (for those in oz, its the one with the
business men at the table and ken and barbie running through the house)
ANyway, I helped on the Ken a Barbie bit and they were looking for a wood
floor... Imagine to the rescue! :) I used the HardWood texture and made a
convincing looking floor and brought it in. Now that you've read this I
can bet all the imagine freaks in oz are gonna start freeze framing
through that ad next time that see it! :)

---
                               |\ /|
                                o O
  ________________________oOO_=( ^ )=_OOo___________________________
 |                        '''     U   '''                           |
 | Gumby Death Man (Dylan Neill) Amiga 1200/6/120  486DX2-66/24/500 |
 | Email: [e-mail]   WWW: http://www.pcug.org.au/~dylann/ |
 |__________________________________________________________________|



Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 16:36:34
Subject: Imagine FAQ?
From:    Larry Hall <[e-mail]>


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

Is the Imagine FAQ written for the Amiga or PC version?  If it's for
the Amiga version is there or is there going to be a PC version?



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Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 17:08:39
Subject: Re: Making Imagine pay....
From:    [e-mail]


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


The only Imagine thing that I got paid for was an animation that I did about 3
years ago of a shark for a CD-ROM called 'Shark Alert'.

Imagine's Forms editor and booleans were great for the modeling and the add-on
package called 'Morphus' (that Impulse used to sell) was invaluable for making
the shark swim in a realistic manner.  Ray tracing shadowy waves moving across
the back of the shark and global fog really sold the piece.

I mostly used Imagine to do demo work to try to get a full time job in the
field, which eventually worked...

Craig



--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 19:30:56
Subject: Imagine 3.3
From:    --Craig <[e-mail]>


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

First of all, as explained at the bottom of this missive, if you are
not interested in reading about the new features in 3.3 DELETE THE
NEXT MESSAGE YOU GET FROM [e-mail].

Well, I got 3.3 today: perhaps the advantage of moving to a location
only 15 or 20 minutes from Impulse. For the benefit of those in more
distant locales (especially our overseas bretheren, for whom it may
take weeks, as I understand it), I post the following exerpt from the
Installation Notice:

[Installation Instructions Deleted]
As you already know there will only be one more upgrade to Imagein,
the final version Imagine 4.0. We are as usual behind the time frame
that we had hoped to meet, rest assured that we are working diligently
to complete 4.0, we know that the dealy will be well worth the wait.

Once Imagine 4.0 has been shipped there will be a newsletter telling
you what the future of Imagine is and how you can take advantage of
the new software we have planned.

Thanks for your support and let us know what you thing of Imagine 3.3,
we are sure you will like it, but its always improtant to us to hear
about any problems that you might be having.

The Gang at Impulse

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

Here is the list of features new in 3.3 (lower numbers are from
versions 3.1 and 3.2):

*New in Version 3.3*

        21. Added Smooth fracture.

        22. Added Variable Brightness to object attributes.

        23. Moved Randomize Colors to function menu.

        24. Added Mix/Morph control for intensity on ALL textures and
brushes.

        25. Added Specular Mapping.

        26. Added Hardness Mapping.

        27. Added Shininess Mapping.

        28. Added Brightness Mapping.

        29. Added Fog Length Mapping.

        30. Added Index Of Refraction Mapping.

        31. Added Ambient Light Mapping.

        32. Added Roughness Mapping.

        33. Added Previous/Next buttons for traversing texture list
quickly.

        34. Added Browse butons to texture and brush requesters.

        35. Added 256 Color real-time texture preview.

        36. Added 256 color color pickers in texture requester.

        37. View Brush added to previewing brushes.

        38. QuickRender access directly from all attrib/txtr
requesters.

        39. User defined Texture/brush labels added for clarifying
texture list.

        40. "Dup" Added to attrib req for copying textures/brushes.

        41. "Drop" Added to attrib req for dropping textures/brushes
quickly.

        42. "Disable/Enable" button added for turning textures on/off.

        43. Interactive point-and-click support added to text in
texture list.

        44. Real time previewing of renders as they happen in 256 col
displays.

        45. Support for unfinished FLC's added.

        47. Defaul object attributes added to preferences.

        48. Shaded View Edge drawing control added to Prefs (PC only).

        49. Replaced "Reflection Mapping" with "Environment Mapping."

        50. Added preferences option for startup editor.

        51. Added preferences option to set number of points in CSG
sphere.

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

There is also a manual.txt file that explains all of these new
features, as well as the features from 3.1 and 3.2. That will be the
next thing I send out, as a separate letter. I figure that Impulse
won't mind me posting this info, as it is essentially free
advertising, but I also figured I should send it as a separate message
since it is fairly long. So, if you don't want to read the in-depth
documentation on the new features, please delete the next message you
get from [e-mail].

  --Craig
[e-mail]

P.S. Please let me know if you feel it was inappropriate for me to post
this information here. I just figured all the Imagine nuts out there
would want to know ASAP, and that Impulse wouldn't have a problem with
it.


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 19:32:58
Subject: 3.3 Manual.txt
From:    --Craig <[e-mail]>


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

*New in Version 3.3*



        21. Smooth fracture.



        Smooth fracture works very similar to Smooth Edge Line as it is

explained above only this function does the smoothing at the same time

it fractures up a line of edges.  Try this function by picking a string

of edges, on a 10x10 primative plane, that form a "V" shape.  This

function should fracture the edges and turn the original "V" shape into

more of a "U" shape.



        22. Variable Brightness.



        Imagine's Brightness attribute has been expanded.  It used to be

only used as bright or not bright.  Now the brightness of an object can be

set to something more like halfway bright.  This can be used to morph

objects to bright and not bright, bring up the color of distant ground

objects, or to simulate the ambient lighting of an object that is rendered

with only a single light source, etc.



        23. Randomize Colors.



        Randomize Face colors has been moved from the attributes requester

to the Functions Menu.  It still works the same.  Rand Colors has always

been a one pass, function oriented operation.  Moving it to the functions

menu puts it in a more appropriate place.



        24. Mix/Morph control for intensity on ALL textures and brushes.



        Historically, any intensity control for textures has been up

to each individual texture to control.  Now in Version 3.3 this option has

been taken over by Imagine.  This greatly expands the usefullness of the

textures that didn't offer intensity control and now also allows blending

of brushmaps onto objects.  To see how this works, Randomize the face colors

of an object, and then apply a texture, like Checks, with it's Mix/Morph

Value set to .5.  You will see the Texture is blended onto the object at

50% of it's original intensity.  Remeber that textures and brushes are

applied one at a time, in the order that they are on the object.  So to

get a 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 blend, you need to apply the first brush at Mix=1.0,

the second at Mix=.5, and the third at Mix=.333.



        25-32. Specular Mapping, Hardness Mapping, Shininess Mapping,

Brightness Mapping, Fog Length Mapping, Index Of Refraction Mapping, Ambient

Light Mapping, Roughness Mapping.



        These 8 new brush mapping type have been added to the attributes

that are controllable with Imagine's texturing controls.  With these

new brush types the variablilty of "looks" for object surfaces in nearly

unlimited.

        Specular mapping changes the colors of the specular spot

depending upon where the specular spot is relative to the brush.

        Hardness mapping changes the size and shape of the specular spot

depending upon where the specular spot is relative to the brush.

        Shininess mapping changes the object's Shininess attribute

depending upon the brush is applied to the object.  To easily see the

results of a Shininess brush, Set the objects filter value to full red,

it's index of refraction to 3.55 and apply a brush as a Shininess Map.

You will see that where the brush is affecting the object, the object will

have a reddish, waxy appearance.  Remember that Shininess always uses the

object's filter and Index of Refraction values.

        Brightness mapping changes the object's Brightness attribute

based upon how the brush is applied to the object.  This map type used

the Red component in the brush map to set the objects brightness.  Using

A brightness map will make areas on the object appear to glow.

        Fog Length mapping allows you to control the Fog Length of a fog

object with a brush map.  You have to set a high and low fog value and

the brush controls where these values are tweened onto the object.  To

use this map type, you MUST have the object's base attributes set with a

fog value.

        Index of refraction mapping allows you to control the index of

refraction on a transparent object with a brush map.  This can give an

efferadiosity images have.  Note:

Ambient maps are additive - multiple maps will add up rather than

cancel each other out.

        Roughness mapping was added just because we could.  Roughness,

if used, should be used very sparingly if not avoided altogether.  The

effect that roughness has can be simulated with textures, like bump

noise, and where as roughness will not animate properly, the texture

bumping will.



        33. Previous/Next buttons in the texture and brush requesters.



        These buttons were added to speed up the editing and viewing of

texture and brush data.  They will be un-ghosted if available for use.

These are here to save the older steps of highlighting a texture, clicking

info, clicking ok, highlighting the next texture, clicking info, etc.



        34. Browse buttons in the texture and brush requesters.



        Browse buttons have been added to the texture and brush requesters

to aid in renaming textures (or resetting the correct path), finding

Lock states and finding subgroups.



        35. 256 Color real-time texture/brush/attributes preview.



        The texture, brush, and attributes requesters now all have

256 color previews of the object's attributes.  The preview in the

attributes requester will show all the textures and brushes currently

applied, but in the texture or brush requester you only see the texture

or brush you are currently working with.  The preview has several buttons

around it so that you can change the preview object, add a backdrop, add

something for reflective objects to see, and control the scaling of the

object.

        The most confusing part of the preview is the directional controls

along the bottom the the rendered image.  Textures and brushes have their

own alignment axes that is independant of the alignment of the object.

The three buttons, front, top, and right, are used to view the texture or

brush along it's own axes.  The "obj" button lets you view the texture

or brush aligned as it is applied to the object.  With the "obj" button

selected, the other three buttons control which angle you are looking

at the object from.  These buttons will start up aligned to the texture's

top (X,Y) alignment because a large number of the texture have a default

alignment that lets them be put on a ground.  The default object alignment,

however is from the front because objects are usually render from something

near the front view.

        This preview is only available if you are running Imagine in

an available 256 color display mode and have enough extra memory to

allocate all the extra data required.



        36. 256 color color pickers in texture requester.



        Many people have asked for sliders to use when picking colors in

the texture requester.  For several reasons, we didn't add these. What

we did add is a new color picker.  This is not a slider, but while you are

working with a color, the area to the right of the color value displays all

the current color options available by changing this particular value.  You

can click into this color bar to change the value of the current color

parameter.  As you pick or change colors, all the color boxes are updated

to the available colors.  We have found this to be a very good way to do

color matching and a great way to find usually hard to find colors like

flesh tones.  Play with it, you'll get it.



        37. View Brush in brush requester.



        View Brush has been added to the brush requester to display the

currently selected brush.  This way you don't have to go to "Show Pic" to

see if you have the right brush.



        38. QRender - QuickRender directly from all attrib/txtr requesters.



        Ok, so you're working on the textures, brushes, and attributes of

your object.  You've got a preview of all the texture and color data, but

you don't know what it looks like on you object.  No problem.  Select

"QRender" from any of these requesters and you can see how the current

data looks on you object.  All camera settings come from the current

settings of the perspective window.



        39. User defined Texture/brush labels.



        A new text field has been added to the texture and brush

requesters.  With textures (if the texture was built following all the

rules) this field will show the internal name of the texture.  With

brushes it will contain the file name of the brush.  This new text field

is the label that is displayed in the texture/brush list on the attributes

requester.  This way you can re-name textures and brushes to give you a

better idea of what each item is doing.



        40-42. Dup, Drop, Disable/Enable in attribs requester



        These new buttons have been added to the attributes requester and

are used to quickly modify the texture/brush list on the object.

        "Dup" is used to duplicate (or copy) any item in the texture/brush

list.  This is of particular use when you want to use the same brush

repeatedly to control differnt object attributes but you want to brushes

size/position/alignment to stay exactly the same.

        "Drop" allows you to quickly drop (or delete) items out of the

object's texture/brush list without having to edit the texture or brush to

get at the drop button.

        "Disable/Enable" allow you to quickly "turn off" a texture or brush

in the object's texture/brush list without having to drop the item or set

the item's Mix/Morph value to 0.  A disabled item's text will be drawn in

gray (the editor background color), but can still be edited.  Enabling an

item will turn it back on so that it will be rendered onto the object at

render time.  These Disabled/Enabled textures/brushes can be smoothly

morphed.



        43. Interactive texture/brush list.



        The texture/brush list displayed in the attributes requester now

works directly with the mouse.  Clicking on an item in the list will

highlight it.  Clicking on a highlighted item will pull up that item's

data requester.  Clicking on "<New>" will call up a load texture/brush

requester.  Highlighting an item and then selecting "<New>" will load the

new texture/brush before the highlighted item.  If nothing is highlighted

and "<New>" is clicked, the new item will be added at the end of the list.



        44. Real time previewing of renders on 256 col displays.



        QuickRenders and project renders can now be viewed as they happen.

The render is displayed on the screen in grayscale because there is no

palette information available until the render is done.  This option is

turned on in the preferences editor by setting the RTGS option to True.

        This preview is only available if you are running Imagine in an

available 256 color display mode.



        45. Support for unfinished FLC's



        Prior to Version 3.3, Imagine would not display improperly made

FLC files that did not have the finished bit set.  Imagine now plays them,

but may also try to play corrupted FLC's that may not work properly.



        47. Default object attributes.



        Imagine's object have historically always loaded in new as fully

white, with 0 in all the other attributes.  Now you can set the defaults

for new object attributes by setting the attributes values in the

preferences editor.  The preferences items that affect object attributes

are DCLR, DREF, DFIL, DSPC, DHRD, DRGH, DSHI, DBRI, DIOR, and DFOG.



        48. Shaded View Edge drawing. (PC only)



        In Imagine's 256 color shaded perspective view, you can get a real

good idea about object shape and contours, but sometimes the brightness of

the edges of an object will drown out the shading on the faces.  This

option in the preferences editor (SPED) can be set to False to turn off

the edges and help in clarifying the image in the perspective view.  This

was a very quick and simple change to make in the PC version - that is the

only reason it was done.  On the Amiga the change would be considerably

more difficult so it was not.



        49. Replaced "Reflection Mapping" with "Environment Mapping."



        This was just a matter of changing the text on the brush requester.

The difference between "reflectivity" and "reflection" maps was confusing

so "reflection" was changed to "environment."  The environment map is what

is seen by rays off a reflective object.  The environment map's alignment

is locked to the world coordinate system and therefore is not modified by

editing it's axes.



        50. startup editor.



        In Imagine's preferences editor, you can now select the editor you

would like Imagine to start up in.  For example you can start Imagine

directly into the detail editor instead of first starting the project

editor and then going to the detail editor.  The preferences item that must

be changed is STRT.



        51. set number of points in scanline CSG sphere.



        Imagine's perfect (constructive Solid Geometry) sphere has always

been very simple and quick to use in trace mode, but in scanline, the

sphere is oftentimes too chunky to be used.  This is because the perfect

mathmatical sphere that can be used in trace mode has to be converted to

faces for scanline mode.  Now with this preferences option, you can set

the number of points in the csg sphere.  This number is actually the number

of verticle slices in a primative sphere.  The number of circle sections is

set to twice this number.  This value defaults to 8 points which is what

Imagine has used historically.  Setting it to anything less than 8 will

result in Imagine using it's default of 8.  A value of 24 gives real good

spheres, but be warned, these spheres take up a lot more memory than the

original 8 point CSG spheres do.  The preferences item that must be set is

SPHP.



-end-



Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 19:54:51
Subject: Answer to parallel lights!
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi George!
You wrote........Why do you want parallel lights in your scene?

Well....George...
For geginners, It simulates a distant light source, it doesnt distort your
shadows, it's easier to use due to infinit size in one main direction. Also, I
think that it doesnt matter where you place it, it only cares about rotation,
and send it rays down "that" direction.

Later

Tom Renderbrandt


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 20:32:58
Subject: Re:Scanline render bug!
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi!
I use par with the pc(dualP) and with the Amiga(4040) and have not encountered
this problem. I can only think of two possible sources of reason for "your"
problem.(yepp, two PAR's with capture card, one at home tough!)

1. Working in a res. that doesnt add up

2. Special effect animation where the effect was supossed to be little
different?

Or there is a fault with your Imagine, witch is possible ya know?

I render in pal overscan: 720X576
The rendered animations seems smooth as a childs but! (both in scan and trace)

By the way, the thing that happens when you reverse the animation in the Par
software, is that field:1,2, 3,4, 5,6....... get to be.......5,6, 3,4, 1,2 so it

doesnt reverse the field order at all, since they are a integral part of the
frame!

Hope this helps!

Later

Tom RenderBrandt


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 20:37:01
Subject: Re:Field Render bug2
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

OKAY, I FORGOTT TO ANSWER, IF THE FLIP FIELD IN IMAGINE WORKS IN
TRACE......................I DOOOOONT KNOW....but I would think so, but havent
tried it yet, since it work the way it is, for me anyway.

Later

Tom RenderBrandt


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 21:06:36
Subject: Re: Imagine FAQ?
From:    Ian Smith <[e-mail]>


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

On Fri, 7 Jul 1995, Larry Hall wrote:
> Is the Imagine FAQ written for the Amiga or PC version?  If it's for
> the Amiga version is there or is there going to be a PC version?

Most tips should work in both versions, although some will be for
just the Amiga, and some just for the PC.

--
[e-mail]              Visit Below! :-)
My HP48/Imagine/ImageMaster Page --> http://moose.erie.net/~iansmith/
Come and stop by Africa Imports! --> http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/



Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 23:02:02
Subject: RE:MAKING MONEY!
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi!

I know this is a long mail, but read it, it makes sence if you want to make
money out of your hobby.
By the way, I was "only" 22 when I got my first graphic artist full time job,
using this method, and my second (quit my first) when I was 25 using the same
aproach.

Most of my work was indirect caused by Imagine, and now I a earn shitloads of
it, well not quite, but a descent load of it anyway!
Have about 25 paied animations under my belt if you count the things I done
inhouse here at TV2. But a good software doesnt make good graphics, you do! So
basicly you use Imagine to sell your abilities, so if you cant make god story's

or are good at the intiall pre-prod. you probably wont earn a lot of money. So
what you have to do is to take a good look around you and say "I CAN DO THIS
BETTER THAN THEY CAN" and this doesnt mean great selfmade objects flying around

casting shadows and blows up inn the end (wich I have to say looks cool, but
you'll do this anyway, right?). And the ability to make good 2d graphics is not
a must, but will help a lot. An advice to job seekers is, do not and I cant say

this strongly enough, dont be a nerd when applying for a job, Do not write the
usually stupid things in your letter such as: I have bla bla bla schools, have
worked with 3d/2d for X-years on my slow home computer, and thats wy I cant show

you anything, but I rather good, I think?.......THIS SUCKS. If you realy want to

turn a potential employer off, please do the above! If not do something like
this:
Dont care if they dont have put a job offer out in the newspaper/mag or
whatever, in most cases this is their last resort(I KNOW) Mostly they need lot
of good people anytime, so dont hesitate to give them a call saying "I'm graphic

artist working in the field of 2d/3d, so I wonder if there would be to much
trouble for me to come down to see what you are doing, it seems that the things

you do is quite interesting..bla bla bla (flater flater)" You may do your own
version of it, but sometimes this aproach realy works. This way you becomes a
"face" not a white letter or something they dont have to care about. A real
person they are forced to take notice off.
When you do come down to em', dont be over entusiastic, and even if you dont
understand the stuff they talk about, act as if you do! (If you manage to get
the hang of Imagine, you could learn anything realy fast) just wonder along, and

act as you you understand everything. BUT BE CAREFULL, BALANCE YOUR
UNDERSTANDING, YOU COULD END UP ANSWERING....eh! In most cases the the guy/girl

that show you around the place, dont know a spline from a vector.(You will know

this, belive me!)
The next step, is to get under the skin of the "shower", maybe ask something
like this:"I guess there is a good need for people with new blood and ideas,in a

such a fast moving industry as this one?" this will force the guy/gal to
answer(smart ey') If the answer you get is positive, dont say "I NEED A JOB!!!"

Rather say:"It's looks like a good and creative place(if you want to work there,
that is) to work, is the payment reasonable? (ask this in a casual tone)" This
will probably get your "shower" to say something like this, if he/her is
intersted: Do you have any thing to show me? In wich you reply: "Not with me,
but I can pop down when I got the time, and show you something?. And bingo you
are about to get some descent work! That is, if you have anything to show. If
you dont have a showreel, make one! Or put your finest renderings on disk, and
take that with you. But not to much though, dont waste their time!"IMPORTANT"
Only show them the good stuff, and dont excuse the things you are not saticfied

whit, that will only mean:"This guy doesnt have any pride of his work at all"
If it's not good, dont show it.
To be honest to you, I would say that a smart mouth will take you further than a

nerd how make nice graphics. Most of the people I work with arent that
good(promise), but the fact that they are in the "business" they will probably
stay there for reasons I wont even try to understand.
But if you are realy lousy, you wont get work, so keep up your work an develop
your skills. There is no substitute for hard work! When I say lousy, I dont mean

 A little lousy, but making chrome spheres on checkers wont cut it, you know!
And talent is a good thing to develop to. A good place to start, is buy "art"
mag's, NOT only computer mags with a gallery, but real "art" mag's. Browse them

and steal to you hearts content, use the ideas and rework them, to your own
style. Plagiatism will be noticed......a bad thing, you wont like!

Uargh, the letters from the keys begin to stick to my fingers, and my eyes are
running, so I think I will quit while the game is good.

Good Luck!!

Later!

Tom RenderBrandt


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 23:11:20
Subject: Re: converting to pc
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Thu, 6 Jul 1995, Gareth Qually

>>I am thinking of getting a 486DX2-66 with 8megs of ram and a half gig
>>drive. Has any one else who has changed platforms had a problem
>>converting. By this I mean using equivalent programs on the pc.

>>I am getting Imagine for the pc, but what program is most like Deluxe
>>Paint. The same with Opal Paint (I have looked at Photoshop and Fractal
>>Design Painter, Which is better for animation design).

As for DPaints animation, I think the Painter 3.0 has some animation
features but nothing as wild as DPaint. Corel has an animation programme
I think.

>>Thanks...

>>Chow...

>>[e-mail]

Bye
Rod Macey
[e-mail]


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 23:21:09
Subject: Re:RENDERBRANT
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Thanks Mike McCool!

My tip, was meant as a developer tip, and I do agree on your tip for the more
artistic aproach. Wich I use, ambient light is a must in some cases.
Most times tough, using "my" tip as the inital steps, you could most likely put

more light sources in your scene to "high light the shadows" by using tinted
spot lights "wide" with the controlled fallof. This reminds me of another great

tip I use.
Have you ever tried to get 100's of small warning lights on to a space
ship/plane whitout light up object like a nuclear christmas tree?

By using controlled fallof, and point sourced lights(axis) You could scale the
axis(shift-s) to restrict the ligh flow. This again means that you dont have to

use shadow casting lights, and you can crank up your light values "r,g,b" realy

high to get that Flash look within a restricted area. Place them close to the
surface, this also means that you dont have to make an bright object to show
where your warning lights are placed, at least most of the time.

"I dont hate it when other people critic my tips, I just dont like it very
much!"
PS. Meant as a joke! I do enjoy it when people point out the thing's you take
for granted!
Thanks again Mike
Later!

Tom RenderBrandt


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 23:29:09
Subject: An irrelevant questione'!
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi there again Mike!

Just wonder what the heck does "Nordic blender & condescension" mean, have to
know if it is an insult?
If so Here's a kick inn your ball's....hhhmmrph ahhh!
If it's not excuse my rude behaviour. And if it's a nice saying...hey thank you

a lot Mike (blush, blush) But that doesnt mean that I'm gay, or anything!!

Later!

Tom RenderBrandt
THE NORDIC SELFMADE FLAME DESIGNATED TARGET




Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 23:34:45
Subject: Re: Making Imagine Pay
From:    [e-mail]


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

Hi all,

The only project that I have used an Imagine render in was for a private
dance party invitation. It was a old style stand-up lamp on a
reflective wooden floor. I think the final res which was 830x1300.
I'm trying to get the art director at work interested in using a few
renders for our in-house advertising. All of the other artwork I produce
has to include a sexy girl or something (cliche dance party stuff)
unfortunately.

I need some clients who are willing to try something new!

Rod Macey
[e-mail]

"Sometimes the hard way is the only way!"



Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 23:39:49
Subject: Screwy stuff
From:    [e-mail]


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

Well, the list server seems to have turned itself into an old washing
machine, losing posts, sending things out in any kind of order.

It's good to have it back. Thanks to anybody who may have got a post from
me asking: "What happened?" Sorry.

Rod Macey
[e-mail]

"Sometimes the hard way is the only way!"




Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 23:47:10
Subject: TO MIKE, and others!
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

This is a public, "I'm sorry" to Mike and everybody, feeling that I am
condescensionous (dont know how to spell it), I dont meant to. honestly.
And I looked up the "condescension" word (couldnt wait), and I agree. I will try

to behave myself in the future, but sometimes I try to make you guys and galls
laugh, it's that so horrible wrong of me? After all I see most of you people as

sort of friends, at least we have something in common, Imagine.

And the word: "Corroded apeshit" is a very funny word isn't it??Hmprhh Ha ha ha
I do think so, but then again I am a bit screwy!

Later!

Tom RenderBrandt


Date:    Friday, 07 July 1995 23:51:59
Subject: Re: New Program
From:    Ayalon Hermony <[e-mail]>


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



On Fri, 7 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

>
> This program works with most 24 bit formats, and it only runs under Winders.
> I am not a reseller nor do I have any affiliation with this company so if you
> want the name and phone number,you'll have to E-Mail me.  I posted the name
> and number on C-Serve, and one of the Sysops took it off so I don't want to
> offend any more people.This program has been of use to me and it is fairly
> inexpensive.$50.00.
>

Sorry not to agree.

We're in the Internet, not C-Serve, you can say YOUR opinion about a
software and include its name.

That's one of the reasons I read the list. I like to read what others
wrote, about anything they use. Mainly their thoughts about it.


>
> Stephen G.
>



           How do you come back from 3D ?
Ayalon M. Hermony         Internet: [e-mail]



Date:    Saturday, 08 July 1995 00:33:13
Subject: DOF?
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Howdy

A while back a great dude wrote a excellent mail about how to use the dof
feature. But a thing I didnt quite catch was how to extend the field where
things will be in perfect focus. I have tried the things he said and get
brilliant results, but every thing behind and in front of the camera Y lenght is

more or less out of focus. Does anyone know how to do this?

Later!

Tom RenderBrandt



Date:    Saturday, 08 July 1995 02:40:11
Subject: Aspect Ratio
From:    Paul Thompson <[e-mail]>


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

I need to create some rendered clips that are 128x128 pixels.  Anyone
know what aspect ratio/camera size I should use for this?

Paul



Date:    Saturday, 08 July 1995 12:20:22
Subject: Re:Essence for PC ships
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


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


George asks:
>For those of us not on the Apex mailing list...Is there a phone # or
>address we can use for placing our orders?

Here's the usual disclaimer: "I don't work for Apex, but am just a
satisfied customer," which is to say I'm not plugging the software.

Apex's phone is 415-322-7532 10am-6pm PST Mon-Fri
Apex's FAX [phone]
e-mail [e-mail]
s-mail 405 El Camino Real, Suite 121, Menlo Park, CA 94025

Unless you can get voice connection, which I had to try a couple of
times, you'll probably want to just have Apex send you the newsletter,
since the order options are a little complex.

Greg Denby


Date:    Saturday, 08 July 1995 15:27:53
Subject: Wish list.
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

>>From [e-mail] Fri Jul  7 13:12:41 1995
>Date: 07 Jul 95 08:12:04 EDT
>From: Mike Halvorson <[e-mail]>
>To: Chris Hall <[e-mail]>
>Subject: Wish list.
>
>Chris
>
>Is yours borken or what.
>
>Mike
>
>
No it is not broken. It just won't work in imagine 3.0 !!
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          40 05 17 37 35 07                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Saturday, 08 July 1995 21:15:38
Subject: New Amiga Logo
From:    [e-mail]


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

Hi all
                                         ///
Amiga has a new logo.                   ///
Has this been mentioned already?  \\\  ///
It looks a lot better than:        \\\///
                                    \\//
The new one looks something like:
          _____
         |_____|
        _________
       |_________|
      _____________
     |_____________|
    _________________
   |_________________|

A capital "A" made out of tetris bricks.

Rod Macey
[e-mail]

"Sometimes the hard way is the only way"





Date:    Saturday, 08 July 1995 23:27:00
Subject: Imagine vs Hercules Stingray video card
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Dimech)


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

G'day,

Finally, Finally, Finally... I have just put together enough pennies to buy
myself a pentium 90. And does Imagine Love It!!!!.

I haven't done any time trials but its nice to do a 320 scanline quickrender
within a few seconds. However, I have come accross one particular annoying
problem:

I have a Hercules Stingray PCI video card. Several of my mates have the same
card. (I got one to check that Imagine worked with it before bying the card
and he said yes). Anyway, he was sort of right. Imagine detects the Built in
vesa driver and comes up in all of the display modes etc. However, when I
display a picture from within Imagine it's colour is 'out of phase'... All
of the coulours are totally wild. Things that should be red are green..
white is yellow, green is red etc.

The pictures are OKif wiewed  through all external viewers and paint packages.

I know the problem is most likely in the way the Imagine talks to the video
(it's allways been a bit particular).

Can anyone please provide a possible solution... Other than buying another
card (this Pentium 90 purchase really blew the budget.)

By the way the Stingray comes with a hardware/ software driver that performs
Direct Video Playback for windows AVI's. It uses hardware to scale and
smooth avi's. Its real nice and real fast. This is one of the reasons I got
this card. Also it's very fast but not that expensive.

Hope someone can help...
Regards
BillD




Date:    Saturday, 08 July 1995 23:41:08
Subject: HTML Version of FAQ 7 Online!
From:    Ian Smith <[e-mail]>


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

I grabbed the FAQ #7 off of the list when it was posted earlier
today and converted it to HTML.  It is currenly on my home page,
so go take a look and tell me what you think!

If anyone has some of their posts in the FAQ, check them out
to make sure I didn't make a (gasp) mistake anywhere. :-)

( Counting the days until 3.3 arrives... )

--
[e-mail]              Visit Below!
My HP48/Imagine/ImageMaster Page --> http://moose.erie.net/~iansmith/
Come and stop by Africa Imports! --> http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/



Date:    Sunday, 09 July 1995 01:17:06
Subject: Anim newbie probs
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> The first 20 frames seem fine, but towards the end the scene seems to
> "shrink" down to a small box area in the middle of the frame with the
> sky colour showing around this small box area.

First thing that comes to mind is unwanted camera motion. It seems as if
your camera is moving in the -Y direction. Go to the Action editor and
make sure that the camera's Position bar consists of a single square, at
frame 1.



Date:    Sunday, 09 July 1995 01:22:33
Subject: Re: Imagine 3.3
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

On Fri, 7 Jul 1995, --Craig wrote:

> P.S. Please let me know if you feel it was inappropriate for me to post
> this information here. I just figured all the Imagine nuts out there
> would want to know ASAP, and that Impulse wouldn't have a problem with
> it.

I would've checked with Mike Halvorson, m'self.



Date:    Sunday, 09 July 1995 02:13:39
Subject: New Program
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> I have come across a software package that converts images from 16 mil.
> color to 256 color or less.  How does this relate to Imagine?  #1. I use
> it to convert textures to 256 so they don't take up as much room.  #2.
> Instead of having to use 24 bit for backdrop images I can create a fairly
> hi-res 256 image instead.

Ummm, I assume you meant "so they don't take up as much room" _on disk_?
Because you _do_ know that Imagine converts every single brushmap, even
simple 1-bitmap ones, to 24-bit depth when loaded in memory, right?

So I must assume that you're really tight on disk, not memory, space; if
not, why would you deface a 24-bit backdrop, even if expertly dithered?


Date:    Sunday, 09 July 1995 02:26:27
Subject: States???
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
>     I have a logo with the crumpled texture, and I just want to
> animate the differences between two noise settings.
> What I try to do is set-up the texture, the create a default state, the
> change the texture and make a new state. After I do this I tell Imagine
> to set my object back to default then I check the texture settings, they
> should be as I set them for default, but they have changed to the new
> states settings.
> I have tried to do this in different orders but the settings still remain
> the same in both states.

1) Which version of Imagine do you use? Early implementations of States
did not memorize texture parameters or brushes correctly.

2) Never use the DEFAULT state in an animation. Make a duplicate state,
call it something like START, and use _that_ instead.



Date:    Sunday, 09 July 1995 05:58:37
Subject: Re: REALISTIC MATERIALS!
From:    [e-mail]


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

>>turning the light source that is placed at either side into a paralell on=
e
>>(not spot) only cross the paralell rays button and make a shadow casting
>>source.

>I've generally used the main/fill light approach as a starting point, but
>look forward to trying your basic lighting setup. I'm curious, why do you
>prefer parallel ray lights in your setup?

A parallell lightscource above and a little to the side of your scene will
emulate sunlight.
The sun is so far away that it's rays seem almost parallell. That makes any
shadows cast by objects appear just as large as the object itself.
A lightbulb however is usually rather close to the object that it
illuminates, which makes shadows appear _larger_ than the object. And the
further away the shadow is cast the larger it will be.

All from the experience of a space tech engineer. ;-)

*---------------------------------------------------------------*
|   Conny Joensson   |   Swedish Space Corp. Esrange            |
|   Kiruna           |   Satellite operations - Telecom Div.    |
|   Sweden           |   [e-mail]              |
*---------------------------------------------------------------*


Date:    Sunday, 09 July 1995 06:07:17
Subject: Essence
From:    [e-mail]


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

I was wondering if someone could post the textures that are included in the
Essence 1&2 collection.  I just recieved the newsletter from Apex yesterday.
 It does not list what the textures are.  Specifically I am wondering if
there is a decent water texture like POV creates or Bryce.  I am trying to do
a rippling lake, and I havent been able to create the random swells with any
great realism.  Any info or help would be greatly appreciated.

Stephen


Date:    Sunday, 09 July 1995 06:29:43
Subject: Re: Aspect Ratio
From:    [e-mail]


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

>I need to create some rendered clips that are 128x128 pixels.  Anyone
>know what aspect ratio/camera size I should use for this?

That depends entirely on where you are going to view the clips (in print?)
If you _are_ going to print them I would suggest a pixel aspect ratio of 1:=
1

The camera size will "only" affect your field-of-view.
Larger X than Y values will produce a "from far away" look.
Larger Y than X values will emulate a "fish-eye" lens.

*---------------------------------------------------------------*
|   Conny Joensson   |   Swedish Space Corp. Esrange            |
|   Kiruna           |   Satellite operations - Telecom Div.    |
|   Sweden           |   [e-mail]              |
*---------------------------------------------------------------*


Date:    Sunday, 09 July 1995 12:39:09
Subject: Re: Essence
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


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


Stephen asks:
> I was wondering if someone could post the textures that are included
> in the Essence 1&2 collection....

well, geez, there's only about 80-90 of 'em, maybe Apex will list them
in the "big" newsletter which accompanies the release of Understanding
Imagine 3 and other hinted goodies.

However, Stephen asks about water textures available.  Available in
vol.2 are Caustics, Raindrops, Randomripple (really good for simulating
the many wave sources on a body of water), Seawaves (similar to Imagine's
waves), Waterdrop, & Waterdropref.

For those who have not used the Essence textures, let me say that they
are of very high quality.  IMHO, their release prompted Impulse to
beef up the bundled textures.  One of the plusses of the Essence textures
is the way (to my layman's eye) the texture cells are smoothed at the
edges.  That is, as each bundle of noise reaches its end, some "dithering"
is done to obscure the beginning of the next.

bye,
Greg Denby


Date:    Sunday, 09 July 1995 15:12:15
Subject: SITES-GFX
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Okay some kool sites.

http://www.3dartist.com
http://www.tgax.com/3dartist.htm

http://www.websharx.com:80/~kinda/mainmenu.html    -this is Steven Blackmon's
http://www.websharx.com/    - I think this is sharky's
http://www.websharx.com:80/    -Or this?

Later!

Tom RenderBrandt


Date:    Sunday, 09 July 1995 18:21:42
Subject: Wishlist Compilation.
From:    Douglas Smith <[e-mail]>


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

Hello !

I've gone through the last 850ish messages to the IML
and these are all the things that have been asked for.

some of these line entries might be a bit cryptic, but
if you're confused, just drop me an Email, and I'll
try to explain what was originally asked for.

Of course, I have absolutely nothing to do with Impulse,
so this is most certainly not a feature list for
forthcoming versions of Imagine, It's only a list of things
that have been wanted by some of the people on the IML.
We also have to remember that we are only a small fraction
of all the users, and that for any package to grow, it must
be driven by a philosophy, and not just by requests from
users.

What I'd like to happen is for these features to be
discussed, it might be a good idea to use the one-liner
as a title for your posting, so things stay together.

If there are any work arounds for things on this list,
post them !

If any of these features are already in Imagine, drop
me an Email saying which version they were included in.

After this has been kicked around for a while, I'll put
together a voting form.

My current idea is that we should each pick the five
things that we would most like to see included.

In addition, it would be a good idea to mark the ones
we think are a good suggestions.

Anyway, That's for later, for now get discussing the
items on the list !

If you want me to add something to the list, just
start discussing it on IML , and I'll email you
when I've added it.

BTW I recieved a couple of messages of encouragement
from Mike Halvorson, so I'm sure that any ideas that
we put forward will at least get looked at.


Modelling Tools

Improved bitmap tracing.
Unpick any picked point/edge/face
swap picked and unpicked points/edges/faces
snap axis to point
Improved deformation tools
Ghost (similar to hide points)
Reverse Path direction
Splines in all editors.
Join creating subgroups
3d Splines
Hide points by subgroup
Blobs
Metaballs
EPS support.
Organic Modelling


Textures/Effects

Electrical spark.
Explosion effect
Fog within Fog
Hair Texture
Improved glass texture.
Improved starfield.
Craters texture
Motion Blur
Scanline shadows
Soft shadows.
repeated tiling in wrap mapping
More brush mapping options
Allow particles to have all attributes
Edge effects
Noisy haze/fog
Bright textures


Project Tools

Texture search path
To infinity in action editor
Beep/play sample at end of frame/series
stretchable bars in action editor


Interface

Attrubutes in stage editor
Arexx Macros
some other type of macro
Tab to move between string gadgets.
Proper colour in colour box
Rotate by dragging axes
Don't reload objects in every frame
frames per second
backdrops in forms editor.
Zoom Box
Shading/hidden line in newmode
Support for Amiga screenmode requester.
Variable pixel aspect ratio in editors.
Ghost out non selectable menu items.
save group option in pick objects mode
Arrows on paths.
Variable brightness
Refraction mapping
Preset lens types (35mm, telephoto)
3D painting.
delete object from disk
ASL requesters
Combine forms and spline editor


General

harmonise pc and amiga textures & disk docs
More output formats.
Standalone renderer.
Univesa mentioned in documentation
Datatypes support/more image formats
Processor specific versions (040/pent)
Better disk labels
Windows, OS/2 Intuition support
Programmer's pack for shareware programmers
option to only load the editor in use.
More CSG shapes (cone, cylinders, quadrics)
Better error messages
Support for external viewers.
Face reduction
Collision detection
Multiple cameras


Bugfixes

Fix creation date bug.
fix tiled map problem
Left hand alt key.
--

[e-mail]
Amiga 4000/40 10M 214, 540 HD  Not better, just different.
When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the
one I've never tried before. -- Mae West


Date:    Sunday, 09 July 1995 20:37:55
Subject: Re: New Amiga Logo
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Jul 8, 1994 James "Alex" Brooks wrote:

>>           _____
>>          |_____|
>>         _________
>>        |_________|
>>       _____________
>>      |_____________|
>>     _________________
>>    |_________________|
>>
>> A capital "A" made out of tetris bricks.

>Wondering where did u find out this info?

>Alex


Hi Alex,
This info was in Australian Commodore & Amiga Review.
They had a lightwave render on the fron cover of the new logo,
with a summary of a press conference that ESCOM held in Frankfurt on
May 30. There were a couple of renders accompanying the article of
the new A4000T, a tower that may or may not contain a Cyberstorm '060
as well as a Scala Multimedia 300 in every Amiga. The A4000T was
apparently designed by one of Scala's designers, Bjorn Rybakken, and looks
very "Kool" (this is the correct word for this mailing list isn't it?).
A trapdoor on the front hides all the drive bays. Apparently there will
be a new A1300, A1200 equipped with an '030 accelerator.
There is more, though you all would be hearing more from your own sources
"real soon". "Real soon" is when all the new machines should be shipping
according to ESCOM.

Bye
Rod Macey
[e-mail]

"Sometimes the hard way is the only way"





Date:    Sunday, 09 July 1995 22:08:14
Subject: Re: Wishlist Compilation.
From:    [e-mail]


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

Hiya Doug!

>I've gone through the last 850ish messages to the IML and these are all
>the things that have been asked for.

[snip]

Whew! That was quite a list!  (Great post, BTW!!)

But I think you forgot one of the more important wishes;
*when rendering a series of frames, only load objects the first time they
are used, *not* *every* frame!!!

*---------------------------------------------------------------*
|   Conny Joensson   |   Swedish Space Corp. Esrange            |
|   Kiruna           |   Satellite operations - Telecom Div.    |
|   Sweden           |   [e-mail]              |
*---------------------------------------------------------------*


Date:    Sunday, 09 July 1995 22:22:28
Subject: One last wish
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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


Okay, I guess I'm probably one of the few people on the list who hasn't
suggested a feature for 4.0 yet(I'm also probably one of the few people
on the list that's still using 2.0 :), due mostly to the fact that it
seems just about everything has been covered.  Since I am still using
2.0, I don't know how easy it is to position the camera in later versions
of Imagine but I do know it can be a pain in 2.0.  There's a shareware
modelling program for Povray called Pov Scene Builder which allows you to
move the camera around interactively while a wire-frame view is updated
in real time.  It's just a nice feature that makes it a lot easier to
position the camera and I would really like to see it in Imagine4.0 once
I finally upgrade.


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~





Date:    Sunday, 09 July 1995 22:57:15
Subject: BLOBS
From:    [e-mail]


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

Blobs are utilized in POV-ray as follows:
a blob consists of a theoretically unlimited number of components.  Each compone
nt
contains a point (the center), a strength (maximum at center, falling off to
zero at) radius.  A threshold value is defined for the entire object, and any
point at which the total of all strengths is equal to threshold is defined to
be on the surface of the object.  Two components whose radii physically overlap

one another will define a barbell-shaped object, since the volume between them
sums both strengths (tapering off to zero at radius).  Centers close together
produce shapes which more closely approach spheres, centers farther apart have
connections between them like stretching silly putty.
Another facet of blobs is when a strength is negative, under which condition
that component's strength (again, tapering, this time up, to zero) is subtracted

from the total, allowing dimples to be pressed or cut from the whole object.
The overall effect is somewhat like CSG with spheres, but working with silly
putty instead of cookie cutters (OK, so the metaphor makes little sense, but
taken as a whole, this should help you understand blobs)
JN


Date:    Sunday, 09 July 1995 23:55:28
Subject: Wishlist compilation explained.
From:    Douglas Smith <[e-mail]>


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

Hello !

I just got my previous post back and read through it.

I decided that the one-liners were too cryptic after all, so I've expanded
them. This has turned it into a rather long posting, so remember not to
quote it all if you're only replying to one little bit.

I think it's a bit more readable, and may encourage more debate now people
know what they are looking at.

I'll remind anyone, I am not associated in any way with Impulse.

This is not a feature list for future versions of Imagine.

It's only a list for discussion.

If you want to start a discussion on one of the items, try to start a new
thread with the "Title" of that item. That way, things won't get too confusing.

Cheers,

Doug.


Modelling Tools
===============


Improved bitmap tracing.

A better "Load IFF" routine. Some brushes, even 2 color ones,
simply generete a strange jungle of edges. (even under 3.0)



Unpick any picked point/edge/face

The ability to deselect one point. I've lost count of the number of times
I have been clicking around and got one point that I didn't want.
How about a CTRL click to deselect a single point, that would be nice.

How about another menu item called Toggle to go
with Click, Drag Box and Lasso. Select Toggle, then no matter what pick
method you use all picked points become unpicked and vice-versa. This could
be applied to faces and edges as well.



swap picked and unpicked points/edges/faces

Would select all unselected points, and deselect any selected points.



snap axis to point

Enough said ?



Improved deformation tools

Enough said ? Improve it how ?



Ghost (similar to hide points)

Works similar to hide points, but doesn't hide them, just stops the
point from getting it's yellow blob, and makes it impossible to
select that point.



Reverse Path direction

Some way, any way of making the path reverse it's direction.



Splines in all editors.

enough said ? What would you use them for ?



Join creating subgroups

Join Command: The "Join" command could be enhanced so
that the secondary objects being joined would be
incorporated as subgroups of the primary object.  The
names of the secondary objects would become the names of
the subgroups.



3d Splines

A future version of the Spline
editor capable of editing 3D spline objects.
Possibly "Thick splines" as a CSG primitive



Hide points by subgroup

Enough said ?



Blobs

I don't know what a blob is, anyone care to explain.



Metaballs

Some modelling method which involves placing points that
have a surface round them, these surfaces blend together.
(That's what I think it means)



EPS support.

Allow Imagine to directly import 2D EPS, as this is the
de-facto standard for clipart (ie logos)



Organic Modelling

From D Andrea, care to elaborate ?




Textures/Effects
================

Electrical spark.

Some extra effects like an eletrical discharge,
Good animatable lightning ?



Explosion effect

Explosion effect which seems to be a explosion. Not just spread
faces away.
(The explosion effect on Alias is very nice, it creates exploding
fog about the centre of the explosion, waaaaay kewl)



Fog within Fog

Putting a fog object inside another is far too much hard work,
try intersecting two searchlights, this needs to be made easier


Hair Texture

Enough said ? Do we want it animatable, moving hair, wind ?



Improved glass texture.

I though there was a good PD one, any comments ?



Improved starfield.

Better control over density, nebulas, galaxys etc.



Craters texture

Enough said ?



Motion Blur

Enough said ?



Scanline shadows

Enough Said ?



Soft shadows.

For all objects in a scene, or just for chosen objects or lights ?


repeated tiling in wrap mapping

It would be nice to tile a wrapped map, i.e 2 copies of that
Coke map.



More brush mapping options

Care to elaborate mr Renderbrant ?



Allow particles to have all attributes

Like phong, bright etc.



Edge effects

Edge glows, highlights, bright etc.



Noisy haze/fog

Patchy animatable swirly fog that looks right at a range of
distances.



Bright textures

Ability to make textures bright, without having to paste them onto
objects (this is in 3.3 isn't it ?)




Project Tools
=============

Texture search path

You know when you pass on a project to someone else, all the
embedded filenames within the project are messed up.
It would be nice to have some kind of search path, i.e
ie, if Imagine can't find a texture, it will look in
another directory for it. This would be a preferences feature.



To infinity in action editor

When you want to extend that 50 frame animation to a 100 frame one
you have to go through all the bars in the action editor, making
them all 100 frames long.
It would be useful to be able to set some bars to continue to the
end of the animation.



Beep/play sample at end of frame/series

Make a noise when the frame has finished renering.
Make a different noise when the animation/series of frames has finished



stretchable bars in action editor

Allow the use of the mouse to stretch out the action bars
much more intuitive.



Interface
=========

Attributes in stage editor

An attributes editor into the stage editor can be great.;)



Arexx Macros

Arexx is a macro programming language, popular on the Amiga,
it is also available on OS/2 and a few other operating systems
(Aix, PC dos 7 etc)



some other type of macro

some other kind of inflexible, non standard macro language for all
us Amiga users to learn, but it would work under Windows.
(probably not as good as Rexx anyway)



Tab to move between string gadgets.

Allow the tab key to advance the cursor to the next entry in
a requester, and shift tab to go back to the previous field.



Proper colour in colour box

Get rid of the dithered colours in the colour box.



Rotate by dragging axes

Allow object rotation about local axes by dragging the axes arrows
on the objects local axis. Rotation about the global axis by dragging
the global axes in the editor window.



Don't reload objects in every frame

When rendering, don't reload all the objects for each frame, most
of them never move. This would speed up previewing Animations.



frames per second

Speed Control: A "Frames Per Second" indicator on the
speed control for "Animate" in the Stage Editor would
make it clearer the frame rate at which the animation
was currently playing.



backdrops in forms editor.

enough said ?



Zoom Box

Allow the user to drag a box around the section of the screen that
they want zoomed up. Possibly preferences option to preserve the
aspect ration ?



Shading/hidden line in newmode

enough said ?



Support for Amiga screenmode requester.

Option to change Amiga screen modes while running Imagine.
get pixel aspect ratios for the render prejects from the
screenmode database as well



Variable pixel aspect ratio in editors.

I use my Amiga with a multisync, the picture is not full width
on the monitor. As a result, my pixels are not the same shape as
any other Amiga's pixels. It would be nice to be able to change
the aspect ratio that Imagine assumes, so my spheres are round in
the editor.
It would also be useful for when you want to render in a letterbox
format, you could set things up in the detail editor, so you knew
what was on screen and what was not.
(at very least, a switch for 1:1 or standard Amiga)



Ghost out non selectable menu items.

One of the things that frustrated me when I was learning Imagine
was that I could not save my object in pick points mode, it just
didn't work, there was no indication that it didn't work. The menu
selections that you cannot make should be ghosted out or removed
when you cannot make them.



save group option in pick objects mode

When you select save in pick objects mode, pop up a requester
with 2 buttons saying "save object" "save group"



Arrows on paths.

How about a little arrowhead on the path to show which direction
that path is going ?



Variable brightness

I believe this is in 3.3 ?



Refraction mapping



Preset lens types (35mm, telephoto)

Is this useful, would a few presets in the manual suffice ?



3D painting.

Like that Raydream Designer thing, anyone care to elaborate ?



delete object from disk

Delete with extreme prejudice.



ASL requesters

(Amiga Standard Library) and,
File Requesters: I think that in Imagine's file
requesters, the names of sub-directories should be at
the top of the list, so that the user does not have to
keep scrolling down in order to open a succession of
sub-directories.



Combine forms and spline editor

Why ? I don't understand this, do you want spline interpolation
in the forms editor ?


General
=======

harmonise pc and amiga textures & disk docs

(new suggestion from [e-mail])
Recent versions of Imagine have had differences in the supplied
textures and on disk documentation, lets get eveything back to
the same standard. eg purphaze and caustics, effects doc.
TIFF,Targa on Amiga etc.



More output formats.

Which ones ? stills or animations ?



Standalone renderer.

Have a standalone render engine available seperately.
this would reduce the overhead on the rendering machine, and reduce
the cost of setting up a render farm.



Univesa mentioned in documentation

Mention the correct mouse and vesa drivers, and where to get them
from. Judging by the number of related queries, this is the most
frequent problem that PC imagineers face.



Datatypes support/more image formats

Use datatypes for brushmap loading or just support more imagemap types



Processor specific versions (040/pent)

This was a hot topic a few weeks ago, build optimised versions
for the major processors, it might not provide too much of a performance
increase, but every little helps !



Better disk labels

Silver shipped with a really cool embossed reflective label,
the pride of my disk box.



Windows, OS/2, Intuition support

Support the major operating systems. At least allow Imagine to run,
but try to take advantage of each operating systems strengths.
This is why we buy a certain computer after all.



Programmer's pack for shareware programmers

The $500 developer's pack is a nice idea and should lead to some
interesting add-ons, but it's too expensive for the hobbyist.
Release the object format, the texture format, and the effects
format so shareware authors can continue to support Imagine.



option to only load the editor in use.

Save memory, only load the bits that you are currently using.
Restoring the 2.0 preferences switch would be nice.



More CSG shapes (cone, cylinders, quadrics)

Enough said, Which shapes ?



Better error messages

Enough said ?



Support for external viewers.

Call a different viewer, possibly could be used to call a script after
rendering a frame, like Real3D used to (last time I looked at it)



Face reduction

simply cut out any useless vertex, tolerances for out of plane points



Collision detection

enough said ?



Multiple cameras

enough said ?




Bugfixes
========

Fix creation date bug.


Fix tiled map problem


Left hand alt key.
--

[e-mail]
Amiga 4000/40 10M 214, 540 HD  Not better, just different.
When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the
one I've never tried before. -- Mae West


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 00:03:02
Subject: Re: One last wish
From:    Ian Smith <[e-mail]>


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

On Sun, 9 Jul 1995, Richard Heidebrecht wrote:
> of Imagine but I do know it can be a pain in 2.0.  There's a shareware
> modelling program for Povray called Pov Scene Builder which allows you to
> move the camera around interactively while a wire-frame view is updated
> in real time.  It's just a nice feature that makes it a lot easier to
> position the camera and I would really like to see it in Imagine4.0 once
> I finally upgrade.

That has already been added to 3.x of Imagine.  You can move the camera
and watch the 3D view change in real time, and even move objects and
have them move in real time as well.

--
[e-mail]              Visit Below! :-)
My HP48/Imagine/ImageMaster Page --> http://moose.erie.net/~iansmith/
Come and stop by Africa Imports! --> http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 00:03:53
Subject: Re: Wishlist Compilation.
From:    Douglas Smith <[e-mail]>


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

cjo wrote in a Mail about "Re: Wishlist Compilation.":
c :But I think you forgot one of the more important wishes;
c :*when rendering a series of frames, only load objects the first time they
c :are used, *not* *every* frame!!!

Nope, it's there under "Interface"

phew, I thought I'd missed one there for a minute.

Cheers,

Doug.
--

[e-mail]
Amiga 4000/40 10M 214, 540 HD  Not better, just different.
When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the
one I've never tried before. -- Mae West


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 01:28:22
Subject: Imagine 3.3
From:    --Craig <[e-mail]>


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

Well, first I should apologize. I got a very polite letter from Mike
H. telling me that it was probably not a good idea to post stuff that
Impulse wrote verbatim. Apparently it gives their legal department
seizures. Guess I should have asked...bad Craig <whack>.

Anyway, I have to say that the texture preview is very nice. On my
486/66 I can get a preview of most textures inside of 5 or 10 seconds.
And if you don't want to wait, you can usually tell if you have what
you want by 2 or 3 seconds. About the only down side of it is that you
have to run in 256 color mode, which slows down redraws depending on
your video hardware. On my setup (Trident 9400CXi based), it is
noticable but not too bad. It might get to be too much once I start
staging with a lot of objects.

One thing that is very cool is the Mix/Morph setting in the texture
requestor. Basically, it makes every texture a variable intensity one.
So now you can set up an object with two textures and two states. In
state one, texture one is 0%, and texture 2 is 100%. Reverse this for
state two, morph and voila! Cross-fading of textures. I haven't tried
this yet, but I can't see what would keep it from working.

Well, I'm off to play with 3.3 some more.

  --Craig
[e-mail]


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 01:33:26
Subject: Re: REALISTIC MATERIALS!
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Conny, on Jul 9 you wrote:

> A parallell lightscource above and a little to the side of your scene will
> emulate sunlight.
> The sun is so far away that it's rays seem almost parallell. That makes any
> shadows cast by objects appear just as large as the object itself.
> A lightbulb however is usually rather close to the object that it
> illuminates, which makes shadows appear _larger_ than the object. And the
> further away the shadow is cast the larger it will be.

I've also found it smooths out unwanted hot spots on reflective objects and
is'nt as intense (bright) as a point source light with equal RGB settings.

-- Bob

  : Robert (Bob) Byrne : [e-mail] :
  :   Amiga  A3000/25  :  Ballina, NSW  Australia  :



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 02:00:10
Subject: Virtual Mem
From:    [e-mail]


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

--- Received from GITD.PSG024  216 4526             10JUL95  14.56
  -> IBMMAIL.INTERNET      IBMMAIL INTERNET               IBM
Readers of this Mail,

G'day...I'm new to this IML so pls be patient.

I have a DX2-66, 8Megs of ram, and Imagine V2.0.
I was wondering wether there is a program that can use the hard
disk drive as a virtual memory, without running a memory manager
and / or windows.  It gets pretty annoying when I run outof
memory when using the quickrender function.

Thanx.
Victor Sarmiento. (vems)


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 04:22:08
Subject: Essence
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> I was wondering if someone could post the textures that are included
> in the
> Essence 1&2 collection.  I just recieved the newsletter from Apex
> yesterday.
>  It does not list what the textures are.  Specifically I am wondering if
> there is a decent water texture like POV creates or Bryce.

Essence II has two textures of interest to you, Randomripple and
Seawaves. The first gives you ripples much like those of a swimming pool
with people in it, the second gives you the parallel, wind-driven ocean
waves found on oceans and large lakes. It uses a physical model of wind-
and gravity-formed waves.

I'll send you two UUencoded GIF thumbnails by mail, so you can see what
the textures look like. Oh, and of course, they have an all-important
"time" parameter.



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 04:44:52
Subject: Re: Essence
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: gregory denby <[e-mail]>
>
> For those who have not used the Essence textures, let me say that they
> are of very high quality.  IMHO, their release prompted Impulse to
> beef up the bundled textures.

I agree. High quality, sometimes resulting in high rendering times --
but remember, there's no free lunch. Essence textures look amazing.
Another big plus is the superlative documentation. Steve Worley, who,
after all, started the Imagine Mailing List, is rightfully considered a
God by long-time Imagine users. His communication skills are legendary,
and reflect in the understandable documentation that accompanies the
Essence I and II packages. Parameter names are intuitively named, and
fully documented. None of that "noise 1 & 2 control the noise" stuff you
get with Imagine textures.


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 05:08:44
Subject: One minor wish
From:    [e-mail]


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

Is it me or does it seem Imagine totally disreagrads the right mouse button,
it would be cool to use it as shift or something


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 06:29:04
Subject: Output video from PC.
From:    [e-mail] (Tom Ellard)


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

>From: Marty Nussbaum <[e-mail]>

>     I need to make a demo tape and don't have access to the equipment on
>campus. What I want to do is buy what I need to output to video from my
>home computer. What equipment do I need to purchase?

I have a small white box called simply "Encoder", as if the Taiwanese
manufacturer was a little shy of breathing their name. It is often
advertised at the back of New Media and DV magazines. You put your PC in 640
by 480 mode and the box provides a composite or SVHS signal ready to record.

The box cost me 400 bucks Australian, or about 25c US :-)

* The signal strength is a little low, I use a Time Base Corrector to pump
it up.
* This is a P.A.L. unit, in this country the picture does NOT overscan,
unless you go to 800 by 600 and then it overscans at left and right only.
* If you want better, consider a GVP G-LockVGA
* In the long run, an Amiga can be used as a playback tool.

Cheers.


Tom Ellard, Severed Communications Australia [e-mail]



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 06:29:11
Subject: Trying to make it pay.
From:    [e-mail] (Tom Ellard)


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

> From: Douglas Smith <[e-mail]>
>>
>> OK time to show off.
>>
>> tell us all about the stuff that you have had published/
>> printed or been paid for.

I'm in an electronic band, and when we play live we use 2 LCD beam
projectors to show live video. Often the videos are made with Imagine.

When we release a single the record company provides a budget for upgrading
the videos to broadcast.

The last three videos were:

A pinball machine played from a ball's eye view, that is, you fly around the
table hitting bumpers and flippers at table level. We rendered this on 2
PC's, transferred the images to an Amiga PAR for playback and eventually
edited it up on an AVID system. Since the ball is chrome shiny the whole
thing had to be ray trace.

Sadly an Australian TV show called Hey Hey It's Saturday came up with a
similar video about the same time we did :-(

A kind of ballet piece with knives, forks and spoons, flying about the
screen under particle control. This was easy and suited the music well. To
get the cutlery to do formation dancing we'd deform and conform planes, and
use the morphs to make the partcles line up in neat arrangements. The spoons
took up so much memory we had to ray trace them.

A clip with bottles changing size, shape and imagine texture, like a kind of
glass light show. This took ages as Imagine textures are really slow. We're
remaking this for television but we're going to use 2D morphing instead -
it's faster and you don't have to count points!

Here's some things we've learned over time - by the time it's on a beam
projector you can forget the details. Keep everything bold. Contrast will
drop substantially. Videotape will antialias everything, making super sharp
edges is a waste of time - especially red edges, they flame off to the
right. Something that changes from bright to dark really quickly looks like
a bad edit - the projector jumps. And if you're playing in a club have them
turn OFF the smoke machines, otherwise it's bye bye video image.


Tom Ellard, Severed Communications Australia [e-mail]



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 09:26:20
Subject: Gfx Cards and Error Requestors
From:    Cedric Georges Chang <[e-mail]>


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

I read the Wishlist Compilation and I would like to elaborate on the
suggestion for support for the screenmode database.  Impulse should
also try to make Imagine compatible with 3rd party graphics cards.  Right
now it only has support for the Retina card.  If they could make Imagine
work under Cybergraphics, the Piccolo, Piccolo SD64, Spectrum, Retina Z3,
Picasso, and Cybervision cards would be supported.  Currently with my
Piccolo, I use a 1024x768 Detail editor and I have to continualy select
the Redraw commmand because the screen does not refresh properly.

Also, for the better error messages suggestion, I would be interested in
seeing an 'Abort' button or 'Super Cancel' button on some of the requesters
that pop up a hundred times in a row.  I haven't had this happen to me
recently so I can't remember what the error was, but I do have a vivid
recollection of me clicking the mouse button for a long time to close these
error requestors which kept popping up.

Cedric
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cedric Chang             Mechanical Engineer            // Amiga 3000 '040
[e-mail]    Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute   \X/  CgFx/EGS Piccolo
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 09:40:03
Subject: Re: One minor wish
From:    [e-mail]


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


     I recommend that the person you suggested that Imagine use the right
     mouse button in the editors (and anyone else on the Amiga) get the
     little hack Silicon Menus. It makes the menus appear in a vertical
     list right under your mouse no matter where you push the right button.
     It makes choosing things VERY fast and cuts down on mouse movements a
     lot. You can get it on Aminet under the name SM.LHA or something.


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 10:19:45
Subject: Re: FORM TDDD
From:    [e-mail] (Patrick Sauvageau)


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

>Yaba daba doo Imagineers,
>
>
>        I have two question on TDDD iff sub-chunk:
>
> i)  there can be two or more OBJ chunks into an Imagine TDDD file
>     (I've got an Imagine obj with more OBJ chunks and Imagine Detail Ed
>     have some problem manage it)?
>
>ii)  what data contains the following TDDD sub-chunks:
>        TPAR, SURF, MTTR, SPEC, PRP0, INTS  (I've found these into
>     another TDDD Imagine objects).
>
>PLEASE REPLY TO [e-mail]

Those specifications are from an old turbo-silver object.

If anybody need them, mail me.

-----
Patrick Sauvageau
([e-mail])



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 11:36:55
Subject: Re: Wishlist compilation explained.
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


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


>Combine forms and spline editor

>Why ? I don't understand this, do you want spline interpolation
)in the forms editor ?

Yeah, pretty much.  Right now the spline editor is pretty much the
Logo extrusion editor.  This is something I certainly wouldn't
want to loose.  But the forms editor seems to be a sort of polygon
approximation of splines.  I'd like to be able to start a spline
based object by asking for one comprised of both latitude and
longditude splines, in the same fashion as the forms editor.  I
don't want to have to build 3d spline meshes.

Oh yeah, one more wish.  Snap Object to Grid.

Greg Denby
[e-mail]


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 12:25:54
Subject: Re: Essence for PC ships
From:    Michael Allchin <[e-mail]>


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


Greg wrote:
>
> Understanding Imagine 2, out of print.  Sorry, 2.0 owners.
> Understanding Imagine 3, due late July.  Yay everybody.
>

 Is this just in North America, or does it include the rest of us ? I
haven't asked recently, but back at Easter, no book shops in Cardiff
had any details of Steve's new book.

 Please post a reply direct to me, I am leaving Cardiff at the end of
the week, and think I might try an unsubscribe message now.

- Michael          wether the unsubscribe works or not...   <g>


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 13:01:08
Subject: Amiga macro recorder
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Everyone,

I've just been playing with a key/mouse event macro recorder I found on an
Aminet CD, its called Director15.lha.  Some features are disabled for the
unregistered version but menus, mouse clicks/movements and keys are
recorded in Imagine.

Example:  I set up 5 axes to create a path.  I hit the Record button on
Director in Workbench, clicked on the Imagine screen and pressed Amiga-n
then F1 and rotated one axis 45 degrees then pressed the spacebar.  I went
back to Workbench and selected Stop and set Loop to 4 then selected Play.

Hey presto, Director went through the recorded process 4 times and rotated
the other 4 axes 45 degrees.

Recordings can even be played back relative to the current mouse pointer
position as well by assigning a hot-key for play-back.  I recorded dragging
some points with the mouse, positioned it over another set of points and
hit the hot-key and they were dragged the same distance and direction.

Someone might want to try this program out and may find some novel ways of
using it.

-- Bob

  : Robert (Bob) Byrne : [e-mail] :
  :   Amiga  A3000/25  :  Ballina, NSW  Australia  :



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 14:29:28
Subject: Re: One minor wish
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

> Right mouse button?  I called Impulse awhile back about that same possibility
> and was assured that I was the only person using Imagine that had a mouse
> with more then one button.  And because noone else had a right mouse button
> that they won't add it's use.
> Boy, now theres two of us!

Actually, you can use right mouse button in the perspective window to
rotate view around the third axis.  First press left mouse button,
then hold it down and press right and move the mouse.

Andrey


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 15:15:57
Subject: Re: DOF?
From:    "DEBEAUMONT, GEORGE" <[e-mail]>


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

>"Granberg Tom" <[e-mail]> wrote:
>A while back a great dude wrote a excellent mail about how to use the dof
>feature. But a thing I didnt quite catch was how to extend the field where
>things will be in perfect focus. I have tried the things he said and get
>brilliant results, but every thing behind and in front of the camera Y lenght
>is more or less out of focus. Does anyone know how to do this?

Entering a smaller value in the "Aperture Size (DOF)" box will increase the
depth of field.






Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 15:35:48
Subject: Re: One minor wish
From:    [e-mail]


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

Right mouse button?  I called Impulse awhile back about that same possibility
and was assured that I was the only person using Imagine that had a mouse
with more then one button.  And because noone else had a right mouse button
that they won't add it's use.
Boy, now theres two of us!

Rick


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 15:38:13
Subject: Re: Making Imagine pay....
From:    [e-mail] (John Prusinski)


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

Just adding my two cents...

I've been using Imagine since the Silver days of the mid-80's,
& did the occasional small freelance animation or titling job
with it.  I think it was the '88 or '89 Siggraph convention that
I got a trace of a kind of retro rocketship-shaped teapot included
in the Technical Slide Set as an example of ray-tracing on a small
computer, which was relatively unheard of in those days outside
of the Amiga community!
My first major Imagine animation job was about two years ago, for
a documentary directed by T.W. Timreck for Nova and international
distribution about the initial excursions of the Northern European peoples
to the New World.  I had to model a Viking ship (a tip of the hat
to our Scandinavian IML contingent) in various scenarios
demonstrating how navigation was accomplished.  When the
film was finished, Nova decided they wanted a different editorial
slant on the subject, so they had the film completely re-edited, and
the animation wound up on the cutting room floor.  However, the
European distributors liked the film just as it was, so it was shown
with the animation intact on television over there last year (not sure
which countries were included in the deal.  Maybe some of you Old
World types happened to catch it...

I also did 16 short animations for a CD-Rom called Calculus Connections
intended as a companion to introductory college calculus courses, illustrating
various principles of calculus.  Should be released sometime late this fall.

Currently I'm working on creating a virtual museum for one of the
divisions of the Smithsonian Institution, using a "Myst-like" interface
(i.e., a 3D space in which you move from one still image to another
by clicking in the area you want to move to, with little or no animation).
The advantage of this approach is that I can use 2D effects on the
still frames, since they won't be moving.  Example: using Photoshop's
Lighting Effects filters, I've been able to use numerous soft-edged
spotlights to simulate track lighting for certain exhibits in minutes, whereas
building the same look in Imagine would take me much longer.
And yes, I have moved off my trusty A3000 (on which I built the Viking
animations) to a Pentium (halfway through the Calculus job).  The speed
improvement is great, and the companion software (Photoshop, Painter,
Autodesk Animator Studio, etc.) is in another league from Amiga equivalents
like OpalPaint.  Still miss the operating system, however, Arexx and ADPro!

John Prusinski
CyberGrafix



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 15:57:48
Subject: Pictures of Imagine 3.3 Online
From:    Ian Smith <[e-mail]>


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

  It came, it finally came.  Two of those horrid orange lables for
disks one and two and a nice printed lable for disk three.  I love
seeing that orange in my mailbox!

  I have added a page devoted to the new stuff in Imagine 3.3 to my
Imagine home page.  I included several screen shots of the new
attributes requesters to show you what your missing if you have not
upgraded yet.

  Some general comments about the new version...  You can change the
defaults for new objects.  (Color, reflect, ect) The Amiga executable
is 1,019,600 bytes in size and you need 2.5 megs to install it.
Attributes and texture windows and new mappings.. nice job! Wow. The
realtime preview renders in greyscale, and then dithers to color.  I
thought it was only greyscale at first because the color dithering
takes SO long and shows no indication that it is doing anything, not a
% or even a "Dithering..." text anywhere.  When you add a brush to an
object, it has to reload the brush every time you change a paramter.
This is not all bad, as the loading is in the background, but still
takes time when you are adjusting sliders.  Minor annoyance, easily
forgotten when playing with new stuff. You can now watch the quickrender
in progress, in grey.  The cancel button is plopped right down over the
image too.  Well, the damn parent button is *still* broke!  Is this a
joke?  If so, it *would* be funny...  (Did ya hear all the whining
about the parent button on the IML?  Hahahah!  Lets make it DELETE
their files next!) :-)

  However, running in 256 colors, or even 16 colors on my EGS board
causes major redraw problems, the grid is invisible, ect.  Yuck.
Hopefully this will be fixed.

  I just got off the phone with Mike H, and have some further info.
Like always, they are still supporting the Amiga.  So that is nice.
The programming information for the new 3.3 texture stuff will not
be released.  They will wait until 4.0 to release the $500 programmer
package AND they will release free information like they did for 3.0.
The $500 just gets you *much* more info.

  Stats on upgrades is depressing though.  Amiga users of Imagine
outnumber PC users 10 to 1, but there were 4 times as many PC users
upgrading than Amiga.  Lets hope Escom does something to make the
future of the Amiga look brighter and get everyone spending money
again.  For all you bored PC users, go look at the new 3.3 stuff
on my page and order it too. :-)

  Anyway, regardless of how much I complain, Imagine is still my
favorite renderer and I would not use any other.  Version 3.3 is
a great improvement and I can't wait for 4.0!  And I expect I will
get on the 4.0 -> 5.0 constant upgrade program if they offer one,
or just wait for the next version and upgrade if they don't.

--
[e-mail]              Visit Below! :-)
My HP48/Imagine/ImageMaster Page --> http://moose.erie.net/~iansmith/
Come and stop by Africa Imports! --> http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 16:25:01
Subject: Windows 95
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-06-14 22:01:04 EDT, you write:

>Also, Impulse gets trashed for being a little late on release dates.  Money
>doesnt mean anything, look at Microsoft, they are huge,  they have been
>promising for 2 years a new operating system and where the hell is it.
>
>
Advanced order for Windows 95 will be taken by QVC (the other Home Shopping
Network) some time this or next week, I'll let you know the price and exact
date later.
Imagine runs great under Win 95.



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 18:46:45
Subject: Uploads
From:    [e-mail] (ERNESTO POVEDA CORTES)


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

Please notify me if you can access the files i have uploaded to
Aminet. i have a look to the recent and the d2i files doesn't
appear but the faq6 are there.


--
email: [e-mail]  --> Ernesto Poveda Cortes (I am not a number :)

NOTE: .Sig under reconstruction ....


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 19:16:15
Subject: Re: BLOBS
From:    Douglas Smith <[e-mail]>


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

NEWKIRK wrote in a Mail about "BLOBS":
N :Blobs are utilized in POV-ray as follows:
[good description of blobs snipped]
N :The overall effect is somewhat like CSG with spheres, but working with silly
N :putty instead of cookie cutters (OK, so the metaphor makes little sense,but
N :taken as a whole, this should help you understand blobs)
N :JN

OK, this sounds like metaballs to me.

I'll merge the Metaballs and Blobs wish into one entry on the wishlist,
unless anyone shouts too loud :-)

Cheers,

Doug.
--

[e-mail]
Amiga 4000/40 10M 214, 540 HD  Not better, just different.
When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the
one I've never tried before. -- Mae West


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 19:25:08
Subject: Re: One minor wish
From:    Douglas Smith <[e-mail]>


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

Broctune wrote in a Mail about "One minor wish":
B :Is it me or does it seem Imagine totally disreagrads the right mouse button,
B :it would be cool to use it as shift or something
B :

Unless I'm mistaken, the right mouse button calls up the menus.

There is something to note though.

Amiga users can use commodities to change the behaviour of the mouse buttons.

At the moment, I'm using,

MagicMenus, these cause the menus to pop up in a little box where the mouse
pointer is, it's most useful on large screens, as it stops you having to go
all the way to the top of the screen.

Mouseshift, turns the middle mouse button (if you have one) into the left shift
key. This is really handy, not just for Imagine but for all workbench operation.


There is also a commodity called RMBshift, which causes the right mouse button
to act as a shift key when the mouse pointer is in the main part of the screen,
and calls up the menus when the mouse pointer is on the screen title bar.

Perhaps this sort of functionality could be built into Imagine so the clone
owners can use it as well.

(it's added to the wishlist right now...)

Cheers,

Doug.
--

[e-mail]
Amiga 4000/40 10M 214, 540 HD  Not better, just different.
When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the
one I've never tried before. -- Mae West


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 20:05:35
Subject: Imagine vs Hercules Stingray video card
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

>>From [e-mail] Sat Jul  8 23:58:17 1995
>Date: Sun, 9 Jul 1995 08:27:00 +1000
>X-Sender: [e-mail]
>To: [e-mail]
>From: [e-mail]@pipex.net (Bill Dimech)
>Subject: Imagine vs Hercules Stingray video card
>
>G'day,
>
>Finally, Finally, Finally... I have just put together enough pennies to buy
>myself a pentium 90. And does Imagine Love It!!!!.
>
>I haven't done any time trials but its nice to do a 320 scanline quickrender
>within a few seconds. However, I have come accross one particular annoying
>problem:
>
>I have a Hercules Stingray PCI video card. Several of my mates have the same
>card. (I got one to check that Imagine worked with it before bying the card
>and he said yes). Anyway, he was sort of right. Imagine detects the Built in
>vesa driver and comes up in all of the display modes etc. However, when I
>display a picture from within Imagine it's colour is 'out of phase'... All
>of the coulours are totally wild. Things that should be red are green..
>white is yellow, green is red etc.
>
>The pictures are OKif wiewed  through all external viewers and paint packages.
>
>I know the problem is most likely in the way the Imagine talks to the video
>(it's allways been a bit particular).
>
>Can anyone please provide a possible solution... Other than buying another
>card (this Pentium 90 purchase really blew the budget.)
>
>By the way the Stingray comes with a hardware/ software driver that performs
>Direct Video Playback for windows AVI's. It uses hardware to scale and
>smooth avi's. Its real nice and real fast. This is one of the reasons I got
>this card. Also it's very fast but not that expensive.
>
>Hope someone can help...
>Regards
>BillD
>
I had a problem were Imagine would not detect my card. It is a Cirrus 5434
PCI. I got hold of univbe 5.1 (The latest version), installed it and all my
problems were solved. It only takes up about 8K of memory but it is
unfortunatly shareware so unless you register it it does switch off after 21
odd days and puts up nag screens on boot up. It is about 600K to download
and the file is called univbe51.zip. Hope this helps.
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          40 05 17 37 35 07                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 20:44:46
Subject: Windows 95
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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


>Advanced order for Windows 95 will be taken by QVC (the other Home Shopping
>Network) some time this or next week, I'll let you know the price and exact
>date later.
>Imagine runs great under Win 95.
>
>

You can order it from Radio Spares (RS) in the UK from August at about
=A380.00. It might be cheaper of the shelf though.
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          40 05 17 37 35 07                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 21:00:25
Subject: Re: Trying to make it pay.
From:    Ian Smith <[e-mail]>


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

On Mon, 10 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:
> 3. A simple pixel interpolated dissolve between two brushes on the
> same object so this doesn't have to be done externally.

This is included in 3.3!  Upgrade!  :-)

--
[e-mail]              Visit Below!
My HP48/Imagine/ImageMaster Page --> http://moose.erie.net/~iansmith/
Come and stop by Africa Imports! --> http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 22:15:10
Subject: ------=> Sorry NO Subject!
From:    [e-mail]


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

RE: Wishlist -- Improved bitmap tracing.

Currently, "Convert IFF/ILBM" ("Convert Image" in PC version)
works by creating a point and two edges for every pixel "block"
in the outline picture.  The result is invariably a jagged object
after the image file is converted.

Here's how I think "Convert IFF/ILBM" SHOULD work: Besides black
representing the object in the picture and white the background,
red pixels on the outline border should represent "control
points".  After the desired image file is selected, a requester
would come up that asks, "Number of sections?"  The user would
then enter the number of desired points for the object.  Then
Imagine would use the red "control points" in the image to
spline-interpolate the object along the contours of the image
using the number of points entered by the user.  By this means,
not only would there be no "jaggies" in the object, but having
control over the number of points for every object would allow the
user to import a number of images as slices for the "Skin"
command.

I also think this new version of "Convert Image" should be
available in the Forms editor, so that images could be imported as
slices for Forms objects!

                    -- Dave





Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 22:20:18
Subject: Wishlist -- Improved bitmap tracing
From:    [e-mail]


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

(I sent this before, but I think it bombed, so here it is again.
I apologize for the repeat.)


Currently, "Convert IFF/ILBM" ("Convert Image" in PC version)
works by creating a point and two edges for every pixel "block"
in the outline picture.  The result is invariably a jagged object
after the image file is converted.

Here's how I think "Convert IFF/ILBM" SHOULD work: Besides black
representing the object in the picture and white the background,
red pixels on the outline border should represent "control
points".  After the desired image file is selected, a requester
would come up that asks, "Number of sections?"  The user would
then enter the number of desired points for the object.  Then
Imagine would use the red "control points" in the image to
spline-interpolate the object along the contours of the image
using the number of points entered by the user.  By this means,
not only would there be no "jaggies" in the object, but having
control over the number of points for every object would allow the
user to import a number of images as slices for the "Skin"
command.

I also think this new version of "Convert Image" should be
available in the Forms editor, so that images could be imported as
slices for Forms objects!

                    -- Dave




Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 22:21:54
Subject: Wistlist -- Combine forms and spline editors
From:    [e-mail]


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

There should definitely be 3D splines available in the Forms
Editor (or perhaps drop both the current Spline and Forms editors,
and combine the features of both into a new, "Organic Editor").
Many organic objects, such as heads (whether human or
Tyrannosaurus rex) are just too complex to be easily done in the
existing Forms editor, but could be done in a flash if 3D spline
editing were available.


                    -- Dave



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 22:23:13
Subject: Wishlist -- Hide points
From:    [e-mail]


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

There should in general be much more powerful "Hiding" options,
allowing all sorts of things: Hide points by subgroup, hide points
by coordinates, hide faces by subgroup, hide faces by attributes,
toggle hided points, etc., etc., etc.

                    -- Dave




Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 22:25:41
Subject: Wishlist -- Hair texture
From:    [e-mail]


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

Yes, I want a hair/fur texture and definately animatable!

I would also like a feathers texture and variant scale textures,
i.e. overlapping fish's scales vs. bumpy lizard's scales vs.
scuted archosaur's (dinosaur-crocodile-bird) scales.

                    -- Dave


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 22:27:00
Subject: Wishlist -- Improved starfield
From:    [e-mail]


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

Specifically, I would like the ability to give the stars a random
range of grey values (simulating the varying brightnesses of real
stars in the sky; and to optionally concentrate the stars'
positions towards a plane ("Milky Way" effect) or a point
("Globular Cluster" effect).

                    -- Dave



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 22:27:00
Subject: Trying to make it pay.
From:    [e-mail]


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


 Tom,

 >A kind of ballet piece with knives, forks and spoons, flying about the
 >screen under particle control. This was easy and suited the music well. To
 >get the cutlery to do formation dancing we'd deform and conform planes, and
 >use the morphs to make the partcles line up in neat arrangements. The spoons
 >took up so much memory we had to ray trace them.

This sounds real cool - could you explain in a bit more detail?


Oh yeah, and three more things for the WishList:

1. Ability to change QuickRender screen sizes from within the editors -
going back and forth to Prefs is a pain.

2. More control over animated brushmaps so that you can indicate where
you want them to loop or stretch out to fit the animation. Right now
you sometimes have to create gigantic anim files just to make the
brush anim fit the Imagine anim correctly.

3. A simple pixel interpolated dissolve between two brushes on the
same object so this doesn't have to be done externally.

Floater



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 22:28:25
Subject: Wishlist -- ASL Requesters
From:    [e-mail]


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

In fairness to Impulse, I think the reason they have resisted
supporting ASL requesters is that they want to keep Imagine
compatible with ALL Amiga OS versions, 1.2 and up.  That said, I
really think that they could have Imagine either detect which OS
it was running under, or even better, have separate versions of
Imagine for OS 1.x, 2.x and 3.x, and then in each version take
advantage of OS features if they are available or emulate them if
they are not.

I think Imagine should support (or emulate in OS 1.x compatible
version of Imagine) not only ASL requesters, but also Gadtools
gadgets, including Gadget Keyboard Equivalents (e.g. I HATE
hitting <Amiga-S> on the keyboard, then having to reach for the
mouse in order to click the "Yes" gadget in "Overwrite Existing
File?" requester!)


                    -- Dave


Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 22:29:16
Subject: Wishlist -- More output formats
From:    [e-mail]


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

>Which ones ? stills or animations ?

Definitely JPEG input as brushmaps!  Maybe also JPEG and MPEG
output, although many seem to believe this to be impractical.

                    -- Dave



Date:    Monday, 10 July 1995 23:26:43
Subject: Re: Imagine vs Hercules Stingray video card
From:    Stephen Wilkinson <[e-mail]>


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

On Jul 10,  8:05pm, Chris Hall wrote:
[snip]
> I had a problem were Imagine would not detect my card. It is a Cirrus 5434
> PCI. I got hold of univbe 5.1 (The latest version), installed it and all my
> problems were solved. It only takes up about 8K of memory but it is
[snip]
>-- End of excerpt from Chris Hall

I have Imagine 2.0 for the PC and 3.0 for the Amiga. I was wondering
how to get the PC version to show 24 bit quickrenders. I turned on
"Use Firecracker" but I still see dithering and some faint banding
on the quickrenders (esp. spheres). Any ideas? My card is a new ATI
Mach 64 PCI and seems to work fine with most other VESA progs I have.
Will I need univbe? Hope not.

Cheers,
Stephen
____________________________________
Stephen Wilkinson     [e-mail]      "Programming is like pinball. The
Sr. Software Engineer                     reward for doing it well is the
LB&M Associates                           opportunity to do it again."
____________________________________




Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 01:01:14
Subject: Whishlist
From:    [e-mail]


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

--- Received from GITD.PSG024  216 4526             11JUL95  13.57
  -> IBMMAIL.INTERNET      IBMMAIL INTERNET               IBM
*** vitrual walk thru (real time) ***

How about a virtual walkthru screen, where you fly thru your
stage using the mouse as the control...pressing button in
sequencewith a movement resulting in altitude
change,left/right=slide,etc.
Wire frame would be fine ... solid fill would be better.  Also
allowing for viewcam to be magnified and otherwise will be great
for those small objects...;)

Vems...
VIC


Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 01:56:48
Subject: Re: Wishlist -- More output formats
From:    Ian Smith <[e-mail]>


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

On Mon, 10 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:
> >Which ones ? stills or animations ?
>
> Definitely JPEG input as brushmaps!  Maybe also JPEG and MPEG
> output, although many seem to believe this to be impractical.

I'd rather have an external program make my MPEG animation for me.
There are already many good converters out there.

But I *want* to be able to load JPEGs as burhmaps and save rendered
images as JPEGs too.  That would be nice...

--
[e-mail]              Visit Below! :-)
My HP48/Imagine/ImageMaster Page --> http://moose.erie.net/~iansmith/
Come and stop by Africa Imports! --> http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/



Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 02:02:02
Subject: Re: Wishlist -- ASL Requesters
From:    Ian Smith <[e-mail]>


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

On Mon, 10 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:
> In fairness to Impulse, I think the reason they have resisted
> supporting ASL requesters is that they want to keep Imagine
> compatible with ALL Amiga OS versions, 1.2 and up.  That said, I
> really think that they could have Imagine either detect which OS
> it was running under, or even better, have separate versions of
> Imagine for OS 1.x, 2.x and 3.x, and then in each version take
> advantage of OS features if they are available or emulate them if
> they are not.

AmigaDOS 1.x is outdated.. won't even run on 040 based systems!
Yuck yuck yuck.. support 2.x at least and add some 3.x support
even.  Datatypes would be great.

And use screenmode requesters for screens and renders and stuff.
I want to be able to run 256 colors, but Imagine barfs on my
EGS board running either EGS or Cybergraphics.  I have to mode-
promote it as it won't use the board on it's own...

--
[e-mail]              Visit Below! :-)
My HP48/Imagine/ImageMaster Page --> http://moose.erie.net/~iansmith/
Come and stop by Africa Imports! --> http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/



Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 02:20:13
Subject: Re: BLOBS
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

> I'll merge the Metaballs and Blobs wish into one entry on the wishlist,
> unless anyone shouts too loud :-)

Metaballs will be in 4.0


Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 05:58:00
Subject: Amiga Imagine 3.3 received
From:    [e-mail]


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

Yes, it's here. It looks very nice, lots of new features, the texture and
brush playgrounds look killer on a 256 color 800x600 Retina screen, worth
(sometimes) the slower redraws due to 256 color mode. Nice being able to
Quickrender from the various Attribute requesters. Thanks, Impulse!


Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 08:54:58
Subject: Re:Scanline render bug!
From:    Ed Totman <[e-mail]>


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

On 7 Jul 1995, Granberg Tom wrote:

> Hi!
> I use par with the pc(dualP) and with the Amiga(4040) and have not encountered

> this problem. I can only think of two possible sources of reason for "your"
> problem.(yepp, two PAR's with capture card, one at home tough!)

Thanks for the replies to my post.  I got field rendering in trace to
work by selecting the flip fields button in imagine and import order=2
for the par.

Ed Totman
[e-mail]



Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 09:00:54
Subject: Re: Making Imagine pay....
From:    Ed Totman <[e-mail]>


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

On Fri, 30 Jun 1995, Douglas Smith wrote:

> OK time to show off.
>
> tell us all about the stuff that you have had published/
> printed or been paid for.

Ok, I've owned a business with a partner creating animations for use in
court.  I don't want to get into the details of each case (don't want them
turning on ME) :) but I used mostly keyframe and camera motion to make
most of the animations, all rendered on an Amiga and recorded using DCTV.
Hell of a lot of hours and late nights/early mornings staring at a
monitor.  But that's what we all love to do anyway, right?

Last summer I switched to a 486 and the pc version of imagine and created
a 7 minute video with about 4-5 minutes of animation complete with music,
sound effects, and voice over.  The purpose of the video was to
familiarize new students with the products and services of our library.
It's available from the LODEX clearinghouse, for those of you who work in
libraryland.  This video ("Pathways") was a big hit, so this summer I'll
be making another video.  We will submit a paper on computer animation in
library instruction to be published sometime next year.

BTW, just received 3.3.  WOW!  The new texture preview feature is awesome!

Thanks for listening Impulse!

Ed Totman
[e-mail]





Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 10:10:10
Subject: Fun with Fuzz
From:    "DEBEAUMONT, GEORGE" <[e-mail]>


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

>In light of the recent discussion about representing hair (something that
>I've been trying to do too), does anyone know anything about the "Fuzz"
>texture and how it works? It seems like it could be used to simulate fur,
>but I can't find any reference to it in the manual or in any of the "read me"
>files for 3.0 through 3.2
>-- Dave

The "Fuzz" texture appears to be ANOTHER one of those undocumented Imagine
features.

GEORGE'S STUPID EASTER EGG ANALOGY:

Imagine is like an Easter egg hunt...months after the holiday event, you
continue to find the hidden eggs. However unlike old eggs, Imagine's unexpected

treats are not spoiled.

Anyway, I've done some experimentation with the "Fuzz" texture...here's what I
know.

BASIC FUZZ FEATURES:

It's a "Space Filling" (Impulse terminology) noise type texture. That is, the
texture changes along all three axis.

In its most basic form (equal X, Y, Z sizes and low magnitude and velocity noise

values), it produces fuzzy globules (approximately spherical masses).

Space between the fuzzy globules shows underlying textures and attributes on the

object.

The texture axis orientation (relative to the object) is not particularly
important.

FUZZ PARAMETERS:

X, Y, and Z sizes:      Determines size of the fuzzy globules

Noise 1 & 2 mag/vel:    Determines how disturbed the fuzzy globules become

                        (functions similar to other Imagine noise type textures)


Dispersion:             Determines the number of fuzzy globules

Fuzz clip:              Appears to affect the spacing of the fuzzy globules

Fuzz R, G, B color:     Determines the color of the fuzzy globules

Fil./Refl. adjust:      Sets the filter and reflect attributes of the fuzzy

                        globules

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS:

Increasing the clip value (0.9-1.0) can result in overlapping globules with
unpredictable results.

Decreasing the clip value to 0 results in zero globules.

The default parameter values produce a nice "TV Static" appearance.

Higher magnitude/velocity values result in a wispy smoke type of appearance (see

sample parameter values below) similar to that achieved using the CLRNOIZ
texture.

Intermediate magnitude values, low velocity values and repetitively applying the

Fuzz texture can produce a scattered cumulus cloud pattern with the appearance
of depth (see below).

WISPY SMOKE (a la fuzz):

In the detail editor, add a default plane. Set the color to  0, 0 ,0. Make it
bright. Adjust the perspective zoom control (Z) such that the plane takes up
most of the view. Apply the Fuzz texture (using the following parameter values)

and quickrender.

X, Y and Z sizes:        30, 30, 100
Noise 1 mag/vel:         0.6, 2.8
Noise 2 mag/vel:         5.8, 0.3
Dispersion:              0.7
Fuzz clip:               0.4
Fuzz color (R,G,B):      100, 100, 100
Filter adjust:           0
Reflect adjust:          0

SCATTERED CUMULUS CLOUDS (a la fuzz):

In the detail editor, add a ground plane. Set the color to 135, 206, 235. Make
it bright. Adjust the perspective angle (A) view such that it looks straight
down on the ground plane. Set the zoom ratio (Display menu/Perspective/Zoom
ratio) to 0.3. Repetitively apply the Fuzz texture to the ground plane (4 times)

using the following parameter values. Quickrender.

Fuzz Texture (priority 1)

X, Y, and Z sizes:       1000, 1000, 1000
Noise 1 mag/vel:         2.0, 0.1
Noise 2 mag/vel:         2.0, 0.1
Dispersion:              1.0
Fuzz clip:               0.5
Fuzz color (R, G, B):    245, 245, 245
Filter adjust:           0
Reflect adjust:          0

Fuzz Texture (priority 2)

X, Y, and Z sizes:       1000, 1000, 1000
Noise 1 mag/vel:         2.0, 0.1
Noise 2 mag/vel:         2.0, 0.1
Dispersion:              1.0
Fuzz clip:               0.5
Fuzz color (R, G, B):    220, 220, 220
Filter adjust:           0
Reflect adjust:          0

Transform priority 2 texture to 0, -40, 0 position.

Fuzz Texture (priority 3)

X, Y, and Z sizes:       250, 250, 250
Noise 1 mag/vel:         2.0, 0.1
Noise 2 mag/vel:         2.0, 0.1
Dispersion:              0.6
Fuzz clip:               0.5
Fuzz color (R, G, B):    245, 245, 245
Filter adjust:           0
Reflect adjust:          0

Fuzz Texture (priority 4)

X, Y and Z sizes:        250, 250, 250
Noise 1 mag/vel:         2.0, 0.1
Noise 2 mag/vel:         2.0, 0.1
Dispersion:              0.6
Fuzz clip:               0.3
Fuzz color (R, G, B):    215, 215, 215
Filter adjust:           0
Reflect adjust:          0

Transform priority 4 texture 0, -40, 0 position.
______________________________________________________

George deBeaumont
[e-mail] (Mon-Fri)
[e-mail] (Sat-Sun)




Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 11:19:14
Subject: Send ME!!!
From:    Red Hawk <[e-mail]>


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

I would like to create a NEW connection of Home Page Related to IML

Please send me a MAIL of yours Home Page in this format......

http:/...........     #Name of Home Page#      #Location(State,etc..)#

Then I ask you to add a connection to my Home page....

Greats to all who want take part to it !!!!!!!!!!

Please help me to find a name for this GROUP ....

 .---------------------------------------------------------.
 ! E-Mail: [e-mail]              __/// !
 ! Amiga 4000/40 25Mhz 18Mb 2.0GbSCSI                \XX/  !
 | Home Page:                                              !
 ! http://cdc715_0.cdc.polimi.it/~qua1397/                 !
 `---------------------------------------------------------'


Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 11:21:31
Subject: VIEW
From:    Red Hawk <[e-mail]>


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

I have compare a Rendering with the things that I see in camera view....
they aren't the same............


                      WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please Help ME!!!!!!!!!!!

 .---------------------------------------------------------.
 ! E-Mail: [e-mail]              __/// !
 ! Amiga 4000/40 25Mhz 18Mb 2.0GbSCSI                \XX/  !
 | Home Page:                                              !
 ! http://cdc715_0.cdc.polimi.it/~qua1397/                 !
 `---------------------------------------------------------'


Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 11:52:45
Subject: Re: Amiga macro recorder
From:    [e-mail] (joop van de wege)


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

Hello Everyone,

>I've just been playing with a key/mouse event macro recorder I found on an
>Aminet CD, its called Director15.lha.  Some features are disabled for the
>unregistered version but menus, mouse clicks/movements and keys are
>recorded in Imagine.

Another example which I explained in detail a while back is to render
multiple projects one after the other.

Basically you record all projects without actually rendering them and then
hit the play button and watch Imagine render all projects while you're doing
something else.
Its somewhere in the archives probably a month or 3-4 back.

Greetings Joop



Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 12:13:54
Subject: Upgrade Plan
From:    Stuart Hogton <[e-mail]>


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

Hello All,
        I bought Imagine 3.0 almost a year ago from Meridian
Distribution, but they did not include an option to upgrade to future
versions. Does anybody know how I can apply for the continual upgrade
plan in the UK? I realize we are on version 3.3 already, but from what
I've heard, it still seems worthwhile.
      Furthermore, I encountered a strange error whilst slicing two
complex objects. The error was "Error 2 Splitting Faces". Does anybody
know what this means as there is bugger all documentation? This is not
the usual move the object a bit error, but one which I could not solve
and gave up.

      Any help would be gladly received.

              Stu.



Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 12:41:55
Subject: Upgrade rates
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


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


Ian Smith reports:

>Amiga users of Imagine outnumber PC users 10 to 1, but there were
>4 times as many PC users upgrading than Amiga.

This is too bad, although I suppose its to be expected.  The nearest
physical support I have for my Amiga is 120 miles, and I live in a
populous area.  As far as rendering goes, bigger and faster is where
its at.  I just couldn't wait for an '060 of Risc Amiga.

Although, yes I'm using my Ami right now.  Its not a running shoe
anymore, just a nice, comfy, well broke in walking shoe.

So, for the speed impatient, look at it this way:  Some folks bought
a Toaster just to get Lightwave.  I got a PC mostly to boost Imagine.
The performance on a DX100 is really nice, a Pentium must be breath-
taking.  THe new texture playground rendering in 256 colors slows screen
redraw less than 2 seconds

For those of you who still have v 2.0, buy more memory and upgrade.
Other than the well known clunky interface, Imagine already is almost
a different program from 2.0.  Bones, particles, "New Mode" perspective,
splines, texture handling maybe 5 times more flexible and powerful,
etc, etc broaden the scope of the program so much, what you can
"imagine" is a whole world beyond 2.

I'll stop before I start sounding like an ad.

BTW, the PC version of the upgrade includes some of Steve Blackmon's
work as shareware.  Also a couple nice Digimax fabricated objects.

bye, got to go mess with the new stuff.

Greg Denby


Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 13:46:00
Subject: Right Mouse button
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


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

-> From: [e-mail]->-> Right mouse button?  I called Impulse awhile bac
k about that same =pos-> and was assured that I was the only person using Imagin
e that had =a m-> with more then one button.  And because noone else had a right
 mou=se-> that they won't add it's use.-> Boy, now theres two of us!Maybe I miss
ed something....but Imagine supports both the left and ri=ghtmouse button in all
 the editors. The only machine I know that has a o=nebutton mouse is the Mac, an
d Imagine won't run on it. :)   /------------------------------           ___
___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen                     / __  /__/ /__/  /_
\ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /___/ / \  /  /  /     / \  | mike
[e-mail]     HAUS BBS (805-683-1388)  |           "Iron
y can make revenge a welcome alternative"   \___________________________________
__________________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Haus BBS - Santa Barbara, Ca
- [phone]

Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 13:49:19
Subject: Re: Melting
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

There's a great util that does exactly this.  I assume you'll be flooded
with responses to your post,--but if not, lemme know and I'll e-mail you
that melt util.


Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 14:02:49
Subject: Tip for Amiga users
From:    [e-mail]


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


     remember, whenever you get an annoying "overwrite" box or "save
     quickrender" requester that's just too far away from your mouse to be
     comfortable . . . . .  hit L-Amiga-C for the lefthand button and
     L-Amiga-V for the righthand one.

     (maybe it's 'x' and 'c' instead of 'c' and 'v'--- I just hit
     L-Amiga-Z-X-C-V... until something happens :)


Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 15:12:19
Subject: Re: Wishlist -- More output formats
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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

On Mon, 10 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> >Which ones ? stills or animations ?
>
> Definitely JPEG input as brushmaps!  Maybe also JPEG and MPEG
> output, although many seem to believe this to be impractical.
>
>                     -- Dave
>

I think that a built-in mpeg encoder would be great, especially if you
could render one frame, have it added to the mpeg animation, and then have
it deleted(like the way that flc's work right now).  You could create
huge animations with very little disk space.


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 15:51:52
Subject: Re[2]: States???
From:    [e-mail]


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




     I remember the manual (of all things) saying you _make_ a state called
     DEFAULT, but then you don't _use_ it


Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 15:59:21
Subject: Windows 95 times
From:    [e-mail]


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

QVC will be premiering Windows 95 of Saturday the 15th at 6pm est. for
Advanced orders.  It will be a 90 min presentation


Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 16:10:03
Subject: (Useless) Imagine 3.3 compliments and complaints
From:    [e-mail]


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


     There is nothing in this post relating to improving Ray Tracing
     ability. Read if you have time to kill.

     -AC

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

     Usually, I spend my time in Imagine fighting the settings and such,
     but after 3.3 arrived I was OVERJOYED with the preview settings
     window!

     Imagine is getting MUCH closer to a professional system version by
     version!

     Of course, it still has a ways to go to compete in a commercial
     market, but it is definitely one of the best graphics packages I have
     in my arsenal.

     What stunned me the most: The page that came with the PC version
     documentation was actually pretty well written (by Imagine
     Standards...the one of the paragraphs was still too wordy, but hey...)
     and I do believe it looked spell checked! Almost stunningly
     professional-like!

     I also notice that it took me about 1 hour to create and render a
     mountain and cloud scene that I thought up. Usually, this type of
     action would take 2-3 hours touching up the textures and colors. With
     the preview feature in place, it's so easy to actually see your
     textures and colors! No more renderings just to see what you THINK it
     looks like.

     Between the improved deformations, the object interface improvements,
     the texture/brush improvements, improved scanline primitives (sphere
     in particular) and the ON-SCREEN renders, there was a lot to play
     with!

     All in all, I was very impressed with Imagine again. I Love the
     Updates, and can't wait to get 4.0, hoping that there will be an NT
     version someday!

     Now, the down side:
     1) The Object requestor, when requesting a new texture, brings up a
     dialog box right under the mouse. Pretty bad if a user clicks twice by
     mistake.

     2) There was no obvious way to disable the on-screen render function.
     While I am not saying that it is or isn't possible (I haven't been
     able to, but I haven't tried too hard), I AM saying that cryptic
     answers for something that is very obvious is not a good answer. To
     rephrase: Before I get reamed by "Here's how, you moron", I'm saying
     that for something so obvoiusly different between versions, there
     should be somewhat of an obvious requestor to "default" to the
     previous versions' method.

     Why do I care about this? I don't know if anyone looked last, but
     placing a pixel (or a scanline) on a video screen actually TAKES CPU
     TIME away from the render. Hopefully, Impulse has a super optimized
     cross-platform solution that doesn't chew CPU time, but if they did,
     then they'd probably mention it. I didn't see it, and though it might
     be worth mentioning.

     3) The docs that were sent didn't really explain what is new and old.
     Without going through the docs sent (which were many), you won't find
     out what is new in detail. It looks as if Impulse has thier final
     package ready for shipping, since now we get on-line docs in a
     subdirectory. An improvement, but the "What's new" doc is lacking.


Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 18:26:17
Subject: Re: Melting
From:    Kelly Computer Consultants <[e-mail]>


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

Glenn Lewis wrote a nice utility that creates the intermediate stages of
a meltdown for any object.  It's really cool.

You can reach Glenn at:  [e-mail]

Doug Kelly
Kelly Computer Consultants

On Tue, 11 Jul 1995, Rune Jacobsen wrote:

> I'm kind'a new to Imagine, and currently I'm only sitting around trying
> out some cool ideas for animation. So I found one thing that would be
> cool. If some sort of object (anything goes, perhaps something with a
> lot of different surfaces) should "melt" in an animation - something
> like a reverse "T1000-off-the-floor-in-T2" deal. I don't know if there
> is a function for this yet, but it shouldn't be too hard to implement.



Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 19:09:07
Subject: Imagine 3.3 arrives in England
From:    Wayne Waite <[e-mail]>


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

Just a quick post to let everybody know that Imagine 3.3 has arrived in
England, so check those mail boxes fellow Europeans.

Cheers

Wayne


--
~===========================================================================~
 Wayne Waite - [e-mail] (Personal)
               Bradford, West Yorkshire, England

~===========================================================================~



Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 20:00:14
Subject: Melting
From:    [e-mail] (Rune Jacobsen)


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

[Warning: Newbie-alert. Please don't kill me if this topic has been
discussed on the list without me knowing]

I'm kind'a new to Imagine, and currently I'm only sitting around trying
out some cool ideas for animation. So I found one thing that would be
cool. If some sort of object (anything goes, perhaps something with a
lot of different surfaces) should "melt" in an animation - something
like a reverse "T1000-off-the-floor-in-T2" deal. I don't know if there
is a function for this yet, but it shouldn't be too hard to implement.
If the outermost points of the object dropped first, and all the points
started to drop towards the ground, slower as you got nearer the middle,
all while surface-morphing into some chrome-like material, it would
look great, I think. But then again, I've never tried it..:)

Does anyone know if there is a way of doing this, or a way of implementing
this as a "macro" of some sort?

Sersjant Rune Jacobsen - [e-mail] - BotsB Developer ###########
X-Phile - Simpsonite - Ren&Stimpy fan - Amiga User since 1988 #Rosenborg#
A4000/040 540MB HD 18MB RAM IDEK 15" MultiFlat Intel Outside  # forever #
SigOp ->BotsB<- Sumpen Caf


Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 21:22:27
Subject: Re: States???
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-09 03:11:05 EDT, [e-mail] (Charles Blaquiere)
writes:

>1) Which version of Imagine do you use? Early implementations of States
>did not memorize texture parameters or brushes correctly.
>
>2) Never use the DEFAULT state in an animation. Make a duplicate state,
>call it something like START, and use _that_ instead.
>
>

Does this mean you should not create the DEFAULT State, or should you create
it, and then create another one called START and use it instead, because when
you first go in to create a state, DEFAULT is the name that's already in the
requester.

S.G.


Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 21:38:57
Subject: Re: Virtual Mem
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-10 01:45:12 EDT, you write:

>G'day...I'm new to this IML so pls be patient.
>
>
>
>I have a DX2-66, 8Megs of ram, and Imagine V2.0.
>
>I was wondering wether there is a program that can use the hard
>
>disk drive as a virtual memory, without running a memory manager
>
>and / or windows.  It gets pretty annoying when I run outof
>
>memory when using the quickrender function.
>
>
>
>Thanx.
>
>Victor Sarmiento. (vems)

There is a program called Ram Doubler that apparantly has gotten some good
reviews.  I saw an ad for it in a computer mag.  It said that it was
available for windows and mac, so I don't know if it works in dos as well.
 If anyone has tried this program I would be interested in hearing your
comments.  Apparently it uses memory management along with virtual memory and
compression to achieve its results with virtually no slow down.

S.G.




Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 22:04:23
Subject: Re: States???
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> Does this mean you should not create the DEFAULT State, or should you
> create it, and then create another one called START and use it
> instead, because when you first go in to create a state, DEFAULT is
> the name that's already in the requester.

It means you should always _create_ a state called DEFAULT, but never _use_
it in an Action editor Actor bar morph.

By the way, are you able to reply _only_ to the IML? It would avoid my
getting two copies of your message. Thanks.



Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 22:05:49
Subject: Tip for Amiga users
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
>      remember, whenever you get an annoying "overwrite" box or "save
>      quickrender" requester that's just too far away from your mouse
>      to be comfortable . . . . .  hit L-Amiga-C for the lefthand
>      button and L-Amiga-V for the righthand one.

It's LeftAmiga-V and B for the left (OK) and right (Cancel) buttons,
respectively.



Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 22:08:56
Subject: Upgrade rates
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: gregory denby <[e-mail]>
>
> I'll stop before I start sounding like an ad.

Then I'll take over! <g> Imagine 2.0 users, please, PLEASE do yourselves
a favor and find the $100 to upgrade to 3.0, or the $200 to upgrade to
all versions up to and including 4.0. They make Imagine 2.0 look like
some half-baked freeware concoction. Knowing what I do now, I wouldn't
be caught _dead_ using 2.0; it would be cruel and inhuman punishment.



Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 22:09:33
Subject: V3.0 prob. Sorry 8-)
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> Hi, I've just noticed something, I can't find the sky blending thing in
> the globals in action (v3.0). Is it gone for good, or am I blind?

That's because sky blending is now fixed at 255.



Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 22:10:25
Subject: Re: Wishlist -- More output formats
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


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


>
> Definitely JPEG input as brushmaps!  Maybe also JPEG and MPEG
> output, although many seem to believe this to be impractical.
>
 i dont think this would be much use as output though to be able to read and
convert jpegs would be quite practical it would save alot of jumping around
converting that cloud.jpg and saving it out again though this is exactly what
pegger does
 probably best to let imagine get on with the rendering and use a image
processor  that way there will no compromise in features etc

 duncan


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


Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 22:12:07
Subject: Re: Wistlist -- Combine forms and spline editors
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


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

,

> There should definitely be 3D splines available in the Forms
> Editor (or perhaps drop both the current Spline and Forms editors,
> and combine the features of both into a new, "Organic Editor").
> Many organic objects, such as heads (whether human or
> Tyrannosaurus rex) are just too complex to be easily done in the
> existing Forms editor, but could be done in a flash if 3D spline
> editing were available.
>
 definitly

  lets have it in v4


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


Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 22:12:12
Subject: VIEW
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Red Hawk <[e-mail]>
>
> I have compare a Rendering with the things that I see in camera view....
> they aren't the same............

Well, if "Camera view" is checked in the menus, there can't be a
difference in views. I assume the difference you see is due to different
rendering modes selected for quickrenders vs. your current subproject.
For example, if Preferences shows quickrenders set to scanline, and you
render in trace mode in the project editor, then of course the two will
look different.

If this is not the answer, please give us more information: how exactly
are the two different?



Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 22:13:46
Subject: Wishlist - New addition - Move Bone
From:    [e-mail]


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

I have an addition to make to the wishlist -- "Position Bone".
I am beginning to really experiment with bones now, and I am
discovering how crucial it is that the bones are in exactly the
right positions with respect to their subgroups in order to make
each subgroup move correctly when its bone is moved.  Currently,
there's no way (so far as I can make out) to see a particular
subgroup and move its bone at the same time.  The "Position Bone"
function would display a subgroup and allow you to move its bone
to the correct position.


                    -- Dave


P.S. Please let me know if I am wrong about any of what I have said here.



Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 22:13:56
Subject: Wishlist -- ASL Requesters
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> (e.g. I HATE hitting <Amiga-S> on the keyboard, then having to reach for
> the mouse in order to click the "Yes" gadget in "Overwrite Existing
> File?" requester!)

Then just do what I do: LeftAmiga-V for "OK", LeftAmiga-B for "Cancel".



Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 22:15:59
Subject: Wishlist - New addition - Animate control panel
From:    [e-mail]


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

One more for the wishlist -- Currently, when in "Play Big" mode in
Stage Editor "Animate" or Detail Editor "State Anim" a new screen
is opened to play the animation, but the Control Panel is still on
the Imagine main screen, where it cannot be easily reached.

Impulse, PUT THAT ANIMATION CONTROL PANEL (IN A DRAGGABLE WINDOW)
ON THE SAME SCREEN AS THE ANIMATION, PLEASE!!!

Whew, glad to get that off my chest.

                    -- Dave


P.S. This applies to the Amiga version.



Date:    Tuesday, 11 July 1995 22:16:58
Subject: Wishlist -- Hair texture
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> I would also like a feathers texture and variant scale textures,
> i.e. overlapping fish's scales vs. bumpy lizard's scales vs.
> scuted archosaur's (dinosaur-crocodile-bird) scales.

Essence II has a nice "Scales" texture which looks like shingles that
have a double-spline curve to them, similar to the bottom of a heart
symbol. Tons of parameters are available for you to play with, including
a random shape variation and random brightness variation. The manual
says this texture "can produce features that look like fish scales,
chain mail armor, dragonhide, or feathers."



Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 01:21:47
Subject: Re: One minor wish
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Mon, 10 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> Right mouse button?  I called Impulse awhile back about that same possibility
> and was assured that I was the only person using Imagine that had a mouse
> with more then one button.  And because noone else had a right mouse button
> that they won't add it's use.
> Boy, now theres two of us!
>
> Rick
>

Well, how could poor Rick be the only one of us who has a mouse with only
two buttons? Shoot me for stupidity, but I thought the Macintosh platform
was the only one whose mouses had one button? Amiga mouses had two
buttons last time, and I think most (if not all) PC mouses had two
(sometimes three) buttons. 8-)
One thing though, when you are using an Amiga, when you press the right
mouse button the menus appear.

Rod "Young" Macey
[e-mail]

"Sometimes the hard way is the only way!"



Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 01:30:40
Subject: Re: Wishlist -- More output formats
From:    [e-mail] (Glenn Nielsen)


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

In <[e-mail]>, Ian Smith
<[e-mail]> writes:
> On Mon, 10 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:
> > >Which ones ? stills or animations ?
> >
> > Definitely JPEG input as brushmaps!  Maybe also JPEG and MPEG
> > output, although many seem to believe this to be impractical.
>
> I'd rather have an external program make my MPEG animation for me.
> There are already many good converters out there.
>
> But I *want* to be able to load JPEGs as burhmaps and save rendered
> images as JPEGs too.  That would be nice...
>
> --
> [e-mail]              Visit Below! :-)
> My HP48/Imagine/ImageMaster Page --> http://moose.erie.net/~iansmith/
> Come and stop by Africa Imports! --> http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/
>

If you are using Imagine on an Amiga you can use the commercial program
PEGGER to do all of the above JPEG stuff.  With PEGGER you can JPEG compress
your frames as they are rendered, allow you to load JPEG'd texture maps,
and load greyscale JPEG's to use as bumpmaps.  Also PEGGER supports the
Imagine 24 bit image file format and Targa.


----------------   Glenn Nielsen   ------------------
 -<  Life is too short for a dull computer, Amiga >-
[e-mail]
CIS: 75115,444  BIX: expressway  PORTAL: Glenn-EWS



Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 01:40:33
Subject: Re: tip for Amiga users
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


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

Hi Drew_Perttula,

>
>      remember, whenever you get an annoying "overwrite" box or "save
>      quickrender" requester that's just too far away from your mouse to be
>      comfortable . . . . .  hit L-Amiga-C for the lefthand button and
>      L-Amiga-V for the righthand one.
>
>      (maybe it's 'x' and 'c' instead of 'c' and 'v'--- I just hit
>      L-Amiga-Z-X-C-V... until something happens :)
>
      or get ARQ from aminet and just hit enter (delete Qrender) or ESQ
(keep Qrender) or is it the other way ?

 duncan
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Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 01:48:19
Subject: Re: States???
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


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

Hi SGiff68285,

> In a message dated 95-07-09 03:11:05 EDT, [e-mail] (Charles Blaquiere)
> writes:
>
> >2) Never use the DEFAULT state in an animation. Make a duplicate state,
> >call it something like START, and use _that_ instead.
> >
> >
>
> Does this mean you should not create the DEFAULT State, or should you create
> it, and then create another one called START and use it instead, because when
> you first go in to create a state, DEFAULT is the name that's already in the
> requester.
>
 i think it means never use the default state create it but forget about it
and use start/one/standing/ready or what ever you call them/it (this is
mostly for bones as bones takes DEFAULT for a reference)

 duncan
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..                                                                           .
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..                                                                           .
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Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 01:49:50
Subject: V3.0 prob. Sorry 8-)
From:    [e-mail]


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

Hi, I've just noticed something, I can't find the sky blending thing in
the globals in action (v3.0). Is it gone for good, or am I blind?

YES!!! I will upgrade (GD&R)

Rod Macey                --
[e-mail]     ----
"Sometimes the hard    ------
way is the only way"  --------





Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 03:33:08
Subject: Re: Wishlist - some more
From:    [e-mail]


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

1    Support for multiple button mice.  Enough said.

2    Multiple configured user gadgets.
In order to use menus as little as possible, and keep from getting too many
buttons on the screen at the same time have differant button sets according
to the work you are doing at the time.  For example in the detail editor -
one set of buttons to do modeling (add primatives, deformation tools, states,
attributes, etc.), another set to work with bones ( add axis, subgroups,
update, etc), maybe a general use button set.

3    Type in coordinates and relative coordinates.
If you want a line in a certain place you type its exact starting point and
the next point entry could be relative to the first, such as 4 units in the x
direction.  Now you have to know the position of your first coords and
subtract or add to figure out where the next one goes.

4    In the action editor a multiple paste button.
Example you have a 100 frame animation and want to repeat a 10 frame timebar
9 more times.  Copy it and hit multi-paste and tell it how many times or ....

5    Till the End as an entry for last frame in time bar requesters.
I always start with my animations too short.  After I look at them I double
the amount of frames and then have to modify every timebar for every object.
 Till the End in last frame box would automatically lengthen timebars till
last frame.

Rick



Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 03:33:10
Subject: Re: Right Mouse button
From:    [e-mail]


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

Boy, was I suprised at the amount of responses over my comments about mouse
buttons.  To those that couldn't tell it was supposed to be a sarcastic
comment. I must have a dry sense of humor:)  I didn't think they made one
button mice (mouses?) since the dinosaurs used computers ( I have a three
button mouse on a PC).  That  was my point to Impulse that everyone could use
more mouse functions.  My wish would have been for programmable mouse buttons
built into Imagine and not another TSR program. I was told by Impulse that
not many people use multi-button mice. While I didn't know about dragging
both buttons in the perspective window, which is a nice feature and I thank
whoever passed it along, using the right button to call up the menus is
nothing IMHO as all other programs I use always have the menus showing. I
think the mouse could be a more efficient tool.

Rick

PS - Don't forget digitzer pucks which have, I believe, 10 buttons.


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 03:33:11
Subject: Re: Virtual Mem
From:    [e-mail]


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

I've looked and there are about three products similar to Ram Doubler.  They
all are for windows and not for DOS.  Haven't used them but they sound like a
good thing.

Rick


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 03:33:12
Subject: Re: Making Imagine pay....
From:    [e-mail]


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

All of the projects listed have sounded pretty impressive.  One other point I
would be interested in is how did you all ( I live in the south now) get
started.  How did you make your first contacts and get your first jobs.
 Thanks

Rick


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 05:01:00
Subject: To PC'ers
From:    [e-mail]


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


For those of you who have used Imagine on both platforms:

Should I assume that Imagine eats memory on both platforms pretty much
equally? That is, if I am happy with an Amiga w/16Megs, will I be
equally happy with a 16 Meg PC?

(Please, no flame war, this is just a question about Imagine's memory
usage from someone who is expanding a college Amiga lab in the PC
direction).

Floater



Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 06:04:46
Subject: Animating Textures
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


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

 ermm this might be stupid but i cant animate a texture whats the correct
procedure ive made a default plane applied the spark texture locked the
state in the atributtes now

 do i just set the dist travelled to 1.0 and it will auto animate ?
if so this will be the default state ermm i want it all warped out

  or

 do create a state with the dist travelled at 0.0 and then create another
state with it set to 1.0 and morph the two of them (and maybe a few between)

 im doing the second ive previewed a few frames and there seems to be alot
of movement but it doesnt seem to be an animation random is the word i think
im looking for

 im using 3.3 :) BTW


   TIA

  duncan


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


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 06:36:50
Subject: Re: States???
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello S.G., on Jul 11 you wrote:

> Charles Blaquiere wrote:

> >2) Never use the DEFAULT state in an animation. Make a duplicate state,
> >call it something like START, and use _that_ instead.

> Does this mean you should not create the DEFAULT State, or should you create
> it, and then create another one called START and use it instead, because when
> you first go in to create a state, DEFAULT is the name that's already in the
> requester.

The DEFAULT state is a special one that is required when using Bones. It
is'nt a morphing state like the others and therefore should'nt be used in
the Action Editor. You could consider it to be a reference point for all
the other states. You can call your first state anything when not using
Bones. If you want to morph to the DEFAULT state in a Bones object, create
a Clone of it first and call it something like START or MAIN then morph to
it.

-- Bob


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 06:46:19
Subject: Re: tip for Amiga users
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Drew_Perttula, on Jul 11 you wrote:

>      remember, whenever you get an annoying "overwrite" box or "save
>      quickrender" requester that's just too far away from your mouse to be
>      comfortable . . . . .  hit L-Amiga-C for the lefthand button and
>      L-Amiga-V for the righthand one.
>
>      (maybe it's 'x' and 'c' instead of 'c' and 'v'--- I just hit
>      L-Amiga-Z-X-C-V... until something happens :)

It's L-Amiga-v (left), L-Amiga-b (right). Handy when checking the integrity
of a large group of objects.

BTW. you can turn the overwrite warning off in Preferences.

-- Bob


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 07:24:36
Subject: Re: VIEW1
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Red, on Jul 11 you wrote:

> I have compare a Rendering with the things that I see in camera view....
> they aren't the same............

Can you be more specific?

I assume you mean you have lost part of your image at the edges. It could
be your aspect ratio in the Rendering Presets is incorrect.

-- Bob


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 07:41:46
Subject: Re: Wishlist -- Improved starfield
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello DAVEH47, on Jul 10 you wrote:

> Specifically, I would like the ability to give the stars a random
> range of grey values (simulating the varying brightnesses of real
> stars in the sky; and to optionally concentrate the stars'
> positions towards a plane ("Milky Way" effect) or a point
> ("Globular Cluster" effect).

I mentioned this some time ago and received an email from Mike Halvorson
asking what should be "tweaked", as I put it. I have mentioned the range of
grey values and perhaps slightly flaring stars. It's nice to know that
these postings are taken on board by Impulse, but I don't think Stars are a
priority. These features would be nice but how often does anyone render a
starfield?

-- Bob


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 07:59:08
Subject: Re: Wishlist -- More output formats
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Richard, on Jul 11 you wrote:

> I think that a built-in mpeg encoder would be great, especially if you
> could render one frame, have it added to the mpeg animation, and then have
> it deleted(like the way that flc's work right now).  You could create
> huge animations with very little disk space.

I wish I were that confident with my output that I would'nt mind my frames
being deleted as soon as they were created :-)

Of course if it were an option to toggle on/off, fine.

Just a thought, if you can vary the compression of mpeg's the same as
jpeg's could you store your frames in an mpeg anim then extract a
particular frame and get a reasonable quality pic. I believe this is a
feature of the PAR for storing and retrieving single images.

-- Bob


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 08:10:28
Subject: Re: SITES-GFX
From:    [e-mail]


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

On 9 Jul 1995, Granberg Tom wrote:

> Okay some kool sites.
>
> http://www.3dartist.com
> http://www.tgax.com/3dartist.htm
>
> http://www.websharx.com:80/~kinda/mainmenu.html    -this is Steven Blackmon's
> http://www.websharx.com/    - I think this is sharky's
> http://www.websharx.com:80/    -Or this?
>
Aloha Folks!

Both of the listings above should work although just www.websharx.com
without the port :80 should work just fine.

What does bear mentioning is the fact that Steve has only had access to
my server since June 30th, and has blown me away with how fast he picked
up the nuances of making a nice web presentation.  His PC imagine texture
tools are there as well as some cool tips and tutorials on the shredder
effect and extruding tubes.  His STARS starfield rendering stuff will be
there shorlty and I'm sure that would be of interest to most Imagineers.
Not to mention his cool imagery, and the infamous seasnake animation.

GreG tsadilas has a page set up there too at www.websharx.com/~greg and
on the server's main page I'm slowly building links to other graphics
stuff. There's also a registry link where you can fill out a form with a
description of your page, and I'll link it with other pages. I'm still
working out the mechanics of building the database so it's a semi-manual
effort, but fun nonetheless. If you'd like a link, just fill out the form
and give me a day or two to check it out (so I can make sure you don't
have pictures of yourself doing unnatural things to barnyard animals). :-)

 Aloha,
      Sharky

[e-mail]/CIS#70614,2011 __   v  Home Page : http://aloha.com/~sharky
WebSurfer & Fun Guy,Funky    __/  \ >*< Hawaii Related Links and Etcetera's
WWW Page Designs,       ____/    ) | ^  3D Modelling & Animation Art,Objects,
Tech. Planning  /\_____/          } \   NOTE:Pages still under construction
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(_________ALOHA!_______)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~






Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 08:16:20
Subject: Re: Windows 95
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Mon, 10 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> In a message dated 95-06-14 22:01:04 EDT, you write:
>
> >Also, Impulse gets trashed for being a little late on release dates.  Money
> >doesnt mean anything, look at Microsoft, they are huge,  they have been
> >promising for 2 years a new operating system and where the hell is it.
> >
> >
> Advanced order for Windows 95 will be taken by QVC (the other Home Shopping
> Network) some time this or next week, I'll let you know the price and exact
> date later.
> Imagine runs great under Win 95.

Under Windows 95? or do you have completely go out to DOS to do it like
for some games and programs that aren't completely compatible with Win95?

Just checking...

Aloha,
      Sharky

[e-mail]/CIS#70614,2011 __   v  Home Page : http://aloha.com/~sharky
WebSurfer & Fun Guy,Funky    __/  \ >*< Hawaii Related Links and Etcetera's
WWW Page Designs,       ____/    ) | ^  3D Modelling & Animation Art,Objects,
Tech. Planning  /\_____/          } \   Home Server:http://www.websharx.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(_________ALOHA!_______)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~






Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 11:48:24
Subject: Re: To PC'ers
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


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


Floater asks:

>Should I assume that Imagine eats memory on both platforms pretty much
>equally?

Yes.  I have measured the exact usage, but there is at most a few hundred
K differance, URK, the previous line should read "I haven't measured..."

Greg Denby


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 11:57:20
Subject: Re: Upgrade rates
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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

On Tue, 11 Jul 1995, Charles Blaquiere wrote:

> > From: gregory denby <[e-mail]>
> >
> > I'll stop before I start sounding like an ad.
>
> Then I'll take over! <g> Imagine 2.0 users, please, PLEASE do yourselves
> a favor and find the $100 to upgrade to 3.0, or the $200 to upgrade to
> all versions up to and including 4.0. They make Imagine 2.0 look like
> some half-baked freeware concoction. Knowing what I do now, I wouldn't
> be caught _dead_ using 2.0; it would be cruel and inhuman punishment.
>

I got my copy of 2.0 with 3d Modeling Lab and in the back they offer an
upgrade to 3.0 for $300.  Do I have to pay $300 to upgrade since I
originally got the book and 2.0 for $50?  Or, will Impulse let me upgrade
directly through them.  I think part of the problem is that the book
doesn't come with a registration card in the back, only a card to upgrade
for $300.  If I can, I would like to get the upgrade that includes 4.0.


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 13:00:17
Subject: Re[2]: Virtual Mem
From:    [e-mail]


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






I've looked and there are about three products similar to Ram Doubler.  They
all are for windows and not for DOS.  Haven't used them but they sound like a
good thing.

Rick

     After playing with a few of these packages, I can say that there was
     no noticible difference in memory vs. Windows resources.

     So as not to get off Imagine subjects, if there is more information
     sought after, I can write later.

     -AC


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 13:00:48
Subject: Re[2]: Wishlist -- More output formats
From:    [e-mail]


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


     Keep in mind: Impulse wants to have solutions for both platforms.
     Amiga alone isn't a good solution (In response to PEGGER for JPEG
     stuff)

     -AC



Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 13:11:13
Subject: Re: Upgrade Plan
From:    [e-mail] (ERNESTO POVEDA CORTES)


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

>
> Hello All,
>       I bought Imagine 3.0 almost a year ago from Meridian
> Distribution, but they did not include an option to upgrade to future
> versions. Does anybody know how I can apply for the continual upgrade
> plan in the UK? I realize we are on version 3.3 already, but from what
> I've heard, it still seems worthwhile.

Hi Stu,
      I get my Im3.0 from the upgrade offer of Amiga Format, and after
asking and reading a lot about the upgrade program to 4.0 i made a VISA
and send my number with a petition of geting the constant upgrade prog.
      20 days later i received Im3.1 & im3.2.
  That's my personal experience.

  PS: All this history has one meaning, send a letter to Impulse with
      some method of payment for the $100 and you will get the 3.1-3.3
      :)

--
email: [e-mail]  --> Ernesto Poveda Cortes (I am not a number :)

NOTE: .Sig under reconstruction ....


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 13:18:56
Subject: RE:Imagine vs Hercules Stingray video card
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Dimech)


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

In reply to my original request Chris Hall wrote...

>I had a problem were Imagine would not detect my card. It is a Cirrus 5434
>PCI. I got hold of univbe 5.1 (The latest version), installed it and all my
>problems were solved. It only takes up about 8K of memory but it is
>unfortunatly shareware so unless you register it it does switch off after 21
>odd days and puts up nag screens on boot up. It is about 600K to download
>and the file is called univbe51.zip. Hope this helps.
>Chris Hall.

Thanks Chris,
Just after posting the mail I found univbe5.1a. This almost fixed the
problem. Imagine got the colours right but unfortunately I don't thing
univbe properly supports the card and the display is unviewable.  (Now I
have to contend with univbe not be compatible with my Stingray Card. I'll
get there eventually I guess. I wrote to the univbe guys to see if they can
help.. weel see what happens).

In the mean time I will Quickrender in 256 colours (YUK!!).

Regards BillD
Don't Ponder..... Imagine!!



Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 16:18:00
Subject: Re: Re: One minor wish
From:    Michael North <[e-mail]>


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

> Actually, you can use right mouse button in the perspective window to
> rotate view around the third axis.  First press left mouse button,
> then hold it down and press right and move the mouse.

This is on the Amiga, right?  My right mouse button (IBM PC, Imagine
3.3) doesn't do anything like this.

Michael


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 16:22:00
Subject: Re: Re: Virtual Mem
From:    Michael North <[e-mail]>


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

> I've looked and there are about three products similar to Ram Doubler.  They
> all are for windows and not for DOS.  Haven't used them but they sound like a
> good thing.

RAM doubler itself does not increase available RAM even in Windows.
It helps manage system memory a little more efficiently so that you
can keep more programs open at the same time.  If you want to be able
to, say, load larger files in Photoshop, it won't help.

It looks like some of the other products, like Magna Ram, may be
different, but the product descriptions are so cagey (and I think in
the case of RAM Doubler downright misleading in the fine tradition
of Microsoft's double talk about doublespace) that it's hard to tell.

Michael


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 16:36:00
Subject: Re: Re: Upgrade rates
From:    Michael North <[e-mail]>


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

> I got my copy of 2.0 with 3d Modeling Lab and in the back they offer an
> upgrade to 3.0 for $300.  Do I have to pay $300 to upgrade since I
> originally got the book and 2.0 for $50?  Or, will Impulse let me upgrade
> directly through them.  I think part of the problem is that the book
> doesn't come with a registration card in the back, only a card to upgrade
> for $300.  If I can, I would like to get the upgrade that includes 4.0.
>

You're going to have to pay $300 to go to 3.0 and then another $100
for the constant upgrade plan, now up to 3.3.  Just call Impulse
in either case.  Don't mess with the card.

And, by the way, Charles is absolutely right.  By now, at 3.3, Imagine
is virtually a different program than it was at version 2.0.  If you
can possibly swing it, do the upgrade.

Michael


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 16:52:17
Subject: Re: Wishlist -- Improved starfield
From:    Ted Stethem <[e-mail]>


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


On Wed, 12 Jul 1995, Chris Hall wrote:
>
> How about making the stars stationary when you move the camera in anims? I
> downloaded the enterprise from aminet, converted to work on my PC and
> rendered a simple animation with the starfeild background. When I played it
> back 1701d moved across the screen but the stars moved with the camera, ie.
> they didn't look like they moved. I hope I've explained this so you can
> understand?
> Chris Hall.
>
> |-------------------------------------------|\
> | You have been spoken to by                ||
> | Chris Hall                                ||
> | A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
> | Great Briton                              ||
> |                                           ||
> | E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
> | Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
> | HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
> |                                           ||
> | Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
> |          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
> |                                           ||
> |-------------------------------------------||
>  \-------------------------------------------\
>
  This "broke" in V3.0 and was "fixed" in V3.1.


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 19:44:38
Subject: Wishlist -- Improved starfield
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

>>From [e-mail] Tue Jul 11 04:36:17 1995
>Date: Mon, 10 Jul 1995 21:27:00 -0400 (EDT)
>From: [e-mail]
>Subject: Wishlist -- Improved starfield
>To: [e-mail]
>X-Vms-To: INTERNET"[e-mail]"
>
>Specifically, I would like the ability to give the stars a random
>range of grey values (simulating the varying brightnesses of real
>stars in the sky; and to optionally concentrate the stars'
>positions towards a plane ("Milky Way" effect) or a point
>("Globular Cluster" effect).
>
>                    -- Dave
How about making the stars stationary when you move the camera in anims? I
downloaded the enterprise from aminet, converted to work on my PC and
rendered a simple animation with the starfeild background. When I played it
back 1701d moved across the screen but the stars moved with the camera, ie.
they didn't look like they moved. I hope I've explained this so you can
understand?
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 19:44:48
Subject: Re: Imagine vs Hercules Stingray video card
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

[snip]
>I have Imagine 2.0 for the PC and 3.0 for the Amiga. I was wondering
>how to get the PC version to show 24 bit quickrenders. I turned on
>"Use Firecracker" but I still see dithering and some faint banding
>on the quickrenders (esp. spheres). Any ideas? My card is a new ATI
>Mach 64 PCI and seems to work fine with most other VESA progs I have.
>Will I need univbe? Hope not.
>
>Cheers,
>Stephen
>____________________________________
>Stephen Wilkinson     [e-mail]      "Programming is like pinball. The
>Sr. Software Engineer                     reward for doing it well is the
>LB&M Associates                           opportunity to do it again."
>____________________________________

The use firecracker button is to do with the amiga only. Why the can't take
it out of the PC version I don't know. I am not sure if I2.0 will display in
24-bit on the PC, perhaps someone can confirm this. You can try univbe but I
don't think I2.0 has vesa support.

Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 19:44:54
Subject: Im3.0 on PC, Preferences?
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

Whilst playing with the prefences editor in imagine I noticed 4 itmes at the
bottom as follows :-
default 15-bit vesa pixel spec

Also one for 16,24 and 32-bit. What are these for and what effect do they
have please?

Cheers.
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 19:57:44
Subject: Re: tip for Amiga users
From:    Dave Rhodes <[e-mail]>


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

Hi Drew and all..

    [e-mail] wrote:

>      remember, whenever you get an annoying "overwrite" box or "save
>      quickrender" requester that's just too far away from your mouse to be
>      comfortable . . . . .  hit L-Amiga-C for the lefthand button and
>      L-Amiga-V for the righthand one.
>
>      (maybe it's 'x' and 'c' instead of 'c' and 'v'--- I just hit
>      L-Amiga-Z-X-C-V... until something happens :)

     I just hit the Amiga sometimes...

  You could also use a prog called Arq which runs in the background, and
replaces all the Amiga's native requesters with lovely animated ones,
as well as those created by Imagine, or whatever, and - even better,
they appear centre/center screen and can be accepted with the enter key,
or rejected with escape. It's on Aminet, in utils/cdity/ as Arq something.
   I think I used to have it in my user-startup, as _brun arq_ or
something. (I'm trying to go PC as well now).


--

~===========================================================================~
 Dave Rhodes - [e-mail] - Yorkshire - England -
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 20:14:14
Subject: Re: vertual
From:    [e-mail]


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

--- Received from GITD.PSG024  216 4526             13JUL95  09.10
  -> IBMMAIL.INTERNET      IBMMAIL INTERNET               IBM

:I've looked and there are about three products similar to Ram
Dou:all are for windows and not for DOS. Haven't used them but
they :good thing.

Thanks Rick, maybe I should just wait for Win95.d8) (assuming
thatWin 95 does offer Virtual mem, and Imagine can run too.)

Vic
(vems) ... no tag ... just Me] d8)


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 20:15:26
Subject: RE:Imagine vs Hercules Stingray video card
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

>Thanks Chris,
>Just after posting the mail I found univbe5.1a. This almost fixed the
>problem. Imagine got the colours right but unfortunately I don't thing
>univbe properly supports the card and the display is unviewable.  (Now I
>have to contend with univbe not be compatible with my Stingray Card. I'll
>get there eventually I guess. I wrote to the univbe guys to see if they can
>help.. weel see what happens).
>
>In the mean time I will Quickrender in 256 colours (YUK!!).
>
>Regards BillD
>Don't Ponder..... Imagine!!

        In what way are they unviewable? If the screen is offset there is a
progam called unicenter that can adjust all that. If you use it be careful.
I broke my monitor with it !!! Until I get my SVGA monitor back I'm stuck in
VGA !!!!!
Cheers.
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 20:32:39
Subject: Starfield
From:    [e-mail]


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

--- Received from GITD.PSG024  216 4526             13JUL95  09.28
  -> IBMMAIL.INTERNET      IBMMAIL INTERNET               IBM

Bob, you wrote ...

:these postings are taken on board by Impulse, but I don't think
S:priority. These features would be nice but how often does
anyone :starfield?
:
:-- Bob


Well I think that since Imagine is supposed to mimick real life
situations that it should have as much a function to get that
"real" look.  Starfields are just as important as any object
drawn in Imagine wether commonly used or not...and I also think
itjust adds that extra touch of proffessionalism to the
package.d8)

Vic
No tag...just Me]]] d8)


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 21:05:29
Subject: Re: Melting
From:    [e-mail]


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


Someone wrote an article in Dr. Dobb's programming magazine that specifically
did this.

He had code that read Imagine's TDDD format and then wrote out several TDDD
objects; one for each frame of the melting simulation.

I can't recall which month it was, but it was about a year ago.

Craig



--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 21:15:15
Subject: Wishlist
From:    [e-mail]


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

--- Received from GITD.PSG024  216 4526             13JUL95  10.11
  -> IBMMAIL.INTERNET      IBMMAIL INTERNET               IBM

Here is one that I am not sure if v3.0 and above already have,
buthere goes...

How about a texture/effect called imperfection, ie. to give that
'real' look to a rendition.

- some scratches highlighted with the light reflection,
  eg. scratches on the paintwork of a car, surface of steel...
  that circular scratches seen around the phong.

- dirt/dust at random on plane or just around corners and edges,
  eg. occasional dirt or dust on a table, inside corner of the
  walls in a room, ...just look around you...nothing is really
  perfectly clean and straight.

- this one may just be more of a query...but I noticed that when
  rendering an object on the floor, the shadow seems to all be of
  the same tone thru-out...how about shadows getting darker as
  it gets closer to the object.

Anyway, please comment if these have been already discussed...
coz I am only new here...Dave? (since u r noticably regular at
raising some wishlists...d8) )

VIC
No tag...Just Me]]] d8)


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 21:25:34
Subject: Wish list. Late entries.
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

1) How about removing all the amiga buttons from the PC version? This would
save a lot of hassle when you don't know what they are for and the manual
doesn't tell you.

2) Make it work with emm386 on a PC. To stop me having to re-boot every time
I go from windows to imagine or back.

Cheers.
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 22:01:26
Subject: More Output Formats
From:    [e-mail]


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

More output formats could be added also with the external show hook I suggested
a week or so ago, falling under the ability to send an image file, and possible
control strings, to an external display/convert package.  ADPro would work nice,

and this would be easier to implement (I think) than internal support for half
a dozen or more new image output formats.
JN


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 22:02:13
Subject: Upgrade to 3.x!!!!
From:    [e-mail]


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

Charles Blaquiere on Tue, 11 Jul 1995 writes:
>...Imagine 2.0 users, please, PLEASE do yourselves
>a favor and find the $100 to upgrade to 3.0, or the $200 to upgrade to
>all versions up to and including 4.0. They make Imagine 2.0 look like
>some half-baked freeware concoction. Knowing what I do now, I wouldn't
>be caught _dead_ using 2.0; it would be cruel and inhuman punishment.

I gladly paid the extra money to get Imagine 3.3 for the "Fill to Edge Line"
function alone!  It is unquestionably the greatest thing to come to
computer graphics since the Flood Fill!

(I am taking Computer Graphics/Animation classes in college; the good news
is our Amiga Computer Lab uses Imagine; the bad news is it's Imagine 2.0!
IT IS NO PICNIC!  It is like in High School when I was forced to use a slide
rule when the other classes were happily using pocket calculators!)

                         -- Dave


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 22:11:41
Subject: Virtual walkthru
From:    [e-mail]


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

How about full-screen perspective wireframe, which is normal now, but allow
a single mouseclick to advance to the next frame, so you could do a frame-
by-frame preview on the fly, manually controlled.
JN


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 22:38:48
Subject: Re: Improved Starfields
From:    [e-mail]


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

RByrne asks how many people use starfields, anyway?
If starfields were given 10-20 man-hours of attention at Impulse, they might
have alot of potential, and suddenly be over-used.  How about defining the
starfield to be a sphere, infinitely large, centered at the origin.  Now,
allow settings affecting star distribution relative to horizon and zenith, or ax
es,
and range of star colors (or even load a bitmap, and use it's colors to map
to the stars).  Because this would be primarily procedural and user-controlled
instead of random, it could be far more flexible.
JN


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 23:27:44
Subject: Re: Rotoscoping
From:    [e-mail]


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

is there any equivalent of DCTV on the pc ? Specifically looking for anything
that digitizes greater than 640x480. thanx.


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 23:27:46
Subject: IMPULSE
From:    [e-mail]


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

A job well done gang! Loyalty is the best form of sincerity and despite the
"fair weathers" you have proved your loyalty to me. I know this post reeks of
sweetness but you deserve it. 3.3 is just plain awesome. Thanks.


Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 23:30:24
Subject: RE: Windows 95
From:    Joe Cotellese <[e-mail]>


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

> Imagine runs great under Win 95.

Under Windows 95? or do you have completely go out to DOS to do it like
for some games and programs that aren't completely compatible with Win95?

No, you must get completely out of Windows.

Joe C.







Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 23:42:38
Subject: Re: Making Imagine pay....
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Jul 11, 10:33pm, [e-mail] wrote:
>

> How did you make your first contacts and get your first jobs.

Cold calling of numbers in the yellow pages to try to get job interviews at
local (DC) graphics facilities led to a suggestion (during an interview) that I
join a local chapter of SIGGRAPH.  This is the best thing for a new person
trying to make contacts and do freelance work.

Craig




--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 23:51:50
Subject: Re: 24bit quickrenders in PC 2.0
From:    Stephen Wilkinson <[e-mail]>


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

Hello Chris,

On Jul 12,  7:44pm, Chris Hall wrote:
[snip]
> The use firecracker button is to do with the amiga only. Why the can't take
> it out of the PC version I don't know. I am not sure if I2.0 will display in
> 24-bit on the PC, perhaps someone can confirm this. You can try univbe but I
> don't think I2.0 has vesa support.
[snip]
>-- End of excerpt from Chris Hall

 Yeah, I knew the firecracker was an old Amiga 24bit board and thought
Impulse might have used the analogy... Guess not :) They need to take that
out.. That and the HAM button on the project requestor. Guess it's
a little difficult to #ifdef it out :)

Cheers,
Stephen
____________________________________
Stephen Wilkinson     [e-mail]      "Programming is like pinball. The
Sr. Software Engineer                     reward for doing it well is the
LB&M Associates                           opportunity to do it again."
____________________________________



Date:    Wednesday, 12 July 1995 23:57:14
Subject: Re: Upgrade rates
From:    Stephen Wilkinson <[e-mail]>


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

On Jul 12, 10:57am, Richard Heidebrecht wrote:
> Subject: Re: Upgrade rates
[snip]
> I got my copy of 2.0 with 3d Modeling Lab and in the back they offer an
> upgrade to 3.0 for $300.  Do I have to pay $300 to upgrade since I
> originally got the book and 2.0 for $50?  Or, will Impulse let me upgrade
> directly through them.  I think part of the problem is that the book
> doesn't come with a registration card in the back, only a card to upgrade
> for $300.  If I can, I would like to get the upgrade that includes 4.0.
[snip]
>-- End of excerpt from Richard Heidebrecht

I've got the same deal, but I'm also a registered 3.0 user for the Amiga.
They want differing amounts to upgrade to PC 3.x. I would really like 3.0+
for the PC, but for the $200 or $300 (depending who you ask) I can start
saving for TrueSpace 1.0 or somesuch. I'd rather spend $100 and get PC 3.0+
since it's really just a hobby for me.  It's a little confusing and I am
puzzled at the higher price for the cross-platform upgrade.

Cheers,
Stephen
____________________________________
Stephen Wilkinson     [e-mail]      "Programming is like pinball. The
Sr. Software Engineer                     reward for doing it well is the
LB&M Associates                           opportunity to do it again."
____________________________________


Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 01:42:04
Subject: Re: One minor wish
From:    [e-mail]


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

>This is on the Amiga, right?  My right mouse button (IBM PC, Imagine
>3.3) doesn't do anything like this.

I tried this on my PC and it works.  Nice tip!
Try this:
Go to perspective window hold down the left button and drag right and left.
Notice the movement.
Now while holding left button also hold down right button and drag right and
left.
See the differance?

Rick


Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 01:56:38
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Wishlist -- More output formats
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


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

Hi aciolino,

>
>      Keep in mind: Impulse wants to have solutions for both platforms.
>      Amiga alone isn't a good solution (In response to PEGGER for JPEG
>      stuff)
>
>      -AC
>
 errm there must be a similar tool for the pc as pegger for the amiga

  if not get on to microsoft ;)

  duncan
..............................................................................
..                                                                           .
..                                [e-mail]                    .
..                                                                           .
..............................................................................


Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 08:01:00
Subject: After quickrender...
From:    James Brooks <[e-mail]>


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

Hi all!
  I do not use Imagine much.  As you can tell by my sig line I have
Imagine 3.0 (yes, after hearing about 3.3 I am really thinking about
upgrading).  I was just wondering does/did any have a problem when after
QUICKRENDER was finished and the requester come up asking to save it and
I press NO that Imagine will throw me in the next available Amiga frame.
Is this a bug or some I need to set?

Another question, have they ever fixed that time when you ask for info on
your renders in the project area?  I know that has been around a while
has been 'forgotten' for a while and I am hoping that is fixed.

Thanks for your time.

Good day
Alex

---------------------------------------------------------------
James "Alex" Brooks              Amiga 4000/040/28MHz 22MB RAM
Lightwave 3.5 / Imagine 3.0      VideoToaster 4000 3.1
Syquest 3.5" 270MB             Bernoulli 90Pro
NEC 3xp Triple Speed CDROM       Warp Engine 4028
Epson ES-600C Scanner            E-Mail: [e-mail]
--------------------------------------------------------------



Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 10:01:18
Subject: DARKONS!
From:    "DEBEAUMONT, GEORGE" <[e-mail]>


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

There have been several recent posts regarding lighting techniques
(thanks Tom G./Mike McC.). I'd like to continue the thread. How have people
been using DARKONS?. For those of you in the DARK ;). DARKONS are light
sources created in the Detail editor (Version 3+) and given negative
intensity values. The result?...Counter intuitive, physics defying, light
sucking entities...DARKONS!

I've used them to fine tune a render. Instead of decreasinging the
intensity of a light source that affects multiple objects, I'll create a
DARKON (parallel rays/controlled falloff) and apply it to a specific object
(provides deillumination?).

I've also generated a test animation of a DARKON (point/diminishing
intensity) moving toward and through a ground plane. The result? A
darkening, growing shadow-like (except no distinct edges) area on the
ground plane eventually forming a black hole at its center. An cool
effect...I just don't know what to do with it! Any thoughts?

Anyway, I thought I'd try to stimulate some interest in an unusual Imagine
feature.

George
[e-mail]



Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 10:36:53
Subject: Hidden Treats!
From:    "DEBEAUMONT, GEORGE" <[e-mail]>


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

For those in the constant update program, be sure to check out the new
and UNDOCUMENTED textures:

Invisio.itx
Metals2.itx
Rivitz.itx
Specular.itx
Wires.itx

George
[e-mail]



Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 11:17:35
Subject: Re: Re: One minor wish
From:    Ian Smith <[e-mail]>


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

On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Andrey Zmievskiy wrote:
> It works fine on my PC.  Try it.  Load an object, move your mouse, so
> it's over the perspective window.  Press left mouse button and rotate
> your object the way you want, then while still *holding* the left
> button, press right and move your mouse.  The view should rotate
> around a different axis.

This does not work on Amiga 3.3 for me.  Am I doing something wrong?
Imagins is trapping the mouse clock, as the menus do not show up when
I press the menu (right) button like normal, but the axis of rotation
does not change.

--
[e-mail]              Visit Below! :-)
My HP48/Imagine/ImageMaster Page --> http://moose.erie.net/~iansmith/
Come and stop by Africa Imports! --> http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/



Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 11:20:36
Subject: Re: Virtual walkthru
From:    [e-mail]


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



Just set some function keys to pick Next Frame and Prev Frame in the stage
editor and hit those instead for the same effect, right?

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________

Subject: Virtual walkthru
Author:  [e-mail] at ALTERNET
Date:    7/12/95 9:58 PM


How about full-screen perspective wireframe, which is normal now, but allow
a single mouseclick to advance to the next frame, so you could do a frame-
by-frame preview on the fly, manually controlled.
JN



Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 11:20:41
Subject: Re: 3.3 new brush handle
From:    Ian Smith <[e-mail]>


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

On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, ERNESTO POVEDA CORTES wrote:
> Can you use now the same brush as color and bump (altitude) without having
> of load it twice??????

Unfortunatly not.  You can only have one of the type buttons activated.
Color, reflect, altitude, ect...

--
[e-mail]              Visit Below! :-)
My HP48/Imagine/ImageMaster Page --> http://moose.erie.net/~iansmith/
Come and stop by Africa Imports! --> http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/



Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 11:32:18
Subject: Re: Wishlist -- More output formats
From:    [e-mail]


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

Just to add to this,how about the Amiga version being able to write TIFFs?
The PC version can still write IFFs,but having both versions being able
to write the same file types would make post processing easier on the PC.


William John Porter
[e-mail]




Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 11:35:57
Subject: Re: Upgrade rates
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


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


Bob Byrne writes:

>Has the upgrade fee changed?  It was US$100 for the upgrade plan to receive
>every version up to 4.0 ot so I thought.

Apparently the original offer was $100 for the cross-grade to v2.0.  It was
my impression also that $100 took one to the most current version, but no.
It looks like the fee breakdown is $100 to cross-grade, $100 to upgrade from
2.0 to 3.0, and then another $100 for the constant upgrade to 4.0.

So I dug a little deeper than I wanted, and got the cross-up-constant grade
for the PC, on top of the Ami constant.  My own situation is quite nice
just now.  I model on the Ami, whichg works fine until the objects get
really big, while the PC cranks away at the anims.

Greg Denby

P.S.  Let me also vote for TIFF out-put on the Ami.


Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 12:24:12
Subject: Re: Rotoscoping
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

" . . . so all you'd get is sharper crud."

      Isn't this one of the new animatable ESSENCE textures?  Or maybe I'm
thinking of feeble grunge . . .



Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 13:17:38
Subject: Re: States???
From:    [e-mail]


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

FROM too long. Original FROM is 'Robert Thompson <[e-mail]
lememo.au> (Tel )'

----------------------  Original Message Follows  ----------------------

      Don't know about the toasted naughty bits etc,
but with this (antipodean) winter weather it might be
worth it.
      As far as the states setup goes, I've found
that you only need to create the DEFAULT state for
animations. Apparently it is used as a reference object
for morphing, so for still frames it is redundant.


Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 14:20:00
Subject: Right Mouse Perspective
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


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

-> From: Michael North->-> This is on the Amiga, right?  My right mouse button (
IBM PC, Imagi=ne-> 3.3) doesn't do anything like this.It's works on 3.2 for the
PC. Atleast on MY PC. I dunno about 3.3 yet=..   /------------------------------
           ___   ___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen                     / __
 /__/ /__/  /_   \ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /___/ / \  /  /
/     / \  | [e-mail]     HAUS BBS (805-683-1388)
|           "Irony can make revenge a welcome alternative"   \__________________
___________________________________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Haus BBS - S
anta Barbara, Ca - [phone]

Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 14:24:00
Subject: Re: Rotoscoping
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


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

-> is there any equivalent of DCTV on the pc ? Specifically looking f=or-> that
digitizes greater than 640x480. thanx.If you mean "external frame grabber", yes.
 It's called Snappy! and it='sby a company called Play Inc. (I believe). They ev
en have a Web Page,though I've lost the address.   /----------------------------
--           ___   ___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen                     / _
_  /__/ /__/  /_   \ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /___/ / \  /  /
  /     / \  | [e-mail]     HAUS BBS (805-683-1388)
  |           "Irony can make revenge a welcome alternative"   \________________
_____________________________________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Haus BBS -
 Santa Barbara, Ca - [phone]

Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 14:55:00
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Upgrade rates
From:    Michael North <[e-mail]>


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

>         About his upgrade offer; how does that work exactly?  I've been
> useing my roommates
> 3.0 for about 6 months now and am starting to look at getting my own copy sinc
e
> I will be moving soon.  Is it possible to buy Imagine right at 3.3 or do I
> have to buy 3.0
> and then upgrade?  If I have to buy 3.0 first do I just pay the $100 dollars
> and then I get
> all the upgrades to 3.3 or do I have to pay $100 for each upgrade ($200-$300
> total)?
>

The best thing to do obviously is to call Impulse.  But, this is the
way I understand it.  You can get 3.0 for $300 and then get on the
constant upgrade program for another $100, which entitles you to all
the upgrades from 3.0 to 4.0.

Michael


Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 14:58:00
Subject: Re: Re: Virtual Mem
From:    Michael North <[e-mail]>


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

> Then I bought Softram (ported from MAC?) and it actually takes ram and
> compresses its contents on the fly to give you 16 megs when you only have
> eight, etc.  There is a small performance hit but worth it to render
> animations larger than available ram without paging to disk.  The main
> drawback is that it does nothing for ram under DOS.
>

I don't want to offend anyone who thinks this is too far off-topic,
but I think this is of interest to some, and I appreciate the tip
about SoftRAM.  One last wrinkle:is it compatible with 32-bit disk
and file access?

Michael


Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 15:09:00
Subject: Re: Re: Re: One minor wish
From:    Michael North <[e-mail]>


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

> It works fine on my PC.  Try it.  Load an object, move your mouse, so
> it's over the perspective window.  Press left mouse button and rotate
> your object the way you want, then while still *holding* the left
> button, press right and move your mouse.  The view should rotate
> around a different axis.


Got it.  I guess I must have been moving the mouse up and down,
which doesn't work.  Right and left _does_.  Guess the instructions
just have to be _really_ precise for the slower among us.

Thanks, Andrey.

Michael


Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 17:02:44
Subject: Re: DARKONS!
From:    --Craig <[e-mail]>


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

I recently used darkons to get a good sunlit effect in a room. The
light was coming in a window from opposite the camera, and since the
room had white walls, I wanted everything to be well lit, to sort of
simulate radiosity. Only problem was, when I did that, there was floor
under the bed that was lit up too well (from non-shadowcasting sources).

Solution: one rectangular, shadow-casting dark source under the bed,
with the softedge light texture applied. Instant soft shadow where I
wanted it.

  --Craig
[e-mail]


Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 17:16:11
Subject: Re: Re: Re: One minor wish
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

> Got it.  I guess I must have been moving the mouse up and down,
> which doesn't work.  Right and left _does_.  Guess the instructions
> just have to be _really_ precise for the slower among us.

No problem.. Hopefully, I'll think of other tips.. :)



Date:    Thursday, 13 July 1995 20:48:53
Subject: Genlock blues
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

I'm trying to make some simple foreground animations to be played
via genlock over another video source.  Saucers flying by, aerial robots,
that sort of stuff, all with black and therefore presumably
transparent backgrounds.

But when I play them through the genlock onto the other video image, even
though their backgrounds are all color 0, they're NOT transparent.  I
even loaded the anims into DPaint and checked, and, though it insists the
background is color 0, it's NOT transparent.  What the hey?

I'm rendering the Imagn frames 24bit, then converting them via Rend24 to
lo-res laced ham iff's, which I then combine into anims.

What am I not doing right?  I know 24bit doesn't know color 0 from
beans,--but I assumed the conversion to lo-res iff's would take care
of that.  Is it some weirdness about ham? I know ham and weirdness are
synonymous.

Hell, once I'd loaded the anims into DPaint, I even tried filling the
background with color 0, and it just wouldn't do it.  It would let me use
any brush tool with color 0, and wherever I drew on the frame, it would
become transparent,--but the fill tool wouldn't work.

(Thanks, y'all).



Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 00:10:31
Subject: Re: To PC'ers
From:    [e-mail] (Gregory Helleren)


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

Hi John (John Prusinski), in <[e-mail]> on Jul 12 you w
rote:

> >For those of you who have used Imagine on both platforms:
> >
> >Should I assume that Imagine eats memory on both platforms pretty much
> >equally? That is, if I am happy with an Amiga w/16Megs, will I be
> >equally happy with a 16 Meg PC?
>
> Sorry I can't give you a direct comparison, because my A3000 only had 12 megs
> and my Pentium has 24.  I have been doing some projects on the Pentium that
> are much more memory intensive than anything I tried on the Amiga, and while
> I occasionally got out of memory errors on the A3000, I've yet to run across
> that > problem on the Pentium.  For what it's worth.... OK, probably not much
:/| )

Perhaps it was the additional tasks you were running on the A3000 that consumed
the memory? Can you say "preemptive multitasking" ? :)

Seriously though, if (and I do mean if) Imagine will ever run happily under
Windoze 9x, then you might find that even 24Mb is insufficient...;^)

Love Peace and Lipstick
Gregg

--
+------------------------------------------///\/\/\_Amiga Technologies_/\/\+
  Gregory Helleren      AMIGA is REBORN  /// Lecturer Information Technology
  Developer - LaseRage                  ///  SEMC TAFE Western Australia
  Ferndale W.A. Australia  ___/\___/\\\///   [e-mail]
  CBMNET:[e-mail]\XX/    [e-mail]
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+




Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 00:19:18
Subject: DARKONS
From:    [e-mail]


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

To George:
I don't have 3.x, so I can't even play with said effect (sniff) but I have
a thought:  2010, Odyssey 2: Jupiter sucks into itself/the monoliths, and
in the process the sucked/sucking portion gets darker and darker until
the whole planet sucks in.  How about using a darkon spotlight and an
object morph simultaneously to achieve this sort of effect?
JN


Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 01:01:55
Subject: Re: Re: One minor wish
From:    Ian Smith <[e-mail]>


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

On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Andrey Zmievskiy wrote:
> Don't know about Amiga.  Are you sure you are holding the left button
> down and then pressing right so you have two buttons down?

Yep, doing that.. no dice.

--
[e-mail]              Visit Below! :-)
My HP48/Imagine/ImageMaster Page --> http://moose.erie.net/~iansmith/
Come and stop by Africa Imports! --> http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/



Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 01:16:39
Subject: Imagine Objects
From:    [e-mail]


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

I just received 2 CDs in the mail that I ordered from a company called EPIC
MARKETING.  The CDs have hundreds of megs of imagine objects and texture
maps.  I spent about 4 hours looking through the objects and still did not
finish looking at the objects.  The company is in Great Britain and the phone
number is 01793 490988.
I don't know the price since the bill I got was in pounds.



Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 04:19:09
Subject: Planet Lighting
From:    [e-mail]


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

I've been looking at the recent messages about lighting and I want
to state a problem I have: I have a lot of scenes with planets,
and no matter what I do to the light (make it circular or
parallel rays, near to the planet or far, dim or so bright that it
washes all the colors out), when it renders, it always looks as
though a little less than half of the planet is in "daylight" (as
though a spotlight was being shined on it rather than the sun).
Can anyone suggest anything I can do to make the planet look
illuminated in a natural manner?

                    -- Dave


Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 06:44:04
Subject: Sir Newton...Unleashed
From:    [e-mail]


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

Hi, I was wondering if anyone has used the Newton's Law package? Says it'll
output to imagine format?  Also any ideas if/when it'll be out for the PC?
 And finally, how about their rendering engine...is it any good?

                                                                      ---Lum


Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 08:53:18
Subject: Re: Melting
From:    Kelly Computer Consultants <[e-mail]>


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

The author of the article was Glenn Lewis, and he was describing the code
for the utility I mentioned earlier in this thread.

Doug Kelly
Kelly Computer Consultants

On Wed, 12 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

>
> Someone wrote an article in Dr. Dobb's programming magazine that specifically
> did this.
>
> He had code that read Imagine's TDDD format and then wrote out several TDDD
> objects; one for each frame of the melting simulation.
>
> I can't recall which month it was, but it was about a year ago.
>
> Craig
>
>
>
> --
>  _____________________________________________________________________________

>           __
>         #####       Craig Hoffman
>        #~ ~###      [e-mail]
>         @ @ #?)
>         <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
>         `-' /
>         |__/
>  _____________________________________________________________________________

>


Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 09:57:36
Subject: Re: Lighting
From:    "DEBEAUMONT, GEORGE" <[e-mail]>


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

>I've been looking at the recent messages about lighting and I
>want to state a problem I have: I have a lot of scenes with
>planets, and no matter what I do to the light (make it circular
>or parallel rays, near to the planet or far, dim or so bright
>that it washes all the colors out), when it renders, it always
>looks as though a little less than half of the planet is in
>"daylight" (as though a spotlight was being shined on it rather
>than the sun). Can anyone suggest anything I can do to make the
>planet look illuminated in a natural manner?
>-- Dave

I'd try using the following soft shadow emulation technique to increase the
apparent penumbra (area of the planet which is only partially shielded from the

light source). The following text is from IML-FAQ #7:

"Create a ring of about 10 lights each at 10 percent intensity
in a ring.  These will create soft shadows as if from 1 100%
intensity light source.  It does slow down rendering a little to
have that many more light sources to have to calculate."

George
[e-mail]



Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 12:13:59
Subject: Genlock black and blues
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

Well, some nice person (I tried to thank him, but the note came back
undeliverable) reminded me about setting the genlock color in
pref's down to all 0's, which worked great for 24bit output,--but when I
convert those 24-bit frames down to ham's, the color0 background is still
opaque.

My only access to 24bit output at this point for my anims is via DCTV,
and, till my RGB converter arrives, I can't genlock my dctv signal, so I'm
stuck with ham for output.

Any of you renderbrandts and rendergiants have any idea why an allegedly
transparent color0 background in a ham pic would still be opaque?  I'm
all at sea.


Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 12:18:19
Subject: Re: Planet Lighting
From:    [e-mail] (Johannes P. Woschalik)


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

What about using a second light source with intensity <50 pct. as spotlight?
I didnt try myself but maybe you can get better results.

Hannes


Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 12:47:00
Subject: Re: Re: 3.3 new brush handle
From:    Michael North <[e-mail]>


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

> > of load it twice??????
>
> Unfortunatly not.  You can only have one of the type buttons activated.
> Color, reflect, altitude, ect...
>

Wait a minute, I think this is a little misleading.  You can use
the dup button to put the same brush in the same place and then
activate a different button, for altitude, say, instead of color.
I haven't played with it extensively, but it looks a lot more
convenient than earlier versions.  If the issue is memory rather
than convenience, then there is still a problem

Michael


Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 12:54:25
Subject: Version 3.3 to Sweden
From:    [e-mail] (Mikael Wirde)


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

Hi,

I just wanted to tell everyone that Version 3.3 arrived in Sweden today.
Almost stayed home from work because of that...

M Wirde


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mikael Wirde                    Mail: Box 530
Dept. of Physics                Deliveries: Villavaegen 4B
University of Uppsala           Visitors: Thunbergsvaegen 7
Phone: +46 18 - 18 36 03        S-751 21 UPPSALA
Fax: +46 18 - 18 36 11          SWEDEN
E-mail: [e-mail]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 13:02:19
Subject: Re: Re: One minor wish
From:    [e-mail] (Mikael Wirde)


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

>On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Andrey Zmievskiy wrote:
>> Don't know about Amiga.  Are you sure you are holding the left button
>> down and then pressing right so you have two buttons down?
>
>Yep, doing that.. no dice.
>
>--
>[e-mail]              Visit Below! :-)
>My HP48/Imagine/ImageMaster Page --> http://moose.erie.net/~iansmith/
>Come and stop by Africa Imports! --> http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/
>
>
>

I am using the Amiga version. It works for me. I don't know if this helps,
but: Do it really slowly to see the difference. And also only move the mouse
sideways (not up and down) and you will see (unless something is wrong with
your version) that when holding both buttons down, the axis of rotation will
be the one going perpendicular through the screen, and when only the left
button is pressed, it will be the axis going up and down parallel with the
screen. I just tested this with my 3.3 version, and it still worked. Keep
trying!

M Wirde


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mikael Wirde                    Mail: Box 530
Dept. of Physics                Deliveries: Villavaegen 4B
University of Uppsala           Visitors: Thunbergsvaegen 7
Phone: +46 18 - 18 36 03        S-751 21 UPPSALA
Fax: +46 18 - 18 36 11          SWEDEN
E-mail: [e-mail]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 13:43:15
Subject: Re: Re: One minor wish
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

> > Don't know about Amiga.  Are you sure you are holding the left button
> > down and then pressing right so you have two buttons down?
>
> Yep, doing that.. no dice.

Try moving it left to right.  If that doesn't work move it up and
down. If that fail, I give up. :)

Andrey


Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 14:07:37
Subject: VIEW SPECIAL
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Red Hawk <[e-mail]>
>
> Well I have not explain what I mean.....
>
> .......When I see something from Camera View, it isn't the same that is
>        render in Project Menu because the image render is more large than
>        the Camera View...
>
>        Example....
>
>        I zoom in Camera View to fill all screen by an Object.....
>        ....but when rendered, there is more space on the borders
>
>  Please Help me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
>        I have also the PC version but I can't use it because the mouse
>        seems to be lock  in a quarter of screen as follow ...
>
>            +------------+
>            |   Here     |           I have an ATI Mach 32
>            +------------+
>            |            |
>            |            |
>            |            |
>            +------------+

Sorry, I have no idea why your renders have additional space at the
edges. Hopefully someone else can answer you, and help with the mouse
problem too?

By the way, it's helpful to always keep discussions visible to everyone
on the Imagine Mailing List, unless the reply is personal in nature. To
do this, you should try and reply to _the list_ (imagine@...) rather
than to _the original poster_ (blaq@...). This greatly increases your
chances of having your problem solved, and in returns, it helps others
on the List who may want to know about the situation.




Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 14:15:04
Subject: After quickrender...
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: James Brooks <[e-mail]>
>
> I was just wondering does/did any have a problem when after
> QUICKRENDER was finished and the requester come up asking to save it and
> I press NO that Imagine will throw me in the next available Amiga frame.
> Is this a bug or some I need to set?

No, it's not a bug. If Imagine's screen is not in front, or is
deactivated (the menu bar appears grey rather than black) by the time
the quickrender is displayed, Imagine will immediately perceive this as
a sign on your part that you're not interested in seeing that
quickrender after all. I know ***I*** certainly want to spend my nights
watching the progress meter, rather than flipping to another screen and
doing some more productive activity! <grin>

Anyway, when that happens, Imagine closes the quickrender display
screen, brings the Imagine screen to the front, and asks "delete
quickrender?". When you click on "OK" or "Cancel", the Imagine screen
will automatically flip to the bottommost position (like LeftAmiga-M),
since it figures you weren't really interested anyway, and is quite
miffed at that. <g>

Yes, it's inconsistent, puzzling behaviour. But it's not a bug. <g>



Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 14:19:44
Subject: Animating Textures
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail] <[e-mail]>
>
>  im doing the second ive previewed a few frames and there seems to be alot
> of movement but it doesnt seem to be an animation random is the word i
> think im looking for

I have a hunch that you're putting the poor texture through too much
change, over too few frames. Try morphing "dist travelled" from 0 to
0.1, for example. If Imagine's Spark texture works similarly to Essence
offerings, "Dist travelled" may be similar to Essence's "Time"
parameter, where every unit change (e.g. from 0 to 1) will result in a
totally different-looking pattern. If you morph such a severe change
over, say, 4 frames, the result just might look random.

Or is this not your problem, and I'm out in left field?



Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 14:28:45
Subject: Re: wishlist
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-12 23:35:16 EDT, [e-mail] writes:

>Here is one that I am not sure if v3.0 and above already have,
>
>buthere goes...
>
>
>
>How about a texture/effect called imperfection, ie. to give that
>
>'real' look to a rendition.
>
>
>
>- some scratches highlighted with the light reflection,
>
>  eg. scratches on the paintwork of a car, surface of steel...
>
>  that circular scratches seen around the phong.
>
>
>
>- dirt/dust at random on plane or just around corners and edges,
>
>  eg. occasional dirt or dust on a table, inside corner of the
>
>  walls in a room, ...just look around you...nothing is really
>
>  perfectly clean and straight.
>
>
>
>- this one may just be more of a query...but I noticed that when
>
>  rendering an object on the floor, the shadow seems to all be of
>
>  the same tone thru-out...how about shadows getting darker as
>
>  it gets closer to the object.

The first two you mentioned are already in 3.0, and the third I think would
be very hard if not impossible to do.

s.g.



Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 14:28:58
Subject: Genlock blues
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Mike McCool <[e-mail]>
>
> I'm rendering the Imagn frames 24bit, then converting them via Rend24 to
> lo-res laced ham iff's, which I then combine into anims.

Aha! I have a strong feeling the culprit is HAM mode. I don't think HAM
images were ever designed for genlocking in the first place. You need a
register-based image where a "0" pixel simply means color zero, NOT
"zero changes from the neighbour, whatever it may be". Try setting
Rend24 to 16-color and see if your images genlock properly.


Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 14:36:38
Subject: Re: Upgrade to 3.x!!!!
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-13 00:35:42 EDT, [e-mail] writes:

>(I am taking Computer Graphics/Animation classes in college; the good news
>is our Amiga Computer Lab uses Imagine; the bad news is it's Imagine 2.0!
>IT IS NO PICNIC!  It is like in High School when I was forced to use a slide
>rule when the other classes were happily using pocket calculators!)
>
>                         -- Dave

Your College must have a low budget for CG if they can only afford 2.0.
 Seems like Impulse might be willing to make a deal for a classroom
situation.  Why don't you have the appropriate people contact Impulse.

s.g.


Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 14:43:58
Subject: Imagine Objects
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> I just received 2 CDs in the mail that I ordered from a company called
> EPIC MARKETING.  The CDs have hundreds of megs of imagine objects and
> texture maps.  I spent about 4 hours looking through the objects and
> still did not finish looking at the objects.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, should be considered an addendum to that
unpleasant thread of 1994, where Syndesis was criticized by people who
didn't seem to appreciate the time users would save by looking at the
printed thumbnail collection included with the disc. 4 hours. Sheesh.



Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 14:49:25
Subject: Re: Improved Starfields
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> How about defining the starfield to be a sphere, infinitely large,
> centered at the origin.  Now, allow settings affecting star distribution
> relative to horizon and zenith, or axes, and range of star colors (or
> even load a bitmap, and use it's colors to map to the stars).  Because
> this would be primarily procedural and user-controlled instead of random,
> it could be far more flexible.

But JN, isn't what you're describing pretty much available _now_, using
existing Imagine functionality? We all know about the "large black sphere
with confetti texture" trick. Just add a couple of Linear textures to
make the top/bottom darker, and you've made parts of your starfield more
subtle. Or, add that bitmap you mention as a spherical color map, with
the new fade parameter if you wish, and you've added bitmap control.

I don't want to slam your rational opinion, but I'd rather have Impulse
spend their time elsewhere, fixing longtime bugs for example, and try to
give you alternatives that don't involve Impulse development time.




Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 15:30:32
Subject: Renderbrat
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Mike McCool <[e-mail]>
>
> Trying your hair-as-a-particle attachment idea, I stumbled onto the
> realization that if I invoke an outside object as a particle, I don't
> have to trace my render, but can scanline for the desired results.
> Thanks, you, not only for a great idea, but for saving me eons of render
> time.

Hey, you're welcome! However...

at this late hour, my brain doesn't quite understand this part. If you
invoke an outside object as a particle, you can scanline instead of
having to raytrace? Can you elaborate a bit on that? Sounds intriguing!





Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 15:33:02
Subject: Metal global maps???
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> I would like to create some silver type for my parents' Silver Anniversary
> card.
> I have just placed some type in the stage, added suitable lights and
> applied a global brush map (blue sky, orange - brown ground). I was
> trying to get the stereotypical metal sheen on this silver type.
> The result however was not quite right.
> Has anyone got any suggestions for the global map to get the metal sheen
> (blue fading to orange? fading to blue again)? I think the attributes I
> have set for the object are correct?

I have created a simple gradient brush, tall and skinny, to apply as an
Environment brushmap onto your object. It skows blue sky (fading to
almost white at the top) with a blue-to-brown gradient in the middle of
the brush, and a third gradient to a richer, darker brown at the bottom
of the brush. This will give you a stereotypical chrome reflection map.

An important thing to consider is that the front of your logo, which is
usually flat, will only reflect a small part of your environment map. In
the Right view, of the angle between the top of the logo, the camera,
and the bottom of your logo, is, say, 10 degrees, then you can see how
the reflection of your environment map will only cover 10 out of the 180
degrees which the map represents; in other words, only the middle 1/18th
of the brush will be seen in the front of the logo. This area is where
your most important colors and gradient should be. (The rest of the
brush will show in bevels, if you have any)

One way to spice up your logo is to add large, soft bumps to it; this
will show up in the reflected colors as a real-world metal object, where
slight surface imperfections always appear.

I have UUencoded a sample Imagine object (the number "5") and the
environment brushmap. I'm mailing them to you; if anyone else wants them,
I'll keep them around for a week or so. (Or should I send them to one of
those newfangled WWW Imagine Mailing List repositories?)



Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 15:37:01
Subject: Re: Upgrade rates
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Robert Byrne <[e-mail]>
>
> Hello Charles, on Jul 11 you wrote:
>
> > Then I'll take over! <g> Imagine 2.0 users, please, PLEASE do
> > yourselves
> > a favor and find the $100 to upgrade to 3.0, or the $200 to upgrade to
> > all versions up to and including 4.0. .....
>
> Has the upgrade fee changed?  It was US$100 for the upgrade plan to
> receive every version up to 4.0 or so I thought.
>
> -- Bob

Notice, I was writing about the upgrade fee for _2.0_ owners, not the
constant upgrade program for 3.0 owners.


Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 15:39:33
Subject: Virtual walkthru
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> How about full-screen perspective wireframe, which is normal now, but
> allow
> a single mouseclick to advance to the next frame, so you could do a frame-
> by-frame preview on the fly, manually controlled.

But... you can already do that! Just create a preview anim in Stage,
then use the animation controller to play it, pause it, go to the
next/previous/first frame, drag the new "scrub" slider... and it'll be
instantaneous, since Imagine will have already precalculated all the frames.



Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 15:42:19
Subject: Planet Lighting
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> no matter what I do to the light (make it circular or
> parallel rays, near to the planet or far, dim or so bright that it
> washes all the colors out), when it renders, it always looks as
> though a little less than half of the planet is in "daylight" (as
> though a spotlight was being shined on it rather than the sun).
> Can anyone suggest anything I can do to make the planet look
> illuminated in a natural manner?

Ummm, well, parallel rays is exactly what you'd need to simulate a very
distant light source, such as the Sun. I have a hunch that the key to
your message is your use of the words "natural manner". Perhaps you can
describe in more detail what this natural look is to you, and we can
help you achiveve it?



Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 15:45:01
Subject: Re: Re: One minor wish
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Ian Smith <[e-mail]>
>
> This does not work on Amiga 3.3 for me.  Am I doing something wrong?
> Imagins is trapping the mouse clock, as the menus do not show up when
> I press the menu (right) button like normal, but the axis of rotation
> does not change.

....and you _do_ have the "A"lignment button selected in the Perspective
view's border? I just tried it and it still works under Amiga 3.3. Click
on "A", press _and hold_ the left mouse button; when you move the mouse,
you get a rotation around view X and Z; if you also press the right
button, moving the mouse will rotate the view along Y.



Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 16:28:00
Subject: Re: genlock blues
From:    [e-mail]


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



>Aha! I have a strong feeling the culprit is HAM mode. I don't think
>HAM images were ever designed for genlocking in the first place. You
>need a register-based image where a "0" pixel simply means color zero,
>NOT "zero changes from the neighbour, whatever it may be". Try setting
>Rend24 to 16-color and see if your images genlock properly.

     NEGATIVE!  I can remember times when I genlocked HAM graphics just
     fine.

     I think this is the reason why HAM will still work: color 0 in HAM has
     6 bits, all zeros. The two highest bits are the ones that choose the
     mode-- modify R, G, B, or use a raw palette color. If those bits are
     00, it means use a palette color, which in the case of 000000, would
     be palette reg. zero, which is transparent. Pretty sure that's
     accurate. (or at least right-for-the-wrong-reason :)



Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 17:36:01
Subject: Metal global maps???
From:    [e-mail]


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

Hi IMLers,
I would like to create some silver type for my parents' Silver Anniversary
card.
I have just placed some type in the stage, added suitable lights and
applied a global brush map (blue sky, orange - brown ground). I was
trying to get the stereotypical metal sheen on this silver type.
The result however was not quite right.
Has anyone got any suggestions for the global map to get the metal sheen
(blue fading to orange? fading to blue again)? I think the attributes I
have set for the object are correct?

PS. George D. Those Darkons sound cool. I think I'll try it as soon as I
get home.

Rod Macey
[e-mail]

"Sometimes the hard way is the only way"




Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 19:14:36
Subject: Re: Planet Lighting
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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

On Fri, 14 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> I've been looking at the recent messages about lighting and I want
> to state a problem I have: I have a lot of scenes with planets,
> and no matter what I do to the light (make it circular or
> parallel rays, near to the planet or far, dim or so bright that it
> washes all the colors out), when it renders, it always looks as
> though a little less than half of the planet is in "daylight" (as
> though a spotlight was being shined on it rather than the sun).
> Can anyone suggest anything I can do to make the planet look
> illuminated in a natural manner?
>
>                     -- Dave
>

What about raising the ambient light intensity?


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 23:51:50
Subject: Re: Imagine Objects
From:    Dave Rhodes <[e-mail]>


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

Hey Tom ....!


> I just received 2 CDs in the mail that I ordered from a company called EPIC
> MARKETING.  The CDs have hundreds of megs of imagine objects and texture
> maps.  I spent about 4 hours looking through the objects and still did not
> finish looking at the objects.  The company is in Great Britain and the phone
> number is 01793 490988.
> I don't know the price since the bill I got was in pounds.

    Put us poor brits out of our misery,  - How many pounds, and what are
they called ?  Thanks for the 'phone no. anyway.


--

~===========================================================================~
 Dave Rhodes - [e-mail] - Yorkshire - England -
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Friday, 14 July 1995 23:53:52
Subject: Re: genlock blues
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

> >Aha! I have a strong feeling the culprit is HAM mode. I don't think
> >HAM images were ever designed for genlocking in the first place. You
> >need a register-based image where a "0" pixel simply means color zero,
> >NOT "zero changes from the neighbour, whatever it may be". Try setting
> >Rend24 to 16-color and see if your images genlock properly.
>
>      NEGATIVE!  I can remember times when I genlocked HAM graphics just
>      fine.
>
>      I think this is the reason why HAM will still work: color 0 in HAM has
>      6 bits, all zeros. The two highest bits are the ones that choose the
>      mode-- modify R, G, B, or use a raw palette color. If those bits are
>      00, it means use a palette color, which in the case of 000000, would
>      be palette reg. zero, which is transparent. Pretty sure that's

Hey Drew,

      Well, you're right:  ham can be genlocked just fine.  But Jeez,
what I had to go through to get my background color0 to actually be
transparent.

      I ended up splitting my anim back into individual ham frames, and
loading it frame-by-frame into DPaint4, then using the Background >
Foreground command in the pulldowns.  It only took a few million years.


Date:    Saturday, 15 July 1995 00:07:30
Subject: Re: Planet Lighting
From:    [e-mail]


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

DaveH47:
Perhaps if your light source has as large as or larger than your planet...
JN


Date:    Saturday, 15 July 1995 00:18:42
Subject: Re :starfields
From:    [e-mail]


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

to Blaq (Charles)  no slam whatsoever.  Half of the purpose of the IML
is to promote and facilitate this kind of experience broadening discussion.
I only have 2.0 (for a few days more...) and am not familiar with most
of the current or new features, and even if I were, I might not know of
a way to accomplish something which to someone else is simple, since they've
either done it, figured it out, or heard about it previously (probably
here on IML!)
Later on,
JN


Date:    Saturday, 15 July 1995 03:06:30
Subject: Re: VIEW SPECIAL
From:    [e-mail]


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

> .......When I see something from Camera View, it isn't the same that is
>        render in Project Menu because the image render is more large than
>        the Camera View...

I'm not quite clear on your circumstances but here are a couple of ideas.
You say you zoom in with your camera view.  If you are using the zoom menu,
or are in the detail editor, then you are not in camera view.  Your
quickrender will show your perspective window in the detail editor but not
your project render.
If you are in the stage editor, with "camera view" enabled, and are moving
the camera to zoom in then my next question would be does a quickrender look
differant from the project render.  If they do then your resolution (or
render preset) are not set the same.
If they both look bad they might both be set to the wrong setting to look
right on your screen.

For the mouse problem I am not sure, but out of experience I can say that any
time I have ever had a mouse problem it was fixed by getting an updated mouse
driver.

Rick


Date:    Saturday, 15 July 1995 07:16:00
Subject: Picasso II & Imagine 3.3
From:    [e-mail] (David Wyand)


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

Hi Guys!

I just got Imagine 3.3 for the Amiga and would like to use the 256
texture display.  I have a Picasso II, and I can't seem to be able to
force it into 256 colours.  I've played with those 256 colour
parameters, as well as the AA one in preferences with no luck.  Has
anyone been able to get this to work?

Thanx in advance...

                                                -Dave
                                                 [e-mail]


Date:    Saturday, 15 July 1995 07:22:56
Subject: Re: Wishlist -- Improved starfield
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


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

Hi Robert,

> Hello DAVEH47, on Jul 10 you wrote:
>
> > Specifically, I would like the ability to give the stars a random
> > range of grey values (simulating the varying brightnesses of real
> > stars in the sky; and to optionally concentrate the stars'
> > positions towards a plane ("Milky Way" effect) or a point
> > ("Globular Cluster" effect).
>
> priority. These features would be nice but how often does anyone render a
> starfield?

 i use starfield/stars whatever quite alot with renders that dont need to
much background as it gives a good sense of motion without detracting from
the main centre of the anim and with milkyway nebular clustar etc this would
add a nice feature to the end product/anim -just that little extra


 duncan
..............................................................................
..                                                                           .
..                                [e-mail]                    .
..                                                                           .
..............................................................................


Date:    Saturday, 15 July 1995 12:50:45
Subject: Re: Planet Lighting
From:    George Lane <[e-mail]>


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



On Fri, 14 Jul 1995, Richard Heidebrecht wrote:

> On Fri, 14 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:
>
> > I've been looking at the recent messages about lighting and I want
> > to state a problem I have: I have a lot of scenes with planets,
> > and no matter what I do to the light (make it circular or
> > parallel rays, near to the planet or far, dim or so bright that it
> > washes all the colors out), when it renders, it always looks as
> > though a little less than half of the planet is in "daylight" (as
> > though a spotlight was being shined on it rather than the sun).
> > Can anyone suggest anything I can do to make the planet look
> > illuminated in a natural manner?
> >
> >                     -- Dave
> >
>
> What about raising the ambient light intensity?

Raising the ambient intensity would illuminate the dark side of the
planet, which should be completely black. Not good for realism. Parallel
lights should work, since rays coming from the sun are parallel.

George


Date:    Saturday, 15 July 1995 16:18:31
Subject: I have the best wish :)
From:    [e-mail]


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

Here is something I thought would be very useful!  How about adding another
list to the attributes requestor?  The list would list(of course) the
different states for an object allowing you to edit the different states
without exiting the requestor!!!

Man would this save time!  I hate exiting clicking on "set to..." then going
back!

                                                           ---Lum



Date:    Saturday, 15 July 1995 21:47:50
Subject: Re: Planet shading
From:    [e-mail]


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

>Ummm, well, parallel rays is exactly what you'd need to simulate a very
>distant light source, such as the Sun. I have a hunch that the key to
>your message is your use of the words "natural manner". Perhaps you can
>describe in more detail what this natural look is to you, and we can
>help you achiveve it?

By "natural", I mean that the "day" and "night" sides should cover equal
areas of the planet, with the terminator (i.e. "twilight zone") intersecting
the planet's "poles" and dividing it into equal halves.  No matter what I
do (and thanks, incidentally, to everyone for their suggestions so far, but
I'm afraid that not one has made any difference), the terminator is offset
towards the lightsource(s), and a good deal more than half of the planet
is shrouded in darkness (not counting the ambient light).  Is there anything
I can do to "nudge" that terminator to the center?  (If I still haven't
made clear what I'm striving for, see my "diagrams" below).

Thanks again in advance!

                         -- Dave



Planets (side views; light source is to the right; "night" side is filled
         with X's)

  What I want:                 What is rendered:

   _________                      _________
  /XXXX:    \                    /XXXXXXX: \
 /XXXXX:     \                  /XXXXXXXX:  \
|XXXXXX:      |                |XXXXXXXXX:   |
|XXXXXX:      |                |XXXXXXXXX:   |
|XXXXXX:      |                |XXXXXXXXX:   |
 \XXXXX:     /                  \XXXXXXXX:  /
  \XXXX:____/                    \XXXXXXX:_/



P.S. You're right, parallel rays SHOULD rectify the problem, as that's
the whole point of having them, but they don't.  (Imagine Bug???)




Date:    Saturday, 15 July 1995 22:03:30
Subject: Layers
From:    [e-mail]


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



    Is there any way to turn off layers permanantly other than for quick
renders?  Every time I go to render in the project editor it adds all the
layers and sometimes it loses the layer info completely.

s.g.


Date:    Saturday, 15 July 1995 23:13:10
Subject: Planet lighting (ambient?)
From:    [e-mail]


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

How about raise ambient, then aim a Darkon at the dark side?
JN


Date:    Saturday, 15 July 1995 23:15:56
Subject: Re: planet shading
From:    [e-mail]


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

to DaveH47:
I've got a question:  Have you tried increasing the detail of the object
structure?  IE, more vertical slices, reducing the number of triangular patches
that may render as parallel or nearly parallel to the lightsource?
Just a thought,
JN


Date:    Sunday, 16 July 1995 00:28:31
Subject: Upcoming motion blur!
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

Impulse is working on motion blur for Imagine. This topic generates so
much interest that I decided to go ahead and post a UUencoded file. Hope
it doesn't ruffle any feathers.

This is a frame from a .FLC that Mike Halvorson uploaded to CompuServe,
showing Imagine's upcoming motion blur. I think you'll like it. B^)

This UUdecodes into a JPEG file.


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``
end
size 5186



Date:    Sunday, 16 July 1995 00:30:14
Subject: Re: Making Imagine Pay
From:    Kent Marshall Worley <[e-mail]>


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

  I use Imagine to create graphics for the Atlanta Braves. I have made
player pictures and logo animations that are shown on the big video
screen in the stadium.
   [e-mail]


Date:    Sunday, 16 July 1995 04:04:25
Subject: Imagine 3.0 in OS/2?
From:    [e-mail] (Patrick Fairchild)


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

Greetings, I am new to the mailing list so forgive me if this has been asked bef
ore.  As the subjct states, is it possible to get Imagine 3.0 PC to run under OS
/2 Warp?  I have tried a multitude of things and nothing seems to work.  When I
type IMAGINE to start the program it just puts me back to the command prompt.  N
o error messages, nothing.  I have trying to run it in a DOS full screen VDM.  I
f anybody has gotten it to work I'd really appreciate any helk you can give me.
 I hate having to reboot to DOS just to run Imagine.

Thanks in advance.


--Patrick Fairchild
[e-mail]


Date:    Sunday, 16 July 1995 06:30:46
Subject: Pictureman.
From:    [e-mail] (Chris)


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

Hi all,

just a quick question about Pictureman that came bundled with Imagine 2.0 in
the "3D Modelling Lab" book by P. Shaddock.

i have been trying to re-establish contact via e-mail with igor plotnikov
and Stoik Works in Russia but with no success.

can anybody advise me what their e-mail address is or whats happened to them.

thanks.......................chris.



Date:    Sunday, 16 July 1995 06:53:43
Subject: Re: Planet shading
From:    [e-mail]


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

THe answer is very simple:

Make a SUN!!

To make a sun make an object of several axis grouped together.  Like the way
to make soft-shadows. The most outside spotlites should be roughly the same
radius from the center axis as the radius of the planet.  Have all spotlites
point to the center of your planet.  Render....

                                                              ---Lum

Yeah I know I can't write good tutorials! :)


Date:    Sunday, 16 July 1995 07:44:23
Subject: Rendering Times
From:    [e-mail]


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


  Heres a little tip on something I just discovered.  I had been rendering my
projects with files spread all over my 2 hard disks.  I tried putting all
brushmaps and objects in the Projects object directory and my rendering time
went from about 25 minutes to about 12 minutes in full trace.  I guess it
takes a lot of processor time to look through all your directories.

s.g.


Date:    Sunday, 16 July 1995 10:47:51
Subject: Planet Shading
From:    [e-mail]


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

You're after a parallel light source that actually is
parallel. Have you tried giving the light source a
ridiculously long Z axis (or X or Y, can't remember
which) to make the lightsource very wide, alternatively,
assuming the stock lightsources may be buggy, try
using an axis as a light and doing the above.
GOOD LUCK



Date:    Sunday, 16 July 1995 17:57:23
Subject: Re: Planet shading
From:    [e-mail] (joop van de wege)


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

What happens when you place an AXIS at the side of the planet and let the
'Sun' track to it, with its center at the 'X'.

Greetings Joop

Apoligies for stealing your nice ASCII drawings :)

Planets (side views; light source is to the right; "night" side is filled
         with X's)

    What I want:                 What is rendered:

     _________                      _________
    /XXXX:    \                    /XXXXXXX: \
   /XXXXX:     \                  /XXXXXXXX:  \
 A|XXXXXX:      |                |XXXXXXXXX:   |
 X|XXXXXX:      |                |XXXXXXXXX:   |
 I|XXXXXX:      |                |XXXXXXXXX:   |
 S \XXXXX:     /                  \XXXXXXXX:  /
    \XXXX:____/                    \XXXXXXX:_/





Date:    Sunday, 16 July 1995 20:47:14
Subject: Image Depth?
From:    [e-mail] (Perry Lucas)


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

  I'm using 3.0 at the moment with 3.3 on the way.  My problem comes in with
the appeared image depth.  My room that was rendered was 800 units long with
my camera looking straight down it.  The right, left, and back wall were brush
mapped along with the floor.  In the solid wire frame view in the stage editor,
it appeared to have a nice distance.  However, when I rendered it at
640x480x16.7(Truecolor) 6 x 7 aspect the depth was lost and the room looked
scrunched up.  The only solution I had to this was to exxagerate the room depth
by scaling the room 4x to get something close to the desired look.  This was
rendered
full Trace w/2 light sources both casting shadows.  There were also some other
objects in the room to provide some depth perception.  Is there something I am
missing with this?

--Perry



Date:    Sunday, 16 July 1995 21:04:46
Subject: Lanscapes and clouds.
From:    [e-mail] (Ian Brown)


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

 Hi All,
      This isn't an "I've got a problem" thread (yet!).  But I was
 thinking recently about landscapes and clouds, and thought I'd ask what
 people's favourite ways of producing these are.
                                              Ian.
--
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------\
| "Life's full of mysteries.  Consider this one of them" -B5            |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|[e-mail]   ---   Ian Brown                               |
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------/


Date:    Sunday, 16 July 1995 23:01:00
Subject: Metal global maps???
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>
>
> I have UUencoded a sample Imagine object (the number "5") and the
> environment brushmap. I'm mailing them to you; if anyone else wants them,
> I'll keep them around for a week or so. (Or should I send them to one of
> those newfangled WWW Imagine Mailing List repositories?)

Enough people have asked me, in e-mail, to send them the files, that I
feel comfortable to post them on the IML.


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MR,C_R,C_R,C_R,C_R,C_R,C_R,C_R,C_R,C_R,C_R,C_R,C_R,C_R,C_R,C_A
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end
size 13660


Date:    Sunday, 16 July 1995 23:20:09
Subject: Re: Imagine 2.0 Bug????
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

Just a wild guess, I'd say inadequate ram.  As a less wild, second guess,
make sure, before you quickrender, that your perspective display is set
to Camera View.


Date:    Sun 16 Jul 21:57:19 1995:00
Subject: Re: VIEW SPECIAL
From:    [e-mail]


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

I will try to explain this the best that I can.  Resolution, rendering
presets, etc. is just another way of saying "picture size".  The resolution
of your screen or a graphic is its size in pixels, width x height.

Imagine itself runs normally in 320 x 200 mode or the picture on your screen
is 320 pixels wide by 200 pixels high.  With 3.2, a vesa video card and the
preference set at 640 x 480 x 256 color mode your screen will show 640 pixels
wide and 480 pixels high.

You set your quickrender resolution in the preference menu and your project
renders in the project menu.

For example, we will say you are running Imagine in the 640 x 480 x 256 mode.
If your quickrender is set to 320 x 200 mode you will be showing a 320 x 200
picture on a 640 x 480 screen, so your picture will only be half as wide as
your screen.
On the other hand if you would quickrender in a 1024 x 768 mode your picture
would be wider then your screen so part of your picture will be cut off.
This also applies to your final project renders, but you may be viewing your
finished project in a differant viewer and would want a differant resolution.

I recommend you set your quickrender mode to be the same as your screen mode.
 You do this by going to preferences menu item.  In order to set this to a
screen mode, that mode must be one of the quickrender presets.  If you need
more help on this just let me know.  You can set your final render mode at
render time and will be set to fit your needs.

Any more questions, just hollar.

Rick



Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 00:04:36
Subject: Re: Imagine 2.0 Bug????
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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

On Sun, 16 Jul 1995, Robert Whitaker wrote:

> Hi there,  after hours of hard work and turmoil I have finally managed to
> finish modelling a logo in Imagine 2.0.  However upon rendering I found
> (to my horror) a whole section of the top of it was chopped off... Not by
> the cameera... or by the lights (as I had plenty of light) but it had
> just disappeared.  I checked the model,  quickrendered it, it was fine


Try setting the global size to 0,0,0 in the Action editor.  This will
force Imagine to adjust the world size to be large enough so that none of
the objects are "cut-off".


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 00:06:44
Subject: Planet Lighting
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

If you think of the situation in terms of normal angle, i.e. the angle
between the surface normal at any point on the planet and the direction
of the light source, you can see that your request basically boils down to:

      I want my planet to be almost 100% illuminated, from an angle of
      zero degrees, almost all the way to 90 degrees. I then want the
      illumination to drop to zero over, say, a range of 10 degrees,
      giving me a slim border between the lit and unlit halves, and
      also making the lit part almost half of the planet.

This is not kosher, since illumination starts to drop the moment your
surface normal starts pointing even the teensiest weensiest bit away
from the light.

You can force Imagine (3.3 only) to do what you want, by using
Brightness mapping to force the correct half of the planet to full
brightness. You can even create the transition zone yourself. Just
create a brushmap (any number, even one) pixel tall by 100 pixels wide, and
fill it with the following horizontal gradient, from left to right:

      45 pixels black
      10 pixels blending to white
      45 pixels white

Apply this brushmap as a Brightness brush, in FlatX/FlatZ mode. Scale
the brush X, Y and Z axes to just enclose the planet; position the axes so
the planet is centered in the cube of space delimited by the brush's
positive X/Y/Z axes. Rotate the brush around LOCAL Z until its positive
X axis faces towards the sun. The result: the (almost) half of the
planet facing the sun will be uniformly bright, at 100% brightness,
followed by a relatively narrow transition zone, where the brightness
will fall to zero and normal illumination rules are valid, up until the
end of the object.

Of course, you can give your planet a bit of shading, by replacing the
brushmap with the following gradient:

      45 pixels black
      10 pixels blending to 85% white
      45 pixels blending to white

This will replace the all-white area with a subtle gradient, where the
brightness level will drop from 100% where the planet faces the sun, to
85% close to the halfway mark -- leaving 15% of illumination calculated
by Imagine's light source angle algorithm.



Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 00:08:13
Subject: Re: Planet shading
From:    [e-mail]


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

This is just a shot in the dark (pardon the pun 8->), but would phong
shading routine have anything to do with it????

Rod Macey
[e-mail]

"Sometimes the hard way is the only way"




Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 00:09:21
Subject: Re: Planet shading
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> This is just a shot in the dark (pardon the pun 8->), but would phong
> shading routine have anything to do with it????

More properly, Rod, the shading routine (period) is the culprit. The guy
wants almost no shading until the angle between the surface and the
light is 90 degrees, and that's not the way Imagine works. See my other
message for a workaround, though.



Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 00:10:10
Subject: Imagine 2.0 Bug????
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Whitaker)


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

Hi there,  after hours of hard work and turmoil I have finally managed to
finish modelling a logo in Imagine 2.0.  However upon rendering I found
(to my horror) a whole section of the top of it was chopped off... Not by
the cameera... or by the lights (as I had plenty of light) but it had
just disappeared.  I checked the model,  quickrendered it, it was fine
but upon rerendering it was the same!   Help!!!  Is there a bug in
Imagine.  My setup is as follows:-

- Amiga 1200HD
- 120 MB HardDisk
- 4 MB RAM (2 Chip, 2 Fast)
- MBX 1200 Ram expansion board (I think)
- 68881 FPU
- I've gor a printer, extra disk drive and modem in the back.

I'm useing the Amiga Format Coverdisk version of the software
(FPUversion)  Please help.... THis is really irritating!

Robert Whitaker
[e-mail]



Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 00:12:21
Subject: Rendering Times
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
>   Heres a little tip on something I just discovered.  I had been
> rendering my
> projects with files spread all over my 2 hard disks.  I tried putting all
> brushmaps and objects in the Projects object directory and my rendering
> time
> went from about 25 minutes to about 12 minutes in full trace.  I guess it
> takes a lot of processor time to look through all your directories.

Or, perhaps your files were victims of disk fragmentation, and the area
where you moved them was less fragmented. Or maybe the hard disk where
your Projects directory is located is faster than the other. Still,
halving the render time? That's quite a feat. Do others have possible
explanations?



Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 00:21:23
Subject: Re: VIEW SPECIAL
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

Hey, I just thought of something. Perhaps Red Hawk _did_ have Camera
View turned on, made some changes to the camera, and quickrendered to
see if he liked the results. He did, then Saved Changes and went to
Project. Unfortunately, he was in a Stage editor frame where no camera
keyframe had been defined, so his camera changes were lost, and Save
Changes didn't help any. This would explain why the Project render would
be different.

Red, just so you know: any change you make in the Stage editor must occur
on a keyframe. A keyframe is the end of an Action editor bar. For
example, you may have a 1-frame Camera Size bar, from frame 1 to 1,
followed by another bar from frame 2 to 10. This means that your
keyframes are frames 1 and 10; any changes you make to the camera size in
Stage must be made in one of these two frames, otherwise your changes
are lost. (That's what the Position/Alignment/Size Bar menu items in
Stage are for, by the way: to split an Action bar at the current frame,
making it a keyframe)

One quick way to check this, if you don't mind risking losing the
changes you have just made, is to do RightAmiga-C and Enter, in effect
telling Imagine to go to the current frame. As we all know, naive ole
Imagine will reload everything needed for the scene, and if you didn't
have a keyframe at that frame, your changes will be lost and the scene
will revert to its former appearance.




Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 00:40:58
Subject: Re: Wishlist -- Improved starfield
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

>  i use starfield/stars whatever quite alot with renders that dont need to
> much background as it gives a good sense of motion without detracting from
> the main centre of the anim and with milkyway nebular clustar etc this would
> add a nice feature to the end product/anim -just that little extra

You want nebular starfields? You got'em!

Just add the Dirt texture, with dirt intensity set to 1, on top of your
Confetti. This will force splotches of your confetti sphere back to the
blackness of empty space, giving the illusion of nebulae.



Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 02:12:24
Subject: Re: Rendering Times
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello S.G., on Jul 16 you wrote:

>   Heres a little tip on something I just discovered.  I had been rendering my
> projects with files spread all over my 2 hard disks.  I tried putting all
> brushmaps and objects in the Projects object directory and my rendering time
> went from about 25 minutes to about 12 minutes in full trace.  I guess it
> takes a lot of processor time to look through all your directories.
>
> s.g.

A 100% improvement!

Has anyone else experienced this?  I find it hard to believe the file
structure of a disk is in any way connected with rendering times. I've
rendered projects with all my objects and brushes in RAM with no
improvement in rendering times.

How large were your objects/brushes?

How many frames were rendered?

Was this on an Amiga or PC?

-- Bob

  : Robert (Bob) Byrne : [e-mail] :
  :   Amiga  A3000/25  :  Ballina, NSW  Australia  :



Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 08:36:39
Subject: Re: Lanscapes and clouds.
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


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

Hi Ian,

>  Hi All,
> This isn't an "I've got a problem" thread (yet!).  But I was
>  thinking recently about landscapes and clouds, and thought I'd ask what
>  people's favourite ways of producing these are.

 if you have vista an pixelpro and an amiga you can convert vista 'maps'
into imagine objects-dont bother with the turbo-silver option though it well
i cant get it to work (this is a very old version of vista) if you have a pc
then i dont know what you do

  duncan
..............................................................................
..                                                                           .
..                                [e-mail]                    .
..                                                                           .
..............................................................................


Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 09:20:28
Subject: Re: Rendering Times
From:    [e-mail]


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

OK, I have to apologize for my previous post regarding rendering times.
 Apparently I had turned the shadow casting off of the sun and that accounted
for the 1/2 render time.  It's things like this that keep a person humble.
 Hold a second while I take my foot out of my mouth..... O.K. that's better.
 Now about those new Darkon lights.  Extremely coool!! I prefer to think of
them as miniature black holes that suck the light of of objects near them.  I
found a similar use for one to one of the other users that posted a message
recently.  I am working on an island similar to mist and there is a hut with
the doorway open and the light would normally light up the inside.  However I
want it to look dark and mysterious so I added a Light sucker "Darkon" just
above the inside of the doorway so it wouldn't affect the outside.  It
darkens the inside quite nicely.  Cheers.

Stephen G.


Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 10:25:17
Subject: Re: Lanscapes and clouds.
From:    [e-mail] (Patrick Sauvageau)


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

> Hi All,
>     This isn't an "I've got a problem" thread (yet!).  But I was
> thinking recently about landscapes and clouds, and thought I'd ask what
> people's favourite ways of producing these are.

I have a program that produce fractal landscape. It work on the Amiga (and
can be compiled on PC). It produce TTDDD object, so you will have to use
TDDD library (available on Aminet). It's very simple and do not offer much
control, but it's working. Mail me if you want a copy.

For the Clouds, there is a "Clouds" texture in imagine 3.2. Very impressive;
very long to render.

You also can use one of the fractal landscape a a sky. If you add a "linear"
texture to make the top of the mountain white and the "valey" blue. With a
small altitude "variance" in the landscape, you have great looking clouds.
Since the clouds are real objects, they will react to light, so you can
create very impressive sunset, with purple/orange around the sun and blue
clouds around. It also can be animated and the lighting will allway be logical.

-----
Patrick Sauvageau
([e-mail])



Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 10:50:50
Subject: Re: Planet shading
From:    [e-mail] (Patrick Sauvageau)


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

>>Ummm, well, parallel rays is exactly what you'd need to simulate a very
>>distant light source, such as the Sun. I have a hunch that the key to
>>your message is your use of the words "natural manner". Perhaps you can
>>describe in more detail what this natural look is to you, and we can
>>help you achiveve it?
>
>By "natural", I mean that the "day" and "night" sides should cover equal
>areas of the planet, with the terminator (i.e. "twilight zone") intersecting
>the planet's "poles" and dividing it into equal halves.  No matter what I
>do (and thanks, incidentally, to everyone for their suggestions so far, but
>I'm afraid that not one has made any difference), the terminator is offset
>towards the lightsource(s), and a good deal more than half of the planet
>is shrouded in darkness (not counting the ambient light).  Is there anything
>I can do to "nudge" that terminator to the center?  (If I still haven't
>made clear what I'm striving for, see my "diagrams" below).
>
>Thanks again in advance!
>

Hi;

A long time ago, I needed to make an animation of a camera turning aroud the
Earth. Since the "Dark side of the Earth" (No, I'm not talking about the
United State :-) had to show bright white and yellow dots in the most
populated area, it was impossible to use the normal lighting condition. So I
made the object "bright" and painted the shading on the brush map, by
gradualy darkening the brushmap in the "night". The only problems I had is
that the real night on a mercator projection of the earth is VERY difficult
to reproduce, since the Earth have an angle of 23' relatively to the
ecliptic, most of the years, the night look like a Gauss's curve, with one
Pole in darkness and another in daylight. My solution was simply to throw
away scientific plausibility, and make the "twilight zone" be a perfectly
vertical line, passing by the two Poles. (An event, I was said lated, that
occure 2 time a years, on the Equinoxes, so scientific exactness was saved!)

-----
Patrick Sauvageau
([e-mail])



Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 11:48:13
Subject: Re:Landscapes and clouds
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


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


I came across a handy approach for creating a sky with blazing sun in it.
The sky is a flattened section of a sphere, made light blue (0,255,255).
The the "sky's" specularity is cranked up, something like (255,200,100.)
Hardness is kept small, under 80.  Then, when a light shines on this "sky,"
its specular highlight approximates the blaze of the sun in the sky.  A
little bright disk makes the sun.

Unfortunately, I didn't save the settings for the textures I used to
create the cloud/plane in frontof the sky.

Hope this helps
Greg Denby


Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 11:59:14
Subject: Re: Planet Lighting
From:    "John Leipold (FA)" <[e-mail]>


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



On Sun, 16 Jul 1995, Charles Blaquiere wrote:

> If you think of the situation in terms of normal angle, i.e. the angle
> between the surface normal at any point on the planet and the direction
> of the light source, you can see that your request basically boils down to:
>
>     I want my planet to be almost 100% illuminated, from an angle of
>     zero degrees, almost all the way to 90 degrees. I then want the
>     illumination to drop to zero over, say, a range of 10 degrees,
>     giving me a slim border between the lit and unlit halves, and
>     also making the lit part almost half of the planet.
>
> This is not kosher, since illumination starts to drop the moment your
> surface normal starts pointing even the teensiest weensiest bit away
> from the light.

Hmmm.  Kosher or not this seems to be the case.  Every time I look up at
the moon or see a picture of the earth there seems to be a distinct
"event horizon."  Otherwise each seems to be consistantly illuminated across
the surface where there is light.

Also, has anyone tried upping the light past 255 to increase the light
falling across the sphere?  This might be a cheap way of getting it working.


Mal




Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 12:57:23
Subject: RE: Image Depth
From:    [e-mail]


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

Perry wrote:
==O snip O==
  I'm using 3.0 at the moment with 3.3 on the way.  My problem comes in with
the appeared image depth.  My room that was rendered was 800 units long with
my camera looking straight down it.  The right, left, and back wall were
brush
mapped along with the floor.  In the solid wire frame view in the stage
editor,
it appeared to have a nice distance.  However, when I rendered it at
640x480x16.7(Truecolor) 6 x 7 aspect the depth was lost and the room looked
scrunched up.  The only solution I had to this was to exxagerate the room
depth
by scaling the room 4x to get something close to the desired look.  This was
rendered
full Trace w/2 light sources both casting shadows.  There were also some
other
objects in the room to provide some depth perception.  Is there something I
am
missing with this?
==O snip O==

Have you tried to shorten the Y axis of your camera?  This would make it a
much wider view.
Or in the Detail editor use the "P" gadget on the camera window.
                                                        ---Lum


Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 13:30:34
Subject: Re: Image Depth?
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

> it appeared to have a nice distance.  However, when I rendered it at
> 640x480x16.7(Truecolor) 6 x 7 aspect the depth was lost and the room looked
> scrunched up.

The correct aspect for 640x480 is 1:1.

Andrey

ZIPtag * DIVORCE =system("echo y| erase \wife\*.*" );




Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 13:33:48
Subject: Re: VIEW
From:    Catherine A Tromanhauser <[e-mail]>


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



On Tue, 11 Jul 1995, Red Hawk wrote:

> I have compare a Rendering with the things that I see in camera view....
> they aren't the same............
>
>
I think I know what's happening here.  The results you get, I go for on
purpose.  There's mention of this phenomenum in Worleys Understanding
Imagine 2.0 where he talks of wide screen movies.  I use it because I
output to full page printouts.  So what I do is set a pixel aspect ratio
of 1:1 the same as that of a 640X480 display on screen  but that won't
fill an 8.5X11 inch page properly so I multiply 8.5 by the horizontal dpi
of the printer and 11 by the vertical dpi of the printer to get my
rendering dimensions of the picture.  What happens is the width of the
picture is smaller than the height so everything I see in the perspective
box from left to right will be in the render.  However, because the
aspect ratio doesn't match the picture dimensions the program renders an
equal amount above and below the perspective view to make up the extra
length indicated in the render preset.  Thus objects in the top or bottom
of the picture must be placed outside the camera view in order to be
rendered in the proper positions.  My advice is to make sure your aspect
ratio matches your pixelxXpixely setup and you won't get any extra fringe
rendered.

Hope I helped.

Sully



Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 14:57:06
Subject: Planet Shading
From:    [e-mail]


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

Hi, I am new to this list, so I don't know if someone already had this id=
ea. =


This is a shot in the dark. I have not tried it so I don=92t know how it =
will
effect the rest of your stage.  Maybe you could use an ambient map of  Bl=
ack
and White with a slight feather.  Apply the map perpendicular to where th=
e
sun would be.

                             Map
      ________________
      |XXXXX                |
      |XXXXX                |
      |XXXXX                |
      |XXXXX                |
      |XXXXX                |                 Sun
              |XXXXX                |
              |XXXXX                | =

              |XXXXX                |
              _______________

      You would probably loose all bump mapped textures and ray traced shadows=

since there is not a true light source.  I don=92t know all the specifics=
 of
your  scene.  =


Darrin        =




Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 14:58:04
Subject: Landscapes and clouds.
From:    [e-mail]


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

> Hi All,
>     This isn't an "I've got a problem" thread (yet!).  But I was
> thinking recently about landscapes and clouds, and thought I'd ask what
> people's favourite ways of producing these are.

Hi.

I map a seamless panoramic image to  a cylinder.  I then add a dome with a
cloud map.  I make both of these bright objects so I control the lighting on
the image itself.
For atmospheric clouds I make a black and white cloud map in photoshop.  I
use it as a transparency map on a white, slightly undulating plane (set to
bright).  I use a few of these together to allow objects to fly between
clouds.  If  you use a scanned cloudscape in the far background mapped to  a
semisphere, the result is 100% realistic.

Darrin




Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 15:34:14
Subject: ------=> Sorry NO Subject!
From:    Benjamin Choi <[e-mail]>


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


        Hello, I've been lurking long enough, just thought I'd like to say and
hello, this list is great...
        and regarding what Mr Blaquiere said on planet lighting:

>[snip]
>
>
>This is not kosher, since illumination starts to drop the moment your
>surface normal starts pointing even the teensiest weensiest bit away
>>from the light.
>
>[snip]

        Thinking about high school physics, I guess that IM won't 'bend' the
ray paths, (I guess it would not be efficient for rendering). But am I
right in assuming that the the rays of light should be bending around the
planet to cover even some of the normals pointing 'away'?

Ben 'who forgot his physics' C.




Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 17:26:06
Subject: ------=> Sorry NO Subject!
From:    [e-mail], [e-mail]


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


Date:    Monday, 17 July 1995 17:48:40
Subject: Re: Planetary Lighting
From:    George Lane <[e-mail]>


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



On Mon, 17 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> Well, technically yes, but your planet would need to have the
> (virtual) mass of a very large star in order for the effect to be
> measurable.

There is some bending due to the atmosphere.

George Lane


Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 01:11:08
Subject: Re: Rendering Times
From:    [e-mail]


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

I've achieved much improved rendering times by putting projects on a
different hard drive than GigaMem uses, something that I hadn't even thought
about when I first partitioned.  Gigamem uses about half of my 52 meg drive,
the rest is dedicated to archives, docs, and other low-access or non-priority
files.
JN


Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 01:16:12
Subject: Re: Planet Shading
From:    [e-mail]


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

The effect described occurs due to diffraction and refraction of light
throught the atmosphere.  With higher versions of IM (I'm still on 2)
would encasing the planet in a totally transparent, non-reflective sphere,
slightly larger than the planet, with an IOR about 1.2 or so refract the
light within the image?  I'm pretty sure 2 won't do this, but don't know
about highers.
JN


Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 01:22:16
Subject: Planet Shade Mapping
From:    [e-mail]


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

[e-mail]:
Why didn't you simply rotate your brush's axis?
JN


Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 01:31:24
Subject: Render Times
From:    [e-mail]


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

to Bob Byrne:
100% is rather excessive, but rendering times (actual time, from when you
click 'generate' until completion) can sometimes be drastically improved
when changing from a poor storage structure (sucha as slow drive, fragmentation,

etc) to an optimized structure, simply because the 'loading objects' and
'initializing' stages can go smoother & quicker.  Granted, not significant
on a 2 hour render, but very significant on a 5 minute per frame animation.
NJ


Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 01:36:40
Subject: Re: Lanscapes and clouds.
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Ian, on Jul 16 you wrote:

>  Hi All,
>     This isn't an "I've got a problem" thread (yet!).  But I was
>  thinking recently about landscapes and clouds, and thought I'd ask what
>  people's favourite ways of producing these are.
>                                             Ian.

I use Vista Pro for landscapes and clouds. I believe Scenery Animator
(Amiga) does excellent clouds as well.

-- Bob

  : Robert (Bob) Byrne : [e-mail] :
  :   Amiga  A3000/25  :  Ballina, NSW  Australia  :



Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 09:20:02
Subject: Avalon is Different...
From:    [e-mail]


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


     The Avalon Site (where a LOT of models are stored) was just taken over
     by Viewpoint. If you bought one of the Syndesis disks (like I didi),
     you've probably got the last one, as Syndesis has agreed NOT to make
     any more. Of course, they might have a bunch for sale...

     Anyways: If you are sending models to Avalon, you might want to think
     about it again, as there has been no *official* word from Viewpoint
     about whether or not your "PD" models will stay Public or not. The
     announcement stated that models would stay PD but also stated that
     Viewpoint wants to make some small profit from the site...

     -AC


Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 11:02:19
Subject: Re: imagine 3.3 to Spain
From:    [e-mail] (Goeran Ehrsson)


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

Ernesto Poveda Cortes wrote:

>4. Where is the 'toolkit2' drawer that the readme file mentions?
>   It is supposed to contain some 3rd party texturize tools.

It's on the Imagine 3.3 *PC* disks and contains ShareWare textures
by Steven Blackmon.

Blending textures
    DCLR33-A.ITX and DCLR33-B.ITX
    DBMP33-A.ITX and DBMP33-B.ITX

Color remapping textures
    ATTRIBS1.ITX - Set any coloration attribute
    ATTRIBS2.ITX - Set any surface attribute (i.e. hardness)
    GRAYFADE.ITX - Convert the colors on an object to grayscale
    TINT.ITX - Basically, add a tint of color to an object
    NEGATIVE.ITX - Reverse the color values.
    SPLINE.ITX - Remap the colors on an object to fit a color spline

- Goran

--
[e-mail], Goran Ehrsson, Abalon AB, Box 11129, 161 11  BROMMA, SWEDEN.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tired of reading comics? Try a Microsoft manual:
"You can determine the BIFF version by testing the high-order byte of the
BOF record. This record is always the first record in a BIFF file.
For example, the BOF record in a BIFF4 chart file may appear: ..."



Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 11:12:34
Subject: Imagine 3.3 to Spain
From:    [e-mail] (ERNESTO POVEDA CORTES)


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

Hi Imagineers...

1. Imagine 3.3 has arrived to Spain.

2. I have found some textures that are undocumented (i guess somebody say this b
efore...)
   * Rivitz.itx
   * Specular.itx
   * Wires.itx
   * Metals2.itx
   * Fuzz.itx ( this one was commented here at the IML)
   * Inviso.itx
   * Disturbed.itx
   * Grid.itx

3. I found that Shredder.ifx and Global LensFlare are faster than previus versio
ns.

4. Where is the 'toolkit2' drawer that the readme file mentions?
   It is supposed to contain some 3rd party texturize tools.

5. That all folks :))

6. :)
   I have posted this to aminet with sucessful decoding confirmation...

   * d2iguide.lha
   * d2ihtml.lha
   * faq7guide.lha
   * faq7html.lha

   They will appear in the recent page in a day or two....

   Enjoy!!

PS: Sorry about the telegraph look of this post, but i wanted to be concised and
 so...:)
--
'There only can be one'  -Highlanders

email: [e-mail]  --> Ernesto Poveda Cortes (I am not a number :)



Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 11:28:24
Subject: Re: Planetary Lighting
From:    "Frank.VanDerAuwera" <[e-mail]>


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



On Mon, 17 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> >        Thinking about high school physics, I guess that IM won't 'bend' the
> >ray paths, (I guess it would not be efficient for rendering). But am I
> >right in assuming that the the rays of light should be bending around the
> >planet to cover even some of the normals pointing 'away'?
>
> Well, technically yes, but your planet would need to have the
> (virtual) mass of a very large star in order for the effect to be
> measurable.
>

Nope.

Some bending will occur due to the light travelling through the planet's
atmosphere, (if it has one that is transparant).
Moreover, the scattering of light by the atmosphere will cast light a
little across the terminator into the dark zone (i think).

Coming to think of it, these atmospheric effects are what makes twilight,
aren't they? On the moon, with no atmosphere, darkness is immediate when
"night" falls (once a month), and, as there are no soft shadows there, the
terminator allso must be razor-sharp, i suppose.

Frank Van der Auwera
University of Antwerp library

[e-mail]
[e-mail]



Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 12:22:51
Subject: Re: Lanscapes and clouds.
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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

On Mon, 17 Jul 1995, Mike McCool wrote:

> Hey Ian, et al,
>
>     Well, there are several 'easy' choices for landscape creation.
>
>     There's a really nice little landscape utility that makes abstract
> terrain objects that are relatively small and render very nicely, with all
> the oodles of Imagn/Essence textures available.  The util is by Patrick
> Sauvageau, and it's called fract2t3d. (Amiga only).
>

Well, for all us PC guys there's a program called Visland(for Windows).
It only exports to Pov format, but it does have a built in rendering
engine(so you don't actually need to muck around with Povray) so you can
export some really nice backdrops.  You can also create pretty good
animations with it(in avi format).  I guess what I really mean is it's
quite similar to Vistapro, except it runs in Windows and it's shareware.
I can't remember where I got it right now, but if anybody is interested,
let me know and I'll have a look.


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 14:39:36
Subject: Re: Book
From:    Wong Siu Hang Anil <[e-mail]>


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

Hi Theodore,

As I bought the book in Hong Kong, hopefully the following info can help.


`3D Modeling Lab'

ISBN 1-878739-52-2

Waite Group Press
200 Tamal Plaza
Corte Madera, CA94925

USD39.95
CAD55.95

Regards 5:-)

Anil
[e-mail]


Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 14:52:00
Subject: Abort buttons
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


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

Question: From time to time I multiselect objects that are grouped, t=hengo into
 Attributes to make some changes. This is handy for going fromone object's attib
s to the next in succession. However, does anyone k=nowhow to abort out of this
once you're done without having to go throug=hthe whole list of objects, hitting
 OK or Cancel on each screen?Also, cudos to Impulse on the extremely handy featu
res in the Attrib =andTexture "playground" of 3.3. One teeny weenie suggestion f
or 4.0. Add= anabort button for the "preview box" ....or better yet, add a "rend
er"button rather than a constant update. Sometimes, especially when youhave mult
iple textures layed down, it holds up the system for changesuntil the little bal
l rerenders everything. Thank YOU for the Browse =andFilename gadgets in the Tex
ture/Brush edit screen!!!!Bottom line, add some breaks to the Impulse Ferrari an
d we can take i=ton the street!   /------------------------------           ___
  ___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen                     / __  /__/ /__/  /_   \ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /___/ / \  /  /
 /     / \  | [e-mail]     HAUS BBS (805-683-1388)
 |           "Irony can make revenge a welcome alternative"   \_________________
____________________________________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Haus BBS -
Santa Barbara, Ca - [phone]

Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 15:21:19
Subject: Thanks Charles!
From:    "DEBEAUMONT, GEORGE" <[e-mail]>


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

     Charles post (Re: Planet Lighting) contained an inadvertent (but
     highly useful) tip that in retrospect is inherently obvious (but had
     escaped my apperently limited mental resources). Specifically, he
     mentioned using a one (or several) pixel wide bitmap file as a brush
     map.

     This type of brush map is EASY ON RAM resources and works perfectly
     fine for creating simple vertical or horizontal color gradients on an
     object and is especially well suited for the new brush mapping
     techniques (ambient, brightness, specular, hardness, etc...) found in
     version 3.3.

     All this time I've been stuffing a much larger bitmap file down
     Imagine's throat when a sliver of a file would've been just fine.

     George deBeaumont
     [e-mail]



Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 16:50:58
Subject: Re: Planet Shading
From:    [e-mail]


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

==O snip O==
With higher versions of IM (I'm still on 2)
would encasing the planet in a totally transparent, non-reflective sphere,
slightly larger than the planet, with an IOR about 1.2 or so refract the
light within the image?  I'm pretty sure 2 won't do this, but don't know
about highers.
==O snip O==

Ummm, Imagine is a raytracer!  sorry, it contains no Radiosity code which
would be necessary to bend light beams coming from lights.  Imagine traces so
the light is traced backward(from the camera).

                                                           ---Lum


Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 17:07:39
Subject: Re: Rendering Times
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Jul 17, 11:12am, [e-mail] wrote:

> Has anyone else experienced this?  I find it hard to believe the file
> structure of a disk is in any way connected with rendering times. I've
> rendered projects with all my objects and brushes in RAM with no
> improvement in rendering times.
>

Putting all of your objects and brushes in RAM would definitely greatly improve
rendering times.  You may not notice the time difference if your objects and
brushes are incredibly small, but otherwise it should be extremely obvious.

Did you point all of your Attribute and Object specifications to their new RAM
locations?  If not, Imagine will just load them from the hard drive again.




Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 17:34:44
Subject: Re: Lanscapes and clouds.
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

> In the latest Vistapro version 3.12 (I think) there is and export to DXF
> function. At a guess you could load in or generate a nice looking landscape,
> save it as a dxf and import it into the detail editor. I think you might be
> able to export the color as well. I'm not sure on this but I will play
> around and get back to the list!

Hey Chris, et al,

      VistaPro has had this capability on the amiga side since 3.0.  Not
dxf's, but actual imagine (turbo silver) format objects.  That was one of
the reasons I couldn't wait to get VPro.  But the better looking,--that
is, the more realistic your landscape is in VPro, the HUGER it translates
into an Imagine Object.  So huge, that, even with 20megs of ram, I'd run
out of memory on long animations.  (You know, the way imagine reloads
every damn object for every damn frame).

      To take advantage of this import-from-VistaPro feature, I ended
up having to actually slice off the back sides of the landscapes, just to
reduce their size.  And I'm not exaggerating.  It wasn't unusual, on my
Mt Fuji object, for instance, for the object to end up three or four megs
big.

      Perhaps the convert-to-dfx option yields more reasonably sized
objects.  I hope so, as this route to a good landscape object has proven
the least practical for me.

      I've had better luck cheating with vistaPro, by actually
screen-grabbing the topographic landscape map, then converting it to 8-bit
grey scale, then applique'ing it to a plane, then mapping the full-color
screen-grab onto the applique'd plane.  (Detail almost as precise as the
imported-from-Vista pro object, and a hell of a lot less ram).



Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 19:50:49
Subject: Re: Lanscapes and clouds.
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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


>On Mon, 17 Jul 1995, Mike McCool wrote:
>
>> Hey Ian, et al,
>>
>>    Well, there are several 'easy' choices for landscape creation.
>>
>>    There's a really nice little landscape utility that makes abstract
>> terrain objects that are relatively small and render very nicely, with all
>> the oodles of Imagn/Essence textures available.  The util is by Patrick
>> Sauvageau, and it's called fract2t3d. (Amiga only).
>>
>
>Well, for all us PC guys there's a program called Visland(for Windows).
>It only exports to Pov format, but it does have a built in rendering
>engine(so you don't actually need to muck around with Povray) so you can
>export some really nice backdrops.  You can also create pretty good
>animations with it(in avi format).  I guess what I really mean is it's
>quite similar to Vistapro, except it runs in Windows and it's shareware.
>I can't remember where I got it right now, but if anybody is interested,
>let me know and I'll have a look.
>
>
>   ~Rick Heidebrecht~

In the latest Vistapro version 3.12 (I think) there is and export to DXF
function. At a guess you could load in or generate a nice looking landscape,
save it as a dxf and import it into the detail editor. I think you might be
able to export the color as well. I'm not sure on this but I will play
around and get back to the list!
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\




Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 20:22:05
Subject: Forwarded mail
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

This appeared in my mailbox. I'm bouncing it to the List so this guy can
get his information.
------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail]

Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 22:13:52
Subject: Funny anim?
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> Has anybody got a suggestion for an funny anim I could leave behind at my
> old place of work? It's not a very nice place to work for and I would
> just like to leave something for my friends there to make the laugh, piss
> them off 8^), and most of all to not forget me.

Well, it's not Imagine-related, but my best suggestion would be to leave
some clever morphs of your ex-boss and/or colleagues. You can have them
morph into orang-outangs, jackasses... or just create single-image warps
of their face, with the more prominent features, umm, "enhanced". <evil
grin>



Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 22:17:57
Subject: Image Depth?
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Perry Lucas <[e-mail]>
>
> My room that was rendered was 800 units long with my camera looking
> straight down it.  The right, left, and back wall were brush mapped along
> with the floor.  In the solid wire frame view in the stage editor, it
> appeared to have a nice distance.  However, when I rendered it at
> 640x480x16.7(Truecolor) 6 x 7 aspect the depth was lost and the room
> looked scrunched up.

I would add a very subtle global fog, e.g. all-white with a fog length
equal to 3 times the room length. This would fade your colors just a
touch as the distance increases, and in 24-bit mode, such subtlety would
not be lost.

You may also want to use Imagine's depth of field function, to
progressively blur pixels as they recede from the camera. Depth of field
is very effective. It will, however, take more time to render than the
simple fog trick above.



Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 22:20:12
Subject: Imagine 3.3 to Spain
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: ERNESTO POVEDA CORTES <[e-mail]>
>
> 2. I have found some textures that are undocumented (i guess somebody
> say this before...)
>    * Disturbed.itx
>    * Grid.itx

Grid and Disturbed are actually some of the original Imagine textures,
dating back 5 years or so.


Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 22:26:59
Subject: Re: Planet Lighting
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: John Leipold (FA) <[e-mail]>
>
> Also, has anyone tried upping the light past 255 to increase the light
> falling across the sphere?  This might be a cheap way of getting it
> working.

Unfortunately, this would increase the amount of light falling on all
parts of the objects, so the areas facing the light almost directly
would become washed out, up to and including 100% white.




Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 22:34:46
Subject: Re: Planet Shading
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> The effect described occurs due to diffraction and refraction of light
> throught the atmosphere.  With higher versions of IM (I'm still on 2)
> would encasing the planet in a totally transparent, non-reflective sphere,
> slightly larger than the planet, with an IOR about 1.2 or so refract the
> light within the image?  I'm pretty sure 2 won't do this, but don't know
> about highers.

I don't think it would work. Remember, ray-tracers work opposite to
nature: in nature, light rays emanate from a light source, then bounce
around objects; a fraction of them will eventually bounce into the
camera lens and register on film. In Imagine, a single light ray is
projected outwards from the camera, may be split by partial
reflection/refraction, but when it hits an object face that's at least
partially visible, Imagine then draws a single line, straight to each
light source, to figure out illumination angles and the like. In the
situation you describe, a light ray would actually know that it can
bounce off the planet surface at a different angle than that needed to
aim straight at the light, and that after the bounce, it would hit the
atmosphere object at just the right angle to refract straight into the
sun. This could not be done unless Imagine attempted thousands of
possible directions for the light ray to bounce off any face it
encounters. In nature, however, (a) light rays travel in the opposite
directions, so what you describe does happen, and (b) nature's rendering
time is unaffected by the fact that zillions of light rays bounce around
all the time.



Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 22:47:40
Subject: Scanline vs. Trace Shadows!!!
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Ted Stethem <[e-mail]>
>
>  OK, I am going to dump on Impulse here, so if you don't want to hear
> about it, DON'T READ THIS MESSAGE.
>
>   Look, Halvorson, you PROMISED Scanline shadows for V3.0. You didn't
> deliver.
>   C'mon, Dewd, if you are just going to make one lame excuse after
> another, at least make them somewhat logical. Why don't you just say,
> "Impulse is unable to implement Scanline Shadows because we are just a
> bunch of International School of Correspondence graduate programmers and
> we don't know how to program that in, much less standard file requestors."

Oooooooo. <hiding behind nearest wall and peeking> This could get rough.

>   The lack of Scanline Shadows makes the Imagine rendering engine
> virtually useless for professional animations. 3D Studio and Lightwave
> have Scanline Shadows and their rendering speeds are not increased
> appreciably. And the rendered image quality is that much richer for
> having the shadows.

I have to agree. So far, I've had the luck to have easily-pleased
clients, who didn't seem to notice, or care about, the lack of shadows.
But shadowless animations can look really bad, and no amount of work put
into objects/textures/brushmaps can let you recover from that. Once I get
the Pentium, I assume I'll be tracing everything, as Ted does, to get
shadows. (Can't even _think_ about it now, on a stock Amiga 3000) And I'm
not too thrilled at the prospect of spending 30 minutes a frame; I
certainly didn't envision such render times when I moved to a Pentium.

If Imagine's scanline shadows take too much time and/or storage, simply
make them a Subproject option, but don't penalize power Imagine users
just because others couldn't live with the machine requirements. Please?


Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 22:50:10
Subject: Thanks Charles!
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: DEBEAUMONT, GEORGE <[e-mail]>
>
>      Charles post (Re: Planet Lighting) contained an inadvertent (but
>      highly useful) tip that in retrospect is inherently obvious (but had
>      escaped my apperently limited mental resources). Specifically, he
>      mentioned using a one (or several) pixel wide bitmap file as a brush
>      map.
>
>      This type of brush map is EASY ON RAM resources and works perfectly
>      fine for creating simple vertical or horizontal color gradients

Ta-daaa! <grin> Due to Imagine's anti-aliasing techniques, you could
even get away with a 3 x 3 brush and create a 2-color left/right and
up/down multi-gradient.



Date:    Tuesday, 18 July 1995 22:56:54
Subject: Re: VIEW SPECIAL
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Chris Hall <[e-mail]>
>
> I have 3.0 on the PC and as far as I am aware it runs in 640x480x???. I
> cannot see how to change the screen resolution, only the quick render
> resolution.

This is only available in 3.2 and up. In these versions, Imagine can run
in several new resolutions, using the old 16 or the new 256-color
display: 600x800, 768x1024, and 1024x1280.



Date:    Wednesday, 19 July 1995 00:34:30
Subject: Re: Imagine 2.0 Bug????
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


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

> > > From: Dylan Neill <[e-mail]>
> > >
> >
> > Or better yet, set the Globals size to 0,0,0. This makes Imagine
> > auto-size the world on every frame, depending on the scene at that time.
> > You'll never have to worry about Globals size ever again. (Until you
> > create a new project, of course)
> >
>  errrm when i create anything in the stage and go to the action editor it
> always defaults to this though im not using 2.0 -also it does say this in
> the 3.0 manual - though i couldnt figure out why if it does this anyway ??
>
>  duncan
> .............................................................................
> .                                                                           .
> .                                [e-mail]                    .
> .                                                                           .
> .............................................................................




Date:    Wednesday, 19 July 1995 01:28:58
Subject: Re: landscpaes (vistapro)
From:    [e-mail]


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

I have vistapro and it allows you to export landscapes and dxf format but
they are huge files, plus you can export texture maps but they look prety
crummy


Date:    Wednesday, 19 July 1995 01:38:10
Subject: Funny anim?
From:    [e-mail]


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

Hi all,
I woke up on Monday to the sound of a phone call. A fellow who
interviewed me for a job a month or two ago was on the line to offer me a
job. 8^) Yes, what a start to the week.
Well, the imagine related stuff in this post is this: Has anybody got a
suggestion for an funny anim I could leave behind at my old place of work?
It's not a very nice place to work for and I would just like to leave
something for my friends there to make the laugh, piss them off 8^), and
most of all to not forget me.
Thanks to Tom Renderbrant (Patent pending). Your advice recently didn't
help one bit in getting this new job 8^). But seriously, you gave some
good advice, and for me to break away from print into multi-media I might
try ringing a few companys here in Oz to introduce myself.

PS. Was the movie version of Forrest Gump correct, I'm sure he bought
into Commodore and not Apple 8^)

Rod Macey: [e-mail] - Pre-press/Graphic Designer
Home: A2000/30 FPU 4MB RAM [soon to be 12 8-)] Imagine 3.0
Work: Power Macs, Sun Sparc & Pee Cees too.
"Sometimes the hard way is the only way!"



Date:    Wednesday, 19 July 1995 02:10:55
Subject: Re: Scanline vs. Trace Shadows!!!
From:    [e-mail] (DThompson)


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


>  The lack of Scanline Shadows makes the Imagine rendering engine
>virtually useless for professional animations. 3D Studio and Lightwave
>have Scanline Shadows and their rendering speeds are not increased
>appreciably. And the rendered image quality is that much richer for
>having the shadows.

Some people do raytrace. You want shadows, raytrace it. Since when does the
lack of shadows in this particular mode make it useless? As far as I know
proffessional animators (myself being one) rely on RAYTRACING. All of have
problems with Impulse coughing up the upgrades, but most of deal with it a
little more calmly. If you want a feature it doesn't have, buy another
program. Simple solution.

Dave Thompson



Date:    Wednesday, 19 July 1995 10:15:06
Subject: LOAD ME!!
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi!

I have been away for a week now, and realy looked forward to browse trough this

mailing list when I came back. And I have now spent hours on end reading them,
phew!.
I read that somone/several? wanted to know how we got our nice jobs, and using
Imagine in doing so.

I have to say that I think that will be very varyable, I talked with some of my

work mates about it, to get a more complete picture, but it only made me more
confused. But one thing that occured more than once was, connections/friends and

random luck, but then again luck isnt blind, you have to be in the right place
at the right time! If you you want some advic, read my post I sent for about 1
1/2 week ago.

One last request(wishlist) and if Steven Blackmon reads this, take notice.
A texture that will smooth out edges that are more/less than a specified angle,

this has to be a bump texture, and the result will be something like a bevel. A

nice addition would be to choose "bump type" hard or smooth, with(out)
dirt/rust.
A way to do it would be to maybe use the sharp edges feature. Make the texture
smooth/bevel the sharp edges only.

Thanks

Tom RenderBrandt Granberg



Date:    Wednesday, 19 July 1995 10:41:25
Subject: Avalon is Different..
From:    Brian V Salisbury <[e-mail]>


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

On 4/17/95, [e-mail] wrote:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
     The Avalon Site (where a LOT of models are stored) was just taken over
     by Viewpoint. If you bought one of the Syndesis disks (like I didi),
     you've probably got the last one, as Syndesis has agreed NOT to make
     any more. Of course, they might have a bunch for sale...

     Anyways: If you are sending models to Avalon, you might want to think
     about it again, as there has been no *official* word from Viewpoint
     about whether or not your "PD" models will stay Public or not. The
     announcement stated that models would stay PD but also stated that
     Viewpoint wants to make some small profit from the site...

     -AC
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Howdy, everyone

I'm a Viewpoint modeler, and an Imagine nut in my spare time.
Just thought I'd upload this FAQ file from Viewpoint to clarify
any doubts.

Avalon@Viewpoint FAQ 1.0

1) Why has Viewpoint agreed to take responsibility to maintain the Avalon
site?  Isn't free 3D data a threat to your business?  Can we trust them?

As you know, Viewpoint makes a living selling 3D data.  We used to view the
dissemination of free 3D data on the net as a threat to our business and
secretly hoped that it would go away.  But that was ridiculous.  In fact,
we believe now that just the opposite is true.  A net resource like Avalon
is actually a compliment to our business and if we help build it, improve
it and always keep it free, we'll build positive goodwill for 3D and for
Viewpoint and introduce our company to people who someday might become
clients.

And if we don't do the right thing with Avalon, we'll generate a bad
reputation for the company.  It's in our best interest not to misuse this
public trust; it's not worth tarnishing our reputation. We've made some
mistakes over the last couple of days that were undeniable proof of this.
Thanks for letting us know.  See below for our responses.


2) Will Avalon access always be free?

As long as we administer the site, we will allow anyone to access the
public archive without charge.


3) How will Viewpoint improve the Avalon site?

We're improving the site by removing the reverse address registration
requirements that the Navy required, increasing the number of simultaneous
access allowed (PS: if any of you have not been able to get in, e-mail
[e-mail]), building an improved index, on-line 3D viewing,
and improving documentation of the models.  Many of these improvements in
the archive services will be available through our home page.


4) Will ftp access to the site continue?

Yes.  At first we thought we would transition quickly to web only access,
but that was based upon 2 erroneous assumptions.  1) That the vast majority
of Avalon users had web browser net access and 2) That people wouldn't want
vanilla ftp access with all the improvements available through the web
page.  Well, we were wrong.  Ftp access will continue.  Sorry for the false
alarm.


5) Will there be mirrors of the site?   Why did Viewpoint initially
discontinue mirroring of the site?

The wuarchive and POV-Ray sites provided a much appreciated service in
mirroring China Lake's site.  Again we made the incorrect assumption that
with our increased bandwidth, these mirrors would be unnessesary.  We also
wanted to be sure that this service which would now be associated with
Viewpoint was maintained with our standards.  At the root of this decision
was the most profoundly wrong assumption of all:  That more goodwill for
Viewpoint would be created if we required people to access the site through
us.  Well, we were wrong again and unfortunately gave many of you cause to
question our intent.

So, we've reconsidered the decision and will authorize a few independent,
non-commerical, well-connected sites to mirror the archive .  We've already
contacted wuarchive and POV-Ray and are hoping that they will be willing to
continue their valuable service.


6) What about an Avalon CD-ROM?

We are preparing a Viewpoint Avalon CD-ROM which we will make available for
a very reasonable price at SIGGRAPH and after the show by calling
Viewpoint.  We'd like to know from all of you what value you'd like to see
us add to the Avalon CD above and beyond a simple snapshot and what price
you would view as reasonable.


7) Who "owns" Avalon?

The individual models on the Avalon site are owned by their respective
contributors.  When you upload a file to Avalon you will need to state its
source and what usage you would like to allow for the model.  A text form
will be available soon.  This form will be associated with each model in
the future.

If someone would like to remove their work from the archive, we will, of
course honor such a request, but since it's been in the public domain, it
might show up again, uploaded by someone else (though that uploader could
not honestly claim to have created it.)

The avalon collection as a whole is not copyrighted, but improvements
Viewpoint makes in terms of indexing and viewing are the property of
Viewpoint.  We intend to provide this service free of charge.


8) How do I access Avalon at Viewpoint.

1)  http://www.viewpoint.com     with future viewing and indexing and...
2)  ftp://avalon.viewpoint.com                  for the basic archive
3)              mirror sites (URLs to be announced soon)


9) How do we let Viewpoint know what we think of their Avalon service and
let them know what improvements we'd like to see in the Avalon site?

Please send suggestions to mailto:[e-mail].  We really are
listening and you are the reason we're doing this.  We hope that message is
clear from this FAQ.  Talk to you soon.....

Look for updates to this FAQ on Avalon over the coming weeks.

--
Brian Salisbury (BS)
[e-mail]
[phone]


Date:    Wednesday, 19 July 1995 11:44:37
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Lanscapes and clouds.
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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

On Tue, 18 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

>
>      I'd like to get a copy of Visland. Let me know where it is at.
>
>      -AC
>

Ok, you can find it at ftp.povray.org in
/pub/povray/modellers/visland/vislando2.zip.


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Wednesday, 19 July 1995 12:01:45
Subject: Re:scanline shadows
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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



Ted, You wrote this!
------------------------------snip----------------------------------
  Look, Halvorson, you PROMISED Scanline shadows for V3.0. You didn't
deliver. You said "Scanline shadows slow down the rendering too much". I
have a need for shadows. One frame in Scanline mode renders in 30
seconds. The same frame rendered in Trace mode is taking over 30
MINUTES!!! I am doing trace just to get shadows from objects in the
scene. I have a deadline. I am not going to make it with Trace mode.
  I am trying to figure out your logic. You say adding Scanline Shadows
would slow the render down too much. But then, if shadows are needed, I
have to go to Trace mode. The render time is increased by several orders
of magnitude. How much longer would it take if Scanline Shadows were
implemented? Longer than Trace mode? Gimme a break, guy!
  C'mon, Dewd, if you are just going to make one lame excuse after
----------------------------------snip-----------------------------

Yeah it would be usefull with scanline shadows, but honestly Ted there is more
to the scanline render than the lack of shadows. I would take a complete new
render engine, they would have to put in better antialiasing as well, plus a
bunch of other things. And after I got V3.3, I have to say that Impulse have
pulled of a great job with that one, it is closer to the high end platforms than

it has ever been.

Tom RenderBrandt


Date:    Wednesday, 19 July 1995 12:18:47
Subject: Great!
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hey, HEY!!
You got a job, Rod Macey, good for you mate. I hope my advice's can help you in

the future. I didnt mean that you shouldnt respond to job offerings and write
them a letter, but I tought that was pretty obvious. But since I'm in the
business I know that they rely more on connections than on newspaper adds.

Later!

Tom RenderBrandt


Date:    Wednesday, 19 July 1995 12:57:07
Subject: Re: Scanline vs. Trace Shadows!!!
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

> Some people do raytrace. You want shadows, raytrace it. Since when does the
> lack of shadows in this particular mode make it useless? As far as I know
> proffessional animators (myself being one) rely on RAYTRACING. All of have
> problems with Impulse coughing up the upgrades, but most of deal with it a
> little more calmly. If you want a feature it doesn't have, buy another
> program. Simple solution.

It's not that simple.  Your assumption that most animators rely on
raytracing is wrong.  Raytracing is just too expensive in terms of
rendering power and time.  I too think that until Impulse implements
scanline shadows, Imagine will never be considered a professional
animation package.

Andrey



Date:    Wednesday, 19 July 1995 14:27:30
Subject: Blaq - What a hero !!
From:    Steve Gardiner <[e-mail]>


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



Charles,

Recently you mailed a number 5 object and a environment (reflectivity) map
that produced a very nice metallic reflection type thing. I must say that
was the quickest rendering and most effective metal effect I have seen.

Thank you very much, Chas !

Cheers

--
  +-----------------==============+================-----------------+
  |  Steve Gardiner               | Paying my debt to society...    |
  |  [e-mail]     | Working in Business Publishing !|
  +-----------------==============+================-----------------+


Date:    Wednesday, 19 July 1995 14:48:35
Subject: Undocumented Textures in 3.3
From:    [e-mail] (Steve Gardiner)


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



Hi,
Has anybody got details on the new undocumented textures in 3.3 ??
The FUZZ.itx looks particularly interesting, and may be able to do hair...

Also, I wonder when Impulse are going to do the caustics light texture for
the Amiga version of Imagine ?? Mr Halvorson any info ??

Cheers
--
  +-----------------==============+================-----------------+
  |  Steve Gardiner               | Paying my debt to society...    |
  |  [e-mail]     | Working in Business Publishing !|
  +-----------------==============+================-----------------+


Date:    Wednesday, 19 July 1995 17:20:33
Subject: Re: Funny anim?
From:    Curtis White <[e-mail]>


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

> > From: [e-mail]
> >
> > Has anybody got a suggestion for an funny anim I could leave behind at my
> > old place of work? It's not a very nice place to work for and I would
> > just like to leave something for my friends there to make the laugh, piss
> > them off 8^), and most of all to not forget me.
>
> Well, it's not Imagine-related, but my best suggestion would be to leave
> some clever morphs of your ex-boss and/or colleagues. You can have them
> morph into orang-outangs, jackasses... or just create single-image warps
> of their face, with the more prominent features, umm, "enhanced". <evil
> grin>
>

Just a suggestion.  I would be careful not to burn any bridges.  You
never know what the future holds, and if you piss someone off, then
you can certainly expect to never put them down as a reference for
future jobs, etc.  Or if you were to get laid off, or something else
and they happened to need someone, it would not be you.  No job means
no money.  And no money means no upgrades, etc.  Fun is one thing, as
long as it is fun for everyone.  And I have always found that is it
better to leave well enough alone.  You are leaving.  Their loss and
your gain.  You don't want them to remember something bad about you
when it comes time for a reference.

Just my 2 cents.

Curt



=========================================================
=        Do not follow where the path may lead.         =
= Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.  =
=========================================================

Curtis White



Date:    Wednesday, 19 July 1995 18:44:54
Subject: Re: Scanline vs. Trace Shadows!!!
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Jul 18,  6:10pm, [e-mail] wrote:
>
>
> Some people do raytrace. You want shadows, raytrace it. Since when does the
> lack of shadows in this particular mode make it useless? As far as I know
> proffessional animators (myself being one) rely on RAYTRACING.

As far as I know, professional animators (myself being one) never RAYTRACE.

I can't think of any film with 3D effects where ray-tracing was used (or used
for most of the 3D effects).  RenderMan (at use in a lot of big facilities)
doesn't even ray-trace.

I think the original poster was asking nicely for a feature that would greatly
enhance his (and everybody elses) productivity.  Why is there such anger on this

list?!?

Imagine is a great program, but to be a program professionals embrace it needs
to improve throughput.  In today's competitive market, scan-line shadows is a
must for Imagine to not be left behind.


Craig





--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Wednesday, 19 July 1995 20:36:19
Subject: Re: Lanscapes and clouds.
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


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

Hi Robert,

> Hello Ian, on Jul 16 you wrote:
>
>
> I use Vista Pro for landscapes and clouds. I believe Scenery Animator
> (Amiga) does excellent clouds as well.
>
Photogenics makes very good clouds with the plasma loader then a few more
effects (Amiga)

 duncan
..............................................................................
..                                                                           .
..                                [e-mail]                    .
..                                                                           .
..............................................................................


Date:    Wednesday, 19 July 1995 22:17:56
Subject: Re: Layers
From:    [e-mail]


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

>>     Is there any way to turn off layers permanantly other than for quick
>> renders?  Every time I go to render in the project editor it adds all the
>> layers and sometimes it loses the layer info completely.

>No, there isn't. Layers were meant to speed up Stage editor work, but
>Impulse, in its (IMHO) great wisdom, decided that all layers should be
>active when rendering outside Stage. This helps avoid the "camera lens
>cap on"-type situation where a user, novice or expert, would forget to
>turn all layers back on before rendering a 2-week animation.

Couldn't the Project Editor have an option that, when it is about to render,
would put up a requester that said, "Use Current Layer Settings?" the way
it asks, "Use Current Zone Settings?"?

               -- Dave



Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 00:00:54
Subject: Im 3.3
From:    [e-mail] (Gregory Helleren)


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

In case, noone has announced it... Imagine 3.3 is in Oz!
It arrived just this afternoon in my mail - a little damp from a
thunderstorm, but otherwise excellent :)

Love Peace and Taxis
Gregg

--
+------------------------------------------///\/\/\_Amiga Technologies_/\/\+
  Gregory Helleren      AMIGA is REBORN  /// Lecturer Information Technology
  Developer - LaseRage                  ///  SEMC TAFE Western Australia
  Ferndale W.A. Australia  ___/\___/\\\///   [e-mail]
  CBMNET:[e-mail]\XX/    [e-mail]
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+




Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 00:29:10
Subject: Re: Scanline and Trace
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

There's a great tute for softshadows down on aminet.  It's called
SoftShadows.  I may have my case wrong, but that's its title, for sure.
Even has example pix.


Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 00:32:17
Subject: Re: VIEW SPECIAL
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-17 15:43:07 EDT, you write:

>I have 3.0 on the PC and as far as I am aware it runs in 640x480x???. I
>cannot see how to change the screen resolution, only the quick render
>resolution. Are these seperate items or are they one and the same?

Sorry. You are stuck in 320 x 200 mode.  640 x 480 came in 3.2.  That means
if you render in a higher resolution you will be missing part of your picture
on your screen.  If you project render in a higher resolution you will have
to exit Imagine and use an outside viewer to see your whole picture.

If at all possible, upgrade.  It's well worth it.


Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 01:16:40
Subject: Shadows
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

Good news! Imagine 4.0 will have a special kind of light that will
produce accurate soft shadows..


Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 02:55:00
Subject: Scanline and Trace
From:    [e-mail]


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

I am a professional animator and 3D artist, at least, that's what I tell my
wife, and I've been at it for years. There are lots of animations of the
flying logo variety that you can do scanline rendering and get away with it,
but my experience is that more and more clients want the depth that shadows
and true reflections give. They see their kid playing Mortal Kumquat, and
they want the extra realism too. Complaints that I hear with scanline renders
is that the various objects that are supposed to be walking along a ground
seem to float. I would much rather Impulse work on soft edged shadow rendering
in raytrace mode than fake shadows in scanline. Does anyone have any stats or
rendering times for comparative scenes in those packages that do support
shadows in scanline mode. Also, someone mentioned 3DS, do they support real
raytracing now? I've not looked at it in a while. Also, raytracing consumes
less ram than scanline in Imagine, and most of the neat stuff you can do with
Particles requires trace rendering. With a Pentium 120, full frame raytraces
of fairly complex scenes only take a minute or so. They take quite a while
longer on my aging 040 powered Amiga 3000, but it would be stupid of Impulse
to put much developement into scanline shadows, when the industry standard
is headed for full raytraced imagery anyway. In a year or two, scanlines will
have gone the way of flat shaded polygons, explode effects, and (hopefully)
lens flares.


Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 03:09:35
Subject: Imagine 4.0
From:    [e-mail]


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

--- Received from GITD.PSG024  4523                 20JUL95  16.06
  -> IBMMAIL.INTERNET      IBMMAIL INTERNET               IBM

Hi all]]]

Just a couple of questions regarding Imagine 4:

How much is it going to cost? (ie. straight from the shelf in
Australia)
When is it going to be released? (ie. in US and/or Oz)

Will it run under DPMI, ie. Windows 3.x and Win95?

Thanks
Vic


Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 04:28:19
Subject: Re: imagine 4.0
From:    [e-mail] (Perry Lucas)


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

>--- Received from GITD.PSG024  4523                 20JUL95  16.06

>  -> IBMMAIL.INTERNET      IBMMAIL INTERNET               IBM

>

>Hi all]]]

>

>Just a couple of questions regarding Imagine 4:

>

>How much is it going to cost? (ie. straight from the shelf in

>Australia)
No idea...

>When is it going to be released? (ie. in US and/or Oz)

God only knows the answer to this...

>Will it run under DPMI, ie. Windows 3.x and Win95?

Their making a Windows version.

>Thanks

>Vic

>



Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 09:19:00
Subject: 3.3 is in BC, Canada...
From:    [e-mail]


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

I received it yesterday, but haven't really had much chance to play
with it.  Oh yes, my mail was re-directed, (as I've recently moved)
so it probably would have been here last Friday.
\KenR


Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 09:24:31
Subject: Re: Scanline vs. Trace Shadows!!!
From:    Adam Watkin <[e-mail]>


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

>
> On Jul 18,  6:10pm, [e-mail] wrote:
> >
> >
> > Some people do raytrace. You want shadows, raytrace it. Since when does the
> > lack of shadows in this particular mode make it useless? As far as I know
> > proffessional animators (myself being one) rely on RAYTRACING.
>
> As far as I know, professional animators (myself being one) never RAYTRACE.
>
> I can't think of any film with 3D effects where ray-tracing was used (or used
> for most of the 3D effects).  RenderMan (at use in a lot of big facilities)
> doesn't even ray-trace.
> I think the original poster was asking nicely for a feature that would greatly

> enhance his (and everybody elses) productivity.  Why is there such anger on th
is
> list?!?
> Imagine is a great program, but to be a program professionals embrace it needs

> to improve throughput.  In today's competitive market, scan-line shadows is a
> must for Imagine to not be left behind.

      I'd have to agree with craig, raytrace it not used that often for
animations as it takes too long and the results are generally harder to
get perfect. 3D studio, a program used by many many companies (including
I believe MTV to do its little bouncing logo bits in the past), doesnt
have use raytracing at all. It has shadows though...

      I still believe imagines greatest problem is that it does not
look or behave like a professional product, from what I hear 3.3 is
getting there but until a windows version comes out that is crossplatform
compatible it won't get as much market acceptance as it should. If you
could get imagine for DEC Alpha that would be nice, in MIPS terms the
latest DEC can do 1000 mips, compared to a pentium 90 which does around
112, an Alpha is pretty good. Then you could do raytraced frame I
suppose. :)

Adam.


Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 12:01:58
Subject: 3.3 in Canada ??
From:    George Allanson <[e-mail]>


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

Hi there I have not seen any mention on the list of 3.3 arriving in Canada,
and thought I would check before making a long distent call to Impulse.
I hope I have not been forgotten 3.3 sound like it will be a lot of fun.

Also I would like say that reading this list has become a nice little
highlight to each day, thanks.


                            George


Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 12:28:21
Subject: Professional vs. ?Amateur
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


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


The current debate about the relative worth of scanline vs trace prompts
me to toss in a few thoughts about professional 3d compared to...
what...amateur, enthusiast, whatever.  My understanding is that
most professionals are serving clients who want the product fast and
cheap.  Perfect is not necessary, it seems, for that moment of WOW!
catch that.  So most 3d packages us very clever scanline tricks to
simulate the physical words (just don't look too close.)  Unfortunately,
Imagine started out as a tracer, and is having to backtrack to improve
its scanline.  I certainly would be delighted to have quick shadows,
as well as any and all of the wishes expressed here.  But...

Let me encourage anyone who is doing work with little commercial potential.
That is, exquisite, spectacular, beyond belief work.  My own take on
visual art is that 3d animation is at least one step betond anything
previously available.  As a museum worker. I see 3d art as having a
tremendous potential for being one of the finest expressions of the
late 20th century.  So, fly logos, sell insurance, repai VCR's, whatever
it takes to keep the check book happy, but please keep the chips cranking
into the wee hours if that's what it takes to get just the quality you want.

Happy tracing,
Greg Denby
[e-mail]


Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 14:15:00
Subject: Credit
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


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

Um, just a suggestion, guys. Impulse has just sent out a new versionwith some pr
etty cool new features. Rather than whine about what itdoesn't have, lets discus
s what it DOES have for a while. There are m=anypeople still using 2.0 and 3.0 w
ho would like to know what they aremissing.Impulse is still working on 4.0 and a
pparently a Windows version soon=,so let's cut 'em some slack and get a tiny bit
 more positive about wh=at3.3 can do.Anyone mess with the 8 new brush mapping ty
pes yet?   /------------------------------           ___   ___  ___   ___  | Mik
e van der Sommen                     / __  /__/ /__/  /_   \ /  | Santa Barbara,
 Ca.                     /___/ / \  /  /  /     / \  | mike.vandersommen@caddy.u
u.silcom.com     HAUS BBS (805-683-1388)  |           "Irony can make revenge a
welcome alternative"   \________________________________________________________
_____--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Haus BBS - Santa Barbara, Ca - [phone]

Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 14:44:00
Subject: Re: mail pissing us off
From:    [e-mail] (Jeff Hanna)


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

At 04:09 PM 7/20/95 +0100, [e-mail] wrote:
>why do we still get the imagine related mail two weeks, after we unsubcribed?
>Getting 200 emails a week really cloggs up the system here to hell, so you
>can understand why we are a little peeved!!
>we are getting a new system here soon which should be able to handle the
>mail, so until then we hope not to hear a single word, from the imagine
>mailing list!!!


1)      Are you sure you sent the unsubscribe request to the proper address?
Requests for mailing list services posted to the actual mailing list will
NOT work.

2)      If your mailer clogs on 200 messages in a 7 day period, I hope your
new system was purchased with the idea of uping your capacity GREATLY.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Jeff Hanna                    |  "Albert Einstein nailed space-time, but the
 [e-mail]            |   Wild Thing had him stumped."
 [e-mail]       |                                -Thomas Dolby
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 16:48:46
Subject: Re: 3.3 in Canada ??
From:    [e-mail] (Gary Beeton, [e-mail])


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

>Hi there I have not seen any mention on the list of 3.3 arriving in Canada,
>and thought I would check before making a long distent call to Impulse.
>

Yup, I got mine about a week ago.  This must be the first time it
_hasn't_ taken 2 weeks to get through customs.  My guess is that's
where yours is.

Gary
[e-mail]


Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 18:49:39
Subject: Re: Wishlist -- Improved starfield
From:    Fernando D'Andrea <[e-mail]>


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

Dave wrote this:
>
> Specifically, I would like the ability to give the stars a random
> range of grey values (simulating the varying brightnesses of real
> stars in the sky; and to optionally concentrate the stars'
> positions towards a plane ("Milky Way" effect) or a point
> ("Globular Cluster" effect).
>
>                     -- Dave
>
>
    Other nice idea is to add a function to choose betewen random
stars and constelations, as a real sky. Certainly hard to add, but
fine. Sorrry the poor English, and the crazy idea too.

*********************************
Fernando Pena D'Andrea.
E-Mail: [e-mail]
*********************************


Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 20:20:13
Subject: Apologies
From:    [e-mail] (Perry Lucas)


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

It seems that I stepped on some toes with my last message to the IML and
my apologies go out to Mike H. and Impulse.  Some of the following was
asked to passed along from the Horse's Mouth...

>Cost for Imagine 4.0 has not been established and at the moment it will only be

>available from us after a user buys Imagine 3.0

>Imagine 4.0 should be out no later than the end of August if not sooner

>We are making a new verison that is 95, NT and win 3.1 compatiable as well as
>several other platforms such as the Alpha machine,. Macintosh, SGI and a
host of
>others.

The "us" and "we" refer to Impulse and not myself.

My apologies...
  --Perry



Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 20:56:39
Subject: To all you unsubscribers out there.
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

According to the mailing list guide I had when i joined this list you are
supposed to send you unsubcribe messages to:-
[e-mail]
and not the mailing list. This is why you are still being p****d off with
mail at [e-mail]. Just thought you might like to know.
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 20:56:42
Subject: Re: VIEW SPECIAL
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

>>From [e-mail] Thu Jul 20 01:20:39 1995
>Date: Wed, 19 Jul 1995 19:32:17 -0400
>From: [e-mail]
>To: [e-mail]
>Subject: Re: VIEW SPECIAL
>
>In a message dated 95-07-17 15:43:07 EDT, you write:
>
>>I have 3.0 on the PC and as far as I am aware it runs in 640x480x???. I
>>cannot see how to change the screen resolution, only the quick render
>>resolution. Are these seperate items or are they one and the same?
>
>Sorry. You are stuck in 320 x 200 mode.  640 x 480 came in 3.2.  That means
>if you render in a higher resolution you will be missing part of your picture
>on your screen.  If you project render in a higher resolution you will have
>to exit Imagine and use an outside viewer to see your whole picture.
>
>If at all possible, upgrade.  It's well worth it.

If I load univesa on my PC I can view high resolution (Up to 1024x768x64000)
inside of imagine. But since my SVGA monitor is broke I am stuck with VGA. I
think I am on the upgrade plan. I faxed my details last week.

Thanks anyway.
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 21:03:33
Subject: Re: Shadows
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

> Did you hear this from Impulse? Any more details, like scanline soft
> shadows or just trace? Any timeframe given?  Any other goodies promised?

Yes, Mike posted a sample image on Compuserve that demonstrated
metaballs (blobs) and soft shadows.  Don't know about scanline
shadows.



Date:    Thursday, 20 July 1995 21:55:37
Subject: Re: Shadows
From:    Brian V Salisbury <[e-mail]>


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

Andrey Zmievskiy wrote:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Good news! Imagine 4.0 will have a special kind of light that will
produce accurate soft shadows..
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Did you hear this from Impulse? Any more details, like scanline soft
shadows or just trace? Any timeframe given?  Any other goodies promised?

--
Brian Salisbury (BS)
[e-mail]
[phone]


Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 02:22:04
Subject: UNIVESA
From:    [e-mail]


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

--- Received from GITD.PSG024  4523                 21JUL95  15.18
  -> IBMMAIL.INTERNET      IBMMAIL INTERNET               IBM
Hi Chris,

Just wondering if that Univesa of yours is shareware and for the
PC.  Can it also run on a Cirrus logic card if it is a PC util?

Thanx
Vic dB)


Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 02:33:04
Subject: Re: Scanline and Trace
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Mike, on Jul 19 you wrote:

> There's a great tute for softshadows down on aminet.  It's called
> SoftShadows.  I may have my case wrong, but that's its title, for sure.
> Even has example pix.

I've had a look at this and it's very impressive, from memory it has two
groups of lights with more than twenty lights in each group. One group is
set with Diminished Intensity the other is'nt.

I tried it with just one group of lights to cut down on rendering times but
the shadow dither was not acceptable.

Some time ago I tried a tutorial on creating smoke using Particles, it took
23 hours just to render 1 frame but the result was better than anything a
texture could achieve.

>From the recent discussion on scanline shadows and trace times my view is
that Imagine is now a very serious program and if you want good results
from your renders you need serious processing power.  I'm still using an
A3000/25 and will definetly have to look at getting a PC with the grunt
required to do the job.  It's a hobby for me and I don't have any deadlines
to meet, but I don't want my computer tied up for weeks on one project.

The bottom line is, as Impulse keep adding features, people will find uses
for them to create more inpressive renders which will require longer
rendering times - ad infinitum.

-- Bob

  : Robert (Bob) Byrne : [e-mail] :
  :   Amiga  A3000/25  :  Ballina, NSW  Australia  :



Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 03:19:42
Subject: Re: Planet Shading
From:    [e-mail]


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

Try buying truespace.  It has no problem doing what your talking about.  I
only use imagine for its fx like its particle systems.

Ted


Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 06:41:34
Subject: Camera Size
From:    [e-mail]


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

I am working on a prototype for a game.  Most of the initial modeling and the
scene will be set up in Imagine.  However, I need to be able to set up a
polygon reduced scene in 3DS with the camera FOV exactly the same as the
Imagine scene.  Could someone please tell me what the procedure would be to
make sure the camera FOV in 3DS is exactly the same as Imagine?

Stephen G.


Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 08:40:37
Subject: ArtDepartment problem
From:    [e-mail] (Darryl Lewis)


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

I use ADPro to convert Imagine files (see Imagine does get mentioned in
this posting! ).
I have an A3000 (2MB Graphics memory) running ADpro 2.5 and an A2000 (1MB
graphics memory) running version 1.0 of ADpro.

Now for the funny bit:
I can load an large image and convert it on the 2000, but the same image
causes a "Not enough Video memory" error on the 3000.
I have no other tasks running on either, so nothing takes up the memory.
The error message shows how much memory I need, which, when I flip back to
Workbench, it show I have more than the amount required.

Perhaps my 3000 is not set up correctly?

Any ideas would be appreciated.
Darryl

-- Via DLG Pro v1.0

               #####\             _             /#####
               #( )# |          _( )__         | #( )#
               ##### |         /_    /         | #####
               #" "# |     ___m/I_ //_____     | #" "#
               # O # |____#-x.\ /++m\ /.x-#____| # O #
               #m.m# |   /" \ ///###\\\ / "\   | #m.m#
               #####/    ######/     \######    \#####


Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 09:13:52
Subject: Slow rain
From:    Ed Totman <[e-mail]>


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

How do I get the dripdrop texture to last 20-30 seconds without slowing
down the ripple rate?  I created a 100 frame animation of a pool with
simulated raindrops by applying the dripdrop texture to a plane and
creating two states, one for distance traveled=0 and one for distance
traveled=1, then morphed between the two states.  I can't seem to get the
effect to last longer without slowing it down.

Any ideas?

Ed Totman
[e-mail]




Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 10:36:09
Subject: Re: Apologies
From:    Rick Dolishny <[e-mail]>


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

On Fri, 21 Jul 1995, Perry Lucas wrote:

> >We are making a new verison that is 95, NT and win 3.1 compatiable as well as

> >several other platforms such as the Alpha machine,. Macintosh, SGI and a
> host of
> >others.
>
> The "us" and "we" refer to Impulse and not myself.
>
What about an Amiga version? Any ideas? Is this 'new' product a new
Imagine (4.0) or another totally new product?

Rick Dolishny
    ---
[e-mail]
Ardee Productions - Toronto, Ontario



Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 10:50:05
Subject: Re: UNIVESA
From:    William Eric Donoho <[e-mail]>


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

On Fri, 21 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> --- Received from GITD.PSG024  4523                 21JUL95  15.18

>   -> IBMMAIL.INTERNET      IBMMAIL INTERNET               IBM

> Hi Chris,

>

> Just wondering if that Univesa of yours is shareware and for the

> PC.  Can it also run on a Cirrus logic card if it is a PC util?

>

> Thanx

> Vic dB)

>
I'm using the univesa util. I believe I found it on cirrus logic's ftp site.
(could be wrong, though)


Eric Donoho              | "Let's go to burger king and get
Louisville, KY USA       | a chicken sandwich!"
[e-mail]




Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 11:06:10
Subject: Imagine 3.3 PC bug
From:    William Eric Donoho <[e-mail]>


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


I'll preface this by saying that this problem occurrs only after I've
jumped in and out of the attributes editor. IE, I can't reliably
reproduce the problem. The problem only rears it's ugly head when I'm
trying to do some work!

Symptoms:
While the sphere/plane is being rendered in the attributes window, the
mouse locks up. While the sphere/plane is rendering, I can't move any
sliders, hit "OK" or "CANCEL", or "Next", etc, etc.
Also, the mouse becomes inactive/locks-up while the perspective window is
redrawn.
Also, this problem appears when displaying a quickrender. And guess what?
Since the mouse (keyboard also) is locked-up, I can't get out of the
quickrender view, so I have to re-boot. Yuck!

Net effect:
Loss of productivity.

My solution:
I have two solutions: 1) Exit and then restart imagine, or re-boot. 2)
Wait for Imagine 4.0 and hope this bug is fixed.

Eric Donoho              | "Let's go to burger king and get
Louisville, KY USA       | a chicken sandwich!"
[e-mail]




Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 12:52:00
Subject: Re: Credit
From:    Michael North <[e-mail]>


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

> Anyone mess with the 8 new brush mapping types yet?
>

Both the ambient mapping and variable brightness are really
useful for picking out single objects and giving them just a
little boost without redoing all the lighting.  This is virtually
the same as being able to set ambient levels object by object,
something that some of us have been wanting for some time.

Michael


Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 14:08:00
Subject: Imagine wrong Colours..Fi
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


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

-> The first thing I tried when Imagine 3.3 appeared was a Quick rend=er-> probl
em still appeared (damn). However, after the excitement of lo=oki-> every new fe
ature in 3.3 had passed, I noticed a button on the Pro=jec-> screen: Use True Co
lor. This was checked. I unchecked in and PREST=O!!-> Imagine now displays colou
rs correctly on my Hercules Stingray Car=d!.I had the same (or similar display p
roblem) with 3.2 and my DiamondSpeedstar Pro card. By unclicking True Color, my
display cleared up.However, once I installed UniVesa, I no longer had to unclick
 True Co=lorand all displays were perfect in all resolutions.   /---------------
---------------           ___   ___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen
          / __  /__/ /__/  /_   \ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /_
__/ / \  /  /  /     / \  | [e-mail]     HAUS BBS (
805-683-1388)  |           "Irony can make revenge a welcome alternative"   \___
__________________________________________________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Haus BBS - Santa Barbara, Ca - [phone]

Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 14:19:05
Subject: Re[2]: One last wish
From:    [e-mail]


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



people still using 2.0 should be careful of what they ask for, or at least check

privately with a 3.x owner to see if the feature *has* *already* *been*
*implemented* <ahem!>

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________

Subject: Re: One last wish
Author:  "Fernando D'Andrea" <[e-mail]> at ALTERNET
Date:    7/21/95 12:34 PM

....... You can rotate and position the camera with the point of
vision of the camera. Why do not put it on Imagine? The same thing in
the conical light sources can be a GREAT idea! :)))))
    We dont need a realtime wireframe. A single 3D box will be
enough, just like when we try to rotate an object.
    The conical light sources need something showing what area it
will iluminate........



Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 16:11:44
Subject: Re: One last wish
From:    Fernando D'Andrea <[e-mail]>


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

> suggested a feature for 4.0 yet(I'm also probably one of the few people
> on the list that's still using 2.0 :), due mostly to the fact that it
> seems just about everything has been covered.  Since I am still using
> 2.0, I don't know how easy it is to position the camera in later versions
> of Imagine but I do know it can be a pain in 2.0.  There's a shareware
> modelling program for Povray called Pov Scene Builder which allows you to
> move the camera around interactively while a wire-frame view is updated
> in real time.  It's just a nice feature that makes it a lot easier to
> position the camera and I would really like to see it in Imagine4.0 once
> I finally upgrade.
>
>
>    ~Rick Heidebrecht~

    I'm another 2.0 user. Any user, after give a single look on the
interface of Lightwave will find the interface of Imagine simply hard
to use in the stage editor. Lightwave does something like this with
the camera. You can rotate and position the camera with the point of
vision of the camera. Why do not put it on Imagine? The same thing in
the conical light sources can be a GREAT idea! :)))))
    We dont need a realtime wireframe. A single 3D box will be
enough, just like when we try to rotate an object.
    The conical light sources need something showing what area it
will iluminate.

    Just a question. What I need to do to create a light source which
is visible?


*********************************
Fernando Pena D'Andrea.
E-Mail: [e-mail]
*********************************


Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 18:32:51
Subject: Re: Blaq - What a hero!!
From:    [e-mail]


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

I'd like to agree!

Rod Macey: [e-mail] - Pre-press/Graphic Designer
Home: A2000/30 FPU 4MB RAM [soon to be 12 8-)] Imagine 3.0
Work: Power Macs, Sun Sparc & Pee Cees too.
"Sometimes the hard way is the only way!"

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 1995 13:27:30 GMT
From: Steve Gardiner <[e-mail]>

Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 18:43:08
Subject: Amiga 2000
From:    [e-mail] (Perry Lucas)


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

Anyone want to buy an Amiga 2000?  I just pulled mine out
the closet and really don't want it see it going to waste.
Here are the specs...

Mother Board Revsion 6.2
  1 meg chip
  4 meg additional (Supra? Ram board)
VXL-30 Accelerator.
Trump Card Pro Scsi controller.
2 3 1/2 drives
RGB monitor
WorkBench 2.0

I had the mother board and the ram card replaced right before
I put it in storage so its practically new.  There's no Hard
Drive as I took that out for my IBM.  I'll accept any reasonable
offer on it as I am not using it and as I said don't want to
see it go to waste.  I'll also throw in any software that I
have, even v1.0 of Imagine if Impulse doesn't mind. :)

--Perry



Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 18:44:03
Subject: Re: Scanline vs. Trace Shadows!!!
From:    [e-mail]


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

My naive perception of tracing is that a light ray is bounced at an
object, to see if anything is in the path to determine wheter or not
there is a shadow cast on this object. How could scanline do this without
the light ray?
As well as shadows not being produced, there is also no reflection. To me
the reflection is also very important to the eye to trick it into
realism. I know you can reflect global maps in scanline, but when objects
are moving past a reflective surface, this surface should also reflect
the moving object.
To the point now, instead of creating scanline shadows, wouldn't it be
better if Impulse could concentrate on a faster ray-tracing engine as
well as textures that are optimised for faster processors and co-processors?

Just my two cents worth.

Rod Macey: [e-mail] - Pre-press/Graphic Designer
Home: A2000/30 FPU 4MB RAM [soon to be 12 8-)] Imagine 3.0
Work: Power Macs, Sun Sparc & Pee Cees too.
"Sometimes the hard way is the only way!"

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 1995 11:57:07 -0500 (CDT)
From: Andrey Zmievskiy <[e-mail]>

Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 18:53:20
Subject: Impulse
From:    [e-mail]


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

I have been an Imagine users for about three years now.  I have one
question.  Why does it seem as though when you call Impulse that the guy
you're talking to makes you feel as though he's doing you a favor by
answering your questions?  I have spoken to this man 2 other times and
I'm not sure what his name is but his unbelievably rude.  This is the
sorriest support you could expect from any company, I think a 7/11 clerk
could be nicer than this guy!  Anyway just wanted to get this off my
chest.  I do have a few technical questions though:


1.  Why is it that when i take a primitive (sphere) and turn it into a
light, then place it in the stage editor, that after I render the scnene
there's no sign of ANY light being emited from ANYWHERE.  I've tried
making the sphere BRIGHT too, but makes NO difference.


2.  Also there are TIME parameters in a few Essence and Imagine 3.0
textures...how could you make a LOOPING sea wave or anything with a
TIME parameter...so I mean that by using 60 frmaes you could get a
looping animation of sea waves being animated.


3.  Another thing that really bugz me is the HAZE FX.  This is of no use
when considering that it actually wants you yo input the number of
PIXELS it should use for HAZING.  FOr example if you have two BRIGHT
objs, one which is far would have LESS number of HAZED PIXELS than the
one that is close.

4.  Also why do IMAGINE users have to go out of their way to get the
"GLOW AROUND LIGHT" effect.  It kinda bugz me whenn Lightwave (I'm sorry
for mentioning that word but....) users can achieve beautiful lights
without any hassles.  I've mentioned this to the same GUY I mentioned
above, and he said that there would be a TEXTURE (Twinkle) which would
take care of this, but after trying it out, it turns out that the
twinkle texture is pretty much pathetic.  Sorry Imagine users but some
things about Imagine really get to me, even though I LOVE the package
and it has made me thousands of dollars.




PLEASE feel free to comment on anything I have mentioned.


PANTERA
[e-mail]




Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 19:02:39
Subject: Re:scanline shadows
From:    Mark Allan Fox <[e-mail]>


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

Greetings to all:

      In a recent post Tom replied to Ted's post about Scanline
shadows:

> Yeah it would be usefull with scanline shadows, but honestly Ted there is more

> to the scanline render than the lack of shadows. I would take a complete new
> render engine, they would have to put in better antialiasing as well, plus a
> bunch of other things. And after I got V3.3, I have to say that Impulse have
> pulled of a great job with that one, it is closer to the high end platforms th
an
> it has ever been.
>
> Tom RenderBrandt
>

      Tom, after I read this post I had a funny feeling in the
pit of my stomach.  After a bit of thought and a quick
consultation with a couple of my books on 3D computer graphics
programming I confirmed my suspicions that a complete rewrite would not be
necessary at all.  My experience leads me to think that all that
would be needed would be about fifty to one-hundred lines of code
(at the very most).

      I must admit that the performance hit would be a huge
one.  Think about it, approximately 75% (probably more) of the
time it takes to do a ray-trace is spent on shadows.  Would
scanline still be useful?  I guess for scenes without refraction
it would be.  But that's one big performance hit.

      As for anti-aliasing, I don't see any reason they would
have to change it.  (Although they probably should, because
scanline anti-aliasing really, REALLY sucks.)

      Actually, this post really brings up a glaring point.
Impulse should give some long and hard thought about the scanline
renderer.  It really needs some more features.  Actually, writing
a scanline algorithm that generates shadows is really simple.
(If you want to get an idea of just how simple it is, check out
Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice, page 746.)  Now depth
of field and motion blur, interesting, then again Pixar did it.



                              Mark Allan Fox
                              [e-mail]


Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 19:19:35
Subject: IML-FAQ#08 && home pages
From:    [e-mail]


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

Yaba daba doo fellows,

      I'm updating latest IML-FAQ#07, I'm going to compile a list of all IML arc
hivist home
pages, email me via internet/fidonet gateway if You'd like to be added to the li
st, thanx (send me
name, address, table of contents of Your home page).


[e-mail]
Imagine Mailing List, IML FAQer




Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 19:56:38
Subject: Imagine wrong Colours..Fixed!!!
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

>>From [e-mail] Fri Jul 21 11:36:49 1995
>Date: Fri, 21 Jul 1995 19:19:03 GMT
>X-Sender: [e-mail]
>To: [e-mail]
>From: [e-mail]@pipex.net (Bill Dimech)
>Subject: Imagine wrong Colours..Fixed!!!
>
>G'day Everyone in IML.
>
>A while ago I posted a message Imagine Versus the Hercules Stingray Card!
>
>In it, I described how imagine was not display pictures correctly on my new
>Stingray Video Card. (The colours were wrong).
>
>Well Firstly, I would like to thank all of those that replied.
>
>I almost had the problem beat (waiting for univbe5.2) and then the most
>amazing thing, I fixed the problem!!! Well Imagine 3.3 did anyway.
>
>The first thing I tried when Imagine 3.3 appeared was a Quick render but the
>problem still appeared (damn). However, after the excitement of looking at
>every new feature in 3.3 had passed, I noticed a button on the Project
>screen: Use True Color. This was checked. I unchecked in and PRESTO!!!
>Imagine now displays colours correctly on my Hercules Stingray Card!.
>
>Wow!! After two weeks of putting up with odd colours or even worse having to
>QR in 256 colours(YUK), It was that simple.
>
>Golly, I hope that button wasn't there in 3.2. If it was I hope it was an
>undocumented feature (I feel like a bit of a dill).
>
>Regards
>BillD
>Don't Ponder .... Imagine!
>
It's in version 3.0 that I have now. You can set it's initial state from
preferences as well. Sorry.
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 19:56:43
Subject: Imagine 3.3 PC bug
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

>>From [e-mail] Fri Jul 21 17:53:10 1995
>Date: Fri, 21 Jul 1995 10:06:10 -0400 (EDT)
>From: William Eric Donoho <[e-mail]>
>To: [e-mail]
>Subject: Imagine 3.3 PC bug
>
>
>I'll preface this by saying that this problem occurrs only after I've
>jumped in and out of the attributes editor. IE, I can't reliably
>reproduce the problem. The problem only rears it's ugly head when I'm
>trying to do some work!
>
>Symptoms:
>While the sphere/plane is being rendered in the attributes window, the
>mouse locks up. While the sphere/plane is rendering, I can't move any
>sliders, hit "OK" or "CANCEL", or "Next", etc, etc.
>Also, the mouse becomes inactive/locks-up while the perspective window is
>redrawn.
>Also, this problem appears when displaying a quickrender. And guess what?
>Since the mouse (keyboard also) is locked-up, I can't get out of the
>quickrender view, so I have to re-boot. Yuck!
>
>Net effect:
>Loss of productivity.
>
>My solution:
>I have two solutions: 1) Exit and then restart imagine, or re-boot. 2)
>Wait for Imagine 4.0 and hope this bug is fixed.
>
>Eric Donoho              | "Let's go to burger king and get
>Louisville, KY USA       | a chicken sandwich!"
>[e-mail]
>
>
Have you tried a newer mouse driver. It might work.
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 19:56:52
Subject: UNIVESA
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

>>From [e-mail] Thu Jul 20 23:58:19 1995
>From: [e-mail]
>Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 19:03:13 EDT
>To: [e-mail]
>Subject: UNIVESA
>
>--- Received from GITD.PSG024  4523                 21JUL95  08.59

>  -> IBMMAIL.INTERNET      IBMMAIL INTERNET               IBM

>Hi Chris,

>

>Just wondering if that Univesa of yours is shareware and for the

>PC.  Can it also run on a Cirrus logic card if it is a PC util?

>

>Thanx

>Vic dB)

It is unregistered at the moment, but I am not using it. It does not work to
well with the old VGA monitor I am currently struggling with. Yes it does
work with the entire Cirrus logic family as I have a Cirrus 5434. And yes it
is a PC util.

Did I get all 3 right then?

Cheers.
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 20:19:03
Subject: Imagine wrong Colours..Fixed!!!
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Dimech)


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

G'day Everyone in IML.

A while ago I posted a message Imagine Versus the Hercules Stingray Card!

In it, I described how imagine was not display pictures correctly on my new
Stingray Video Card. (The colours were wrong).

Well Firstly, I would like to thank all of those that replied.

I almost had the problem beat (waiting for univbe5.2) and then the most
amazing thing, I fixed the problem!!! Well Imagine 3.3 did anyway.

The first thing I tried when Imagine 3.3 appeared was a Quick render but the
problem still appeared (damn). However, after the excitement of looking at
every new feature in 3.3 had passed, I noticed a button on the Project
screen: Use True Color. This was checked. I unchecked in and PRESTO!!!
Imagine now displays colours correctly on my Hercules Stingray Card!.

Wow!! After two weeks of putting up with odd colours or even worse having to
QR in 256 colours(YUK), It was that simple.

Golly, I hope that button wasn't there in 3.2. If it was I hope it was an
undocumented feature (I feel like a bit of a dill).

Regards
BillD
Don't Ponder .... Imagine!






Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 20:50:02
Subject: BRUSH MAPPING!
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

HI THERE!

I have now spent a good part of the prvious week playing whit the new mapping
abilities in V3.3, and it's awsome!
A good tip for all of you is to get a bunch load of brushes (small and big) and

since I also have Lightwave 4.0 I do have a huge selction of brush maps you can

use straight away.
All of the new mapping types are usefull for a varity of apllications such as:
Fingerprints on glass, old metals, melting materials where you have glowing
parts as well as parts that are shaded by light, etc,tec.

The only thing you have to bear in mind is that spec and bright mapping depends

on the object color itself, so to get a good result is to duplicate the brush
and use it as a color mapp as well.

Later

Tom Renderbrandt


Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 21:00:04
Subject: RE:Im3.3 bug?
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi!

The bug you refer to is not available on my PC version of IM3.3
But to add to our bug list here is a real and nasty one!!!!! Duckin....
I do have a A4000 at home, and I use to build stuff that I bring in to work,
this sounds nice doesnt it? But when I load it into the PentiumPC from a PC
floppy 1.44mb, strange things start to happen, such as:

1. When trying to quick render, a requestor sometimes pops up saying that it has

a initial phong error on vertics nr XXX etc. And sometimes it doesnt on the same

object.

2. When I take it with me to the action editor, the same things happen here,
plus that when I make a wireframe animation it sometimes terminates the program,

and says
"remeber what you where doing and call Impulse" yeah right? This sometimes
happen in detail to.

Any suggestions to what I can do????? (frustrating)

Thanks

Tom Renderbrandt


Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 22:13:51
Subject: Renderbrandt's troubles
From:    [e-mail]


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

:"Any suggestions to what I can do?????? (frustrating)

How about remember what you were doing and call Impulse (8^)
JN


Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 22:35:24
Subject: Planet shading -- Problem Solved (mostly)!
From:    [e-mail]


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

I want to thank everyone for their suggestions about my Planetary
shading/lighting problem.  I've found that I get the best results
by using a ring of 5-10 light sources and placing them as far away
from the planet as possible (I STILL think there is something awry
in the way Imagine does parallel light rays!).

Thanks again to everyone!

                    -- Dave


Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 23:00:52
Subject: Tear Drop Quickie
From:    [e-mail]


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

Just found a QUICKY way to make a tear drop (water drop) shape.  All you
do is add a sphere in the detail editor, then go to CONFORMATIONS,
select CONFORM TO SPHERE and just pres ok.  THERE you GO!  Hope you guys
get "some" use out of this.

PANTERA
[e-mail]





Date:    Friday, 21 July 1995 23:04:06
Subject: PArticles
From:    [e-mail]


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

could someone please explain to me how to make RAIN as the 3.0 packag=esays you
can do using particles....if someone could please write a sh=orttutorial on?/?/q
/x=9BA=9BA=[e-mail]

Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 05:21:22
Subject: Memory...
From:    [e-mail] (Perry Lucas)


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

  This is starting to erk me a little...

I made a simple fly in logo (left --> right).  By the 12 frame
or so part of the object started to dissappear.  By the last
frame (20) it was completely gone except for 1 letter.  Now, for 1
object with 7 characters, it should not be dissappearing especially
with 16 megs of memory on board.  I did this animation in a full
trace with 2 light sources diminishing intensity, and casting
shadows

I had also chosen one frame arbitraurly and rendered it to
see if it made a difference.  Still, 4 of the 7 characters
were missing from the rendered picture.  Whats going on with
this?

--Perry

p.s.  I did it in scanline and nothing dissappeared from the
animation.



Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 06:53:32
Subject: 3.3
From:    [e-mail]


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

could someone tell me all the new features in 3.3, i still haven't got
3.3, I have 3.2.  I would appreciate this.

PANTERA
[e-mail]




Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 07:19:23
Subject: Re:scanline shadows
From:    [e-mail] (DThompson)


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


>     Tom, after I read this post I had a funny feeling in the
>pit of my stomach.  After a bit of thought and a quick
>consultation with a couple of my books on 3D computer graphics
>programming I confirmed my suspicions that a complete rewrite would not be
>necessary at all.  My experience leads me to think that all that
>would be needed would be about fifty to one-hundred lines of code
>(at the very most).
>
>     I must admit that the performance hit would be a huge
>one.  Think about it, approximately 75% (probably more) of the
>time it takes to do a ray-trace is spent on shadows.  Would
>scanline still be useful?  I guess for scenes without refraction
>it would be.  But that's one big performance hit.
>
>     As for anti-aliasing, I don't see any reason they would
>have to change it.  (Although they probably should, because
>scanline anti-aliasing really, REALLY sucks.)
>
>     Actually, this post really brings up a glaring point.
>Impulse should give some long and hard thought about the scanline
>renderer.  It really needs some more features.  Actually, writing
>a scanline algorithm that generates shadows is really simple.
>(If you want to get an idea of just how simple it is, check out
>Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice, page 746.)  Now depth
>of field and motion blur, interesting, then again Pixar did it.

Either get off the subject of scanline renders or take over Impulse. It's
amazing how many of you know programming better than the guys writing 3d
software. 3d scanline shadows is a mute point. With the chip speed we have
access to now, who needs it. So many other features require raytracing
besides shadows. Upgrade or quit calling yourselves proffessionals. I think
most of you people trying to make a point about this feature are just
Lightwave wannabees. If this is what makes a great renderer, then switch and
leave us Imagine users alone. Of all the people that have griped about this,
no one has answered the question, if you can raytrace, why worry about
scanline? If you can't generate the heat, then switch to lightwave. You
people are more lucky using this program than you know.

Dave Thompson



Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 07:28:37
Subject: Re: Imagine wrong Colours..Fixed!!!
From:    [e-mail]


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

> The first thing I tried when Imagine 3.3 appeared was a Quick render but the
> problem still appeared (damn). However, after the excitement of looking at
> every new feature in 3.3 had passed, I noticed a button on the Project
> screen: Use True Color. This was checked. I unchecked in and PRESTO!!!
> Imagine now displays colours correctly on my Hercules Stingray Card!.
>
> Wow!! After two weeks of putting up with odd colours or even worse having to
> QR in 256 colours(YUK), It was that simple.
>
> Golly, I hope that button wasn't there in 3.2. If it was I hope it was an
> undocumented feature (I feel like a bit of a dill).

It's always been there,in the amiga version it used to be called Use
Firecracker(an early Impulse made 24bit display card).In the preferences
section the item is still called Use Firecracker!So if you want True
colour turned off just set Use Firecracker to F for false.

I've had the same problem.Univbe doesn't recognise my video card either.


William John Porter



Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 08:04:54
Subject: Imagine 4.0?
From:    [e-mail]


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

does anyone know if Impulse is going to add the glowing (lightwave)
lights which we all see on TV?  I know alot of you guys dont care for
it, but its just a really cool thing to have.  Also what is Metaballs?
PANTERA
[e-mail]




Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 08:09:36
Subject: BONES
From:    [e-mail]


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

I am very confused when it comes to the BONES feature in Imagine.  I'm
sorry if I keep on referring to Lightwave, BUT... In the lightwave menu
there is a tutorial for making the letter M "walk" using the bones
feature in lightwave.  I have tried to do this in Imagine but I have had
NO luck.

For example...i tried using the tutorials in Dare2Imagine docs...and the
weird thing which I can't figure out is when I move on of the axis or
bones why this does not effect antoehr other bones in ANYWAY....in other
words if you have:

..........
|||||||||
|||||||||
..........
|||||||||
|||||||||
..........    <---- so if you move this section, the other sections dont
seem to be affected.  also i have seen no "bending" of facing when
moving bones around.  If ANYONE knows what Im talking about PLEASE let
me know.



PANTERA
[e-mail]




Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 08:11:56
Subject: Re: Credit
From:    [e-mail] (Juan J. Gonzalez)


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

>
>Um, just a suggestion, guys. Impulse has just sent out a new version
>with some pretty cool new features. Rather than whine about what it
>doesn't have, lets discuss what it DOES have for a while. There are many
>people still using 2.0 and 3.0 who would like to know what they are
>missing.

 I think that people who get a new version of a program and the only
thing that can make with it is to see what it does not have or to compare
it to another packages wich cost so much than it, never make a=20
really professional work whit it.

  IMAGINE 3.3 is a very good rendering and animation program, with
cost as shareware and with a few limitations .... for technical reference,
because with imagination, these problems can be resolved and final
images could be very ... very .... professional.

 People who use a program must work with it. Computer graphics are
not only limited for software .... the real limit is imagination ....

 IMAGINE, of course have limits ... not shadow maps ... not cubic enviroment
maps ... and no robust suport for all TIFF and JPEG image file formats ...
but it=B4s realy powerfull 3D design and rendering software ....

 Perhaps problem is that people don=B4t work with it ....

 (Excuse for my English .... i am waiting a upgrade of it ... :-)


Saudos,
     -------------------------------------------------------
     Juan J. Gonzalez      -       [e-mail]
     -------------------------------------------------------



Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 10:51:20
Subject: States Editing
From:    Kevin Bonifield <[e-mail]>


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


I am LOVING PC3.3...especially the new mapping modes and
attributes requester...but now for my question:

How do you edit a texture tacked-on an object and locked to
a given state?  I can create an object (say, a sphere) and
assign the spark texture. Then create the state and go back
and lock it in the attributes requester so I now have state
number 1. Then I change the attribute/texture (distance traveled)
and create state number 2, finally locking the texture to it. All is
good and it works great.

Now I try an anim and want to change the texture (say, the size
of the sparks) assigned to a particular state. How do you do
it without starting from scratch? When I try to use "states | set to"
to select a state and modify it it doesn't seem to work.

I realize I probably am missing something, would someone mind
showing me the error of my ways?

Thanks,

  //Kevin




=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Kevin Bonifield  -***-  SpaceCom Systems
Software Engineer
Phone: [phone]
Fax  : [phone]
Inet: [e-mail]
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-





Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 11:21:15
Subject: RE: HOW MANY!
From:    Kevin Bonifield <[e-mail]>


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



On 22 Jul 95 15:35:03 +0200  Granberg Tom wrote:
>Hi there!
>
>How many of you guys do graphics for a living, graphic design, animators etc.
>It
>would be interesting to know.
>
I use Imagine for the occassional 3D graphic at the place of
my employment, but that is not my principal job. I use it more
at home ("hobbyist fashion"). I generally don't make any money
with it ;-)

  //Kevin

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Kevin Bonifield  -***-  SpaceCom Systems
Software Engineer
Phone: [phone]
Fax  : [phone]
Inet: [e-mail]
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-





Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 11:41:04
Subject: Re: Impulse
From:    Vance Schowalter <[e-mail]>


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

On Fri, 21 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> I have been an Imagine users for about three years now.  I have one
> question.  Why does it seem as though when you call Impulse that the guy
> you're talking to makes you feel as though he's doing you a favor by
> answering your questions?  I have spoken to this man 2 other times and
> I'm not sure what his name is but his unbelievably rude.  This is the
> sorriest support you could expect from any company, I think a 7/11 clerk
> could be nicer than this guy!  Anyway just wanted to get this off my
> chest.  I do have a few technical questions though:
>

I've talked to that guy, too. I think I know who it is, but I won't name
names. Suffice to say, one of the things he spewed on about was about how
much he hated Canada and Canadians.

Being a Canadian and a lontime Silver/Turbo Silver/Imagine user, I was
less than enthusiastic to upgrade past the 3.0 that I went through hell
to get. There is never any question as to Imagine's quality, but if
support is like this, who needs enemies?

>
> 1.  Why is it that when i take a primitive (sphere) and turn it into a
> light, then place it in the stage editor, that after I render the scnene
> there's no sign of ANY light being emited from ANYWHERE.  I've tried
> making the sphere BRIGHT too, but makes NO difference.
>
>
> 2.  Also there are TIME parameters in a few Essence and Imagine 3.0
> textures...how could you make a LOOPING sea wave or anything with a
> TIME parameter...so I mean that by using 60 frmaes you could get a
> looping animation of sea waves being animated.
>
>
> 3.  Another thing that really bugz me is the HAZE FX.  This is of no use
> when considering that it actually wants you yo input the number of
> PIXELS it should use for HAZING.  FOr example if you have two BRIGHT
> objs, one which is far would have LESS number of HAZED PIXELS than the
> one that is close.
>
> 4.  Also why do IMAGINE users have to go out of their way to get the
> "GLOW AROUND LIGHT" effect.  It kinda bugz me whenn Lightwave (I'm sorry
> for mentioning that word but....) users can achieve beautiful lights
> without any hassles.  I've mentioned this to the same GUY I mentioned
> above, and he said that there would be a TEXTURE (Twinkle) which would
> take care of this, but after trying it out, it turns out that the
> twinkle texture is pretty much pathetic.  Sorry Imagine users but some
> things about Imagine really get to me, even though I LOVE the package
> and it has made me thousands of dollars.
>
>
>
>
> PLEASE feel free to comment on anything I have mentioned.
>
>
> PANTERA
> [e-mail]
>
>
>

I'll pass on the rest, as I see that others have answered these
questions. *8^)

Anyhow, peace. I DO like Imagine, just not the guy I spoke to.

*******************************************
*    Vance Schowalter >>Image Master<<    *
*                                         *
* Internet: [e-mail] *
*                                         *
*     "Affable little snow creature."     *
*******************************************



Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 11:49:47
Subject: Re:scanline shadows
From:    "Steve J. Lombardi" <[e-mail]>


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

>
>
> >   Tom, after I read this post I had a funny feeling in the
> >pit of my stomach.  After a bit of thought and a quick
> >consultation with a couple of my books on 3D computer graphics
> >programming I confirmed my suspicions that a complete rewrite would not be
> >necessary at all.  My experience leads me to think that all that
> >would be needed would be about fifty to one-hundred lines of code
> >(at the very most).
> >
>
> Either get off the subject of scanline renders or take over Impulse. It's
> amazing how many of you know programming better than the guys writing 3d
> software. 3d scanline shadows is a mute point. With the chip speed we have
> access to now, who needs it. So many other features require raytracing
> besides shadows. Upgrade or quit calling yourselves proffessionals. I think
> most of you people trying to make a point about this feature are just
> Lightwave wannabees. If this is what makes a great renderer, then switch and
> leave us Imagine users alone. Of all the people that have griped about this,
> no one has answered the question, if you can raytrace, why worry about
> scanline? If you can't generate the heat, then switch to lightwave. You
> people are more lucky using this program than you know.
>

Hey dave. mellow out. This is the ideal forum to be critical of
and suggest improvements to Imagine. Believe me. I've been running
Imagine and it's predecessors from impulse while most folks here
were swimming around in their fathers balls. This certainly does not
make me an imagine expert, but I can attest to the fact they Impulse
DOES listen to customers suggestions. Often slowly, and often
with a gruff attitude that some readers of this list can't handle- but
change does come. (those funky looking metaballs are in 4.0...)

anyway- there's no reason to chase someone off to run lightwave
and dump imagine because they requested a feature.

--
steve lombardi
[e-mail]



Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 12:07:37
Subject: Re: Memory...
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

Hey Perry,

      This sounds like another world-size problem.  In trace, your
objects are either passing outside the 'world,' or you really are running
out of ram.


Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 12:12:33
Subject: Re: scanline shadows
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

> Of all the people that have griped about this,
> no one has answered the question, if you can raytrace, why worry about
> scanline?

Because raytracing is *much* slower than scanline.  As for the chips'
speed, tell me when Imagine for NT comes out and I'll gladly switch to
Dec Alpha.

Andrey


Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 12:16:08
Subject: Re: A note from Mr. Mike,
From:    John Grieggs <[e-mail]>


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

>
>
> I got a small not from Mike H. yesterday.  Evidently Impulse did try
> out scanline shadows and found them costly in several ways.  If I read
> the note correctly, scanline shadows were actually slower than trace
> shadows.  The most important reason was the amount of RAM chewed up.
> Mike said it took "BUNCHES."  I'm guessing that shadow objects had to
> be created, thus doubling the number of objects in a scene.  Impulse
> probably knows a lot of their users are on a tight budget, and don't
> want to buy more memory every time a new feature is added.
>
Hmmm.  I would have guessed that they would implement scanline shadows by
selectively ray-tracing only the portions of the scene needed, thus making
it a hybrid rendering engine (like LW).

Not especially easy to implement, but worth the pain IMHO.  It is true that
such an approach would sometimes use more memory than pure scanline or pure
tracing, depending on the scene,  You wouldn't need "shadow objects" (?),
but you might well end up with an extra octree.

Scanline reflections are harder - then you end up raytracing the scene from
the POV of the reflective object.  Ick!

> Greg Denby
>
_john (still lurking about)



Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 12:56:26
Subject: Re: UNIVESA
From:    Fred Aderhold <root@204.49.94.4>


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



On Fri, 21 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> Just wondering if that Univesa of yours is shareware and for the

> PC.  Can it also run on a Cirrus logic card if it is a PC util?


Yes, it's shareware, and I've been using it with my Cirrus Logic chipset.
You really should give it a try, it's really helpful to be able to see
quickrenders in 24bit!

[e-mail]




Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 13:04:51
Subject: A note from Mr. Mike,
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


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


I got a small not from Mike H. yesterday.  Evidently Impulse did try
out scanline shadows and found them costly in several ways.  If I read
the note correctly, scanline shadows were actually slower than trace
shadows.  The most important reason was the amount of RAM chewed up.
Mike said it took "BUNCHES."  I'm guessing that shadow objects had to
be created, thus doubling the number of objects in a scene.  Impulse
probably knows a lot of their users are on a tight budget, and don't
want to buy more memory every time a new feature is added.

Greg Denby


Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 13:12:32
Subject: Mr. Mike H
From:    [e-mail]


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

To the owner of Impulse:

As far as you telling me that my letter was rude, I DON'T think so.  If
you were the person that I talked to or whoever it was, there is NO
EXCUSE in the world for that kinda of an attitude.  Just because I am
asking a few questions doesnt mean that the person has to give me an
attitude and make me feel like I'm wasting his time.  Now if we were in
some part of the world i wouldnt be so pissed, but to get this kinda of
an attitude from an American company, is pretty sad.  As you may have
read from other's responses to my letter, there are people who agree
with me, where one gentleman said that he has stopped calling you guys
for help.  I'm not going to sit here and b*tch forever, but I just dont
think my letter was rude, just informative to other Imagine users.


Thank you,
PANTERA
[e-mail]




Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 13:18:23
Subject: Re: Credit
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


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


> Amyone mess with the 8 new brush mapping types yet?

Yep! I made a couple of TIFFs that resembled clouds/smoke and used
them as fog maps, and bright fog maps. The effect was excellent.
I got completely wispy shapes in no time at all.

I'm still trying to figure out how to layer the various kinds of
maps.  It seems that the wrong order causes one to cancel another,
or perhaps the program gets a little confused when one is tossing in
maps left and right, and shuffling them up and down in priority.

Also, the new ability to make object variably bright can really help
when objects appear too dark because of the lack of ambient light.

Greg Denby


Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 13:24:52
Subject: Re: Impulse
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


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


Among Pantera's comments/questions:

>1.   Why is it that when i take a primitive (sphere) and turn it into a
>light, then place it in the stage editor, that after I render the scnene
>there's no signof ANY light being emited from ANYWHERE....

I think this might be in the FAQ, but here's the reason, in all likelyhood.
Light is emitted from an objects axis.  If the axis is inside the sphere,
as it usually is, then the light can't get out to illuminate the scene.
Use Shift-M to start pulling the axis out of the object.

Hope this helps,
Greg Denby


Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 13:29:28
Subject: A few Imagine questions
From:    Damon LaCaille <[e-mail]>


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


First off, I'm very new to Imagine (just bought 2.0 used).  I'd like to
know how the people who make money with it actually do it. Do you charge
by the frame? What about quality of picture? Length of animation or
number of objects in it? I'm curious as to the pay scale and how it is
calculated.

Also, why is it that ALL of my renders seem UGLY! (no smart comments
because I'm new, heh) They don't even look like they're in the right
graphics mode!  I have a standard ECS 10MB 3000/25 (2/8).  I thought I
could at least save the file in HAM or ILBM mode and have a decent
picture, but nope!  I've looked all through the docs and I can't find
anything on this subject. I'm sure it deals with either the file method
I'm saving with or the default rendering settings.

I'm terribly sorry if this is answered in the FAQs. I'm looking through
them on and off today and haven't come across this one yet.

Thanks in advance for not flaming me,
Damon



Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 14:00:01
Subject: YOU ARE GRILLED!!
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Dave Thompson you wrote this no good piece of mail!
------------------------------snip------------------
Either get off the subject of scanline renders or take over Impulse. It's
amazing how many of you know programming better than the guys writing 3d
software. 3d scanline shadows is a mute point. With the chip speed we have
access to now, who needs it. So many other features require raytracing
besides shadows. Upgrade or quit calling yourselves proffessionals. I think
most of you people trying to make a point about this feature are just
Lightwave wannabees. If this is what makes a great renderer, then switch and
leave us Imagine users alone. Of all the people that have griped about this,
no one has answered the question, if you can raytrace, why worry about
scanline? If you can't generate the heat, then switch to lightwave. You
people are more lucky using this program than you know.
----------------------------snip--------------------------

Weeeeeelll...... First of all I have access to 3 other big rendering packages
besides Imagine, one of these are Lightwave v4(SGI/PC/AMIGA), second, I dont
whine about Impulses programing abilities wich I think is sometimes bril.
And to be honest I think that any serious user of Imagine want all the features

that their neighbour has, after all it is their most liked software and they
want it to be the best,fastest,packed etc etc!.
We well understand that Impulse cant put every wish into Imagine, but a healty
debate is a good place start to see if there are any opinion about the subject
in question and if there are other ways to do it. So Dave if you cant stand a
debate please go whine somwhere else!?

Tom RenderBrandt




Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 14:11:24
Subject: Re: Planet shading -- Problem Solved (mostly)!
From:    George Lane <[e-mail]>


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


On Fri, 21 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> I want to thank everyone for their suggestions about my Planetary
> shading/lighting problem.  I've found that I get the best results
> by using a ring of 5-10 light sources and placing them as far away
> from the planet as possible (I STILL think there is something awry
> in the way Imagine does parallel light rays!).
>
> Thanks again to everyone!

YES! I knew that was what you were looking for. Now can you post a shot
somewhere so we can all see it?

Parallel light rays are pretty straightforward mathematically though.
Pretty hard to imagine them screwing it up. (I didn't say impossible).

George Lane
Opinions are mine only. No employer would claim them.


Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 14:18:19
Subject: Impulse & IML (Long message!)
From:    Ted Stethem <[e-mail]>


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

  I think this mailing list is a tribute to the tenacity and ingenuity of
the devoted Imagine user to discover workarounds for almost every
limitation inherent in Imagine as well as those talented guys that can
develop their own textures and support scripts to add to the program's
power. There are some really talented and extremely intelligent people
using Imagine and attending this list.
  But, for some reason, Imagine and this mailing list tends to have a
certain hostility associated with it that I don't see occurring with any
other 3D modeling/rendering program.
  I see flame wars erupt over the most inoccuous subjects, and in the
beginning, it shocked me that there were so many hostile people
here. But, after awhile, it was easy to develop the same attitude.
  There is somebody that answers the phone at Impulse and he seems to
represent the same attitude. That person is almost always in an extremely
foul mood and I think sometimes his mood transfers to some users that
start out innocently enough looking for additional technical help or
product info.
  As most of you well know, Mike Halvorson can come across the same way
in email, although, believe it or not, he has mellowed considerably in
the past two years!
  It is just my experience, after using Imagine for over two years and
frequenting this list for about the same amount of time, that there is a
repetitive sequence of events. It usually goes like this:
  Users start discussing particular bugs or the desire for certain
features, usually already available in competitive programs. Then
somebody will jump in with some comment of whiny nitpickers that can't
appreciate the great program they already have. This then starts an
escalation of heated discussions about the topic, at which point,
somebody receives a private email from Mike Halvorson with some comments
on that particular bug or desired feature. Mike has several standard
responses. He will say they looked at it and it took too much memory, or
it lengthens the rendering time too much, or Impulse has a policy of
providing support for their lowest end user and the desired feature would
shut them out. This has happened for Lens Flares, standard file
requestors, Windows version, plus many more things.
  What is funny about this is that after a period of time, after
providing all the reasons against doing something, Impulse will often
take a stab at providing the very feature they argued against (as in the
case of Lens Flares). But on some features or improvements, Impulse will
keep their heels firmly planted (as in the case of standard file requestors).
  I am not totally negative on Impulse. The Spline Editor has to be the
BEST font-to-3D object tool around. The Detail Editor is a very powerful
modeling tool with features only found on some workstation programs. Some
of the new features on the upgrade plan have been astounding and
extremely useful such as Set Edge-Fill Edge.
  But, there is a tendency for contradictory practices. For example, many
people have heard from Mike that Impulse will continue to support the
Amiga. Yet, we are already seeing textures and effects that are only
available for the PC with the statement they will not be available for
the Amiga.
  There was a lot of hoopla that selectable screen mode sizes
would be available (finally) in V3.2. What we got was IF you have a
Retina board, yes, or a PC. Now, how does this resolve itself with the
policy of maintaining full compatibility with the lowest end user? How
many people with A500's have Retina boards in them? As anybody that has
done the screen size byte hack knows, the screen size is determined by
two locations in the code. How hard would it be to provide a little
routine to allow the values in those locations to be changed? The reason
Imagine cannot be promoted properly is that Imagine does not use the
display database. This is another characteristic of Impulse programming
policy: Never access anything OUTSIDE of the program. That is why Imagine
will only run under DOS, because Imagine has its own memory manager. That
is why standard file requestors are not implemented or selectable screen
sizes/modes.  And that is why I wouldn't hold my breath for a Windows
version, because to run under Windows, a program has no choice but to be
Windows compliant and make external library calls. This policy also makes
it difficult for 3rd party support, and from what I have seen, anybody
that tries with any amount of success encounters aggressive hostility.
  So, here we are in V3.3 with V3.4=V4.0 around the corner. There was a
lot of hoopla about the "texture playground" in V3.3. Fine, if you have
AGA or a Retina board. But what about ECS platforms? And how does this
resolve itself with the stated Impulse policy of providing for the lowest
end user? On one hand, standard file requestors cannot be implemented
because there are so many WB1.3 users that would be excluded, and on the
other hand, you have to have a PC or Retina board for the 256-color
texture previewer. Not only that, the implementation of this capability
in Texture Studio is so much more elegant, with standard file requestors,
no less.
  Don't worry, for all those that have suggested, "If you don't like it,
find another program", I will take your snotty advice. I won't throw my
Imagine out of my toolbox but I am just about through using it for my
main rendering tool. I have just been waiting for a certain competitor to
become a stand-alone program, and have most of the features of Imagine
that it didn't have, and already has features that it sounds like Imagine
will never have.


Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 14:35:03
Subject: HOW MANY!
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi there!

How many of you guys do graphics for a living, graphic design, animators etc. It

would be interesting to know. Dont read this as "I dont like amateurs, I do
like them a lot!".

Tom Renderbrandt



Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 15:08:31
Subject: OuterSpace
From:    [e-mail]


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

I have created some cool models of spacecraft and some nice explodnng
planets.  All I need now is a cool background, like a star map.  I have
photoshop if anyone has any tricks on how to make a convincing star map or if
there is an ftp where I could download some images of real or made up images
of space.

Thanks for any help

TED


Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 15:29:21
Subject: A note from Mr. Mike,
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: gregory denby <[e-mail]>
>
> Impulse probably knows a lot of their users are on a tight budget, and
> don't want to buy more memory every time a new feature is added.

And yet on CompuServe, they also say that people who want shadows can
simply buy power Pentiums and trace everything.

As I suggested before, why not make it a Subproject render option, so as
not to penalize budget users? Anyway, the future is unclear at this
point: Mike has posted another 4.0 teaser render on CompuServe, showing
a metaballs-modelled abstract sculpture, along with soft shadows created
by a new type of light object. <kneeling> Please, please, let these new
lights work in scanline, not just trace...



Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 15:41:04
Subject: RE:Brush mapping
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi!

The nice thing about Impulses new mapping types is that they is a lot like
Lightwave's. But they got more flexibilety and the fact that you can use a
unlimited amount of em' make Imagine unbeatable in this area. Check any other
software and you will see what I mean. The only thing I could possible ask for
is a couple of new map projection methods such as: Cubic and shape mapping. But

this is of minor importanse.

Later

Tom Renderbrandt



Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 15:42:35
Subject: Impulse
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> I have been an Imagine users for about three years now.  I have one
> question.  Why does it seem as though when you call Impulse that the guy
> you're talking to makes you feel as though he's doing you a favor by
> answering your questions?  I have spoken to this man 2 other times and
> I'm not sure what his name is but his unbelievably rude.

Your comments are quite valid. I've stopped relying on Impulse tech
support entirely.

> 1.  Why is it that when i take a primitive (sphere) and turn it into a
> light, then place it in the stage editor, that after I render the scnene
> there's no sign of ANY light being emited from ANYWHERE.  I've tried
> making the sphere BRIGHT too, but makes NO difference.

When an object has the Light attribute, the light is emitted at the
object's axis location. If the axis is in the middle of the sphere, the
light will hit the inside of the sphere, and end there.

Fortunately, there's an Imagine trick to get around this problem: I hear
that if you make the object a Fog object, light will pass through it
unaffected. If you don't want any visible difference in your object's
appearance, simply set its Fog Length to something really small, like 0.001.

By the way, the Bright attribute has nothing to do with any
light-emitting properties; it simply reduces or eliminates the effect of
illumination on the object's faces.

> 2.  Also there are TIME parameters in a few Essence and Imagine 3.0
> textures...how could you make a LOOPING sea wave or anything with a
> TIME parameter...so I mean that by using 60 frmaes you could get a
> looping animation of sea waves being animated.

You'll have to cross-fade two versions of the texture. Texture 1 will
morph from Time = -1 to zero, and from Mix Value = zero to 1. Texture 2
should have the exact same parameters/axes, etc. as texture 1; Imagine
3.3's new "Dup"licate texture button makes this a snap. Then, change
Texture 2's Time parameter to morph from zero to 1, and from Mix value =
1 to zero.

> 4.  Also why do IMAGINE users have to go out of their way to get the
> "GLOW AROUND LIGHT" effect.  It kinda bugz me whenn Lightwave (I'm sorry
> for mentioning that word but....) users can achieve beautiful lights
> without any hassles.

Agreed. Lightwave's lens flare algorithm is incredibly well-crafted,
offers over a dozen buttons to play with, and the default settings look
photorealistic. It's one area where Lightwave _towers_ over Imagine. Of
course, there are areas where Imagine has the upper hand too, notably in
brush/texture functionality.



Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 15:45:47
Subject: Memory...
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Perry Lucas <[e-mail]>
>
> I made a simple fly in logo (left --> right).  By the 12 frame
> or so part of the object started to dissappear.  By the last
> frame (20) it was completely gone except for 1 letter.  Now, for 1
> object with 7 characters, it should not be dissappearing especially
> with 16 megs of memory on board.  I did this animation in a full
> trace with 2 light sources diminishing intensity, and casting
> shadows
(...)
> p.s.  I did it in scanline and nothing dissappeared from the
> animation.

Do you have multiple large brushmaps? How complex is your logo? (Use the
Find requester to display point/edge/face counts and reply back)

If nothing disappears in scanline, it sounds like a Global Size problem.
In the Action editor, did you set the Global actor's Size bar to 0,0,0?
How large is your logo, anyway? Does any part of it lie beyond 32,767 or
65,535 units from the origin?




Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 15:47:04
Subject: BRUSH MAPS
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi!

Somone asked if I knew where you could get hold of realy good brushes and pic's

to use in Imagine. I uses the lightwave's CD, and lightrom(I think) , but there

should be a lot of cd's that have what you want, both for Amiga and PC. And if
you look in the PD libraries in Magazines and on the Internet you should be able

to find some good ones.
By the way when you want use a brush as a bump as well as bright and color, try

inversing the brush on the bump ones!

Later

Tom Renderbrant



Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 15:59:53
Subject: Quickie!
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> Date: Fri, 21 Jul 1995 02:55:18 +0500
> From: [e-mail]
>
> If anyone is using Imagine 3.0, i just found a very fast way to make a
> tear drop shape, just add a regualr sphere with default size, then go to
> CONFORMATIONS...then pick conform to sphere and just press ok.  There
> you go!

....and if you use two of these teardrops, rotate them slightly and join
them next to each other, you have an instant "heart" shape! This is how
I created the characters in my Hearts animation, on which I've been
dabbling on and off for a year and a half.

Problem is, most people who see this heart shape say, "Oh, a pair of
buttocks!" %^S





Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 17:25:58
Subject: Re: YOU ARE GRILLED!!
From:    [e-mail] (DThompson)


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

Mr. clueless,

>Dave Thompson you wrote this no good piece of mail!

I guess you haven't been following the thread. It started with someone
writing a really obnoxious peice of mail on this subject. Called Imagine
worthless because it didn't have scanline shadows. I get mad for a reason.
Unlike you.
>
>Weeeeeelll...... First of all I have access to 3 other big rendering packages
>besides Imagine, one of these are Lightwave v4(SGI/PC/AMIGA), second, I dont
>whine about Impulses programing abilities wich I think is sometimes bril.
>And to be honest I think that any serious user of Imagine want all the
features
>that their neighbour has, after all it is their most liked software and they
>want it to be the best,fastest,packed etc etc!.
>We well understand that Impulse cant put every wish into Imagine, but a healty

>debate is a good place start to see if there are any opinion about the subject

>in question and if there are other ways to do it. So Dave if you cant stand a
>debate please go whine somwhere else!?

I'm sorry you took this personally. This was a healthy debate that you
joined late in the game. As far as whining is concerned, had you addressed
any of my points I might say you were right in principle, but since you seem
to rather call names, then I think you are the whiner. Your letter changes
nothing in favor of scanline shadows. What I magine needs more of is
animation capabilities, not a fix on a renderer that works fine and aint
broke. Every proffessional uses other packages, and if one doesn't have what
they need, you move on to the next one. This letter is a culmination of the
frustration of the last 2 months reading all the letters on this mail list
from people using 2.0 griping about features they don't have but are on 3.3,
wish lists that pretty much repeat each other, and now a debate on a feature
Imagine doesn't need initiated by people who don't have the rendering speed
to do raytracing. Second guess Impulse all you want, but let's get over it
and use this list as a way of finding out more about the existing program.
Call yourselves what you want, but whiner is as good a name as any.

Dave Thompson - no silly pretentious nickname
>
>Tom RenderBrandt
>
>
>
>



Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 17:32:07
Subject: Re:GRILLED
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi Dave Thompson!

I'm sorry I did jump to conclusions on that matter, and you have to have me
excused. And a big barf to the dude you was refering to! I totaly agree with
your mail grilling me, ouch. I realise that I joined the discusion a bit late
and didnt catch all the mail's. Friends?

But I will keep my nickname!

Tom Renderbrandt Granberg



Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 19:51:37
Subject: Particle Bug in 3.3??!??
From:    [e-mail]


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

 This very weird, I assign particle spheres  to an object like a plane and
the particles look like  octohedrons or whatever you call them they do not
look anything like spheres, can anyone help?




Thanx in advance


Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 20:45:41
Subject: Re: A note from Mr. Mike,
From:    [e-mail]


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

Scanline shadows are made by making a "depth" map for each light.  The depth
map is just an array of distances from the light. when the scanline starts
for each pixel the distance from a light is calculated then checked against
the value in the map. If the value is greater then the value in the map then
that point is shadowed.   Depth maps are just like image maps but they can
have 48-bit per pixel values(depending on the accuracy) so they inhale ram!
 The other way is to trace the shadows.  This way is kinda dumb (and dumber)
because in raytracing 80% of the time is in tracing the shadows.  In a
scanline renderer with traced shadows you gain very little speed.

                                                           ---Lum


Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 22:08:22
Subject: Re: A note from Mr. Mike,
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

> <kneeling> Please, please, let these new lights work in scanline,
> not just trace...

<joining you>

:->

Andrey

ZIPtag * Slit your wrists - it will lower your blood pressure



Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 22:48:11
Subject: Faq
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

Hey,

      I got the FAQ#7 ok, from whatever kind soul was nice enough to
send it out to everyone,--only parts 5 and 6 came to me weird.

      The first four parts were straight ascii's; five and six came as
uu's, which is cool,--only they wouldn't decode.

      Anyone else experience this problem?

      Thanks in a trance.


Date:    Saturday, 22 July 1995 23:54:09
Subject: The bumps slide off my slug!
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

How's that for a catchy title? <g>

I finally tried the "Conform to path" animation function in Imagine.
It's wild! Really works well. I qualify it as a low effort/high return
effect. Unfortunately, the slug-like shape doesn't hold its bumps very
well. You see, I gave the slug a Dinoskin texture, and tried to lock it
to a state so the bumps would stretch and move along with the slug, but
I can't get the hang of it. (I haven't used States much, you see)

Is there a way to use the "lock to state" feature to fix a texture to a
deforming object, even if the deformation is _not_ the result of
morphing between several states, but rather the result of using "conform
to path"?



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 01:09:31
Subject: Re: A few Imagine questions
From:    Damon LaCaille <[e-mail]>


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



On Sun, 23 Jul 1995, Charles Blaquiere wrote:

>
> You missed a thread on that topic by about two weeks. Fortunately, I
> saved my contribution to it, which I'm sending you in e-mail.
>

Thank you very much!  I certainly appreciate it. I've gotten I think 7
FAQs from Aminet that I'm perusing through so perhaps I'll come across
some good stuff in there.

> A standard 10M Amiga 3000 is also what I've been using for the last
> 3 1/2 years. Perhaps you'd like to further explain what you mean by
> ugly? Try to be detailed, and even technical. Heck, we're not afraid of
> dense, unscrutable jargon -- we're Imagine users! <pounding chest>
>

So I'm not the only one with a standard 3000, good. I don't feel so left
behind! I'd imagine (no pun intended, heh) that most regular "hobby"
users have equivalent systems?  Anyways, for the graphics problem, it
seems that every picture I render looks terrible. By this, I mean that
the object is not crisp and clear. It's kind of dark (even when I have
the light source right in front of it at 255!). And the object itself has
discolored edges, meaning that it looks almost as if you're looking at an
object without your glasses on if you have astigmatism. Kind of more like
a double edge than a discolored edge actually.  Is this making any sense?
Well thanks again for sending the e-mail!  Certainly hope I can get up to
speed and talk the jargon like all of these great Imagine users!

Damon



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 01:30:50
Subject: A few Imagine questions
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Damon LaCaille <[e-mail]>
>
> First off, I'm very new to Imagine (just bought 2.0 used).  I'd like to
> know how the people who make money with it actually do it. Do you charge
> by the frame? What about quality of picture? Length of animation or
> number of objects in it? I'm curious as to the pay scale and how it is
> calculated.

You missed a thread on that topic by about two weeks. Fortunately, I
saved my contribution to it, which I'm sending you in e-mail.

> Also, why is it that ALL of my renders seem UGLY! (no smart comments
> because I'm new, heh) They don't even look like they're in the right
> graphics mode!  I have a standard ECS 10MB 3000/25 (2/8).

A standard 10M Amiga 3000 is also what I've been using for the last
3 1/2 years. Perhaps you'd like to further explain what you mean by
ugly? Try to be detailed, and even technical. Heck, we're not afraid of
dense, unscrutable jargon -- we're Imagine users! <pounding chest>


Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 01:39:22
Subject: Re: ArtDepartment problem
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Darryl, on Jul 21 you wrote:

> I use ADPro to convert Imagine files (see Imagine does get mentioned in
> this posting! ).
> I have an A3000 (2MB Graphics memory) running ADpro 2.5 and an A2000 (1MB
> graphics memory) running version 1.0 of ADpro.
>
> Now for the funny bit:
> I can load an large image and convert it on the 2000, but the same image
> causes a "Not enough Video memory" error on the 3000.
> I have no other tasks running on either, so nothing takes up the memory.
> The error message shows how much memory I need, which, when I flip back to
> Workbench, it show I have more than the amount required.
>
> Perhaps my 3000 is not set up correctly?
>
> Any ideas would be appreciated.

How much FAST mem do you have and what is ADPro's MAXMEM tooltype set to?
I've never had that error message. If your internal buffer is so large that
it requires all of your FAST RAM and some of your CHIP, you may not have
enough left over to display the image.

-- Bob


  : Robert (Bob) Byrne : [e-mail] :
  :   Amiga  A3000/25  :  Ballina, NSW  Australia  :



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 01:39:52
Subject: Re: A note from Mr. Mike,
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Andrey Zmievskiy <[e-mail]>
>
> > <kneeling> Please, please, let these new lights work in scanline,
> > not just trace...
>
> <joining you>
>
> :->

Bad news. Mike Halvorson just wrote to say (among other comments) that
4.0 soft shadows will only be available in trace mode. Better save up
for those Pentium, guys and gals.

Good news is, I _am_ saving up for a Pentium, so I _will_ soon have soft
shadows. Yay. I guess.




Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 01:51:19
Subject: Imagine 4.0?
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> does anyone know if Impulse is going to add the glowing (lightwave)
> lights which we all see on TV?  I know alot of you guys dont care for
> it, but its just a really cool thing to have.

Well, they keep trying, but so far the results fall far short of
Lightwave. Of course, try and get Imagine's powerful brush/texture with
parameter/axis morphing in Lightwave -- each program has its strengths.

> Also what is Metaballs?

Metaballs, the way I see it in my theoretical perception, is a modelling
tool where you place points in space. Each point is the center of a
spherical force field, which can be negative by the way. The final
object is built from the "skin" that results from joining all the points
in space where the sum of all the forcefields equals a certain number.

It's easier to visualize (and explain) in two dimensions. A single
control point will create a circle. Two points placed closely will
create an outline that looks like those biology reels in school, showing
a dividing cell; something like this:
   __   __
  /  \_/  \
 <    _    >
  \__/ \__/

Add a third point, with a stronger force field, to the right of the
existing two, and the object looks like this:

             ____
           _/    \_
          /        \
   __   _/          \
  /  \_/             |
 <    _              |
  \__/ \_            |
         \          /
          \_      _/
            \____/

If you have seen "Star Trek VI: the undiscovered country", and remember
the scene where globs of purple Klingon blood float around and merge in
the (temporarily) zero-gravity environment of the Klingon ambassadorial
ship, you have seen Metaballs at work.



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 02:18:29
Subject: Metaballs
From:    [e-mail]


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

Could someone with access to Compuserve possibly download the metaballs, soft
shadows example and upload it to maybe aminet?  This would give the rest of
us a chance to check it out. Appreciate it!

Rick


Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 02:22:04
Subject: Re: BONES
From:    [e-mail]


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

What you want is Inverse Kinematics.  It works inversely or away from the
parent.

You need the two menu items: Freeze and Constrain.

Use OBJECT mode to pick a bone that you want to place constraints of movement
on.  Try this on a bone about three from the end you're moving.  Try freezing
all of the world axis, this keeps the whole project from moving.  Turn on the
constrain menu item.  Now try moving the last bone axis.  This should move
all of the bones up to the frozen one.  Now update bones.  Good luck.

Rick


Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 03:06:52
Subject: Scanline Shadows
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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



  I admit, scanline shadows would be really, REALLY nice to have.  On the
other hand, Impulse claims that they take far to long to render, so
what's the point.  I've got to agree with Impulse on this one.  What's
the point in scanline rendering something when it wouldn't be much faster
than full trace, except you don't get any of the nice reflections or
refractions?  I'm not a profesional animator(yet:) but I would much
prefer to trace all my animations, even if scanline shadows were
available, because the quality is so much better.  Like someone else
mentioned, let's see the time that would go into working on scanline
shadows instead be put to use speeding up the ray-tracing  engine.

  Sure, there are other packages that offer scanline shadows.  I'm not
too familiar with Lightwave, but what about 3D Studio?  Yup, it's got 'em.
3D Studio costs $3000, so you would kind of expect it.  Of course, you have
to dish out another $1000 for a plug-in module so you can do
ray-tracing.

  Scanline shadows would be great, but if it would be too slow, then let
the programers at Impulse move on to bigger and better things (like
Metaballs:)


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~





Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 04:30:42
Subject: Re: Scanline and Trace
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Charles, on Jul 21 you wrote:

> > From: [e-mail]
> >
> > With a Pentium 120, full frame raytraces of fairly complex scenes only
> > take a minute or so.
>
> Wha..? That's great news! Someone else (Ted?) posted they were getting
> render times of 30 minutes per ray-traced frame!

People are always talking about render times and what one person defines as
a "fairly complex scene" may be trivial to someone else.

How about we define a base scene as a benchmark that everyone can render
for comparison.  This could go in the FAQ for future reference.

Eg. Add a default primitive sphere at 0,0,0. Copy and paste it, translate
it by +75 units in X. Pick the first sphere and repeat but translate -75
units in X.  You now have three intersecting spheres separated by a
distance of 75 units in the X plane. Leave the attributes of SPHERE as
standard, make SPHERE.1 Glass and SPHERE.2 Chrome.
Add a primitive plane, 300x300x10x10. Translate it by +100 units in Y and
leave the attribute as standard.
Add an axis and make it a point light source with shadows on. Translate it
by -500 units in Y.
Pick All objects and Group. Save.
Set FOV to 10 and Zoom to 2. Render.

I'm sure someone will be able to come up with something more appealing but
I'd like to see something that does'nt use textures and uses attributes
that are commonly known. The scene should'nt be too complex so the owners
of slower computers don't have to wait around for hours just to do a test.
A resolution of 640x400 should be suitable for everyone. We would also need
to decide on a common Preferences setting, EDLE etc.

-- Bob


  : Robert (Bob) Byrne : [e-mail] :
  :   Amiga  A3000/25  :  Ballina, NSW  Australia  :



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 07:38:04
Subject: Hack wanted for PC screen size.
From:    [e-mail] (Dave Wilson)


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


                Hey all!!  When I was an Amiga owner there was a way to
"FIX" Imagine
so that you could have it run on whatever size screen you wanted.  Is there
such a
fix for the PC?  If so what program can I use to fix it with and can I run
it in say
1024x768 and have it render to 800x600?  Thanks to who ever can help!


        Also, I'm using that tip of confetti on big black ball for stars and
I'm making the
ball very big, as big as it can go when zoomed out all the way (with out
going off the
edge of view).  When I try to render I get a "World Octsize Too Large"
error.  If I reduce
the size of the ball things are ok.  However, I can't find any mention of
this error or
the seeming concept behind it anywhere in the manual.  What doez this mean
and how
can I make my ball utterly huge?


        PLus, I'm having a hell of a time making a good Sun.  Any suggestions?


        Chow.
{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}
{}                                                             <   President
- BrainWave Productions     {}
{}   Dave Wilson - Imagineer and More  >   Keyboards, Grafx, And Animations
{}
{}     [e-mail]     <            For State Of Affairs.
{}
{}                                                             > "t e C h n
o L O g y   i S   g o D !"         {}
{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 09:28:00
Subject: Re: Rotoscoping
From:    Ayalon Hermony <[e-mail]>


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


Hello,
Sorry for the late reply, just came back from 7 days vacation.
Looking for the same answer myself, specialy that I'll get my Pentium
later today (hope they had enough time to prepare it, ordered before left
off)
In general, the PC has a few cards that's doing the DCTV stuf, I'm still
doing my research about them, will post any answers found.


        How od you come back from 3D ?
Ayalon M. Hermony,    Internet: [e-mail]


On Wed, 12 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> is there any equivalent of DCTV on the pc ? Specifically looking for anything
> that digitizes greater than 640x480. thanx.
>


Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 10:33:42
Subject: Re: Impulse
From:    [e-mail]


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



>3.  Another thing that really bugz me is the HAZE FX.  This is of no
>use when considering that it actually wants you yo input the number of
>PIXELS it should use for HAZING.  FOr example if you have two BRIGHT
>objs, one which is far would have LESS number of HAZED PIXELS than the
>one that is close.

     As a layman, it seems to me that asking for a number of pixels is the
     correct way to do haze. I can't think of a real-world example right
     now, but lights that are close to you should haze as much as lights
     that are far away from you but have the same apparent size and
     brightness. It depends on the amount of light you are receiving (your
     rods and cones aren't judging the distance of the light source)

     Doing the size in *pixels* is a little weird, though, because you
     would have to change the value whenever you change screen
     resolutions...


Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 10:40:58
Subject: Mr. Mike H
From:    [e-mail]


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

Mike

Well for the last time i dont think my letter was "rude".  It might be
that you can't take any criticisms.

ALSO the numbe rof times which I have called your company, i have been
very polite, saying "Hi, how are you doing.  I had a few question.  I am
confused about such and such..."  If you think that that is "rude" then
I dont know what else to say.  If i was rude to the person on the other
end, MR. ATTITUDE, then i wouldn't be surprised for him to give me
attitude either, BUT why would i bring up this point if i had any doubts
about my politeness.


thank you.
PANTERA
[e-mail]




Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 10:44:10
Subject: Edge Line
From:    [e-mail]


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

could someone please explain the three different "edge line" features in
Imagine 3.2?  could someone please tell me how to use them and what they
are for?


Also another feature which would be nice for Imagine 4.0, is if you
could specify how detailed you want your fonts to be once you convert
them from postscript to 3d.  So that if you're doing close ups of a
letter you won't get the unsmooth edge look.


PANTERA
[e-mail]




Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 11:25:24
Subject: Re: Imagine wrong Colours..Fixed!!!
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Dimech)


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

>X-POP3-Rcpt: billd@redback
>Return-Path: [e-mail]
>Subject: Re: Imagine wrong Colours..Fixed!!!
>To: [e-mail] (Bill Dimech)
>Date: Sat, 22 Jul 1995 06:28:37 +1000 (EST)
>From: "" <[e-mail]>
>Cc: [e-mail]
>Content-Length: 1006

In regards to the problem I discussed earlier relating to the fact that
imagine screws up its colours when displaying to my PCI Stingray card I wrote:
>
>> ....... I noticed a button on the Project
>> screen: Use True Color. This was checked. I unchecked in and PRESTO!!!
>> Imagine now displays colours correctly on my Hercules Stingray Card!.
>>
>> Wow!! After two weeks of putting up with odd colours or even worse having to
>> QR in 256 colours(YUK), It was that simple.
>>
>> Golly, I hope that button wasn't there in 3.2. If it was I hope it was an
>> undocumented feature (I feel like a bit of a dill).
>

I got a several replies, but unfortunately I have lead you up the garden path
again.....Wow!! This is getting worse... I need a holiday.

On further investigation, I have discovered that deselecting the button
switches off 24bit. What does that leave me with.....you guessed it 256
colours which has always worked correctly on my card.

In other words the problem still exists... my test page consisted of only a
few colours and it looked like it was fixed. But not so lucky... it is still
a problem trying to get imagine to display correctly in 24bit on some cards.

I have been in contact with Kendall Bennett from SciTech Software (UNIVBE
author), and he has informed me that the latest beta release of UNIVBE
(V5.2) will be available in a few weeks. This will support more of the new
graphics cards.

I will keep IML updated as to whether this fixes imagine's display problem
when it arrives.

I will also perfrom exstensive testing so as to actually supply accurate
information for a change.

Regards BillD
Someone who spends too much time working and not enough time doing what
really matters... Don't Wonder .... Imagine !!!
|



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 12:29:45
Subject: Re: Imagine wrong Colours..Fixed!!!
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

Sorry.
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 13:01:02
Subject: Re: booting IBM Imagine
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Sun, 23 Jul 1995, Old_Man wrote:

>
> After 4 years of Amiga Imagine, I decided to decrease rendering time by
> getting the IBM version. Every time I try to boot Imagine from the C>
> prompt, I get "8037 not present and required". I have tried the readme
> file re noems etc.
>

Do you have a math co-processor?  A math co-processor is required to run
Imagine on the PC.  If you are running an 386SX or 486SX you won't be
able to run Imagine without a co-pro.

Aloha,
      Sharky

[e-mail]/CIS#70614,2011 __   v  Home Page : http://aloha.com/~sharky
WebSurfer & Fun Guy,Funky    __/  \ >*< Home Server:http://www.websharx.com
WWW Page Designs,       ____/    ) | ^  Hawaii Related Links and Etcetera's,
Tech. Planning  /\_____/          } \   3D Modelling & Animation Art,Objects
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(_________ALOHA!_______)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~






Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 13:10:39
Subject: Re: booting IBM Imagine
From:    Damon LaCaille <[e-mail]>


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


On Sun, 23 Jul 1995, Old_Man wrote:

>
> After 4 years of Amiga Imagine, I decided to decrease rendering time by
> getting the IBM version. Every time I try to boot Imagine from the C>
> prompt, I get "8037 not present and required". I have tried the readme
> file re noems etc.
>
> Any ideas will be greatly appreciated
>
> Thanks
> Bill

Bill, if it says "80387" not present, then it means you have a 386
without a math co-processor.  There is however a program out there that
will let you emulate a 80387 math co, unfortunately, I can't remember
what it is right now (never worried about it after I bought my 486 ;)

However, I love my Amiga more! (Even a slow 3000/25 :)

Damon



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 13:13:04
Subject: Re: A few Imagine questions
From:    Damon LaCaille <[e-mail]>


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



On Sun, 23 Jul 1995, Charles Blaquiere wrote:

>
> Are you able to UUencode a sample picture and mail it to me? I'd like to
> see what you're describing.
>

(This is quite embarrassing)

Well, I hope you forgive me for this, but I figured it out, kind of. I
think it was the viewable settings that had me messed up. I believe it
was because I had HAM, HIRES, and LACE all picked and was saving as a
12-bit RGBN file... what a combo eh?  Sorry again... it's looking better
now (like an actual Amiga HAM picture, whew!)

Thanks for your offer of help! I feel lucky to have this mailing list as
a resource of great news and support.

Damon



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 14:01:11
Subject: Re: The bumps slide off my slug!
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

Hey Charles,

      You're right on, about conform to path.  It's a rush.  And it
sounds like we're all of the same (twisted) mind, 'cause the first object
I tried to conform to a path was a worm/slug creature.

      Like you, I wanted my textures to 'stick' to the animal's hide.
So here's how I managed it.

      With your basic slug object, create a state, call it '0,'
'piggiepie,' or anything BUT 'DEFAULT.'  (Except for Bones, which some
kind imaginoid pointed out to me, don't name -anything-  DEFAULT, or it's
your own fault).

      Now, so long as you lock all your textures/brushes to this state
'0,' they should stick throughout the conform-path.

      My only problem here is that if my slug/worm flies by the
camera too close, the texture loses its illusion of 3d, and
looks like a flat pattern on the skin.  But hey, back off, and it looks
cool.


Good luck, fellow sicko.


Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 14:03:08
Subject: Re: HOW MANY!
From:    [e-mail]


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

Hi Tom Renderbrant

Count me as one. You have read about my new job and all.
Eight years experience, many more to come hopefully 8-)

Rod Macey: [e-mail] - Pre-press/Graphic Designer
Home: A2000/30 FPU 4MB RAM [soon to be 12 8-)] Imagine 3.0
Work: Power Macs, Sun Sparc & Pee Cees too.
"Sometimes the hard way is the only way!"



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 14:06:26
Subject: Re: Imagine 3.3 PC bug
From:    William Eric Donoho <[e-mail]>


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

On Fri, 21 Jul 1995, Chris Hall wrote:

> >>From [e-mail] Fri Jul 21 17:53:10 1995
> >Date: Fri, 21 Jul 1995 10:06:10 -0400 (EDT)
> >From: William Eric Donoho <[e-mail]>
> >To: [e-mail]
> >Subject: Imagine 3.3 PC bug
> >
> >
> >I'll preface this by saying that this problem occurrs only after I've
> >jumped in and out of the attributes editor. IE, I can't reliably
> >reproduce the problem. The problem only rears it's ugly head when I'm
> >trying to do some work!
> >
> >Symptoms:
> >While the sphere/plane is being rendered in the attributes window, the
> >mouse locks up. While the sphere/plane is rendering, I can't move any
> >sliders, hit "OK" or "CANCEL", or "Next", etc, etc.
> >Also, the mouse becomes inactive/locks-up while the perspective window is
> >redrawn.
> >Also, this problem appears when displaying a quickrender. And guess what?
> >Since the mouse (keyboard also) is locked-up, I can't get out of the
> >quickrender view, so I have to re-boot. Yuck!
> >
> >Net effect:
> >Loss of productivity.
> >
> >My solution:
> >I have two solutions: 1) Exit and then restart imagine, or re-boot. 2)
> >Wait for Imagine 4.0 and hope this bug is fixed.
> >
> >Eric Donoho              | "Let's go to burger king and get
> >Louisville, KY USA       | a chicken sandwich!"
> >[e-mail]
> >
> >
> Have you tried a newer mouse driver. It might work.
> Chris Hall.
>
> |-------------------------------------------|\
> | You have been spoken to by                ||
> | Chris Hall                                ||
> | A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
> | Great Briton                              ||
> |                                           ||
> | E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
> | Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
> | HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
> |                                           ||
> | Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
> |          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
> |                                           ||
> |-------------------------------------------||
>  \-------------------------------------------\
>
>

How could it be the mouse driver when the keyboard (escape key) doesn't
work either?

I'll try a new mouse driver.


Eric Donoho              | "Let's go to burger king and get
Louisville, KY USA       | a chicken sandwich!"
[e-mail]




Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 14:09:00
Subject: Re: Memory...
From:    [e-mail] (Matt Kropp)


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

>  This is starting to erk me a little...
>
>I made a simple fly in logo (left --> right).  By the 12 frame
>or so part of the object started to dissappear.  By the last
>frame (20) it was completely gone except for 1 letter.  Now, for 1
>object with 7 characters, it should not be dissappearing especially
>with 16 megs of memory on board.  I did this animation in a full
>trace with 2 light sources diminishing intensity, and casting
>shadows
>
>I had also chosen one frame arbitraurly and rendered it to
>see if it made a difference.  Still, 4 of the 7 characters
>were missing from the rendered picture.  Whats going on with
>this?
>
>--Perry
>
>p.s.  I did it in scanline and nothing dissappeared from the
>animation.
>

I read somewhere that Ray Tracing in Imagine is limited to a World size of
1024x1024x1024.
If you go into the stage editor and Multi-Select everything, then use the
Transform function to scale everything down by 50% or more, I'd bet good
money that the objects show up again.
Matt Kropp

______________________________________________________________________

Internet:   [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
WWW:     http://www.moscow.com/homepages/[e-mail]
______________________________________________________________________



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 14:11:30
Subject: "info" button bug in 3.3 gives bad date
From:    William Eric Donoho <[e-mail]>


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


The 3.3 PC version of imagine displayed the wrong day of week when I
selected "info" on a frame.

It said "Sun July 21 1995".

Did the 21st fall on a sunday?

Eric Donoho              | "Let's go to burger king and get
Louisville, KY USA       | a chicken sandwich!"
[e-mail]




Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 14:23:28
Subject: What is the official IML FAQ ftp site?
From:    William Eric Donoho <[e-mail]>


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



Looking for latest IML faq.
What is its offical ftp site?

Thanks

Eric Donoho              | "Let's go to burger king and get
Louisville, KY USA       | a chicken sandwich!"
[e-mail]




Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 16:07:00
Subject: Impulse & IML (Long messa
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


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

-> From: Ted Stethem <[e-mail]>->   But, for some reaso
n, Imagine and this mailing list tends to hav=e a-> certain hostility associated
 with it that I don't see occurring wi=th-> other 3D modeling/rendering program.
Really? You should read comp.sys.animation, comp.sys.raytrace,comp.sys.packages.
lightwave or the Lightwave Mail List sometime.Not only do they get hostile about
 packages...but operating systemson which they run. :)->   There is somebody tha
t answers the phone at Impulse and he seems= to-> represent the same attitude. T
hat person is almost always in an ex=tre-> foul mood and I think sometimes his m
ood transfers to some users t=hat-> start out innocently enough looking for addi
tional technical help =or-> product info.True. That's why I never call them anym
ore.->   As most of you well know, Mike Halvorson can come across the sam=e w->
in email, although, believe it or not, he has mellowed considerabl=y i-> the pas
t two years!REALLY? ;)->   It is just my experience, after using Imagine for over two years= an-> frequenting this list for about the same amoun
t of time, that ther=e i-> repetitive sequence of events. It usually goes like t
his:->   Users start discussing particular bugs or the desire for certain-> feat
ures, usually already available in competitive programs. Then-> somebody will ju
mp in with some comment of whiny nitpickers that c=an'-> appreciate the great pr
ogram they already have.                   -> examples deleted <-True....but I t
hink there should be at least a month grace periodafter release of a new version
 on "feature begging" so we can at leas=tget an idea what was "RIGHT" about the
current version.->   What is funny about this is that after a period of time, af
ter-> providing all the reasons against doing something, Impulse will of=ten-> t
ake a stab at providing the very feature they argued against (as =in-> case of L
ens Flares).Heck, you didn't even mention "promised features" that never wereinc
luded. Maybe Impulse inserted "requested features" over "promisedones" just to spite us. <g>->   But, there is a tendency for contradictory prac
tices. For exampl=e,-> people have heard from Mike that Impulse will continue to
 support =the-> Amiga. Yet, we are already seeing textures and effects that are
on=ly-> available for the PC with the statement they will not be available= fo->
 the Amiga.This is a trend not confined to Impulse. Lightwave users are suspecti
=ngthe same thing down the line. It's also a subject conducive to SystemWars tha
t have absolutely nothing to do with marketing strategiesdevelopers have to plan
 in order to survive.->   There was a lot of hoopla that selectable screen mode
sizes-> would be available (finally) in V3.2. What we got was IF you have =a-> R
etina board, yes, or a PC.sniff...sniff. Hmmmm, do I smell COFFEE?-> sizes/modes
.  And that is why I wouldn't hold my breath for a Wind=ows-> version, because t
o run under Windows, a program has no choice but= to-> Windows compliant and mak
e external library calls.The Windows platform, like it or not, is something that even Impulsecannot ignore. Especially Windows '95. You'll see a
 Windows version.->   Don't worry, for all those that have suggested, "If you do
n't li=ke-> find another program", I will take your snotty advice.I don't recall
 anyone giving that advice.....but I do recall somesaying they use various packa
ges for specific strengths of thatpackage. Remember the old "baby with the bathw
ater" cliche?-> Imagine out of my toolbox but I am just about through using it f
or= my-> main rendering tool. I have just been waiting for a certain compet=ito-
> become a stand-alone program, and have most of the features of Ima=gin-> that
it didn't have, and already has features that it sounds like =Ima-> will never h
ave.Gee...could that "certain competitor" be Lightwave? If so, wait untilyou cal
l New Tek's customer support line. If not.....nevermind.   /--------------------
----------           ___   ___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen
     / __  /__/ /__/  /_   \ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /___/ / \  /  /  /     / \  | [e-mail]
 HAUS BBS (805-683-1388)  |           "Irony can make revenge a welcome alternat
ive"   \_____________________________________________________________--- =FE Int
erNet - GraFX Haus BBS - Santa Barbara, Ca - [phone]

Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 16:13:13
Subject: "info" button bug in 3.3 gives bad date
From:    Scott F Tracy <[e-mail]>


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

Forwarded message:
> From [e-mail] Sun Jul 23 15:02:36 1995
> Posted-Date: Sun, 23 Jul 1995 15:02:35 -0500
> Received-Date: Sun, 23 Jul 1995 15:02:35 -0500
> Date: Sun, 23 Jul 1995 13:11:30 -0400 (EDT)
> From: William Eric Donoho <[e-mail]>
> To: [e-mail]
> Subject: "info" button bug in 3.3 gives bad date
> In-Reply-To: <[e-mail]>
> Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>
>
> The 3.3 PC version of imagine displayed the wrong day of week when I
> selected "info" on a frame.
>
> It said "Sun July 21 1995".
>
> Did the 21st fall on a sunday?
>
> Eric Donoho              | "Let's go to burger king and get
> Louisville, KY USA       | a chicken sandwich!"
> [e-mail]
>
>
>



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 16:32:00
Subject: Re: Imagine wrong Colours
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


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

-> From: [e-mail] (Bill Dimech)-> I got a several replies, but unfortunat
ely I have lead you up the =gar-> again.....Wow!! This is getting worse... I nee
d a holiday.->-> On further investigation, I have discovered that deselecting th
e b=utt-> switches off 24bit. What does that leave me with.....you guessed i=t 2
-> colours which has always worked correctly on my card.Ok, here's the way you c
an tell if UniVesa is working with your card.=46rom the Project Menu, click Supe
rVGA and highlight "Show availableDisplay Modes". It should present you with a l
ittle box. Keep clickin=g"OK" and it will go through all the display modes Imagi
ne can usewith your card and driver. If you never see:    Mode 121: 640x480x1677
7216then you ain't there yet. If you have the right VESA driver, youshould see e
very display mode and color palette that your paricularcard can display under no
rmal operation.=2E..good luck.   /------------------------------           ___
 ___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen                     / __  /__/ /__/  /_   \ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /___/ / \  /  /
/     / \  | [e-mail]     HAUS BBS (805-683-1388)
|           "Irony can make revenge a welcome alternative"   \__________________
___________________________________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Haus BBS - S
anta Barbara, Ca - [phone]

Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 16:40:00
Subject: Metaballs Uncovered
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


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

-> From: Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>->-> If you have seen "Star Trek VI: the
 undiscovered country", and rem=emb-> the scene where globs of purple Klingon bl
ood float around and mer=ge-> the (temporarily) zero-gravity environment of the
Klingon ambassad=ori-> ship, you have seen Metaballs at work.So are Metaballs mo
re of an animation tool than a modelling tool?=2E.or both?Other than globs of fr
ee floating blood, what are some other examples= ofwhat they are good for? (...s
ounds interesting..)   /------------------------------           ___   ___  ___
  ___  | Mike van der Sommen                     / __  /__/ /__/  /_   \ /  | Sa
nta Barbara, Ca.                     /___/ / \  /  /  /     / \  | mike.vanderso
[e-mail]     HAUS BBS (805-683-1388)  |           "Irony can mak
e revenge a welcome alternative"   \____________________________________________
_________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Haus BBS - Santa Barbara, Ca - (805) 6
83-1388

Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 16:46:00
Subject: Hack wanted for PC screen
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


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

-> From: [e-mail] (Dave Wilson)->->                 Hey al
l!!  When I was an Amiga owner there was a w=ay-> "FIX" Imagine so that you coul
d have it run on whatever size scree=n y-> wanted.  Is th such a fix for the PC?
 If so what program can I use= to-> fix it with and can I r it in say 1024x768 a
nd have it render to-> 800x600?  Thanks to who ever can help!Not really a "hack"
, but a designed program. It's called UniVesa andthe shareware version is availa
ble almost everywhere.   /------------------------------           ___   ___  __
_   ___  | Mike van der Sommen                     / __  /__/ /__/  /_   \ /  |
Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /___/ / \  /  /  /     / \  | mike.vander
[e-mail]     HAUS BBS (805-683-1388)  |           "Irony can m
ake revenge a welcome alternative"   \__________________________________________
___________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Haus BBS - Santa Barbara, Ca - (805)
 683-1388

Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 16:59:02
Subject: T3dinfo beta testers wanted
From:    [e-mail]


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

Yaba daba doo fellows,

    I'm searching for Amiga/PC Imagineers to beta test a util I wrote, it writes

via stdout info about TDDD objects, it manages NAME, SHP2, SHAP, POSI, AXIS,
SIZE, BBOX, PNTS, EDGE, FACE, COLR, REFL, TRAN, SPC1, CLST, RLST, TLST, TXT3,
BRS4, FOGL, PRP1, INT1, PART, PTFN, FGR2, PTH2, FOR2, BBSG, SBSG Imagine v2.9+
sub chunks  and  SHAP, TPAR, SURF, MTTR, SPEC, PRP0, INTS, STRY, OBSV, OTRK,
OSTR, FADE, SKYC, AMBI, GLB0, EXTR, MTRX, LOAD  Turbo Silver v3.0 chunks.

    This util will be freeware and I'll release, obviously, ANSI C source code,
please help me!   My next goal should be rewrite the Amiga version using Amiga
default libraries to make it much user friendly and give users the possibility
to modify some parameters (attributes/textures/brushes/point-face-edge editing/
/particles/bones/lights/axis trasformation/...).

    Email me if You can help me, I'll upload to Aminet/priv directory both Amiga

(SAS C) and PC (Borland C v3.1 and Watcom C v10 / DOS4GW) releases.


I had a dream, When I was young,
A dream of sweet illusion,
A glimpse of hope and unity,
And visions of one sweet union,
But a cold wind blows,
And a dark rain falls,
And in my heart it shows,
Look what they've done to my dream.


"Imagine Mailing List, IML FAQer"

--- Wizard signing off....



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 16:59:56
Subject: Old TDDD sub chunks???
From:    [e-mail]


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

Yaba daba doo Imagineers,

        where can I find TDDD / FGRP sub-chunk (face subgroup) specs?  Either
Imagine v2.9+ and Turbo Silver v3.0 file format specs havent the description
for this chunk.


"Imagine Mailing List,IML FAQer"



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 17:10:02
Subject: Booting IBM Imagine
From:    Old_Man <[e-mail]>


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


After 4 years of Amiga Imagine, I decided to decrease rendering time by
getting the IBM version. Every time I try to boot Imagine from the C>
prompt, I get "8037 not present and required". I have tried the readme
file re noems etc.

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated

Thanks
Bill



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 17:26:47
Subject: Re: Tear Drop Quickie
From:    James Cheseborough <[e-mail]>


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

Good tip, but Steve Worley wrote about this years ago in Understanding
Imagine 2.0, so lets give him credit.

On Sat, 22 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> Just found a QUICKY way to make a tear drop (water drop) shape.  All you
> do is add a sphere in the detail editor, then go to CONFORMATIONS,
> select CONFORM TO SPHERE and just pres ok.  THERE you GO!  Hope you guys
> get "some" use out of this.
>
> PANTERA
> [e-mail]
>
>
>


Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 17:33:18
Subject: Re: Wishlist -- Improved starfield
From:    [e-mail] (Gregory Helleren)


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

Hi Fernando (Fernando D'Andrea), in <[e-mail]> on Jul 20
you wrote:

> Dave wrote this:
> >
> > Specifically, I would like the ability to give the stars a random
> > range of grey values (simulating the varying brightnesses of real
> > stars in the sky; and to optionally concentrate the stars'
> > positions towards a plane ("Milky Way" effect) or a point
> > ("Globular Cluster" effect).
> >
> >
>     Other nice idea is to add a function to choose betewen random
> stars and constelations, as a real sky. Certainly hard to add, but
> fine. Sorrry the poor English, and the crazy idea too.
>
I can just see the requester now...
Latitude:      Longitude:
Time:          Date:
Visibility:    Cloud cover:
Street lighting:
Zodiac Sign:
Mother's maiden name:
Meteor frequency:
UFO frequency:

Any other suggestions :)

Love Peace and Pecs
Gregg

--
+------------------------------------------///\/\/\_Amiga Technologies_/\/\+
  Gregory Helleren      AMIGA is REBORN  /// Lecturer Information Technology
  Developer - LaseRage                  ///  SEMC TAFE Western Australia
  Ferndale W.A. Australia  ___/\___/\\\///   [e-mail]
  CBMNET:[e-mail]\XX/    [e-mail]
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+




Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 18:31:00
Subject: Re: booting IBM Imagine
From:    [e-mail] (Matt Kropp)


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

>Old_Man <[e-mail]>
>
>After 4 years of Amiga Imagine, I decided to decrease rendering time by
>getting the IBM version. Every time I try to boot Imagine from the C>
>prompt, I get "8037 not present and required". I have tried the readme
>file re noems etc.
>
>Any ideas will be greatly appreciated
>
>Thanks
>Bill

Well, here is the really obvious question, what kind of CPU do you have?

If it is a 80386 then you need to make sure you have a 80387 math
coprocessor installed (and you would have gotten faster render times with an
Amiga probably).

If it is a 80486, is it a 486SX?  The 80486SX does not have the build in
math coprocessor enabled, and you have to install a seperate coprocessor chip.


If it is a NextGen 586, you need a seperate math coprocessor.

Basicly, if it is not a 486DX, or a Pentium, you are going to need a math
copocessor chip installed.  I don't know if Imagine PC works with non Intel
math coprocessors like Weitek, or the NextGen math chips.
Matt Kropp

______________________________________________________________________

Internet:   [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
WWW:     http://www.moscow.com/homepages/[e-mail]
______________________________________________________________________



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 19:05:03
Subject: Re: Mr. Mike H
From:    Gerard Menendez <[e-mail]>


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



On Sat, 22 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> To the owner of Impulse:
>
> As far as you telling me that my letter was rude, I DON'T think so.  If
> you were the person that I talked to or whoever it was, there is NO
> EXCUSE in the world for that kinda of an attitude.  Just because I am
> asking a few questions doesnt mean that the person has to give me an
> attitude and make me feel like I'm wasting his time.  Now if we were in


Several people have danced around the issue of who answers the phone
poorly at Impulse.

Not me.

Mike H. has zero customer support skills.  I have never seen the attitude
that comes from him coming from an owner before.  He'll send me a catty
little piece of mail in response to this I'm sure.

Imagine is a great program, a great value, and Impulse gets a lot of
heat it really doesn't deserve.  Everyone's ship date's slip, everyone
tries to include more features than make final cut.  Mike is just the
burden we bear if we want to use the software.

Gerard






Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 20:34:10
Subject: Re: booting IBM Imagine
From:    Old_Man <[e-mail]>


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

Thanks very much for the information. I thought that when I added the
Overdrive it included a math coprocessor, but I will check.

Bill


On Sun, 23 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> On Sun, 23 Jul 1995, Old_Man wrote:
>
> >
> > After 4 years of Amiga Imagine, I decided to decrease rendering time by
> > getting the IBM version. Every time I try to boot Imagine from the C>
> > prompt, I get "8037 not present and required". I have tried the readme
> > file re noems etc.
> >
>
> Do you have a math co-processor?  A math co-processor is required to run
> Imagine on the PC.  If you are running an 386SX or 486SX you won't be
> able to run Imagine without a co-pro.
>
> Aloha,
>     Sharky
>
> [e-mail]/CIS#70614,2011 __   v  Home Page : http://aloha.com/~sharky
> WebSurfer & Fun Guy,Funky    __/  \ >*< Home Server:http://www.websharx.com
> WWW Page Designs,       ____/    ) | ^  Hawaii Related Links and Etcetera's,
> Tech. Planning  /\_____/          } \   3D Modelling & Animation Art,Objects
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(_________ALOHA!_______)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

>
>
>
>
>


Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 20:44:57
Subject: Re: Scanline and Trace
From:    Marty Nussbaum <[e-mail]>


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

On Fri, 21 Jul 1995, Charles Blaquiere wrote:

> > From: [e-mail]
> >
> > With a Pentium 120, full frame raytraces of fairly complex scenes only
> > take a minute or so.
>
> Wha..? That's great news! Someone else (Ted?) posted they were getting
> render times of 30 minutes per ray-traced frame!

Depending on the complexity of the sceen. I use a Pentium 90 and my
rendering times range from 1 minute to 1 hour per frame in Ray-trace.

              Marty

              ***************         _ _ /|
              *    ACK!!    *         \'o.O'
              *  Hairball!  *         =(___)=
              ***************            U




Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 22:15:59
Subject: BIG Bug in PC 3.3 ?
From:    Jim Shinosky <[e-mail]>


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


Alrighty then!  I found what seems to be a real nasty bug in Imagine 3.3.
Here's the scenario:

I was, and still am, in the middle of a very large animation using 3.2.
Suddenly 3.3 came in the mail and I was very happy!  The first problem
I found with it was that it creates a whole new directory for itself as
opposed to placing it within the 3.0 directory like 3.1 and 3.2 did.  The
reason this causes problems is because Imagine looks for directories to be
under the main directory.  For instance if you are working with 3.2 on the
PC your main directory will be "IM30" and projects will have subdirectories
under that.  When I work with a project, say "Term1", I also create an
objects directory under that.  When I load the object into the action editor
it references it like this: "term1/objects/ship1.obj".  It doesn't
qualify it by the main imagine directory;  when working with 3.2 it assumes
the main directory is IM30, and IM33 if working with version 3.3.  This
is bad.  I had to go into quite a few actor bars and manually qualify them
to look in the IM30 directory.  However, the Effects bars could not be
changed.  I had to delete them and re-add them.  This is also bad.

But wait!  There's more!  That isn't even the reason I'm writing this stupid
post.  Here's the REAL BUG:

In my animation I have some spotlights and a mountain object, among other
things that I created in version 3.2. The spotlights have the "Linear"
texture applied along the length to fade them out towards the end, and
the mountains just have a simple mountain texture mapped repeatedly over
the surface.  Now, in 3.3 I quickrendered the objects in the detail editor
and they looked exactly the same as they did in 3.2.  However, when I go
to the project, or stage editor and render the scene, things get weird.

The spotlights seem to lose the linear texture so that they no longer fade
out at the ends and the mountain object turns bright and almost white.  It's
as if Imagine used my image map as a color map and as a bright map and
something else to make it look more white.  It's very strange and very
frustrating especially when it works in the detail editor.  Just to make sure
I went back to version 3.2 to check on it in the project editor and it's
fine.  Anyone else have any problems like this?  Anyone have any solutions?


Also, I wanted to say a few things about all the hubbub going on about
people not being happy with Imagine:  All of you professionals, so-called
professionals, and amateurs(which includes me) who sit there and gripe about
Imagine not being proessional enough for you,  just look at the price tag and
come out of your dreamland already.  Sure, I posted some things that I'd like
to see in future versions, but it wasn't in the form of a gripe.  It was
an informational post telling everyone, Impulse included,  what I'd like to
see.  After all, Impulse may have their own vision for where they'd like
Imagine to be but that doesn't preclude them from taking suggestions, even
from an amateur.

There are still many things not implemented in Imagine that I'd like to see
but I won't complain about it because my pocketbook is a lot lighter than
somebody else who owns Lightwave or 3DStudio.  Would I like to have
Lightwave?  You bet I would.  But I can't afford it right now and maybe not
for a long time since I just bought a house.  And that my friends is
Imagine's number one strength:  It's price/performance ratio.  In fact,
I'd be willing to step out on a limb and say that the overwhelming
majority of Imagine users are nothing more than hobbyists like myself.  Which
means price comes before performance(as much as we like performance!).

Well, enough venting.  My spleen is tired.

Jim Shinosky






Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 22:24:12
Subject: Essence + 2.0
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Whitaker)


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

Hi there,  I was wondering in Essence 1 is compatable with Imagine 2.0.
Thanks

Robert whitaker
[e-mail]



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 23:51:00
Subject: Re: Memory...
From:    [e-mail] (Matt Kropp)


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

>> I read somewhere that Ray Tracing in Imagine is limited to a World size of
>> 1024x1024x1024.
>
>Not so!This is just the default world size.
>
>> If you go into the stage editor and Multi-Select everything, then use
>the > Transform function to scale everything down by 50% or more, I'd bet
>good > money that the objects show up again.
>
>Or like myself and other have suggested setup the globals size bar to
>0,0,0 so the world size will fit the objects on the stage.
>
>
>William
>
I guess what I had read was that the internal effect of setting the Global
size bar to 0,0,0 was that everything on the stage was automatically scaled
to fit into 1024x1024x1024.  Scaling seems to have an effect on rendering
speed too.  As an experiment set the global size to 1024x1024x1024.  Try
taking a fairly complex model, scale it down very small, zoom the camera so
the object fills the view, then do a ray trace.  Scale the object and camera
up so that its bounding box fits as close to 1024x1024x1024 and do another
ray trace.  Compare the times.  The smaller scaled object will take longer
to render.

Also, in the past I've had strange problems show up in animations where
there was movement over large distances and trying to use the Global size
0,0,0.  It seemed as though it was rescaling each frame of the animation and
not doing a very good job of it.  The objects seemed slightly discontinuous
from frame to frame, but I haven't seen that happen for several rev numbers.
I guess I got a little suspicious of the Global size 0,0,0 and do things the
hard way occasionaly.

Matt Kropp

______________________________________________________________________

Internet:   [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
WWW:     http://www.moscow.com/homepages/[e-mail]
______________________________________________________________________



Date:    Sunday, 23 July 1995 23:51:26
Subject: DCTV
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

Hey y'all,

      This may seem off topic,--but I swear on John Wayne's ghost it's
pertinent.

      Do any of you know of a util that will convert DCTV pix BACK to
straight 24bit pix?  Going the other way's no prob,--but coming back
isn't so easy.

      (I do have "readdctv," and it's better than nothing, but not by
much).

      I'm eternally grape-leaved.


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 00:06:00
Subject: Re: Mr. Mike H
From:    [e-mail] (Matt Kropp)


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


>Mike H. has zero customer support skills.  I have never seen the attitude
>that comes from him coming from an owner before.  He'll send me a catty
>little piece of mail in response to this I'm sure.
>
>Imagine is a great program, a great value, and Impulse gets a lot of
>heat it really doesn't deserve.  Everyone's ship date's slip, everyone
>tries to include more features than make final cut.  Mike is just the
>burden we bear if we want to use the software.
>
>Gerard
>

I always got the impression that Impulse was being run by a bunch of high
school students with no business or social skills.  Have any of you ever had
the misfortune of trying to read the Imagine 2.0 manual?  Whoever wrote that
must have ditched a lot of high school english classes.  But I must say that
I am very happy with the 3.0 manual, it is on par with much higher priced
software.  Also, the new features in v3.3 really push Imagine into the next
level.  Overall, its a excellent value, even if you have to deal with
attitude now and then.  Just a note though, there is a lot more money to be
made in return customers than trying to generate new customers.  The last
thing any company should do is alienate the customers it already has.

..
Matt Kropp

______________________________________________________________________

Internet:   [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
WWW:     http://www.moscow.com/homepages/[e-mail]
______________________________________________________________________



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 00:13:00
Subject: Re: BIG Bug in PC 3.3 ?
From:    [e-mail] (Matt Kropp)


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

>  When I load the object into the action editor
>it references it like this: "term1/objects/ship1.obj".  It doesn't
>qualify it by the main imagine directory;  when working with 3.2 it assumes
>the main directory is IM30, and IM33 if working with version 3.3.  This
>is bad.  I had to go into quite a few actor bars and manually qualify them
>to look in the IM30 directory.  However, the Effects bars could not be
>changed.  I had to delete them and re-add them.  This is also bad.
>

Why don't you just do what I did and copy your project files out of the IM30
directory and into the IM33 directory?

>  However, when I go
>to the project, or stage editor and render the scene, things get weird.
>
>The spotlights seem to lose the linear texture so that they no longer fade
>out at the ends and the mountain object turns bright and almost white.  It's
>as if Imagine used my image map as a color map and as a bright map and
>something else to make it look more white.  It's very strange and very
>frustrating especially when it works in the detail editor.  Just to make sure
>I went back to version 3.2 to check on it in the project editor and it's
>fine.  Anyone else have any problems like this?  Anyone have any solutions?
>

Is your render method the same in Quick Render as it is Project?
Matt Kropp

______________________________________________________________________

Internet:   [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
WWW:     http://www.moscow.com/homepages/[e-mail]
______________________________________________________________________



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 00:24:33
Subject: VER4.0
From:    [e-mail]


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

--- Received from GITD.PSG024  4523                 24JUL95  13.20
  -> IBMMAIL.INTERNET      IBMMAIL INTERNET               IBM
Hi all]

Just wondering...someone wrote that V4.0 will only be
available to owners of V3.0?  (can't remember who wrote this)
The reason for this question is that if it's true then
I will purchase v3.0 right away, with the upgrade thingy.

Please help.
Vems


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 00:43:54
Subject: Re: booting IBM Imagine
From:    [e-mail]


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

> I get "8037 not present and required

Sounds like you have something less then a 486 and you don't have a math
coprocesser.  I think that means you need one.

Rick


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 00:44:15
Subject: Re: Edge Line
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-23 19:16:30 EDT, you write:

>explain the three different "edge line" features

Add two planes next to each other with a space between.
Join them.
Multipick the center edges of one and click on "Set Edge Line".
Unpick
Next, multipick the center edges of the other one and click "Fill Edge Line".
Magic.  Works good on unusual shapes.

"Smooth Edge Line" take multiple continuous edges a aligns them in smooth
arcs.

>So that if you're doing close ups of a letter you won't get the unsmooth
edge look.

I haven't tried it yet but 3.3 has a smooth fracture feature that might do
the same thing.

Rick


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 02:31:18
Subject: Planet Shading Demo Pic
From:    [e-mail]


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

Dear George --

>> I want to thank everyone for their suggestions about my Planetary
>> shading/lighting problem...

>YES! I knew that was what you were looking for. Now can you post a shot
>somewhere so we can all see it?

Okay, here is a sample JPEG render of my newly shaded
planet (using the GasGiant Texture, by the way)...
================================================================
begin 644 pic0002.jpg
M_]C_X``02D9)1@`!````10!0``#__@`=)%9%4CH@4$5'1T52(#$N,R`H,C,N'
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M*`"BBB@`HHHH`LWGWE^E5JLWGWE^E5JNI\3+J?$%%%%00%%%%`!1110`4444;
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``
end
size 8388
=============================================

             -- Dave



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 02:33:08
Subject: Metaballs (was: Imagine 4.0?)
From:    [e-mail]


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

>> Also what is Metaballs?

>Metaballs, the way I see it in my theoretical perception, is a modelling
>tool where you place points in space. Each point is the center of a
>spherical force field, which can be negative by the way. The final
>object is built from the "skin" that results from joining all the points
>in space where the sum of all the forcefields equals a certain number...

[Graphical illustration of metaballs omitted]

>If you have seen "Star Trek VI: the undiscovered country", and remember
>the scene where globs of purple Klingon blood float around and merge in
>the (temporarily) zero-gravity environment of the Klingon ambassadorial
>ship, you have seen Metaballs at work.

But metaballs apparently have much greater potential than that!
I am looking at the back of the current issue of _3D Artist_, and
there is an ad for MetaREYES, a metaball modeling program for
_3D Studio_.  It shows two pairs of "before and after" pictures--
one of a Tyrannosaurus rex and one of a female torso.  The "before"
shows these two objects constructed by balls; the "after" shows the
result after the "skin" has been generated from the balls...WOW!
The woman's torso looks like it's straight out of _Grey's Anatomy_
and the T. rex looks like it's straight out of _Jurassic Park_!
If these demo pictures are for real, 3D splines eat your heart out!!!

                         -- Dave (Put me down as a proponent for
                                  metaballs in Imagine 4.0!)



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 02:33:47
Subject: Constraints
From:    [e-mail]


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

I've been working hard to learn the ins and outs of bones
and I am having trouble understanding what "Constraints"
and "Inverse Kinimatics" are supposed to do and why they
are so important.  Could someone explain to me please?

Thanks!   -- Dave



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 03:46:01
Subject: Re: HOW MANY!
From:    [e-mail] (John Prusinski)


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


>>Hi there!
>>
>>How many of you guys do graphics for a living, graphic design, animators
etc. It
>>would be interesting to know. Dont read this as "I dont like amateurs, I do
>>like them a lot!".
>>
>>Tom Renderbrandt
>>
>>
>
>


Me.  I have a multimedia/animation4video/Web publishing business for which
Imagine
is my primary 3D tool.

John Prusinski



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 08:07:25
Subject: Re: Impulse & IML (Long message!)
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-22 19:24:05 EDT, [e-mail]
(Ted Stethem) writes:

>  But, for some reason, Imagine and this mailing list tends to have a
>certain hostility associated with it that I don't see occurring with any
>other 3D modeling/rendering program.
>  I see flame wars erupt over the most inoccuous subjects, and in the
>beginning, it shocked me that there were so many hostile people
>here. But, after awhile, it was easy to develop the same attitude.

I think the reason for this is that Imagine is so cheap that many people can
use it and it is available to users who may still be in their teens and not
very mature.  I think a lot of the "whining" posts reflect the immaturity of
a small portion of Imagine users.  However they seem to stand out in what is
really a very interesting and informative list.  There is nothing wrong with
making a comment about features that should or could be implemented.  But
there is no use getting upset or angry about it.

s.g.


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 08:21:56
Subject: Re: booting IBM Imagine
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-23 17:13:26 EDT, [e-mail] (Old_Man)
writes:

>After 4 years of Amiga Imagine, I decided to decrease rendering time by
>getting the IBM version. Every time I try to boot Imagine from the C>
>prompt, I get "8037 not present and required". I have tried the readme
>file re noems etc.
>
>Any ideas will be greatly appreciated
>
>Thanks
>Bill

I believe it is asking for a coprocessor which your system does not have.


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 08:28:49
Subject: Re: Mr. Mike H
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-23 23:12:55 EDT, [e-mail] (Gerard Menendez)
writes:

>Mike H. has zero customer support skills.  I have never seen the attitude
>that comes from him coming from an owner before.  He'll send me a catty
>little piece of mail in response to this I'm sure.
>
>

Mike H. has never been anything less than polite to me, but then I have never
been rude to him.  I suppose if I was he would also be to me.  At any rate
I'm sure that many people who call ask questions that could have been easily
answered by the documentation provided.  Unfortunately many people do not
want to seek out the information in the book they would rather call Impulse.
 I know this is true because many questions that are clearly answered in the
manual are asked here quite frequently.

s.g.


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 08:32:52
Subject: Re: BIG Bug in PC 3.3 ?
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-23 23:39:12 EDT, [e-mail] (Jim Shinosky)
writes:

>I was, and still am, in the middle of a very large animation using 3.2.
>Suddenly 3.3 came in the mail and I was very happy!  The first problem
>I found with it was that it creates a whole new directory for itself as
>opposed to placing it within the 3.0 directory like 3.1 and 3.2 did.

It is not necessary with the 3.3 installation to install to a directory
called IM33.  When you install it simply type the path of your old directory
and it will install it there.  It will tell you that it will overwrite
anything in that directory with the same name.  I did it and it worked fine.
 I have kept my Imagine directory named Imagine.  That way with each new
version I don't have to worry about projects looking for directories that are
no longer there.

s.g.


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 08:37:39
Subject: Re: BIG Bug in PC 3.3 ?
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-23 23:39:12 EDT, [e-mail] (Jim Shinosky)
writes:

>You bet I would.  But I can't afford it right now and maybe not
>for a long time since I just bought a house.  And that my friends is
>Imagine's number one strength:  It's price/performance ratio.

NewTek doesn't want your money anyways or they would have offered a
competitive upgrade, and they havent.  I have also heard the LightWave
Windows doesn't offer all of the features of the Amiga version.  Not sure if
this is true.  Imagine, side by side comparison with LightWave in most of the
magazines I have read has always had as many features as LW.  I think it
probably has more with all of the new stuff in 3.3 and just wait till 4.0 you
are going to love it.

s.g.


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 09:02:58
Subject: Opalvision anyone
From:    [e-mail]


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


     anyone else using Opalvision out there? I hear about Imagine 3.3
     supporting other screen modes with 256 colors on the Retina, I believe
     it was. Did Impulse continue to support Opalvision?


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 10:05:32
Subject: An old challenge - How are diamonds done ?
From:    "JOSEPH F. HART" <[e-mail]>


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

Greetings.....

     I have asked this question several times over the years,
and have received many kind responses, but no one has ever found
a good solution to it.  Since the list has grown greatly since
the last time I posted it, especially with all our good
MSDOS/Windows colleagues, I thought it might be interesting to
pose it again.  And the question is......[ripping envelope...]

Has anyone ever found a good way to make a reasonably transparent
diamond with the proper refractive effects at an index of 2.42 ?

Hollow diamonds with an second interior set of faces do not
work, since the inner faces tend to cancel the refraction as
one would expect.

Solid diamonds lose most of their transparency for no apparent
reason, and appear largely black.

I have been careful to use a properly designed standard
brilliant cut, with all the correct angles and facets present.
There is no black anywhere in the environment.

Any ideas ?  Has anyone encountered this with other faceted
shapes as well ?  ( I have......:-(
I could really use a solution, as I would like to do a lot of
work with faceted transparent objects.

Also, since I am currently lucky enough to be a beneficiary
of the Economic New World Odor....er....Order, I must work
with Imagine 2.0, and cannot upgrade until finances improve
even more than they have so far .....:-)

With Thanks

___________________________________________________________________
                  |         Internet: [e-mail]
Joseph Hart       |     /// Plink   : OSS542
Niagara Falls, NY | \\\///  Ham call: WA2SND
                  |  \XX/   FreeNet : [e-mail]
                  |     *** AMIGA - Computers for REAL MEN ***
===================================================================


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 10:08:47
Subject: I've been hearing an evil speculation...
From:    "JOSEPH F. HART" <[e-mail]>


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

     I have been seeing an evil speculation in comp.sys.amiga.graphics
which I have not seen discussed here yet.  It is something to the
effect that an announcement will be made regarding the future
of Imagine on the Amiga after 4.0.  Is there any concern for
that aforementioned future ?

[ Latching onto Mr. Halvorson's ankle, sounds of begging,
  pleading, whining, and groveling....]

___________________________________________________________________
                  |         Internet: [e-mail]
Joseph Hart       |     /// Plink   : OSS542
Niagara Falls, NY | \\\///  Ham call: WA2SND
                  |  \XX/   FreeNet : [e-mail]
                  |     *** AMIGA - Computers for REAL MEN ***
===================================================================


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 10:14:20
Subject: Re: A note from Mr. Mike,
From:    [e-mail] (Patrick Sauvageau)


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

Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>:
>(...)
>Anyway, the future is unclear at this
>point: Mike has posted another 4.0 teaser render on CompuServe, showing
>a metaballs-modelled abstract sculpture, along with soft shadows created
>by a new type of light object. <kneeling> Please, please, let these new
>lights work in scanline, not just trace...

Where is it possible to see thoses images ?
-----
Patrick Sauvageau
([e-mail])



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 10:25:39
Subject: Re: BIG Bug in PC 3.3 ?
From:    Vance Schowalter <[e-mail]>


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

On Mon, 24 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> In a message dated 95-07-23 23:39:12 EDT, [e-mail] (Jim Shinosky)
> writes:
>
> >You bet I would.  But I can't afford it right now and maybe not
> >for a long time since I just bought a house.  And that my friends is
> >Imagine's number one strength:  It's price/performance ratio.
>
> NewTek doesn't want your money anyways or they would have offered a
> competitive upgrade, and they havent.  I have also heard the LightWave
> Windows doesn't offer all of the features of the Amiga version.  Not sure if
> this is true.  Imagine, side by side comparison with LightWave in most of the
> magazines I have read has always had as many features as LW.  I think it
> probably has more with all of the new stuff in 3.3 and just wait till 4.0 you
> are going to love it.
>
> s.g.
>

It's true. Lightwave for Windows does not have the popular and extremely
useful ARexx macros that the Amiga version enjoys.

*******************************************
*    Vance Schowalter >>Image Master<<    *
*                                         *
* Internet: [e-mail] *
*                                         *
*     "Affable little snow creature."     *
*******************************************



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 10:29:49
Subject: Re[2]: BIG Bug in PC 3.3 ?
From:    [e-mail]


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





>  When I load the object into the action editor
>it references it like this: "term1/objects/ship1.obj".  It doesn't
>qualify it by the main imagine directory;  when working with 3.2 it assumes
>the main directory is IM30, and IM33 if working with version 3.3.  This
>is bad.  I had to go into quite a few actor bars and manually qualify them
>to look in the IM30 directory.  However, the Effects bars could not be
>changed.  I had to delete them and re-add them.  This is also bad.
>

     It was a MAJOR FLAW in imagine to force the directory structure to be
     off of one subdirectory. The way it is done now is correct.

     The reason: One of my friends and I exchange projects often. But, if
     he did NOT have the exact same directory name as I, we would have to
     re-build the WHOLE project. Of course, that doesn't work if you have
     300 frames to render, 150 on each machine.

     Now, I can give him an archive with the dir. structure, and he can put
     it in wherever he has his projects at and it'll render fine off of the
     same project.

     Yes, we both have a PROJETS directory under our main Imagine
     directory. My main dir is at C:\IM33, and his is at C:\IM3. But this
     works.

     -AC




Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 10:51:50
Subject: Books in imagine
From:    Tineke de Jonge <[e-mail]>


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

I am new to imagine and searching for titles of good learning books to
introduce me to imagine.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Greetings, Tineke de Jonge



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 11:24:47
Subject: Is Imagine shareware?
From:    [e-mail] (Simon Wilkinson)


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

Hi there folks.

I'm new to Imagine, although I have used version 2. I'm just wondering, is
Imagine a shareware package, and if so can anyone tell how much it costs and
point me in the right direction as regards buying it for the PC?

Also, if there are any FAQ's available, could some kind individual please
inform me where they are??


Cheers,

Si.


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 11:46:04
Subject: Re: DCTV to VCR problem
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

Hey TK,

      Your problem may be staring you in the face:  PAL.  I think the
VHS video standard is NTSC.  Never been to Europe as an adult, so I may
we miles off on this one.

      As for that output on your A500, greyscale is what you get.
Sorry.  I nearly flipped when I saw that plug on my 500, and thought,
here we go. But alas.  (What it taught me was to re-appreciate B & W).


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 11:59:09
Subject: Re: Memory...
From:    [e-mail]


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

> I read somewhere that Ray Tracing in Imagine is limited to a World size of
> 1024x1024x1024.

Not so!This is just the default world size.

> If you go into the stage editor and Multi-Select everything, then use
the > Transform function to scale everything down by 50% or more, I'd bet
good > money that the objects show up again.

Or like myself and other have suggested setup the globals size bar to
0,0,0 so the world size will fit the objects on the stage.


William




Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 12:59:04
Subject: Re: Scanline and Trace
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

> How about we define a base scene as a benchmark that everyone can render
> for comparison.  This could go in the FAQ for future reference.

Such a test has already been done on Compuserve, and if anyone wants,
I can upload the results to Aminet or post them here.

Andrey


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 12:59:37
Subject: DCTV to VCR problem
From:    Thomas Krpic-Mocilar <[e-mail]>


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

Hi,

I have bought a DCTV (PAL) from AmigaOberland more than a year ago and only
used it for digitizing (and printing) pictures. I used it on my A3000
without problems.

But when I tried to get a DCTV animation on video tape, I got no result.
I connected the "video out" interface of the DCTV with the "Scart"
interface of a Hitachi VHS-recorder. Although I think the cable was
correct and I did everything right, no (!) picture appeared on the VCR
screen. Has anyone faced similar problems? Is something wrong with the DCTV
unit?

I then tried the same with my old A500 (2.5 meg RAM). The DCTV didn't
even produce a colour image at all but only greyscale pictures. The
animation recording didn't work as well. Why is there no colour output on
the A500 (RGB output)?

I would be glad if I received help.

T.K.



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 13:19:45
Subject: Re: Particle Bug in 3.3??!??
From:    Dave Rhodes <[e-mail]>


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

Hiya Broctune,

>  This very weird, I assign particle spheres  to an object like a plane and
> the particles look like  octohedrons or whatever you call them they do not
> look anything like spheres, can anyone help?

  Could it be that you've assigned CSG spheres to the particles, but you're
rendering in scanline, and not trace ?

--

~===========================================================================~
 Dave Rhodes - [e-mail] - Yorkshire - England -
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 13:41:16
Subject: Re: Quickie!
From:    Dave Rhodes <[e-mail]>


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

Hi


> > tear drop shape, just add a regualr sphere with default size, then go to
> > CONFORMATIONS...then pick conform to sphere and just press ok.  There
>
> ...and if you use two of these teardrops, rotate them slightly and join
> them next to each other, you have an instant "heart" shape! This is how
>
> Problem is, most people who see this heart shape say, "Oh, a pair of
> buttocks!" %^S

  ...Bummer ! (sorry)

 Also, om a similar theme, if you were to add a primitive cone, using the
defaults, (except making the no. of vertical sections about 5) and then
conform that to a sphere (with default settings) you get a very good
starting point for a shark/fish fin, even with a little curl on the top.
    I've had a lot of fun with conforming the primitives, and although the
results are sometimes totally unpredictable, I usually end up learning
something that I can use somewhere else.

--

~===========================================================================~
 Dave Rhodes - [e-mail] - Yorkshire - England -
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 14:18:26
Subject: Re: Slug bumps slide in state saga solved
From:    Dave Rhodes <[e-mail]>


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


>  My only problem here is that if my slug/worm flies by the
> camera too close, the texture loses its illusion of 3d, and
> looks like a flat pattern on the skin.  But hey, back off, and it looks
> cool.                                            ^^^^ ^^^
                                          I'm backing, I'm backing....

> Good luck, fellow sicko.

  ..So do these flying slugs leave vapour trails then ?


--

~===========================================================================~
 Dave Rhodes - [e-mail] - Yorkshire - England -
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 14:29:03
Subject: Re: Edge Line
From:    Dave Rhodes <[e-mail]>


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

Hi Pantera

> Also another feature which would be nice for Imagine 4.0, is if you
> could specify how detailed you want your fonts to be once you convert
> them from postscript to 3d.  So that if you're doing close ups of a
> letter you won't get the unsmooth edge look.

 Ahhh.. but you can...

  Before you add points, just scale the axis (only) either up or down,
to make either less or more points, edges and faces as necessary.

--

~===========================================================================~
 Dave Rhodes - [e-mail] - Yorkshire - England -
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 14:51:18
Subject: Dare I enter a mathematical discussion?
From:    [e-mail]


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



>Exactly.  And one of the great advantages to this "shadow mapping" method is
>that you can blur the map, and give soft shadows!  Not exactly accurate, but a

>great cheat!  Many high-end (as well as low end) systems use this method.

     From the description of these depth maps in an earlier message, I'm
     not sure I understand how yo are making soft shadows. If you "blur"
     the map with one of those averaging techniques where each value
     becomes closer to its neighbors, it seems you would just be damaging
     your depth map so shadows are assigned improperly. To have soft
     shadows with the technique that someone summarized in this group, you
     would take a point on an object, check its distance from each light,
     compare the distance with the corresponding point on the light's depth
     map, and then LOOK AROUND THE DEPTH MAP FOR THE 'EDGE' OF A SHADOW to
     decide whether you are in a region for soft shadows. I don't know how
     that could work anyway.

     Did I misunderstand the idea of depth maps? Please share.


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 14:55:00
Subject: Booting IBM Imagine
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


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

-> From: Old_Man <[e-mail]>->-> After 4 years of Amiga Imagine, I
decided to decrease rendering ti=me-> getting the IBM version. Every time I try
to boot Imagine from the= C>-> prompt, I get "8037 not present and required". I
have tried the re=adm-> file re noems etc.->-> Any ideas will be greatly appreci
atedYou either have a 386 without a math co-processor or a 486sx chip, wh=ichdoe
s not have a coprocessor built-in.   /------------------------------           _
__   ___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen                     / __  /__/ /__/
/_   \ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /___/ / \  /  /  /     / \  |
 [e-mail]     HAUS BBS (805-683-1388)  |
"Irony can make revenge a welcome alternative"   \______________________________
_______________________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Haus BBS - Santa Barbara
, Ca - [phone]

Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 16:22:31
Subject: Re: Metaballs Uncovered
From:    Gerard Menendez <[e-mail]>


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



On Mon, 24 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> Metaballs is a modelling tool and a very good one, you should check out 3d
> artist # 19 I think and they have an article about a product for 3dstudio,
> but still has some good facts
>


This month's Computer Graphics World has a tutorial on making a dinosaur
with metaballs using 3d Studio and the MetaReyes plug-in.

Gerard



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 17:24:54
Subject: A few Questions
From:    [e-mail]


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

hi guys if anyone could commet on anY of the comments:



1.  The "METABALLS" which is going to be featured in 4.0, how hard is it
to model using this technique, i mean is it alot harder than using the
traditional detail editor tools?


2.  I still have questions about the BONES feature, let's say that i had
a "can" object of coke for example.  ANd i wanted to make it dance.
Here's a sketch:

..........
|||||||||
|||||||||
..........
|||||||||
|||||||||
..........
|||||||||
|||||||||
..........    (Assume that the can has many more "horizontal sections".
Now how could i make it so that when i rotate the top point of the can,
that the bottom section would stay intact, and the others would somehow
i guess "conform" to the rotation of the top points, so that you get a
"bent" can.  If anyone understands what i'm talking aboyt, I'd greatly
appreciate a small example so i could follow.)


3.  I am just kinda curious as to why there are no books (commercial)
covering Imagine, and no I'm not talking about "understanding Imagine
2.0" or "THe Imagine COmpanian", I'm talking about new books covering
the NEW features of Imagine.  With supposedly 50 million users world
wide (as the recent ad says in graphics mags) I would surely expect at
least a few well written books on the software.

4.  Will Imuplse ever feature the famous (overused) lightwave light
effects (lensflare, glow, hallow around light) in the upcominng 4.0.



PANTERA
[e-mail]




Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 17:57:29
Subject: BIG Bug in PC 3.3 ?
From:    Marc Reinig <[e-mail]>


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

>>

 I found with it was that it creates a whole new directory for itself as
 opposed to placing it within the 3.0 directory like 3.1 and 3.2 did.  The
 reason this causes problems is because Imagine looks for directories to be
 under the main directory.

>>

Why not either copy all the new Imagine files
and directories to your old directories or copy the project directories to
your new Imagine directory? Then you don't have to do anything in the Action
editor. Windows will do this easily for you, or I think you can use XCOPY in
DOS.


>> Bugs in spot lights with linear

Directional lights also have another bug: they illuminate outside the
directional area. If you use point source, circular, cast shadows, controlled
fall off and SOFTEDGE.ITX, the illuminated area inside the cone will be
correctly lit, but outside the cone will now be lit as if the light was not
directional.

-Marco



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 18:01:50
Subject: Re: Constraints
From:    [e-mail]


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

Let's first look at bones.  Bones objects are like a family, you start with a
parent, then have children, grandchildren, etc..  Any bones object can have
any number of children but will have only one parent.

There are two ways to manipulate bones objects, directly (there probably is a
better word) or inversely.

When you move an object directly, you're moving from a parent's point of
view.  Any manipulation to you affects all of your children, grandchildren,
etc.  In Imagine you do this by picking in group mode any bones axis and
manipulating it.  This will also move, rotate,etc. any bones objects that are
down the family tree from it.

When you work inversely (Inverse Kinematics) you are working from the child
point of view and affecting all of the way up the family tree.  In Imagine
you do this by clicking on the "Constrain" menu item.

For example, take a human like object.
In direct mode click on the thigh "bone".  Rotate it and the shin bone and
foot bone move with it.
In inverse or constrain mode click on the foot bone.  Rotate it and all of
the other bones in the body move.  This is because you are affecting up the
family tree, and parents always affect down the tree to the other children.

This is where "freeze" comes in.
First click on the hips bone ?:) and click on "freeze" menu item.  Check all
of the axis in world.  This freezes the hips from moving.  Now go back, click
on "constrain", and move the foot bone.  The shin bone and thigh bone move
with the foot bone but nothing else.  You can also use "freeze" to only limit
movement to certain axis.  In the above example you could keep the shin bone
to move only as a knee would bend.  Some programs even allow you to limit
movement in an axis to a certain number of degrees or range of movement.

As it seems to me, direct mode is useful to pose a figure or object in an
unusual pose or where placement is more on looks then on exactness.  Inverse
mode is useful to position a piece of an object in a certain place.
For example, use direct mode to position a cheerleader's arms.  Use inverse
mode to place a person's foot up on a step.

Make sure you watch what mode you are in!  Direct mode use pick group mode
and inverse mode uses pick object mode.

Any more questions, hollar.

Rick



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 18:07:14
Subject: Re: BIG Bug in PC 3.3 ?
From:    Jim Shinosky <[e-mail]>


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


> It is not necessary with the 3.3 installation to install to a directory
> called IM33.  When you install it simply type the path of your old directory
> and it will install it there.  It will tell you that it will overwrite
> anything in that directory with the same name.  I did it and it worked fine.
>  I have kept my Imagine directory named Imagine.  That way with each new
> version I don't have to worry about projects looking for directories that are
> no longer there.
>
> s.g.

Yes, but had I done that it would have written over alot of my 3.2 stuff and
I probably wouldn't have been able to compare the 2 for the major problem
I had with the textures.



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 18:25:00
Subject: Re: Edge Line
From:    [e-mail] (DThompson)


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

At 02:44 PM 7/23/95 +0500, [e-mail] wrote:
>could someone please explain the three different "edge line" features in
>Imagine 3.2?  could someone please tell me how to use them and what they
>are for?
>
>
>Also another feature which would be nice for Imagine 4.0, is if you
>could specify how detailed you want your fonts to be once you convert
>them from postscript to 3d.  So that if you're doing close ups of a
>letter you won't get the unsmooth edge look.



Scale the axis of your spline object. The larger you make it, the more detail.

>
>PANTERA
>[e-mail]
>
>
>
>



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 18:25:31
Subject: Re: A note from Mr. Mike
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Jul 22,  3:45pm, [e-mail] wrote:
>

> Scanline shadows are made by making a "depth" map for each light.  The depth
> map is just an array of distances from the light. when the scanline starts
> for each pixel the distance from a light is calculated then checked against
> the value in the map. If the value is greater then the value in the map then
> that point is shadowed.

Exactly.  And one of the great advantages to this "shadow mapping" method is
that you can blur the map, and give soft shadows!  Not exactly accurate, but a
great cheat!  Many high-end (as well as low end) systems use this method.

It seems that if "budget" buyers were being catered to, so they wouldn't have to

buy more RAM for shadow mapping, then they shouldn't be told to buy new machines

to be able to raytrace.

Anyway, this "debate" is getting out of hand.  There is too much name-calling
and too little listening.  What is wrong with Imagine users wanting some of the
advantages of other systems?

Craig





--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 18:46:15
Subject: Re: Virtual Memory
From:    Damon LaCaille <[e-mail]>


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



On Mon, 24 Jul 1995, Vance Schowalter wrote:

> The reason I'm asking is, I do have virtual memory (VMM) and I use
> brushmaps for a good deal of detailing. I just wanted to see if it would
> be worthwhile for me to upload any models I may make in the future which
> requires alot of memory to render.
>

I might as well reply to this message than create a new message. Does
anybody know if Gigamem works very well w/ Imagine?  I wanted to render a
few objects, but most of them require at least 12-14 megs, and I
unfortunately only have 10.  And by the way, how much is Gigamem?  And
yet one more question put to you, how much is the PC version of Imagine?

Thanks a bunch!
Damon



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 19:04:55
Subject: Re: DCTV to VCR problem
From:    Vance Schowalter <[e-mail]>


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

On Mon, 24 Jul 1995, Mike McCool wrote:

> Hey TK,
>
>     Your problem may be staring you in the face:  PAL.  I think the
> VHS video standard is NTSC.  Never been to Europe as an adult, so I may
> we miles off on this one.

Sorry. VHS can be used with NTSC and PAL. PAL Amiga users must use PAL
video recorders to tape their work.

>
>     As for that output on your A500, greyscale is what you get.
> Sorry.  I nearly flipped when I saw that plug on my 500, and thought,
> here we go. But alas.  (What it taught me was to re-appreciate B & W).
>

CBM used to produce RF modulators for the A500's, which had an optional
RCA video-out jack. The output quality isn't as good as the A1200's video
out, but it's better than nothing. There were (are?) some 3rd party
products of a similar nature for people who didn't want or need genlocks.

*******************************************
*    Vance Schowalter >>Image Master<<    *
*                                         *
* Internet: [e-mail] *
*                                         *
*     "Affable little snow creature."     *
*******************************************



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 19:13:13
Subject: Virtual Memory
From:    Vance Schowalter <[e-mail]>


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

How many of Amiga and PC Imagine users here have virtual memory available
for Imagine?

The reason I'm asking is, I do have virtual memory (VMM) and I use
brushmaps for a good deal of detailing. I just wanted to see if it would
be worthwhile for me to upload any models I may make in the future which
requires alot of memory to render.

The files would be uploaded to AmiNet's Imagine section.


*******************************************
*    Vance Schowalter >>Image Master<<    *
*                                         *
* Internet: [e-mail] *
*                                         *
*     "Affable little snow creature."     *
*******************************************



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 19:57:42
Subject: Re: Memory ...
From:    [e-mail]


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

Hi Mike McCool,
You replied to Perry's orig. post about letters droping off his traced anim.
I had a similar problem recently, and asked the IML about it. World size
seem to be the problem, but when I checked the size was 0,0,0. But
something I did notice was that the size bar for the Global actor was
only on the first frame. Should the size bar for the Global actor be
changed to cover every frame?

Rod Macey: [e-mail] - Pre-press/Graphic Designer
Home: A2000/30 FPU 4MB RAM [soon to be 12 8-)] Imagine 3.0
Work: Power Macs, Sun Sparc & Pee Cees too.
"Sometimes the hard way is the only way!"



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 20:37:30
Subject: Planet lighting continued
From:    [e-mail] (John R. Spencer)


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


I have also run into problems with planetary lighting not looking
right, and I think the problem is not because of soft shadows or
atmospheric refraction or anything, it's because the way real planets
scatter light is more complicated than the model used in Imagine.
I suspect that Imagine uses what astronomers call "Lambertian
scattering", which means that the brightness of a surface is proportional
to the cosine of the angle between the lightsource and the direction
perpendicular to the surface, and is independent of the viewing
angle.

Real surfaces, especially rough solid surfaces like the Moon's, don't
behave like this: for instance they tend to reflect light back
preferentially in the direction of the lightsource so they look
brighter when seen from that direction.  Similar effects cause the
full moon to look like a perfectly flat disk, whereas if you tried
to render the full moon in Imagine, looking at it from the same
direction as the lightsource, it would be much darker at the
edges than in the center.

To make realistically-illuminated planets without ad-hoc workarounds
would require an algorithmic texture that mimicked the anisotropic
way that real surfaces scatter light.  Shouldn't be too hard, as
the "Fakely" texture does something like this.  You would need to
code up a Minnaert function or something similar- I could look up
the equations for anyone who wanted to try this.

For most purposes, the difference between the Lambert shading
that Imagine probably uses, and a more realistic Minnaert
function, would be too subtle to worry about.  But I'm an
astronomer, so I worry about this stuff...

End of photometry lecture!

John Spencer
Lowell Observatory


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 20:52:36
Subject: Global fog disappears in 3.3?
From:    Thomas Gaiser <[e-mail]>


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

Hi Imagineers,
after upgrading to PC Version 3.3 fog from "Globals" seems to disappear
randomly, in quickrender (stage) and in the project editor. E.g. I made
a small animation (20 frames) and  I got 19 pics with and 1 frame
without fog. Did this happen to anybody else? And: Is there a workaround?
Greetings,
Thomas


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 20:54:18
Subject: Re: Metaballs Uncovered
From:    [e-mail]


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

Metaballs is a modelling tool and a very good one, you should check out 3d
artist # 19 I think and they have an article about a product for 3dstudio,
but still has some good facts


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 20:54:53
Subject: Re: A few Imagine questions
From:    Damon LaCaille <[e-mail]>


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



On Tue, 25 Jul 1995, David Nix wrote:

> Damon-
>
> My guess, and its only that, is that you are using the default render
> settings, which I think are HAM 320 x 240 or something like that.
>
> You can go into the Preferences editor and change the setting to IFF-24 bit
> and 640 x 480 (or better, depending on your display card).
>
> Hope this helps
>
> Dave
>

Thanks Dave! Yeah you were right. Since I'm still new to Imagine I hope
y'all can forgive a simple (but obvious) mistake. I'm trying hard to look
through the FAQs for answers to my questions, but most of them are beyond
me anyways right now, and until I can reach a higher level of
understanding with it, it's just a matter of playing around with it.

And FYI, I changed my mode settings for final rendering to be 24-bit
ILBM, 640x400 Trace  (whew, what a difference!)  Then I took it to work
and displayed it on the 486 there w/ a nice graphics card. Wow, even
better! I think I may be needin' to purchase a good video card soon. Any
recommendations anyone? I don't have one yet, but am thinking about
spending about $200-$300 for a used one if all works well with the
finances (we'll see).  I've heard bad things about Opal (even from this
mailing list) and also see lots of Retina Z2's going for about $200 or
so, now this could be good or bad!

Damon



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 21:04:48
Subject: DOF?!
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi!
Can somone please forward the erlier, real enlightnig post about how to use DOF!

Silly me got the mail wet, and it sliped of my cursor and down the
memory drain....Never saw it agin......Yaaaaaaaarrrrgh!?

Pleaaaaase!

Tom Renderbrandt Granberg



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 21:41:43
Subject: Re: opalvision anyone
From:    Scott F Tracy <[e-mail]>


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

>
>
>      anyone else using Opalvision out there? I hear about Imagine 3.3
>      supporting other screen modes with 256 colors on the Retina, I believe
>      it was. Did Impulse continue to support Opalvision?
>

Yes still works with the Opal. But its just for rendering you can't
run imagine screens on the Opal and play with the textureplayground.



Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 21:46:10
Subject: Re: Slug bumps slide in state saga solved
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

>   ..So do these flying slugs leave vapour trails then ?
>
More like frozen slime crystals.  If they're flying high enough, their
effect is similar to the rainbow effect around the sun and moon caused by
stratospheric ice.


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 21:47:51
Subject: Upgrade paths
From:    [e-mail] (Gareth Qually)


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

I have just ordered the Amiga to PC crossgrade. Has anyone else done
this? What I want to know is did they give you the most recent version?
I also want to know if the crossgrade puts you on the update program
(and does that last untill V4?)?

Sorry if it been talked about before. Could you reply to my address,
since I am having a problem recieving the iml.

Thanks, Chow...

[e-mail]

p.s. Has any of you used or own the PC version of Imagemaster R/T (It is
called WinImages R3)? What is it like? Is it as good as the Amiga
version? What do they use for scripting if Arexx is not there?


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 22:15:38
Subject: Re: Particle Bug in 3.3??!??
From:    Dave Rhodes <[e-mail]>


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

In-Reply-To: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Personal
X-MailViewer: Mail 1.15

Hiya Broctune,

>  This very weird, I assign particle spheres  to an object like a plane and
> the particles look like  octohedrons or whatever you call them they do not
> look anything like spheres, can anyone help?

  Could it be that you've assigned CSG spheres to the particles, but you're
rendering in scanline, and not trace ?



--

~===========================================================================~
 Dave Rhodes - [e-mail] - Yorkshire - England -
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 22:27:42
Subject: Re: Scanline and Trace
From:    Dave Rhodes <[e-mail]>


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

> > How about we define a base scene as a benchmark that everyone can render
> > for comparison.  This could go in the FAQ for future reference.

  I think this is a great idea. I also think it would be nice to have some
kind of standard Imagine directory configuration, so that we could swap
projects with each other, (or even just staging files) instead of trying
to describe a complex process in words. It would possibly take up less
space, in some cases. Lots of problems with different versions though.?

> Such a test has already been done on Compuserve, and if anyone wants,
> I can upload the results to Aminet or post them here.
                              ^^^^^^
                            Yes please.

    ...Boy are some of us missing out....
  It also seems that Impulse (Mike H. anyway) are very active on Compuserve,
posting FLC's of new features, list of things to come etc. etc.

 I'm starting to get paranoid about this....

    Do you think they're talking about us now ?  ....


--

~===========================================================================~
 Dave Rhodes - [e-mail] - Yorkshire - England -
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 22:57:15
Subject: Re: Looping Textures
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

On Mon, 24 Jul 1995, Dave Rhodes wrote:

> Hi Charles
>
>      You replied on the IML to this guy about looping textures with a
> time attribute, but I'm all confused by your reply to him !....
>
>    I've read a good tutorial somewhere (duh.. I forget..) which boils down
> to making the time value morph to no-of-frames-1/no-of-frames.
>
>  i.e.  for his 60 frames of sea anim, he would have frame 1 at time=0
>
>   and frame 60 at time=0.9833333333 etc (!), and this would loop as near
> as dammit perfectly.
>             Are we talking about the same things here, or am I on a
> different planet ? !! (one with different sea , presumably ;+)  )
>
>     Sorry if I'm wasting your time...

(After finishing this reply, I realized that it was long and
informative, and shold be posted to the List instead. I hope you don't
take umbrage at my including your _private_ comments; they should be
innocuous enough)

What you're describing applies to cyclical parameters, the most basic
being alignment, where the position at 360 degrees is THE SAME as the
one at 0 degrees. This means that morphing from 0 to 360 degrees would
cause the animation to stutter, since the rotating object would appear
the same at frames 1 and 60. This is why someone would not morph to 360
degrees at frame 60, but 360 degrees at a virtual "frame 61", which
happens to be frame 1 when the looping animation is played back. Since
the morph would rotate the object 360 degrees over 60 frames (from 1 to
61), from 1 to 60 the object would rotate at the same rate, but over 59
frames instead. Thus, the rotation at frame 60 would be 360 * (59/60).

This is the basic reasoning behind morphing parameters where the last
frame would look exactly the same as the first. With such textures as
fractal noise, the appearance at time=1 is quite different from that at
time=0; you can't loop these textures, since they're not based on some
repeating feature, like the 360-degree period of a rotation or some
sine-based function.

In that case, the only thing to do is to create a cross-fade between two
textures, ensuring that on the last frame (*), the appearance of the
object would be the same as on the first frame. If texture A morphs from
time = -1 to time = 0, and texture B morphs from 0 to 1, AND you
cross-fade from "texture B fully visible" to "texture B fully
invisible", you can see that on the first frame, all you see is a
texture (B) using time = 0, and on the last frame you see... a texture (A)
using time = 0. The ends match, and the sequence loops smoothly.

(*) of course, to prevent stuttering, "the last frame" actually means
"the frame after the REAL last frame". To do this, I have a habit of
defining an extra frame in Action, for example "Max. frame" = 61 when
doing a 60-frame animation; I render only frames 1 through 60, even
though some Action editor bars stretch to frame 61. (In the rotation
example above, this would avoid having to enter a clumsy 354 degrees)


Date:    Monday, 24 July 1995 23:17:24
Subject: Re: Professional vs. ?Amateur
From:    Kent Marshall Worley <[e-mail]>


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


The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers looked raytraced to me!


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 00:15:52
Subject: Re: 3.3 maps
From:    [e-mail]


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

I am in second heaven with the new specularity map, I just made a Enterprise
1701 using a color map, a specularity map and a brightness map.  If you keep
your lighting down in the image, you see individual panels showing with
different levels of specularity, and the lights are wonderful with brightness
map.  I still have some problems getting some new maps to show, I think there
are special settings you need for each map in the main attributes section.
 Question, has anybody used Imagine with Win95, and if so, can it just be
another application running in a window?  One of my biggest gripes is going
back and forth to windows to modify a texture.


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 01:55:13
Subject: Re: 3.3 maps
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> I am in second heaven with the new specularity map, I just made a
> Enterprise 1701 using a color map, a specularity map and a brightness
> map.  If you keep your lighting down in the image, you see individual
> panels showing with different levels of specularity,

Yep, until 3.3, Lightwave offered hardness mapping but not Imagine, so I
felt pangs of envy every time I watched Babylon 5.

>  Question, has anybody used Imagine with Win95, and if so, can it just be
> another application running in a window?  One of my biggest gripes is
> going back and forth to windows to modify a texture.

Yes, it can be done:

------------------------------------------------------------
#: 13610 S9/Imagine Users Group
    15-Jun-95  02:50:22
Sb: #13595-#Imagine under Win 95
Fm: Mike Reid 73727,1143

Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 01:58:35
Subject: Re: A note from Mr. Mike,
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Patrick Sauvageau <[e-mail]>
>
> >point: Mike has posted another 4.0 teaser render on CompuServe, showing
> >a metaballs-modelled abstract sculpture, along with soft shadows created
>
> Where is it possible to see thoses images ?

I'm uploading it to Aminet, probably tomorrow if I can get through.
It'll be named AlienArt.jpg, and should be under gfx/3d.



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 02:05:54
Subject: Re: opalvision anyone
From:    [e-mail] (Gregory Helleren)


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

Hi Drew_Perttula (Drew_Perttula), in <[e-mail]
m> on Jul 24 you wrote:
>      anyone else using Opalvision out there? I hear about Imagine 3.3
>      supporting other screen modes with 256 colors on the Retina, I believe
>      it was. Did Impulse continue to support Opalvision?

Yes, Impulse have continued the Firecracker/Opal options for quick rendering.
Of course you need to be running Imagine 2.x/3.x in a PAL/NTSC compatible
mode since Imagine (like many other apps) doesn't seem to be clever enough
to open such a screen *before* engaing the opal card.

You query gave the impression that you want to use Opal in a 256 colour
Workbench emulation mode. This are currently no drivers available to
achieve this, and even if they were, the Opal board is far too slow for
this purpose.

Love Peace and Snacks
Gregg


--
+------------------------------------------///\/\/\_Amiga Technologies_/\/\+
  Gregory Helleren      AMIGA is REBORN  /// Lecturer Information Technology
  Developer - LaseRage                  ///  SEMC TAFE Western Australia
  Ferndale W.A. Australia  ___/\___/\\\///   [e-mail]
  CBMNET:[e-mail]\XX/    [e-mail]
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+




Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 02:10:51
Subject: An old challenge - How are diamonds done ?
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: JOSEPH F. HART <[e-mail]>
>
> Has anyone ever found a good way to make a reasonably transparent
> diamond with the proper refractive effects at an index of 2.42 ?
>
> Solid diamonds lose most of their transparency for no apparent
> reason, and appear largely black.
>
> There is no black anywhere in the environment.

I assume your are ray-tracing, of course. If parts of highly-refractive
objects appear black, it's often because Imagine's Resolve Depth has
been exceeded for those pixels, in which case Imagine throws its hands
up in the air and colors them black. Try doubling your RDSP Preferences
parameter, then re-render the same image and eyeball the old and new
images. If the new images shows less black areas, you're on the right
track, and can keep bumping RDSP up until the problem has disappeared.
The fact that you say no black exists in the environment, strongly
suggests that RDSP is the culprit.



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 02:25:31
Subject: BIG Bug in PC 3.3 ?
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Jim Shinosky <[e-mail]>
>
> reason this causes problems is because Imagine looks for directories to be
> under the main directory.  For instance if you are working with 3.2 on the
> PC your main directory will be "IM30" and projects will have
> subdirectories under that.  When I work with a project, say "Term1", I
> also create an  objects directory under that.  When I load the object
> into the action editor it references it like this:
> "term1/objects/ship1.obj".  It doesn't qualify it by the main imagine
> directory;  when working with 3.2 it assumes the main directory is
> IM30, and IM33 if working with version 3.3.  This is bad.  I had to
> go into quite a few actor bars and manually qualify them to look in
> the IM30 directory.  However, the Effects bars could not be changed.
> I had to delete them and re-add them.  This is also bad.

Yes, Imagine by default uses relative references, starting in the
current directory. The solution to your problem is so simple: if you
want to use one of your old projects in 3.3, simply move the entire
project subdirectory tree from \IM30 to \IM33. All your Action editor
bars will work without a hitch. So, whassa problem?

> But wait!  There's more!  That isn't even the reason I'm writing this
> stupid post.  Here's the REAL BUG:
>
> The spotlights seem to lose the linear texture so that they no longer fade
> out at the ends and the mountain object turns bright and almost white.
> It's as if Imagine used my image map as a color map and as a bright
> map and something else to make it look more white.  It's very strange and
> very frustrating especially when it works in the detail editor.  Just to
> make sure I went back to version 3.2 to check on it in the project
> editor and it's fine.  Anyone else have any problems like this?
> Anyone have any solutions?

I wonder if your texture/brush axes somehow got scaled down to zero.
Presumably, your mountain object has the default attributes, all-white,
which would show if the "mountainy" brushmap has shrunk down to nothing.
Similarly, a Linear texture scaled down to zero, depending on its
position, might seem to disappear.

> Also, I wanted to say a few things about all the hubbub going on about
> people not being happy with Imagine:  All of you professionals, so-called
> professionals, and amateurs(which includes me) who sit there and gripe
> about Imagine not being proessional enough for you,  just look at the
> price tag and come out of your dreamland already.

I agree, and I think many of us do take price into account. And even
though Imagine is the price leader, the 3-D field is very competitive,
and today's star program can easily become yesterday's leftovers, if it
doesn't keep up. The fact remains that shadows, especially soft shadows,
are an important component of any computer-generated imagery. If your
client ever notices the lack of shadows in your work, they'll demand
them -- and if you can't deliver, strike one client from your list.
There are precious few members in my local Amiga animators group who use
Imagine.



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 02:34:10
Subject: Dare I enter a mathematical discussion?
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
>      From the description of these depth maps in an earlier message, I'm
>      not sure I understand how yo are making soft shadows. If you "blur"
>      the map with one of those averaging techniques where each value
>      becomes closer to its neighbors, it seems you would just be damaging
>      your depth map so shadows are assigned improperly.

I agree, this is what I also intuit would happen. However, what if you
supersampled a circular area of the shadow map, say 5 pixels in
diameter, and counted the ratio of shadowed/unshadowed pixels? You could
then modulate the received shadow accordingly. No, wait, that's no good
either -- you'd get one of a few possible discrete values, resulting in
banding and/or pixelization in the soft shadows.

Drat. And I thought I was doing so well.

(My metaballs explanation is wrong too, by the way)



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 02:36:49
Subject: Edge Line
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> Also another feature which would be nice for Imagine 4.0, is if you
> could specify how detailed you want your fonts to be once you convert
> them from postscript to 3d.  So that if you're doing close ups of a
> letter you won't get the unsmooth edge look.

Pantera, that's in the Imagine manual. To get more/less points when
converting from a Postscript outline to a full-fledged Imagine object,
scale the axes before clicking on Add Points.



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 02:38:13
Subject: Essence + 2.0
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Robert Whitaker <[e-mail]>
>
> Hi there,  I was wondering in Essence 1 is compatable with Imagine 2.0.

Heck, Essence is compatible with everything all the way back to Turbo
Silver!



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 02:44:03
Subject: Re: Impulse & IML (Long message!)
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> I think the reason for this is that Imagine is so cheap that many
> people can use it and it is available to users who may still be in
> their teens and not very mature.  I think a lot of the "whining" posts
> reflect the immaturity of a small portion of Imagine users.

I also have the same hunch. You know, when Mike acts as the Ogre From
Hell, he's sometimes had to fight irrational teenagers all morning, I'm
sure. (Katie Ka-Boom, anyone? B^) A lot of us would get testy when faced
with Imagine's constituency.



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 02:47:26
Subject: Re: Memory ...
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> something I did notice was that the size bar for the Global actor was
> only on the first frame. Should the size bar for the Global actor be
> changed to cover every frame?

I don't think so. One of the guiding principles of Imagine is: if an
Action bar (other than Actor) ends at a certain point, its last value
remains for the rest of the animation.

I've never seen this fail. Has anyone had a different experience?


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 02:51:32
Subject: Re: Memory...
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Matt Kropp <[e-mail]>
>
> I read somewhere that Ray Tracing in Imagine is limited to a World size of
> 1024x1024x1024.

It depends on which version of Imagine you own. Early versions, until
2.0 I guess, had the default world size set to 1024. Then, starting at
2.9 I believe, the default was changed to zero, allowing Imagine to
auto-size the world on every frame.

This setting is found in the Action editor's Globals Size bar, by the way.

> If you go into the stage editor and Multi-Select everything, then use the
> Transform function to scale everything down by 50% or more, I'd bet good
> money that the objects show up again.

....but your render times will increase. I believe Imagine splits the world
into eights, repeatedly, until it reaches the octree depth specified in
Preferences. This helps segregate points into separate areas. The
smaller your scene, the more points will be concentrated in fewer
octree regions, and the longer your renders. It's an old Imagine tip:
scale up everything in your scene (objects, lights, camera, everything).
The view will seem the same, but your renders will be faster.



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 02:55:26
Subject: Metaballs Uncovered
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Mike Vandersommen <[e-mail]>
>
> -> From: Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>
> ->
> -> <erroneous description omitted>
>
> So are Metaballs more of an animation tool than a modelling tool?
> ..or both?

They're a modelling tool, but nothing in the Contract With America
prevents companies from allowing metaballs as an animation tool.

> Other than globs of free floating blood, what are some other examples of
> what they are good for? (...sounds interesting..)

Ummm, globs of free-floating saliva? (ewwww)


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 02:59:12
Subject: Re: Metaballs (was: Imagine 4.0?)
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-24 03:46:15 EDT, you write:

>But metaballs apparently have much greater potential than that!
>I am looking at the back of the current issue of _3D Artist_, and
>there is an ad for MetaREYES, a metaball modeling program for
>_3D Studio_.  It shows two pairs of "before and after" pictures--
>one of a Tyrannosaurus rex and one of a female torso.  The "before"
>shows these two objects constructed by balls; the "after" shows the
>result after the "skin" has been generated from the balls...WOW!
>The woman's torso looks like it's straight out of _Grey's Anatomy_
>and the T. rex looks like it's straight out of _Jurassic Park_!
>If these demo pictures are for real, 3D splines eat your heart out!!!

If you have used the shareware version of WinBlob which is essentially a
Metaballs modeler.  You will find that it is not easy at all to create shapes
like the ones you saw on the back of 3D Artist.  Placing the right size balls
in the right place is no easy task.  It's trial and error like everything
else.  If Impulse implements the metaballs modeler in such a way that you can
see the balls shaded as you move them it should make it much easier than
WinBlob however.  Like anything else it is just a tool to aid in making
modeling easier.  Don't get me wrong.  I am very excited about them, I'm just
saying it's no panacea, and I still would like to have a spline modeler in a
future version of Imagine.  There are uses for splines that Metablobs are
inadequate for.  Just my .02, thanks.

stephen g.


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 03:03:55
Subject: Re: Quickie!
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Dave Rhodes <[e-mail]>
>
>  Also, om a similar theme, if you were to add a primitive cone, using the
> defaults, (except making the no. of vertical sections about 5) and then
> conform that to a sphere (with default settings) you get a very good
> starting point for a shark/fish fin, even with a little curl on the top.

Yet another quickie to add to my collection! I'm up to a dozen so far.

>     I've had a lot of fun with conforming the primitives, and although the
> results are sometimes totally unpredictable, I usually end up learning
> something that I can use somewhere else.

Do you, or anyone else, care to share some of the more useful discoveries?



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 03:06:24
Subject: Re: Scanline and Trace
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Robert Byrne <[e-mail]>
>
> How about we define a base scene as a benchmark that everyone can render
> for comparison.  This could go in the FAQ for future reference.

Someone finally did this on CompuServe, after years of online idle
speculation. The results floored me. A Pentium machine rendered

      TWENTY-FIVE

times as fast as my 25 MHz Amiga 3000! I was in shock for days.

P.S. When he publishes the results, I'll post a copy on the List.


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 03:12:42
Subject: Re: Mr. Mike H
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-24 05:27:17 EDT, [e-mail] (Matt Kropp)
writes:

>I always got the impression that Impulse was being run by a bunch of high
>school students with no business or social skills.  Have any of you ever had
>the misfortune of trying to read the Imagine 2.0 manual?  Whoever wrote that
>must have ditched a lot of high school english classes.

Let me see, I wonder how many people would go out and buy a 3D program
written by a bunch of English teachers.  Conversly, I don't see why anyone
should expect a bunch of Programmers to be experts in writing either.  The
manual in 2.0 was difficult to digest I must admit.  However, they did make a
good effort on 3.0 but when you have a list of Imagine experts like on this
one who needs a manual.

s.g.


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 03:21:00
Subject: Pentium chips, chips and salsa
From:    [e-mail]


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

After getting 3.3, and playing with it on the old Amiga, I can no longer bear
the comparable slow rendering times, even with my pp&s 040. While shopping
today, I've noticed that the 133mhz Pentiums are for sale and on the shelves.
I know from direct rendering comparisons that an average raytrace on a 90mhz
Pentium is approx. 4.8 times as fast as my machine, reason enough to change
platforms. I would like any advice from anyone with direct experience with
the newer, faster Pentiums, and from anyone with hardware/software solutions
for networking PCs and Amigas. Please do not consider this the opening round
for a platform "war" (stupid term, really). I'm going to keep my amiga(s), but
there is no denying the rendering speed increase. Please reply to me directly
at [e-mail]
Any help is appreciated.............Bill Graham


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 03:21:43
Subject: Re: Mike H.
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-24 11:29:56 EDT, [e-mail]
(Vance Schowalter) writes:

>I'm currently receiving private e-mail from Mike Halvorson, who is
>basically questioning my emotional stability for dariing to say that I
>didn't receive good tech support. As he wrote on, his style reminded me
>very much of the person I had spoken to. Some are simply saying that it's
>been Mike all along, with his famous barbwire personality.

While I don't disagree that you and others may have had problems relating to
Impulse in the past, I can't really give an objective opinion since I have
not heard any of the conversations.  However, I will say that several people
have posted messages saying things similar to what you are saying.  I have
also heard a lot of people saying that they recieved E-mail shortly
thereafter from Mike H.  If Mike H. doesn't really care about Impulse's image
and public relations, then why does he spend so much time listening and
replying to you and other people's complaints.  It would seem that an
uncaring unprofessional person would not even give you the time of day much
less take the time to read this list to see what Imagine users are saying.
 Does the President of Newtek or any other 3D progam take the time to E-Mail
it's user base.  I seriously doubt it.

s.g.


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 03:45:55
Subject: Re: BIG Bug in PC 3.3 ?
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-24 17:04:49 EDT, [e-mail] (Jim Shinosky)
writes:

>Yes, but had I done that it would have written over alot of my 3.2 stuff and
>I probably wouldn't have been able to compare the 2 for the major problem
>I had with the textures.
>
>
>

Well I did it and it only over wrote the old Imagine files not any of my
objects or any projects.

s.g.


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 05:09:05
Subject: Re: dare I enter a mathematic...
From:    [e-mail]


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

==O snip O==
 and then LOOK AROUND THE DEPTH MAP FOR THE 'EDGE' OF A SHADOW to
     decide whether you are in a region for soft shadows. I don't know how
     that could work anyway.

     Did I misunderstand the idea of depth maps? Please share.
==O snip O==

Well let me explain(I hear you saying "man more math stuff..."):
BLUR is not the correct term, he should have really said "Jitter".
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------
OK, you say what is jitter....
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<()>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well if I had this depth map:  (10x5 array)
0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0
0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0
0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0
If a point is at position 1,1 under the light then its not shadowed, but if
its at 5,2 (math...arrrrgggg :) and not at distance 1 then its also shadowed.
(now go get some coffee and relax :)  OK your back! To jitter you simply
screw up the position of the point and also make it encompass more points.
 Watch, if the jitter is 2 then the max offset is 2 and the point encompasses
twice the number of pixel in the map.(actuall it encompasses 4 pixels)  So if
the point is at 4,1 it really encompasses 4,1 - 4,2 - 5,1 - 5,2 average those
pixels together....you would get: 0.75 so there its partially shadowed!  The
offset would just change its position from 4,1 to 5,2 or something :)

If your still awake and sane...













                                                                       ---Lum


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 07:43:51
Subject: *BUG* DOF in PC version
From:    William Eric Donoho <[e-mail]>


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


I get the dreaded "call impulse" and a flashing cursor at the C:\im33>
prompt when trying to render a pic with depth of field.

Anyone else using the pc version having serious problems with depth of field?

Eric Donoho              | "Let's go to burger king and get
Louisville, KY USA       | a chicken sandwich!"
[e-mail]




Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 09:44:19
Subject: Re[2]: dare I enter a mathematic...
From:    [e-mail]


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


     >Well if I had this depth map:  (10x5 array)
     >0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0
     >0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0
     >0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0
     >0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0
     >0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0
     >If a point is at position 1,1 under the light then its not shadowed,
     >but if its at 5,2 (math...arrrrgggg :) and not at distance 1 then its
     >also shadowed. (now go get some coffee and relax :)  OK your back! To
     >jitter you simply screw up the position of the point and also make it
     >encompass more points.
     >
     >Watch, if the jitter is 2 then the max offset is 2 and the point
     >encompasses twice the number of pixel in the map.(actuall it
     >encompasses 4 pixels)  So if the point is at 4,1 it really
     >encompasses 4,1 - 4,2 - 5,1 - 5,2 average those pixels
     >together....you would get: 0.75 so there its partially shadowed!  The
     >offset would just change its position from 4,1 to 5,2 or something :)
     ----------------------------------------------------------------------


     How is that drawing a _depth_ map??

     a depth map is like:
     22 24 25
     20 25 27
     18 15 21

     and whether you blur or jitter, you still have no way (that I can see)
     to decide how dark the shadow should be. In fact, a blur of these
     numbers would make shadows arbitrarily too big or too small.


       v||||||||||||v parallel light beams

          ooooooo    first object

     oooo?xxxxxxx?ooooooo second object with shadow of first
         ^       ^
       when doing these points, the depth map says "these are the nearest
     points to the light, so they are bright". If we did _more_ distance
     calculations for nearby points on the same _object_, we would see that
     they were dark and we would have the basis to FAKE a soft shadow (we
     used no information about the size of the light, etc.) I don't see how
     this method would give results like when-an-object-gets-close-to-its-
     shadow-the-shadow-gets-crisper


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 09:48:24
Subject: Re: Mr. Mike H
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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

>In a message dated 95-07-24 05:27:17 EDT, [e-mail] (Matt Kropp)
>writes:
>
>>I always got the impression that Impulse was being run by a bunch of high
>>school students with no business or social skills.  Have any of you ever had
>>the misfortune of trying to read the Imagine 2.0 manual?  Whoever wrote that
>>must have ditched a lot of high school english classes.
>
>Let me see, I wonder how many people would go out and buy a 3D program
>written by a bunch of English teachers.  Conversly, I don't see why anyone
>should expect a bunch of Programmers to be experts in writing either.  The
>manual in 2.0 was difficult to digest I must admit.  However, they did make a
>good effort on 3.0 but when you have a list of Imagine experts like on this
>one who needs a manual.
>
>s.g.
>
However, most companies will (should?) hire a professional technical writer
to polish
/write their manuals. This isn't (relatively) expensive, and as we can all
attest,
makes a package much more useable!



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 09:50:42
Subject: Re: Virtual Memory
From:    Vance Schowalter <[e-mail]>


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

On Mon, 24 Jul 1995, Damon LaCaille wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, 24 Jul 1995, Vance Schowalter wrote:
>
> > The reason I'm asking is, I do have virtual memory (VMM) and I use
> > brushmaps for a good deal of detailing. I just wanted to see if it would
> > be worthwhile for me to upload any models I may make in the future which
> > requires alot of memory to render.
> >
>
> I might as well reply to this message than create a new message. Does
> anybody know if Gigamem works very well w/ Imagine?  I wanted to render a
> few objects, but most of them require at least 12-14 megs, and I
> unfortunately only have 10.  And by the way, how much is Gigamem?  And
> yet one more question put to you, how much is the PC version of Imagine?
>
> Thanks a bunch!
> Damon
>
>

Gigamem was a pain in the posterior. I never could get it to work with
Imagine, so I leapt for VMM when I saw it. VMM is easy to set-up and use
with Imagine. I too, have 10mb of ram, and I've had no problem rendering
30mb scenes (for example). The only other things you need to run VMM is
an MMU and MUI (Magic User Interface).

Sorry, I don't know what the latest price is for Imagine.

*******************************************
*    Vance Schowalter >>Image Master<<    *
*                                         *
* Internet: [e-mail] *
*                                         *
*     "Affable little snow creature."     *
*******************************************



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 10:10:02
Subject: Re: *BUG* DOF in PC version
From:    "DEBEAUMONT, GEORGE" <[e-mail]>


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

>>William Eric Donoho <[e-mail]> writes:
>>I get the dreaded "call impulse" and a flashing cursor at the C:\im33>
>>prompt when trying to render a pic with depth of field.
>>Anyone else using the pc version having serious problems with depth of field?

The DOF feature appears to work properly on my PC (Version 3.3). I know from
previous experimentation that Imagine can be made to crash by improperly
configuring the DOF/3DS requestor. If you can provide more details maybe we can

get at the problem.

George deBeaumont
[e-mail]





Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 10:16:31
Subject: Re: Memory ...
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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

>> From: [e-mail]
>>
>> something I did notice was that the size bar for the Global actor was
>> only on the first frame. Should the size bar for the Global actor be
>> changed to cover every frame?
>
>I don't think so. One of the guiding principles of Imagine is: if an
>Action bar (other than Actor) ends at a certain point, its last value
>remains for the rest of the animation.
>
>I've never seen this fail. Has anyone had a different experience?
>
From memory, I think I've had weird things when coming off a path
alignment/track.
Maybe.

(Sheesh)

Bill Boyce



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 10:48:14
Subject: Disturbed & Grid
From:    [e-mail] (ERNESTO POVEDA CORTES)


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

>
> > From: ERNESTO POVEDA CORTES <[e-mail]>
> >
> > 2. I have found some textures that are undocumented (i guess somebody
> > say this before...)
> >    * Disturbed.itx
> >    * Grid.itx
>
> Grid and Disturbed are actually some of the original Imagine textures,
> dating back 5 years or so.
>

Yes, but these textures are undocumented in the textures.txt :)

--
'There can be only one' -Highlanders

email: [e-mail]  --> Ernesto Poveda Cortes (I am not a number :)


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 11:24:51
Subject: Re: Virtual Memory
From:    Udo K Schuermann <[e-mail]>


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

Damon LaCaille <[e-mail]> wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Jul 1995, Vance Schowalter wrote:
>> The reason I'm asking is, I do have virtual memory (VMM) and I use
>> brushmaps for a good deal of detailing. I just wanted to see if it would
>> be worthwhile for me to upload any models I may make in the future which
>> requires alot of memory to render.

Vance,

I'd say yes, go for it.  Put a note in the Aminet "short" descriptor such
as "Needs 24MB RAM"; At the very least put it in the .readme so people can
avoid downloading something they'd never be able to render anyway.

> I might as well reply to this message than create a new message. Does
> anybody know if Gigamem works very well w/ Imagine?  I wanted to render a
> few objects, but most of them require at least 12-14 megs, and I
> unfortunately only have 10.  And by the way, how much is Gigamem?  And
> yet one more question put to you, how much is the PC version of Imagine?

Damon,

GigaMem works with Imagine.  I've set its preferences to always give
Imagine virtual memory first, but only on 10K allocations or larger.  If
your VM buffer is sufficiently large and your swap partition quick, you
should not suffer too much of a performance hit.  Ideally you give a swap
partition RAM buffer space anywhere from 20% to 50% of of the partition
size to keep swapping to a minimum.  Little swapping, little performance
hit.  You might want to set up a 20MB swap partition, give it between 2MB
and 6MB RAM as buffer space to see how that works.
      I bought GigaMem v2 for $129.- in the store about two years ago.
Paid for the 3.12 upgrade ($19 or something) a little while ago.  Been very
happy with it.

 |._.|_   Udo Schuermann             "The future's not what it used to be!"
 |(:)| )  [e-mail]                  -- Narn Ambassador G'Kar
 |_:_|/   http://www.wam.umd.edu/~walrus/        Babylon 5, "The Long Dark"


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 11:32:29
Subject: Re: DCTV to VCR problem
From:    "Robert King (ART)" <[e-mail]>


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

was there a dctv image (mottled grey 8color or 16 color image) displayed on
your computer monitor (RGB) when you got no video from the the video out
of the DCTV?  If the computer is showing the 3 or 4 bitplane gray scale
image that DCTV converts to video and no video is present at the
video-out port, then try the pixel-adjust knob on the DCTV unit.

Also when I used to load dctv animations into Deluxe Paint they wouldn't
show until I either started the animation or removed the title bar with F10.

Robert King



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 11:38:51
Subject: Re: Virtual Memory
From:    [e-mail] (joop van de wege)


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


>I might as well reply to this message than create a new message. Does
>anybody know if Gigamem works very well w/ Imagine?  I wanted to render a
>few objects, but most of them require at least 12-14 megs, and I
>unfortunately only have 10.  And by the way, how much is Gigamem?  And
>yet one more question put to you, how much is the PC version of Imagine?

Try VMMV31.lha from Aminet. Don't know the exact path and can't look it up
while composing this message (I'm on a PC :( ).

Things to watch out for are:
The minimum size of the memory allocation with the PUBLIC flag set that goes
into virtual. Normally this type shouldn't go into virtual but some programs
set the flag on any allocation they do. I'm not sure Imagine does but you
better be warned.

Why VMM and not GigaMem
- you can try VMM 30 days for free. After that you are asked to register
- VMM is cheaper than GigaMem
- VMM is actively developed. GigaMem is *not*
- VMM does have a pseudo-partition option, meaning it is a file but
  accessed and device level. Fast as a partition but deletable at anytime.
- both code and data can be placed in virtual. Some programs will allow that.

Try it out, it does work very well for me. A3000-030 @25Mhz with 16Mb of Fast
right now but used it alot with 12Mb.

Joop



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 11:59:23
Subject: Re:Mike H
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi!

Auch! I'll say Mike must be getting pissed by all this shit throwing, that is if

he read this mailing list. Even if I dont think that anyone of you is being
unfriendly, I do think that some of the crap recieved by you is sometimes
deserved. I've talked to Mike a lot of times,sometimes he is busy, and sometimes

he had the time to discuss other things than Imagine as well. But ofcourse when

someone call and ask for basic things they could read in the manual or complain

about things everyone knows about or have mentioned a trilion times, maybe you
to would be a little harsh voiced?

Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 12:53:59
Subject: Re: Global fog disappears in 3.3
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


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


Tom Gaiser writes:

>after upgrading to PC Version 3.3 fog from "Globals" seems to disappear
randomly, in quickrender (stage) and in the project editor. E.g. I made
a small animation (20 frames) and  I got 19 pics with and 1 frame
without fog. Did this happen to anybody else? And: Is there a workaround?
Greetings,


I noticed a problem with Global Fog in 3.2, but assumed it was a temorary
problem, similar to a few broken textures.  However, 3.3 also seems to
use Global Fog in a different way than earlier versions.  I cannot say
for sure that earlier versions required the horizon and zenith colors
to be defined in order for Global Fog to work.  Version 3.3 definately
does need the color definitions in order to render Global Fog.  For
a night scene I found it necessary to set the horizon etc to 1,1,1.
Then the fog worked.

Anyone else running into this under different circumstances?

Greg Denby


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 13:10:12
Subject: Faq7 on aminet
From:    [e-mail] (ERNESTO POVEDA CORTES)


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

To anyone who is interested:

      I have uploaded to aminet a patch to the faq7guide & html.
  There was a wrong node.

  Sorry.
--
'There can be only one' -Highlanders

email: [e-mail]  --> Ernesto Poveda Cortes (I am not a number :)


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 14:16:40
Subject: Re: Impulse & IML (Long message!)
From:    Old_Man <[e-mail]>


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

After a recent conversation with Mike? I would agree. I use imagine for
traditional art such as vases within vases abstracts etc.  Mike seemed
pleased that imagine was being used for something in addition to rocket
ships.

Bill

On Tue, 25 Jul 1995, Charles Blaquiere wrote:

> > From: [e-mail]
> >
> > I think the reason for this is that Imagine is so cheap that many
> > people can use it and it is available to users who may still be in
> > their teens and not very mature.  I think a lot of the "whining" posts
> > reflect the immaturity of a small portion of Imagine users.
>
> I also have the same hunch. You know, when Mike acts as the Ogre From
> Hell, he's sometimes had to fight irrational teenagers all morning, I'm
> sure. (Katie Ka-Boom, anyone? B^) A lot of us would get testy when faced
> with Imagine's constituency.
>
>


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 14:20:14
Subject: Re: Edge Line
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-24 17:36:54 EDT, you write:


>Scale the axis of your spline object. The larger you make it, the more
detail.

>
>PANTERA

If the axis is enlarged the detail becomes less.


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 14:24:28
Subject: The weight of a email?
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Howdy!

I found a way to measure the weight of an email!
Take out your ram chips, weight them, and you get a value we will call X.
Then take the chip's ram size in bytes =Y and divide it with the X and mutilply

that result with the byte amount of your mail, and bingo your email weight!

Later!

Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 14:50:00
Subject: Imagine in HiRes modes
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


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

->->         So how do I tell Imagine to run on a 1024x768 screen?Well, assuming
 UniVesa is installed and works correctly with yourvideo card, you simply go to
Preferences, edit the line that says:=2E..     imagine screen width: 0=3D640  1=
3D800  2=3D1024  3=3D1200change the "value" to 2.First though, to make sure you
can use that mode, from the projectscreen, click SuperVGA and select "Show avail
able Display modes".It should eventually show you Mode 105: 1024x768x256. If not
,you cannot run Imagine at that mode.   /------------------------------
  ___   ___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen                     / __  /__/ /__
/  /_   \ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /___/ / \  /  /  /     / \
  | [e-mail]     HAUS BBS (805-683-1388)  |
   "Irony can make revenge a welcome alternative"   \___________________________
__________________________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Haus BBS - Santa Barb
ara, Ca - [phone]

Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 15:06:28
Subject: Re: Metaballs
From:    [e-mail]


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




     PC Graphics Unleashed must have been written when metaballs were
     "discovered" because it practically features them! The book-and-CD set
     are full of DOS (and Windows?) blob editors and renderers like
     Polyray. The other book-and-CD I have also uses polyray and has a
     bunch of demo animations with names like butter.fli. I forget the name
     of this book, but the anims are kind of cool.

     Will metaballs be the thing of the future that changes the whole
     world? No. IMHO, we will get them, we will play with them, and then
     they will become one of the regular tools that you use in special
     cases where you need the look (believe me, there is a "look"). They
     are easy enough to code (just barely different from CSG spheres) that
     they will soon be everywhere.


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 15:07:00
Subject: Crowbar Mike
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


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

Ok, look. Imagine users in the 3D world are like Harley riders tothe motorcycle
world. You gotta be rugged! If you're gonna wear aleather jacket and ride a Harl
ey, you're gonna have to put up withthe "GANG" (at Impulse) leader, Crowbar Mike
. Ok?=2E..otherwise, trim your beard down to a fashionable goatee andbuy a Mac.
Then sell your Harley and buy a Beamer. :)ps. The "prez" of New Tek does not hau
nt the net....true. HoweverStuart Ferguson does (one of the Lightwave coders) an
d I've seenhim get testy on occasion too. Let's move on to more cool and usefult
ips and tricks to Imagine.   /------------------------------           ___   ___
  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen                     / __  /__/ /__/  /_   \ /
  | Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /___/ / \  /  /  /     / \  | mike.va
[e-mail]     HAUS BBS (805-683-1388)  |           "Irony c
an make revenge a welcome alternative"   \______________________________________
_______________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Haus BBS - Santa Barbara, Ca - [phone]

Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 15:07:08
Subject: Imagine 4.0 Questions
From:    [e-mail]


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

What all is supposed to be in Imagine 4.0.  Will spline patches be included?
 Will they have some improved light effects (ie. lens flares,  halo effects,
 glows)?  And also is it true the Imagine 4.0 will be available to only 3.0
users?  Will it have a plug-in capability and language?  What about
Winimagine?


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 16:11:29
Subject: Fog objects vs. DOF!
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Howdy!

I have run into a unusual problem.
I working on a project where Im building a virtual studio for a show, where I
have lights running along the edge of the roof. So I put an extruded fog object

as wide as the light, with the fogtop texture on it, to simulate light haze.
It looked great when rendered, but hey I wanted depth of field to. To get that
extra realism into the picture.
Then the problem jumped in with full power, it only blurred what was behind the

fog object and nothing else, and it didnt matter how far or how close the fog
object was to the camera. To check if I was wrong I deleted the fog object, and

hey presto, nice dof. So there must be something wrong here, or at least
something I've overlooked.
Ps. Need assitance imidiatly, due to deadline the 30 july- That is in few days,

so please hurry if you know what to do!

Thanks in advance!

Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 16:32:51
Subject: Re: Scanline and Trace
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

Here are the results of the rendering times comparison that I
promised:

RESULTS OF THE RENDERME SURVEY ON COMPUSERVE 6/25/95 - 7/2/95




                 SCANLINE    TRACE     IMAGINE VERSION
                  mm:ss      mm:ss

COMPUTER TYPE

  AMIGA

    AMIGA 2500   03:10       08:14          V3.2
    (68040/33)

    AMIGA 2500   02:46       07:46          V3.2
          (*1)

    AMIGA 2500   02:49       07:50          V3.2
          (*2)

    AMIGA 3000   14:57       47:30          V3.2
          (*3)

    AMIGA 4000   05:35       15:47          V3.2
          (*4)

    AMIGA 4000   02:07       05:45          V3.2
    (68040/40)


  PC

    486/DX2/33   02:40       08:38          V3.0



    486/DX2/66   02.01       08.04          V3.0
                 01:40       04:59          V3.2
                 01:36       05:04


    PENTIUM 60   00:49       02:24          V3.2


    PENTIUM 75   00:33#      01:57#         V3.2


    PENTIUM 90   00:35       01:42          V3.2
                 00:36       01:44
                 00:35       01:52
                 NONE        01:53
                 00:28#      01:37#


    PENTIUM 100  00:25#      01:28#         -


    PENTIUM 120  00:23#      01:20#         -





NOTES:

 *1 Arcnet to Amiga 4000
 *2 Rendered to PAR board
 *3 68030/25 with '882 coprocessor
 *4 68040/25
 #  Does not include palette generation times.


SUMMARY:

 The fastest Amiga which participated in the test was an
 accelerated Amiga 4000 with a 40 megahertz processor with
 23 megs of ram. Compared to a PC, the fastest Amiga rendered
 almost as fast as a 486/DX2/66.

 The fastest PC was the Pentium 120. While the P120 was only
 20 to 25 seconds faster than a P60 (in trace), larger projects
 would have rendered much faster compared to the P60.

 The fastest PC was 4 times faster than the fastest Amiga
 and about 1.7 times faster than P60. With larger projects this figure
 would be greater. In calculating the rendering comparison for
 the fastest PC, palette generating times were estimated to be 6 secs.

 All timings included palette generating times (unless noted #).

 The amount of RAM on each system varied from 10 megs to 32 megs.

 Startup-sequences/Config.sys that allocate large amount of
 buffers/cache, or load in too many background tasks could have
 had an effect on the rendering times.


I want to thank everyone who participated in the this survey. The
intent of doing the survey was to get an overview of how fast Imagine
can render the same project on different computer platforms.  If you
are thinking of upgrading and have a tight budget, you may want to
look at the cost per rendering second (CPRS) ratio. Simply
stated, the higher the number (cost / rendering seconds) the more
cost effective the machine in terms of rendering.  Keep in mind
the ever falling prices of hardware and how complex your animation/still
images be may compared to the RenderMe project.
Amiga owners may benefit from this survey as well if Escom doesn't
decide to upgrade the Amiga.

Thanks

  -Don


P.S. Graphic comparison will follow in about a week due to an
     unexpected delay.






Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 17:31:35
Subject: Metaballs
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Howdy!

Metaballs is so cool that I think I want them now! Thingies you can do with them

are:

1. Modell organic objects with a lot of curved details without having to deal
with intersected vectors.

2. Make fluids like a snap, and if impulse will make them as a choise in the
particle requestor you could do some neat tricks. Fountains, waterfalls,lava
etc.

Well I think that's about covers my knowledge of metaballs, anyone else?

Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 17:34:39
Subject: Pentium speed
From:    [e-mail] (DThompson)


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

I dreaded having to buy a non amiga (IBM clone) Untill I actually got my
Pentium. Amigas didn't have the speed any more and I needed it to satisfy my
clients. Granted, Dos and Windows suck in comparison to the Amiga OS, It's
great on the Amiga to be able to pull down the screen and run another
application, where as with Dos your stuck where you are, and with windows
you have problems loading, saving, printing if there is any overlap in the
process. It's the speed that's seductive. My Pentium 90 runs some aspects of
rendering in Imagine up to 13 times faster than my 25 mhz 4000. With the new
Imagine 3.3, The texture window in the attributes box renders the sample out
in less than 2 seconds even with several complicated textures involved. The
wireframes are fast and can actually be used as a tool in aiding the states,
animating, modelling process. The time just these things saves me is
incredible. Not only do you get to the rendering process faster, you get
there knowing there will be no mistakes. My Amiga still does all the rest of
the work with adpro, fred, and my Par, but for less than $2,400 I got a 90
mhz machine with a Gig of hardrive space and 32 megs of ram. It's even
cheaper now, so if you've got the money, invest it and enjoy what your
software package can really do on a fast machine. If only Imagine would run
on an Alpha.



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 17:45:18
Subject: Realistic Glass!!!! (long)
From:    [e-mail]


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

OK, I know all of you probably remember the "cups.jpg" problem.  Well I'm not
gonna send the glass I made(unless you want :) <<ducking>>  But what I've
done is to create glass!

A) REVELATIONS
---------------------------
Yesterday I was sitting there with a plastic glass(is that possible?) and I
picked it up, stared in amazement. I said to myself, " thats why imagine
can't create glass".  What I had seen was specular spots from every light in
the room cast on the material not in spots but rather linear, up and down
along the surface.  Well I know imagine can't do this, so I set out to try to
fake it.(geez thats all why nowadays is fake everything) Well I also noticed
that the specularity along edges (like the rim of the glass or the bottom
edge) is very hard and intense.  The final thing I noted is the way it
reflects more light at the extreme angles formed by the viewer and the cup at
the sides(yeah I don't understand what I said either :) what I mean is look
at the sides of a glass, see the sides are more reflective then the front.

B) APPLICATION
-------------------------
Here comes the fun part. I made a map that was 1x200 pixels that had black
and white spots along it.(more white then black)This is the hardess map for
the cup and the reflect map. Then I made another map that had the same
dimensions but this time has black, white, blue, and tan spots.  This was the
specular map.  Finally I made a 200x1 pixel map(yes thats it, its not
backwards) this time I had 1 pixel of black at the top and a few of black at
the bottom the I blurred them. This is the second hardeness map.
Apply the last map first with full intensity. Then apply the specular map
with a mix value of .75. And then the second other hardness map with a mix
val. of .40.  Finally add the Reflect map with a mix value of .80.  Also I
applied a tif named "clouds.tif"(some of you may have this) as a environment
map mix value of about 1. NOTE I applied another environment map: the same
map used for specular with a mix value of .50.
>>>ALL OF THE MAPS WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE ENVIRO MAPS ARE CYLINDRICLY(?)
MAPED

The object attributes are:
COLOR:      255,255,255     ROUGNESS:   0
REFLECT:   40,40,50          HARDNESS:    24
FILTER:       250,250,255     SHINYNESS:   0
SPECULAR:150,150,140     BRIGHTNESS: 0
Index of refraction: 1.01(its plastic!)

C) LOCATION
--------------------
I decided not to place it on a checker board floor :).  Instead I made a
groung plane and placed the texture bathtile on it. The plane is also shiny.
Above the scene are two spotlights casting shadows.  The camera is placed
just above the rim about a foot away.

Well there it is!!! NOTE: The values for the maps may have to be altered and
for some like the hardness map the color may be have to be inverted.

                                                                       ---Lum


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 18:20:24
Subject: Re: Mike H.
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Jul 24, 10:21pm, [e-mail] wrote:
>

> If Mike H. doesn't really care about Impulse's image
> and public relations, then why does he spend so much time listening and
> replying to you and other people's complaints.  It would seem that an
> uncaring unprofessional person would not even give you the time of day much
> less take the time to read this list to see what Imagine users are saying.
>  Does the President of Newtek or any other 3D progam take the time to E-Mail
> it's user base.  I seriously doubt it.
>

Exactly.  Okay, so they don't have a great track record, but let's give them a
break.  It seems like Impulse is making more effort about all of the things that

we have complained about.  It takes time for change.  I have been with Imagine
since 1.1 first came out and I see a definate improvement.  Impulse is a SMALL
company, and pressures run high at small companies, but they are trying.

So no more griping PLEASE!!  It is using far too much bandwidth.

Let's start with a clean slate.  It sounds like 3.3 (and soon 4.0) are the
fruition of a lot of pain and work.  Impulse needs our support as they seem to
be making an effort for us.

There is nothing wrong with spirited debate for desired features, so let's
remember that we are all on the same side.

Craig




--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 18:28:58
Subject: Re: A few Questions
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Jul 24,  9:24pm, [e-mail] wrote:
>

> With supposedly 50 million users world
> wide (as the recent ad says in graphics mags)

50 million?!?  That can't be true!  What magazine was this ad in?  Maybe it was
a joke.  Like the "50 million Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong"...

craig



--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 18:34:44
Subject: Re: Metaballs Uncovered
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Jul 25,  1:55am, [e-mail] wrote:
>

> >
> > So are Metaballs more of an animation tool than a modelling tool?
> > ..or both?
>
> They're a modelling tool, but nothing in the Contract With America
> prevents companies from allowing metaballs as an animation tool.
>

They are actually both.  I have seen a beautiful particle water fountain using
metaballs.  The water particle metaballs act blobby and distort as they interact

with each other just like real water does.  This is much better than having hard

spherical water droplets moving through the air and looks great when viewed up
close.





--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 18:48:20
Subject: Re: Re[2]: BIG Bug in PC 3.3 ?
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Jul 24,  9:29am, [e-mail] wrote:
>
>
>
>      The reason: One of my friends and I exchange projects often. But, if
>      he did NOT have the exact same directory name as I, we would have to
>      re-build the WHOLE project. Of course, that doesn't work if you have
>      300 frames to render, 150 on each machine.
>

It seems like any complicated program like Imagine will have the same problem.
 Does Lightwave?

Anyway, on my AMIGA, I got around this using the ASSIGN command.  So, when I
went to another machine, I would assign his disk and directory name to mine, so
that the AMIGA would simply substitute one for the other when it came up.  It
worked like a charm.

I don't know if there is something similar in the PC world.

Craig



--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 19:04:51
Subject: Re: Virtual Memory
From:    Vance Schowalter <[e-mail]>


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

Ok, I'll do that (put a memory requirement note with the upload). Thx for
the feedback. *8^)


*******************************************
*    Vance Schowalter >>Image Master<<    *
*                                         *
* Internet: [e-mail] *
*                                         *
*     "Affable little snow creature."     *
*******************************************



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 19:10:30
Subject: Re: Crowbar Mike
From:    Vance Schowalter <[e-mail]>


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

Alan Hastings also lurks on the LightWave mailing list.

BTW, I like that subject heading... heh heh.


*******************************************
*    Vance Schowalter >>Image Master<<    *
*                                         *
* Internet: [e-mail] *
*                                         *
*     "Affable little snow creature."     *
*******************************************



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 19:15:04
Subject: Re: Pentium speed
From:    Vance Schowalter <[e-mail]>


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

Well, ESCOM (Amiga Technologies) apparently want to also make a platform
independant Amiga OS. That would certainly be nice!


*******************************************
*    Vance Schowalter >>Image Master<<    *
*                                         *
* Internet: [e-mail] *
*                                         *
*     "Affable little snow creature."     *
*******************************************



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 20:10:02
Subject: Is Imagine shareware?
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

>>From [e-mail] Mon Jul 24 13:09:55 1995
>Date: Mon, 24 Jul 95 10:24:47 BST
>From: [e-mail] (Simon Wilkinson)
>To: [e-mail]
>Subject: Is Imagine shareware?
>
>Hi there folks.
>
>I'm new to Imagine, although I have used version 2. I'm just wondering, is
>Imagine a shareware package, and if so can anyone tell how much it costs=
 and
>point me in the right direction as regards buying it for the PC?
>
>Also, if there are any FAQ's available, could some kind individual please=
=20
>inform me where they are??
>
>
>Cheers,
>
>Si.

Imagine is not shareware. It is a commercial package. In the UK it costs
=A3199 for version 3. If you do live in the UK or know somebody who does the
computer magazine PC Format is doing v3 for =A3133. A saving of =A366. This=
 is
were I got my copy from.=20

Can't help with the faq sorry. One was posted to the list about a week ago.
It also available on somebody's WWW page here on the list.

Hope this helps.
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 20:10:32
Subject: Re: Imagine wrong Colours
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

>Ok, here's the way you can tell if UniVesa is working with your card.
>>From the Project Menu, click SuperVGA and highlight "Show available
>Display Modes". It should present you with a little box. Keep clicking
>"OK" and it will go through all the display modes Imagine can use
>with your card and driver. If you never see:
>
>    Mode 121: 640x480x16777216
>
>then you ain't there yet. If you have the right VESA driver, you
>should see every display mode and color palette that your paricular
>card can display under normal operation.
>
>...good luck.

What does the bit mean when you select to see the details of this mode? Also
do you know what you are suppoesed to put in the preferences for 15,16,24
and 32 bit default pixel format?

I have asked this question before but to no avail.

Thanks.

PS. To all who complained about my .sig file who is this one. I did think
about leaving it alone and not bowing to your whinging as my .sig is an
expression of free speech and all that jazz. Any way, what's wrong with
being individual??
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 20:10:46
Subject: Re: Scanline and Trace
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

>>From [e-mail] Mon Jul 24 20:10:35 1995
>From: [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)
>Subject: Re: Scanline and Trace
>To: [e-mail] (Imagine Mailing List )
>Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 11:59:04 -0500 (CDT)
>Content-Length: 275
>
>> How about we define a base scene as a benchmark that everyone can render
>> for comparison.  This could go in the FAQ for future reference.
>
>Such a test has already been done on Compuserve, and if anyone wants,
>I can upload the results to Aminet or post them here.
>
>Andrey
>
>

Post them here please. I would like to see them.
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 20:10:50
Subject: Re: Professional vs. ?Amateur
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

>>From [e-mail] Tue Jul 25 05:32:44 1995
>Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 22:17:24 -0400 (EDT)
>From: Kent Marshall Worley <[e-mail]>
>To: gregory denby <[e-mail]>
>Cc: [e-mail]
>Subject: Re: Professional vs. ?Amateur
>
>
>The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers looked raytraced to me!

But were thay animated as well???
Chris Hall.

|-------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by                ||
| Chris Hall                                ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from ||
| Great Briton                              ||
|                                           ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]    ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :              ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/    ||
|                                           ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-      ||
|          29 08 46 31 06 41                ||
|                                           ||
|-------------------------------------------||
 \-------------------------------------------\



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 20:12:41
Subject: Fingerprint-tip
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi!

Alex asked:

-I was just wondering how YOU would do this?
-I use Lightwave mainly and Imagine as my textures generator. :-)
-Only way I can see this done (do not have Imagine 3.3 yet)
-is maybe take a black/white pix of a fingerprint (wonder how)
-and use this as some type of mapping.  Excuse my ignorance.
-Now is there a way to do this in Imagine?

I read this and tought there maybe more people wanting to to know how to do this

and similar things.
First there are a few things we have to keep in mind using 3.3's new mapping
technics.

1. Specular,Ambient,color,filter,reflect, and enviroment are by default color
mapping tools, and therefore use all the color information.

2.fog,altitude,hardness,shiny,bright,r.index and roughness are not, they use the

brighness or "luma" values in the picture to apply their materials.

So a good idea to have in mind is to plan your work, and sorting out what you
will need in terms of brush/pictures.
For the "fingerprints on glass" tutorial we will need the following brushes:
1.Fingerprint, painted or grabed. I scanned mine by dipping my fingers in dye
and put them on paper. Then scanned the paper. I tried using my rostrum camera,

but the macro lens wasnt good enough.
2.If you grab/scan the picture, you will want a additional pic that is cleaned
up a little. Run it trouh a imageprossesing tool(Photoshop,ImageFx,Adpro etc)
and discard the color information and raise the contrast, until you get a
black/white picture, but not to much or else you'll loose antialiasing.

3.This is not necessery, but cool. Render a full screen black plate with white
dirt on it(default is fine) Or you can use Forge(Apex) to make a tileable
fractal map.

Ps. Make sure that brush/picture 1 and 2 are the same size, Important!!

Ok, here we go, Badabing Badabang..
Make a plate, If you want to to keep your aspect ratio intact, make your plate
as wide and deep (X-Z) as your pixel size.But only 1 by 1 cross sections.
Pick it and go to the attr. requester. Give it these color values:(30,50,40)
Leave the filter setting for now. But give it a nice specular setting
like:(220,230,220)
Make it mid hard.
Get brush/pic (2 or 1 if you painted it black and white) and inverse it and use

it as a filter map, and fade it to about 0.50 in the MIX/MORPH box. Press ok.
Duplicate this brush, and double clik it and use it as a specular map, but dont

make it inverse(no cross in that box)
Now you will have a good starting point of your Fingerprint, if you now play
with the main filter setting you will soon find something that'll suit your
needs.
If the glass was to be dirty as well, well use pic(3)
Add that to your plate and use it as above(but dont ad any brush as MIX(MORPH
1.00, this would cancel out other similar used brushes) . You could infact do
the dirt and fingerprint on the same brush/picture, but it would leave whitout
any flexibilety.
Well I hope this made you happy for a while, it made me a bit fingernumbed. But

hey, other people has wrote some bril. advice/tutor's before, so I just happy
keying in these words.

PS.Correct me if I'm wrong somwhere in the mail, thanks.
Later!

Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)





Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 20:44:05
Subject: Re: 3.3 maps
From:    Jim Shinosky <[e-mail]>


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


> >  Question, has anybody used Imagine with Win95, and if so, can it just be
> > another application running in a window?  One of my biggest gripes is
> > going back and forth to windows to modify a texture.
>
> Yes, it can be done:
>
>  You *can* run Imagine from Win95 without exiting to DOS. Click on the
> Imagine icon in Explorer and select Properties from the right mouse button
> menu. Under Program where it has the path just add a space and /NOXMS to the
> line. Also click the box that says close on exit. I then created a shortcut
> and dragged it into the Start box. Imagine now shows up on my Start pop-up
> menu and I can launch to it with a single mouse click. It flips back to
> Windows as soon as I exit Imagine. Try it. You'll like it.<g>
> ------------------------------------------------------------

You might want to read the last couple of sentences over.  He says that it
flips back to Windows as soon as he EXITS Imagine.  It's doing nothing more
than starting a DOS session for Imagine.



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 21:02:00
Subject: Re: DCTV to VCR problem
From:    [e-mail] (Matt Kropp)


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


>But when I tried to get a DCTV animation on video tape, I got no result.
>I connected the "video out" interface of the DCTV with the "Scart"
>interface of a Hitachi VHS-recorder. Although I think the cable was
>correct and I did everything right, no (!) picture appeared on the VCR
>screen. Has anyone faced similar problems? Is something wrong with the DCTV
>unit?
>
>I then tried the same with my old A500 (2.5 meg RAM). The DCTV didn't
>even produce a colour image at all but only greyscale pictures. The
>animation recording didn't work as well. Why is there no colour output on
>the A500 (RGB output)?

I hope you got a manual with your DCTV to double check on this.  I used to
have one, and I think I know what the problem might be.  There is a small
square white knob on the back of the DCTV box.  I think it was called
something like Pixel Sync, but its not labeled.  Load a DCTV image, then
while looking at your monitor on the DCTV output turn the knob until you see
a picture.

I hope that all your problem is, it would be an easy fix.

Matt Kropp

______________________________________________________________________

Internet:   [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
WWW:     http://www.moscow.com/homepages/[e-mail]
______________________________________________________________________



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 21:14:06
Subject: FOUND Solution to 3.3 BUG.
From:    Jim Shinosky <[e-mail]>


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


Ok, ok, ok.  I wish I hadn't mentioned the problem I had with Imagine
creating a new directory for 3.3.  After all it was only a minor annoyance
to me and most of you seemed more interested in responding to that than my
real problem.  Well, here's what 3.3 did wrong:

With all(or most) of my objects I have 3 states: DEFAULT, BEGIN, and END.
The reason that my quickrenders looked fine and my renders from the project
editor were messed up is because 3.3 loaded my objects up in the DEFAULT
state(I'm pretty sure 3.2 loads it up in the state you saved it in and I
never save objects in their default state) and all of their attributes
were properly configured, so they looked good at first sight.

BIG PROBLEM FOLLOWS:

However imagine took all of my objects(about 30 of them with 4 to 8
textures and maps each) and modified all of their states except DEFAULT
in the following way:
   1) It took the new brightness slider and cranked it to 255 for all
      objects.  (BAD!)
   2) It took every single friggin' texture and gave it a mix/morph value
      of 0.5.  (VERY BAD)
      Since I my mountain object was white to begin with and the texture
      map was given a 0.5 mix/morph value the object looked like it had
      a white glow about it.

Impulse, what were you thinking?!

Anyway, it took quite a while to fix all of that for the objects just in
this project.  I've got a lot more in other, older projects but they can
wait.  Thanks to those few people who actually tried to help with this one
even though I figured it out myself.

Hopefully this will help anyone else who might come across this.


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 21:27:57
Subject: Re: Particle Bug in 3.3??!??
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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

>In-Reply-To: <[e-mail]>
>Organization: Personal
>X-MailViewer: Mail 1.15
>
>Hiya Broctune,
>
>>  This very weird, I assign particle spheres  to an object like a plane and
>> the particles look like  octohedrons or whatever you call them they do not
>> look anything like spheres, can anyone help?
>
>  Could it be that you've assigned CSG spheres to the particles, but you're
>rendering in scanline, and not trace ?
>
>
Or selected Spheres in the particle requester - they are CSG spheres. Great for
Trace, and if you bump up the CSG number of points setting in the IM3.3 config
file, ok for scanline too (though very memory intensive)



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 21:38:00
Subject: Re: An old challenge - How are diamonds done ?
From:    [e-mail] (Matt Kropp)


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


>Has anyone ever found a good way to make a reasonably transparent
>diamond with the proper refractive effects at an index of 2.42 ?
>
>Solid diamonds lose most of their transparency for no apparent
>reason, and appear largely black.
>

This sounds like it might be a simple fix.  Have you ever tried setting your
Maxium Reflected Rays in Preferences to anything higher than the default?
I'd say, crank it up to 100 and see what happens.  The Ray Trace algorythm
generates a new ray entity everytime it makes hits an object.  A new ray is
made for each diffuse, transmitted, and reflected component of the object.
That Max. Rays setting is keeps the program from going into an infinite loop
by terminating the ray if the ray count reaches the Max. Ray limit.  So, on
a model of a diamond, your rays are probably just running out of steam
bouncing around inside the diamond, and end up being assigned a value of black.
Matt Kropp

______________________________________________________________________

Internet:   [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
WWW:     http://www.moscow.com/homepages/[e-mail]
______________________________________________________________________



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 21:47:46
Subject: Re: Quickie!
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


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


 Hi

> > > tear drop shape, just add a regualr sphere with default size, then go to
> > > CONFORMATIONS...then pick conform to sphere and just press ok.  There
> >
>
>  Also, om a similar theme, if you were to add a primitive cone, using the
> defaults, (except making the no. of vertical sections about 5) and then
> conform that to a sphere (with default settings) you get a very good
> starting point for a shark/fish fin, even with a little curl on the top.

 Just in case someone doesnt know you can use the conform from within pick
points

 eg create a primitive-plane go to pick points and select (with drag box
-its easier) all points except the outer 2 or 3 rows and columns
   then select conform to sphere and experiment with the values

 you should then/now have a flat square object with a dome in the centre

 well it works for me

 (sorry about the poor tute' thang ??)

 Duncan
..............................................................................
..                                                                           .
..                                [e-mail]                    .
..                                                                           .
..............................................................................


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 22:13:07
Subject: Re: dare I enter a mathematical discussion?
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Jul 24,  1:51pm, [e-mail] wrote:
>

>
>
> >Exactly.  And one of the great advantages to this "shadow mapping" method is
> >that you can blur the map, and give soft shadows!  Not exactly accurate, but
a
> >great cheat!  Many high-end (as well as low end) systems use this method.
>
>      From the description of these depth maps in an earlier message, I'm
>      not sure I understand how yo are making soft shadows. If you "blur"
>      the map with one of those averaging techniques where each value
>      becomes closer to its neighbors, it seems you would just be damaging
>      your depth map so shadows are assigned improperly. To have soft
>      shadows with the technique that someone summarized in this group, you
>      would take a point on an object, check its distance from each light,
>      compare the distance with the corresponding point on the light's depth
>      map, and then LOOK AROUND THE DEPTH MAP FOR THE 'EDGE' OF A SHADOW to
>      decide whether you are in a region for soft shadows. I don't know how
>      that could work anyway.
>
>      Did I misunderstand the idea of depth maps? Please share.
>-- End of excerpt from [e-mail]

Okay.  I am not sure how it can be done.  I thought about it and looked it up,
but I have to agree with you.  I know that it has been done, however.  An
example of this method is Pixar's animation "Luxo Jr.".

My book "Computer Graphics- Principles and Practice" by Foley and vanDam refers
to a paper "Rendering AntiAliased Shadows with Depth Maps" by Reeves, Salesin
and Cook from SIGGRAPH 87 on this very topic.

If you want to know more, check out that paper.

Sorry I could not be more informative.
Craig




--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 22:29:16
Subject: Don't kill me if this don't work
From:    [e-mail]


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

Here it is in all its glory!  This is is my first try and did it in about an
hour or two.

                                                      ---Lum
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------

--> ATTACHEMENT: glass.jpg <--
sum -r/size 32027/9973



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 22:58:30
Subject: Re: Virtual Memory
From:    Damon LaCaille <[e-mail]>


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



On Tue, 25 Jul 1995, Vance Schowalter wrote:

> Gigamem was a pain in the posterior. I never could get it to work with
> Imagine, so I leapt for VMM when I saw it. VMM is easy to set-up and use
> with Imagine. I too, have 10mb of ram, and I've had no problem rendering
> 30mb scenes (for example). The only other things you need to run VMM is
> an MMU and MUI (Magic User Interface).
>
> Sorry, I don't know what the latest price is for Imagine.

Thanks for the info. By the way, is there a place I can purchase VMM, or
is it shareware type (yeah, right).  Thanks again for your information

Damon



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 23:00:14
Subject: Video boards
From:    [e-mail]


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

     In the PC world,  has anyone or has Impulse devised a compatibility list
for Graphics boards that are proven to work in all VESA modes with Imagine.
 I think this would be a very useful list for the Amiga users that are
contemplating moving to the PC.
     I think the list should be of those boards that run stock without third
party work arounds such as UNIVESA.   Or a tri-list of those that work stock,
 those that work with third party workarounds,  and those that do not work at
all.
     If anyone wishes to start one ( I can ) let me start the list by adding
mine,
Diamond Stealth 24 VLB - works in all modes


Render on....... and  on........ and on.........and....


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 23:00:36
Subject: Re: Virtual Memory
From:    Damon LaCaille <[e-mail]>


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



On Tue, 25 Jul 1995, joop van de wege wrote:

> Try VMMV31.lha from Aminet. Don't know the exact path and can't look it up
> while composing this message (I'm on a PC :( ).
>
> Things to watch out for are:
> The minimum size of the memory allocation with the PUBLIC flag set that goes
> into virtual. Normally this type shouldn't go into virtual but some programs
> set the flag on any allocation they do. I'm not sure Imagine does but you
> better be warned.
>
> {features of VMM deleted here to save space}
>
> Try it out, it does work very well for me. A3000-030 @25Mhz with 16Mb of Fast

> right now but used it alot with 12Mb.
>
> Joop

Joop,
  thanks a lot!  That's the second good review I've heard about VMM. I'll
go check out Aminet right now! (Gettin' excited!)

yeeha!
Damon



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 23:03:20
Subject: Re: Virtual Memory
From:    Damon LaCaille <[e-mail]>


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



On Tue, 25 Jul 1995, Udo K Schuermann wrote:

> Damon,
>
> GigaMem works with Imagine.  I've set its preferences to always give
> Imagine virtual memory first, but only on 10K allocations or larger.  If
> your VM buffer is sufficiently large and your swap partition quick, you
> should not suffer too much of a performance hit.  Ideally you give a swap
> partition RAM buffer space anywhere from 20% to 50% of of the partition
> size to keep swapping to a minimum.  Little swapping, little performance
> hit.  You might want to set up a 20MB swap partition, give it between 2MB
> and 6MB RAM as buffer space to see how that works.
>     I bought GigaMem v2 for $129.- in the store about two years ago.
> Paid for the 3.12 upgrade ($19 or something) a little while ago.  Been very
> happy with it.

Udo,
  thanks a bunch for your info.  $130 is a bit high for me though :( If
I'm going to spend more than $50 or $60, then I'll go ahead and buy the
RAM upgrade, heh. Be quicker and probably better in the long run.
  However, I've read two good posts about a shareware VMM! I'm going to
try it, and if I like it (and the price isn't outrageous) I'll get that.
  Thanks for your reply though. It really helped me out.

Damon



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 23:06:16
Subject: Re: 3.3 maps
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Jim Shinosky <[e-mail]>
>
> You might want to read the last couple of sentences over.  He says that it
> flips back to Windows as soon as he EXITS Imagine.  It's doing nothing
> more than starting a DOS session for Imagine.

That is correct. As I perceive it, you still can't get Imagine to
multitask under any OS but the Amiga's. B^D What this trivk does, is let
you pop into and out of Imagine without having to exit Windows.




Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 23:15:47
Subject: Fog objects vs. DOF!
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>
>
> Ps. Need assitance imidiatly, due to deadline the 30 july- That is in few
> days, so please hurry if you know what to do!

My advice, since you're in a hurry: can you render the image in layers,
and composite them in an image processing program? You could remove the
fog objects from the scene, render with DOF, then render just the fog
objects on a black background. In your image processor, blur the fog
object render and composite on top of the other image.



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 23:17:51
Subject: IML
From:    [e-mail]


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

--- Received from GITD.PSG024  4523                 26JUL95  11.53
  -> IBMMAIL.INTERNET      IBMMAIL INTERNET               IBM
HIYAS,

ANYONE KNOWS WHERE I CAN FTP DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THESE
DEISCUSSIONSIN IML? MY PROBLEM IS THAT I CAN ONLY READ THEM AND
NOT SAVE THEMAND NOT BE ABLE TO SAVE THEM TO FILE VIC


Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 23:20:05
Subject: Imagine 4.0 Questions
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> What all is supposed to be in Imagine 4.0.

Things I know so far:

4.0 will include metaballs, new lights that cast soft shadows in trace
mode, motion blur. Not specifically mentioned, but supposed to be
included, is alpha channel support to replace (and improve) the old
genlock feature. 4.0 will be available for Amiga and Windows; other
platforms have been mentioned as well. It will be available to new
owners, but very tentative messages by Mike Halvorson would seem to
indicate a large retail price (over $1000) for 4.0/Windows if you're not
upgrading, current Imagine owners would be able to upgrade for a much
more reasonable price.

That's all I can remember at this point.



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 23:29:20
Subject: Radiosity
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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



Am I the only one that would like to see radiosity in Imagine 4.0?  I
know, it's really, REALLY slow, but you can do things that just can't be
done with raytracing.  I think if the guys at Impulse could find time to
implement radiosity it would really put Imagine over the top.


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 23:38:17
Subject: Re: The bumps slide off my slug!
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Mike McCool <[e-mail]>
>
>     With your basic slug object, create a state, call it '0,'
> 'piggiepie,' or anything BUT 'DEFAULT.'  (Except for Bones, which some
> kind imaginoid pointed out to me, don't name -anything-  DEFAULT, or it's
> your own fault).
>
>     Now, so long as you lock all your textures/brushes to this state
> '0,' they should stick throughout the conform-path.

Het, I got it to work! Thanks to your (and others') advice. Oddly
enough, my state is called... DEFAULT <cringe>, and it works just fine.

I left the slug animation running on the screen while I went our to do
some errands. When I came back, my significant other, who has NO interest
in computers or animation whatsoever (dunno why I married the guy), made
a comment that my slug was "yucky". After 3.5 years of Imagine, an
unsolicited comment! I almost fell off my chair. If he noticed my slug,
it means that Conform To Path truly is, as I'd written, a low effort/high
payback effect.



Date:    Tuesday, 25 July 1995 23:42:26
Subject: Upgrade paths
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Gareth Qually <[e-mail]>
>
> p.s. Has any of you used or own the PC version of Imagemaster R/T (It is
> called WinImages R3)? What is it like? Is it as good as the Amiga
> version? What do they use for scripting if Arexx is not there?

It's much better than the Amiga version. You get all these independent
windows, and an enhanced interface that includes a ridiculously easy
timeline interface. Open the timeline, open the file requester,
multi-select an entire directory's worth of image files, and boom, there
they are one one row of your timeline. Then, drag & drop an effects
button from the toolbox into the timeline; that's how you add processing
to your images. Double-click on the effect, and up pop all the
parameters, which you can change at will -- you can even adjust spline
curves to vary any parameter over time. This is POWERFUL and EASY stuff.
I don't think you'd miss ARexx one bit. Finally, add some render icons
to save your work, and set the timeline into motion.



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 00:10:55
Subject: Fog objects vs. DOF!
From:    Torgeir Holm <[e-mail]>


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

On 25-Jul-95 17:11:29, Granberg Tom wrote:

>I have run into a unusual problem.

or ususal <g>

>I working on a project where Im building a virtual studio for a show, where I
> have lights running along the edge of the roof. So I put an extruded fog
>object  as wide as the light, with the fogtop texture on it, to simulate
>light haze. It looked great when rendered, but hey I wanted depth of field
>to. To get that  extra realism into the picture. Then the problem jumped in
>with full power, it only blurred what was behind the  fog object and nothing
>else, and it didnt matter how far or how close the fog  object was to the
>camera. To check if I was wrong I deleted the fog object, and  hey presto,
>nice dof. So there must be something wrong here, or at least  something I've
>overlooked. Ps. Need assitance imidiatly, due to deadline the 30 july- That
>is in few days,  so please hurry if you know what to do!

This has happened to me too. I was using a couple of dense fog balls with the
ghost texture on them to simulate glowing light sources. I all worke well,
untill I turned on DOF. I never got the time to find a workaround...


Torge!r


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 00:10:57
Subject: Metaballs
From:    Torgeir Holm <[e-mail]>


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

On 25-Jul-95 18:31:35, Granberg Tom wrote:

>Metaballs is so cool that I think I want them now! Thingies you can do with
>them  are:

>1. Modell organic objects with a lot of curved details without having to deal
> with intersected vectors.

>2. Make fluids like a snap, and if impulse will make them as a choise in the
>particle requestor you could do some neat tricks. Fountains, waterfalls,lava
>etc.

>Well I think that's about covers my knowledge of metaballs, anyone else?

A really psycho pool table would be my first choice <grin>

Since everyone is raving about the new mataballs modeller, I thought I'd
mention the metashape modeller in GIG's 3DGO. It works like a metaball
modeller, except it also lets you use any other primitive in the program.
(cubes, cones, toruses (tori?))


Torge!r


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 00:22:44
Subject: Fingerprint-fault
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi!
This is cool, correcting my own mail?

Well if you noticed, you would have to inverse the specular mapping as well, if

you didnt do it in your image proccesing program?. Imagine will use the luma and

color values to determine the specularity on the object. Another tip is to use
that same map as a hardness mapping, remember to cross the inverse button to get

zero or 50% if you mix/morph it 0.50, hardness on the fingerprints itself.

Bye for now!

Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 00:34:46
Subject: Bying PentiumPC
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Bill Graham wrote among other things:

-platform "war" (stupid term, really). I'm going to keep my amiga(s), but
-there is no denying the rendering speed increase. Please reply to me directly
-at [e-mail]

Yepp, the speed increase itself is infact a good reason to outstand the F***ING

DOS. Speed increase means that you get more work done in less time, plus as
somone else stated, you can make sure it looks right by playing around.
We also got PAR on one of the Pentiums, but that to are a DOZZZZ program, and
that is a bit anoying, since I would have to quit Imagine or anything else for
that mater, to use it. But still a great software/hardware, wouldnt be without
it a second.
So PentiumPc's are good enough as work horse goes, but no way I'm using it for
other things than realy heavy applications. Ok Photoshop runs hell of a lot
faster on it to!
So a multiplaform choise works best for me, but anyone with different needs,
will do different things. I'm no Amiga or Pc freak, I love doing graphics, and
as such I have to give my A4000 Warp4040 a warm hug due to the imense diverse
and cheap software you could by for it, as well as a superior OS in terms of
usabilety.

Later!

Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 00:38:24
Subject: Re: Memory ...
From:    "Randy R. Wall" <[e-mail]>


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


> >I don't think so. One of the guiding principles of Imagine is: if an
> >Action bar (other than Actor) ends at a certain point, its last value
> >remains for the rest of the animation.
> >
> >I've never seen this fail. Has anyone had a different experience?
> >
> >From memory, I think I've had weird things when coming off a path
> alignment/track.
> Maybe.

Actually this is a normal thing in Imagine. Once your object is at the
end of a path and if you haven't added a new positision, alignment bar
after it, it will jump back to the defaults it was loaded with
from the Detial Editor as it has nothing else to go by.

The way to get around this is to go to the frame just after the last
frame of your path in the Action Editor and add a one frame bar for the
position and alignment of the object. Use Tween and Imagine will copy
the last position and alighment the object had on the path. and stay there
for the rest of the frames you have the actor loaded for.

Pretty simple fix to the problem.

=RRW=



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 00:58:10
Subject: Re: Scanline and Trace
From:    John Grieggs <[e-mail]>


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

>
> Here are the results of the rendering times comparison that I
> promised:
>
text deleted...
>  #  Does not include palette generation times.
>
This is an extremely serious flaw in the chart!  I use Imagine on both
the Amiga and PC, and the palette generation occupies a _very_ large
chunk of the rendering time on the PC.  I suspect that the palette
generation message actually covers things like picture byte-swapping and
the like, not just palette generation.

In any case, the palette generation section of the PC render is a very
large, non-optional, non-avoidable portion of the render, and should
absolutely be considered in the rendering time total.

Aside from that, cool chart.  Thanks.  :-)

_john


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 01:03:49
Subject: Re:Crowbar Mike!
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi there fellow thinker, Mike Vandersomme.

I cant say how much I agree on your comment, and yes lets stop this stupid "I
dont like Mike very much, bla bla" thing that has swormed the list the last few

weeks. After all he is the reason wy we all can get Imagine!
Lets post some decent mails instead!? And let "The Gang" do their magic, and
dazzle us with new cool tools.

Later!

Tom Granberg (RenderBrandt)



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 01:07:30
Subject: Re: Impulse & IML (Long message!)
From:    Gerard Menendez <[e-mail]>


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



Well after the

On Tue, 25 Jul 1995, Old_Man wrote:

> After a recent conversation with Mike? I would agree. I use imagine for
> traditional art such as vases within vases abstracts etc.  Mike seemed
> pleased that imagine was being used for something in addition to rocket
> ships.
>
> Bill
>
> On Tue, 25 Jul 1995, Charles Blaquiere wrote:
>
> > > From: [e-mail]
> > >
> > > I think the reason for this is that Imagine is so cheap that many
> > > people can use it and it is available to users who may still be in
> > > their teens and not very mature.  I think a lot of the "whining" posts
> > > reflect the immaturity of a small portion of Imagine users.
> >
> > I also have the same hunch. You know, when Mike acts as the Ogre From
> > Hell, he's sometimes had to fight irrational teenagers all morning, I'm
> > sure. (Katie Ka-Boom, anyone? B^) A lot of us would get testy when faced
> > with Imagine's constituency.
> >
> >
>


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 01:10:20
Subject: Upgrade paths, WinImages:FX
From:    [e-mail] (Tom Ellard)


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

>I have just ordered the Amiga to PC crossgrade. Has anyone else done
>this? What I want to know is did they give you the most recent version?

You get the latest PC Imagine.

>p.s. Has any of you used or own the PC version of Imagemaster R/T (It is
>called WinImages R3)? What is it like? Is it as good as the Amiga
>version? What do they use for scripting if Arexx is not there?

They have a timeline feature that operates in a similar way to Imagine's
action editor. You drag pictures and effects to the time line and they morph
between keyframes. E.g. if you had a fire effect in an oval on frame 1 and
the same fire in blue in a square on frame 30, the fire changes colour and
the region changes shape. There are also envelopes a la Lightwave - you mix
and match them.

In general PC imaging s/w (Premiere, Picture Publisher, WinImages) is
'easier' to sequence, as it it uses drag and drop, requesters etc. etc. but
AREXX is more 'flexible'. I haven't suffered from not having AREXX on the PC
except at the odd moment when I wanted a strange combination of treatments.


Tom Ellard, Severed Communications Australia [e-mail]



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 01:10:57
Subject: Lights in raytrace.
From:    [e-mail] (Tom Ellard)


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

I really don't understand why lights that work in scanline don't work in trace.

To be more specific, creating a sphere, giving it a 'light' attribute,
seeing that it works fine in scan but throws no light in trace.

Somone was kind enough to point out that a little bit of fog attribute will
"let the light out", and that works well thank you.

But this seems very kludgy. Counterintuitive. Why do my lights need to be foggy?



Tom Ellard, Severed Communications Australia [e-mail]



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 01:12:09
Subject: Re: A few Questions
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello pantera, on Jul 24 you wrote:

> hi guys if anyone could commet on anY of the comments:
>
>
> 1.  The "METABALLS" which is going to be featured in 4.0, how hard is it
> to model using this technique, i mean is it alot harder than using the
> traditional detail editor tools?

If you mean V4.0 specifically, hard to say until it comes out.


> 2.  I still have questions about the BONES feature, let's say that i had
> a "can" object of coke for example.  ANd i wanted to make it dance.
> Here's a sketch:
>
> .........
> |||||||||
> |||||||||
> .........
> |||||||||
> |||||||||
> .........
> |||||||||
> |||||||||
> .........    (Assume that the can has many more "horizontal sections".
> Now how could i make it so that when i rotate the top point of the can,
> that the bottom section would stay intact, and the others would somehow
> i guess "conform" to the rotation of the top points, so that you get a
> "bent" can.  If anyone understands what i'm talking aboyt, I'd greatly
> appreciate a small example so i could follow.)

There is a good step-by-step example of Bones in the FAQ.  What I can tell
you though is that you can make your can dance with just a few bones as
your diagram shows now.  The middle bone can include a large percentage of
the can's faces and when you rotate its axis the faces will bend in a
smooth arc.

If you have many bones, start with the bottom one where you want the bend
to begin and rotate it, now update the bone. Do the same for the rest,
working your way to the top and adjust the axes until you get the shape
your after.


> 3.  I am just kinda curious as to why there are no books (commercial)
> covering Imagine, and no I'm not talking about "understanding Imagine
> 2.0" or "THe Imagine COmpanian", I'm talking about new books covering
> the NEW features of Imagine. .....

Good question, I'm sure it would sell very well.


> 4.  Will Imuplse ever feature the famous (overused) lightwave light
> effects (lensflare, glow, hallow around light) in the upcominng 4.0.

We already have lensflare, glow would be nice - where's my light sabre :-)

-- Bob


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 01:16:50
Subject: RE:RE Mike H
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi Vance Schowalter!

I did say sometimes, I didnt say every time. And I have got some troubles myself

with the "GANG". I need the Amiga PAL version, and the last three updates
3.1-3.3 was ntsc. But Hey maybe they did it piss me of? I dont think so. I
called them back after the first shipment 3.1, and they sent me the right
Version the same day. But I still got 3.2-3.3 in ntsc version, anoying yes but
so what? But lets stop this debate?

And now to something else.
Have you done something cool in Imagine latly?, if so lets hear about it, I'm
all ears.

Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)




Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 01:51:40
Subject: Re: Disturbed & Grid
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello ERNESTO, on Jul 25 you wrote:

> 2. I have found some textures that are undocumented (i guess somebody
> say this before...)
>    * Disturbed.itx
>    * Grid.itx

These are documented in the V2.0 manual and because a lot of you started
with V3.0 I'm sure no one will mind if I describe the parameters.


DISTURBED
=========

Creates a disturbed pattern similar to water.

Amount:  controls the apparent height of the waves,
         suggested value around 0.25.

Wavelength: distance between the wave crests.


Wave interference pattern parameters:-

X Separation: varies the relative phase between two waves,
              suggested value around half the Wavelength.

Small < 1: controls the angle between the travel direction of the two
           waves.


GRID
====

Creates a series of lines in the Y and X plane.

Grid Size: the distance between the lines.

Line Size: the width of the lines.


-- Bob

  : Robert (Bob) Byrne : [e-mail] :
  :   Amiga  A3000/25  :  Ballina, NSW  Australia  :



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 01:55:18
Subject: Re: Pentium speed
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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

On Tue, 25 Jul 1995, DThompson wrote:

> the work with adpro, fred, and my Par, but for less than $2,400 I got a 90
> mhz machine with a Gig of hardrive space and 32 megs of ram. It's even

Is the $2,400 a typo?  Last time I checked, a 1gig hardrive was about
$500 and 32 megs of ram is about $1,500.  That means you only paid $400
for everything else.  If the $2,400 was not a typo, please tell me where
you got your pentium(in other words, where I will be buying my next
computer:)


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 02:03:32
Subject: I apologise to the list
From:    Gerard Menendez <[e-mail]>


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



My comments about Mike H. had no place on our list and spawned much
useless mail.  Given how few and far between my positive contributions
are, I ought to think twice about mucking things up.

Furthermore, the service I received on the phone, while poor, was
certainly not actively rude, and I do not know whether it was Mike or not.
Also, while I often do not like the tone of his messages, they certainly
do not deserve to be characterized as unprecedentedly unprofessional.

I let myself get caught up in a round of bashing and I regret it.


This moment of insight is now over and we are returning to our usual
self-image of perfection.

Gerard



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 02:17:31
Subject: Re: Essence + 2.0
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Charles, on Jul 25 you wrote:

> > From: Robert Whitaker <[e-mail]>
> >
> > Hi there,  I was wondering in Essence 1 is compatable with Imagine 2.0.
>
> Heck, Essence is compatible with everything all the way back to Turbo
> Silver!

Well, not quite.  I've read the FAQ's that go back some years and there was
a lot of discussion about compatibility when V2.9 arrived. Essence 1
textures were not compatible after Imagine V2.0 until someone posted a
patch to Aminet. It's biz/patch/esstoim29.lha and it changes one byte in
the code and adds the .itx extension. I now have two versions of Essence 1,
the original for use with Forge and the patched one for Imagine 3.

Essence 2 Version 3 has no compatibility problems, I don't know if there is
a later version of Essence 1 which solved this problem.

-- Bob


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 02:32:16
Subject: Re: DCTV to VCR problem
From:    "Randy R. Wall" <[e-mail]>


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



On Tue, 25 Jul 1995, Robert King (ART) wrote:

> was there a dctv image (mottled grey 8color or 16 color image) displayed on
> your computer monitor (RGB) when you got no video from the the video out
> of the DCTV?  If the computer is showing the 3 or 4 bitplane gray scale
> image that DCTV converts to video and no video is present at the
> video-out port, then try the pixel-adjust knob on the DCTV unit.
>
> Also when I used to load dctv animations into Deluxe Paint they wouldn't
> show until I either started the animation or removed the title bar with F10.
>
> Robert King

Yes, and sometimes you even have to move your workbench screen in prefs to
get the images to show up properly, or use the Ctrl and arrow keys in DPaint
to move the whole screen. Espesially with overscan images.

=RRW=



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 03:04:23
Subject: World Size (was Re: Memory...)
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Charles, on Jul 25 you wrote:

> > From: Matt Kropp <[e-mail]>
> >
> > I read somewhere that Ray Tracing in Imagine is limited to a World size of
> > 1024x1024x1024.
>
> It depends on which version of Imagine you own. Early versions, until
> 2.0 I guess, had the default world size set to 1024. Then, starting at
> 2.9 I believe, the default was changed to zero, allowing Imagine to
> auto-size the world on every frame.

According to the V3 manual the world size extends 16000 units along the
three axes, ie. -16000 to +16000.

The default world size is 1024 units in all directions, anything outside
this area will not be rendered in Trace mode.

Now that seems to be a contradiction, because the Global World Size
defaults to 0,0,0 and the world is sized dynamically. I assume then that
doing a quickrender in Trace from the Detail Editor means you are limited
to 1024 units but a render in the Stage is dynamic.

Does that make sense?

-- Bob


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 03:24:50
Subject: Re: A few Questions
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-25 03:09:02 EDT, [e-mail] writes:

>2.  I still have questions about the BONES feature, let's say that i had
>a "can" object of coke for example.  ANd i wanted to make it dance.

I have plans for writing a tutorial to make an animated figure. (bones,
constraints, edge fill, etc)  All that's needed is time.

For now I'll assume you know the basics of bones.  If not, let me know.

Let's make a can with 3 sections like in your diagram.  To make bones work
decent you should at least have 1 or 2 sections in between your bone
sections. (the more sections, the smoother the bends)  So we'll make a can
with 7 vertical sections.

Put an axis at the bottom of section 1 (the bottom one), section 4, and
section 7 (top).
In the attribute requester name them bot, mid, and top.

Pick Group mode.
Click on mid, then top. Click on "Group" menu item.
Click on bot, then multiclick mid. "Group" them.
Click on the can axis(which now becomes the parent), then multiclick bot.
"Group" them.

Make this your "default" state.

Pick Face mode.
Multipick the top row of points (faces of top of can). Make this your small
bone subgroup for the "top" axis.
Multipick the top 3 sections of the can. Big bone supgroup for "top".
Multipick the top 4 sections of the can. Small bone subgroup for "mid".
Multipick the top 6 sections of the can. Big bone supgroup for "mid".
Multipick all sections of the can. Small bone subgroup for "bot".
We'll also use all section for Big bone subgroup for "bot".
This allows us to deform the whole can without moving the "bot" axis.

There are two ways to twist our can.

Direct method:
Pick Group mode.
Pick "top" or "mid" and rotate them around "z".
Click on can axis.
Click on "Update Bones" menu item.
We can also rotate around "x" or "y" to bend the can over. Try it.

Set "State" to "default".

Inverse method.
*Pick Object mode.*
Pick can axis.
"Freeze" all world axis.
Pick "Constrain" menu item.
Pick "top" axis.
Rotate and see all 3 axis rotate differant amounts.
Pick Group mode.
Pick can axis and "Update Bones".
Again you can also move, which affects all the bones to bend the can.

Hope this helps. Hollar for more help if you need it.

As for Metaball, a lot of how hard it is will depend alot on how Impulse
implements it.
As for books, between "Dare to Imagine", the FAQ, and this list, you couldn't
get a much more up to date reference base.
Rick



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 03:33:23
Subject: RE:RE Mike H
From:    Vance Schowalter <[e-mail]>


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

On 26 Jul 1995, Granberg Tom wrote:

> Hi Vance Schowalter!
>
> I did say sometimes, I didnt say every time. And I have got some troubles myse
lf
> with the "GANG". I need the Amiga PAL version, and the last three updates
> 3.1-3.3 was ntsc. But Hey maybe they did it piss me of? I dont think so. I
> called them back after the first shipment 3.1, and they sent me the right
> Version the same day. But I still got 3.2-3.3 in ntsc version, anoying yes but

> so what? But lets stop this debate?

I agree. No more debate.

I wish I had the cash, I'd take your 3.3 NTSC Imagine version off your
hands. Not meant to be, I guess. *8^>

>
> And now to something else.
> Have you done something cool in Imagine latly?, if so lets hear about it, I'm

> all ears.
>
> Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)
>

Well, the very latest I've been playing with has been using altitude
mapping to make small moons and planets. It works great for that. The
first map I put on the sphere is the altitude map, to create the
impression of continents. Then I apply a different colour map to give the
impression of shifting sands, etc. It works better than using the same
map for both. Much better.

I've only played around with textured planets a couple of times. At this
time, brush mapping is where my interests lay, right now.

I use Imagemaster R/t for detailing maps, and these two graphics packages
complement each other extremely well. Both have a learning curve, but the
rewards are well worth it. Imagine is much easier for me to use now,
thanks to the features that Impulse continues to add.

One of my favourite features has always been the camera and object
tracking capabilities. For flyby shots, this implementation makes it a
breeze to set up and render.

*******************************************
*    Vance Schowalter >>Image Master<<    *
*                                         *
* Internet: [e-mail] *
*                                         *
*     "Affable little snow creature."     *
*******************************************



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 04:00:29
Subject: ------=> Sorry NO Subject!
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Jul 24,  9:29am, [e-mail] wrote:
>
>
>
>      The reason: One of my friends and I exchange projects often. But, if
>      he did NOT have the exact same directory name as I, we would have to
>      re-build the WHOLE project. Of course, that doesn't work if you have
>      300 frames to render, 150 on each machine.
>

It seems like any complicated program like Imagine will have the same problem.
 Does Lightwave?

Anyway, on my AMIGA, I got around this using the ASSIGN command.  So, when I
went to another machine, I would assign his disk and directory name to mine, so
that the AMIGA would simply substitute one for the other when it came up.  It
worked like a charm.

I don't know if there is something similar in the PC world.

Craig



--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 04:08:29
Subject: Re: Scanline and Trace
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Dave, on Jul 24 you wrote:

RB> > How about we define a base scene as a benchmark that everyone can render
  > > for comparison.  This could go in the FAQ for future reference.

>   I think this is a great idea. I also think it would be nice to have some
> kind of standard Imagine directory configuration, so that we could swap
> projects with each other, (or even just staging files) instead of trying
> to describe a complex process in words. It would possibly take up less
> space, in some cases. Lots of problems with different versions though.?

I keep all my projects in an assigned path (IM:) and if I give a project to
someone they can put it anywhere and assign IM: to that directory.
The problem now is not just different versions but different platforms.
Filenames and paths are not the same:-

Amiga:MyCurrentRender.imp/objects/Big_SpaceShip.iob

PC:\MyCurren.imp\objects\Big_Spac.iob  (or something like that).

Staging files alone are no good without the objects they try to load.

Perhaps there is a compromise that could be worked out, it would make
solving someone's particular problem a lot easier.

-- Bob

  : Robert (Bob) Byrne : [e-mail] :
  :   Amiga  A3000/25  :  Ballina, NSW  Australia  :



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 04:17:11
Subject: ------=> Sorry NO Subject!
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Jul 25,  2:06am, [e-mail] wrote:
>

> > From: Robert Byrne <[e-mail]>
> >
> > How about we define a base scene as a benchmark that everyone can render
> > for comparison.  This could go in the FAQ for future reference.
>
> Someone finally did this on CompuServe, after years of online idle
> speculation. The results floored me. A Pentium machine rendered
>
>     TWENTY-FIVE
>
> times as fast as my 25 MHz Amiga 3000! I was in shock for days.
>
>

You must also realize that it is not just processor speed that makes this
possible.  The rest of the computer makes a difference.

For example, the pentium has a faster hard drive, a faster bus, faster RAM and a

larger CPU cache.  So the processor may only be ten times faster, but the rest
of the computer makes it accomplish the actual work much faster.





--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 04:54:57
Subject: ------=> Sorry NO Subject!
From:    [e-mail]


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


Greg Denby wrote:
-3.3 definately
-does need the color definitions in order to render Global Fog.  For
-a night scene I found it necessary to set the horizon etc to 1,1,1.
-Then the fog worked.

-Anyone else running into this under different circumstances?

No, I cant say that I have encountered this problem, but there is something
funny going on with the way Im3.3 handles fog. I just sent a mail to the IML
telling about a problem with using fog objects togheter with depth of field, is

strange to say the least.
I have a friend that rendered a buitifull surrealistic picture with globalfog
yesterday, and it turned out to be stuning. But he was using a backdrop image on

a plate. So thats maybe why it worked?

Anyone else?
Later!

Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)




Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 05:16:01
Subject: ------=> Sorry NO Subject!
From:    [e-mail]


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

> I assume your are ray-tracing, of course. If parts of highly-refractive
> objects appear black, it's often because Imagine's Resolve Depth has
> been exceeded for those pixels, in which case Imagine throws its hands
> up in the air and colors them black. Try doubling your RDSP Preferences
> parameter, then re-render the same image and eyeball the old and new
> images. If the new images shows less black areas, you're on the right
> track, and can keep bumping RDSP up until the problem has disappeared.
> The fact that you say no black exists in the environment, strongly
> suggests that RDSP is the culprit.

I have tried this all the way up to the maximum RDSP with absolutely
no effect.  There does not seem to be much change in the raytrace
time either, which I found somewhat curious.  It took around
3 min 5 sec at the default RDSP setting, and around 3 min 15 sec
at the maximum setting of 16.  There was no change in the maximum
stack space utilized either, which I found extremely odd, since
I seem to recall that a greater RDSP setting involved greater
degrees of recursion, and hence more stack usage.

The only thing which seems to effect it is a greatly decreased
index of refraction, which must be set no more than about 1.1.
It seems work just fine on spherical objects of both types,
however, even with a large index of refraction.

___________________________________________________________________
                  |         Internet: [e-mail]
Joseph Hart       |     /// Plink   : OSS542
Niagara Falls, NY | \\\///  Ham call: WA2SND
                  |  \XX/   FreeNet : [e-mail]
                  |     *** AMIGA - Computers for REAL MEN ***
===================================================================


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 05:50:23
Subject: ------=> Sorry NO Subject!
From:    [e-mail]


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

>
> Well, assuming UniVesa is installed and works correctly with your
> video card, you simply go to Preferences, edit the line that says:
>
> ...     imagine screen width: 0=640  1=800  2=1024  3=1200
>
> change the "value" to 2.

   I have the full complement of VESA video modes, but I want to be able
to use one mode for the editors, and quick-render to another video mode.
IE., I run the editor in 800x600 or 1024x768, but I want to quick-render
to 640x480 and have it displayed on a 640x480 screen! It always displays
on the same size screen as my editor is in. I'd also like to be able to
use even smaller quick-render sizes (320x200, 160x100, etc), but these
pics are way too small displayed on a 800x600 or 1024x768 screen...
Thanks for any info.

                                      SJG



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 06:52:31
Subject: Re: Realistic Glass!!!! (long)
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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

>To: [e-mail]
>From: [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)
>Subject: Re: Realistic Glass!!!! (long)
>
>>OK, I know all of you probably remember the "cups.jpg" problem.  Well I'm not
>>gonna send the glass I made(unless you want :) <<ducking>>  But what I've
>>done is to create glass!
>>
>>A) REVELATIONS
>>---------------------------
>>Yesterday I was sitting there with a plastic glass(is that possible?) and I
>>picked it up, stared in amazement. I said to myself, " thats why imagine
>>can't create glass".  What I had seen was specular spots from every light in
>>the room cast on the material not in spots but rather linear, up and down
>>along the surface.  Well I know imagine can't do this, so I set out to try to
>                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Sure it can.
>Have you tried making sure the edges (ie where Rim and Base join the
>body) are 'Sharp' ie 'Make Sharp'. This is something I have recently
>discovered to make a huge difference on these type of objects, and
>you do end up with linear highlights, and great rim highlights. I've
>just finished an object using this and it looks great, without any
>special mapping tricks.
>
>The guts of it is, always analyse your object for edges which should be
>sharp and make them sharp! It makes a big difference to phong smoothing,
>too.
>
>Bill
>



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 07:01:22
Subject: Re: An old challenge - How are diamonds done ?
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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

>> I assume your are ray-tracing, of course. If parts of highly-refractive
>> objects appear black, it's often because Imagine's Resolve Depth has
>> been exceeded for those pixels, in which case Imagine throws its hands
>> up in the air and colors them black. Try doubling your RDSP Preferences
>> parameter, then re-render the same image and eyeball the old and new
>> images. If the new images shows less black areas, you're on the right
>> track, and can keep bumping RDSP up until the problem has disappeared.
>> The fact that you say no black exists in the environment, strongly
>> suggests that RDSP is the culprit.
>
>I have tried this all the way up to the maximum RDSP with absolutely
>no effect.  There does not seem to be much change in the raytrace
>time either, which I found somewhat curious.  It took around
>3 min 5 sec at the default RDSP setting, and around 3 min 15 sec
>at the maximum setting of 16.  There was no change in the maximum
>stack space utilized either, which I found extremely odd, since
>I seem to recall that a greater RDSP setting involved greater
>degrees of recursion, and hence more stack usage.
>
>The only thing which seems to effect it is a greatly decreased
>index of refraction, which must be set no more than about 1.1.
>It seems work just fine on spherical objects of both types,
>however, even with a large index of refraction.
>
As mentioned in another post, sharp edges are important. Try making
sure the edges of the facets on the diamond are 'Sharp' edges. Otherwise
the phong alogriths screw things up, which I think causes these blackness
problems. Worth a Crack!



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 07:25:40
Subject: Re: Fog objects vs. DOF!
From:    "DEBEAUMONT, GEORGE" <[e-mail]>


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

"Granberg Tom" <[e-mail]> wrote:
>I have run into a unusual problem.
>I working on a project where Im building a virtual studio for a show, where I
>have lights running along the edge of the roof. So I put an extruded fog object

>as wide as the light, with the fogtop texture on it, to simulate light haze.
>It looked great when rendered, but hey I wanted depth of field to. To get that

>extra realism into the picture. Then the problem jumped in with full power, it

>only blurred what was behind the fog object and nothing else, and it didnt
>matter how far or how close the fog object was to the camera. To check if I was

>wrong I deleted the fog object, and hey presto, nice dof. So there must be
>something wrong here, or at least something I've overlooked.

Tom is correct. Fog objects don't appear to work well with the depth of
field function enabled. Specifically, other objects (viewed through a fog
object) have an inaccurate depth of field. The point of focus appears to be
at a distance much farther from the camera.

With transparent objects the problem is even worse. Other objects (viewed
through a transparent object) all appear in perfect focus!

Both of the above problems occur in both scanline and trace. I'm sure one
of the theoretical types on the list can explain the reason for these
shortcomings.

George deBeaumont
[e-mail]



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 09:03:25
Subject: Re: Inertia ??
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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

>Hi all,
>     whilst rendering last night I managed to generate an inertia like
>effect even though I didn't want it. And I actually would like to get
>rid of it!
>     The Scene: I created a logo in the spline editor.  I wanted to
>achieve the effect of the letters starting in the horizontal position and
>then one by one rotating up into the vertical, pivoting about the bottom
>of the character (clear?).
>I created a bunch  of states with the letters in the required 90 and 45
>degree angles such that as one letter reached 45 degrees the next one would
>start to rise... and as one letter reached the vertical position, the
>next would be at 45 degrees.  A sort of cascade effect.
>A quickrendered animation in the details editor and it all looked very nice
>and mechanical.
>
>     The Effect: Scanline rendered anim.  The letters seem to 'bounce'!
>Before each letter starts to rise up, it would rotate down a little bit
>and then pop back up [This movement downwards would actually occur in the
>frames *before* the character was even defined to have move!!]. When the
>letter reached the upright position it would overshoot by just a fraction
>(probably only 2 frames worth) and then return to the upright position.
>
>     Although, in the end, this gives a more natural looking movement, I
>really want to know why I am not getting the purely mechanical movement
>that I specified.
>
>     Any takers?
>
>MiKE (Cstar on #amiga)
>  [e-mail]  http://joffre.newcastle.edu.au/

O.K., easy one. What's happening is as soon as you go into the stage, Imagine
applies spline interpolation to all your movements, alignments etc. The
default values are a little exagerated to say the least, and in your case
you need to go through and in the Action editor switch of Spline Interpolation
(i think that's what it's called) in each position and alignment etc bar. This
will return to the mechanical look, or you can decrease or increase the spline
start and end values to reduce/increase the effect. RTFM for more info.

Bill



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 09:05:53
Subject: Re: Imagine 4.0 Questions
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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

>> From: [e-mail]
>>
>> What all is supposed to be in Imagine 4.0.
>
>Things I know so far:
>
>4.0 will include metaballs, new lights that cast soft shadows in trace
>mode, motion blur. Not specifically mentioned, but supposed to be
>included, is alpha channel support to replace (and improve) the old
>genlock feature. 4.0 will be available for Amiga and Windows; other
>platforms have been mentioned as well. It will be available to new
>owners, but very tentative messages by Mike Halvorson would seem to
>indicate a large retail price (over $1000) for 4.0/Windows if you're not
>upgrading, current Imagine owners would be able to upgrade for a much
>more reasonable price.
>
>That's all I can remember at this point.
>
>
And what of the talk (and hint in the 3.3 install sheet) about 4.0 being the
last Imagine? Has Impulse elaborated/explained?



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 09:34:45
Subject: Re: DCTV
From:    Ayalon Hermony <[e-mail]>


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


Hello,

I asume you have DCTVpaint, so you can convert DCTV pic back to 24bit,
but, you want to batch conversion of several files ?

The only way I can help, use front end to ADPro, maybe FRED, and batch
convert the files.
ADPro should have read/write ability of DCTV files.

Btw, what 'readdctv' does? Where ? What? Shareware?


        How od you come back from 3D ?
Ayalon M. Hermony,    Internet: [e-mail]


On Sun, 23 Jul 1995, Mike McCool wrote:

> Hey y'all,
>
>     This may seem off topic,--but I swear on John Wayne's ghost it's
> pertinent.
>
>     Do any of you know of a util that will convert DCTV pix BACK to
> straight 24bit pix?Going the other way's no prob,--but coming back
> isn't so easy.
>
>     (I do have "readdctv," and it's better than nothing, but not by
> much).
>
>     I'm eternally grape-leaved.
>


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 09:51:11
Subject: Re: DCTV to VCR problem
From:    Ayalon Hermony <[e-mail]>


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


Hello,
I'd use DCTV PAL and A3000 for years now, no problems at all.
I record from it, to Sony PAL VHS by scart connector, no problems.
Maybe try this:

- Attach the DCTV video out to composite video monitor, see if you get any
  color pic at all.
- If yes to the above, it means your DCTV video out is O.K.
  So check the scart cable. Maybe you should switch the in/out plug, maybe
  you're trying to record via the video out of the scart (mine has scart
  connector on one side, 2 RCA audio in/out, 2 RCA video in/out, 2 BNC
  video in/out, on the other side)
- Check your VCR record function, if it records from the aerial in (the
  antena connector) it may have problem recording from the video in.
- Connect the DCTV video out to VCR video in.
  Connect VCR video out to COMPOSITE video in of your video monitor.
  Put some DCTV pic with A3000, you see nothing yet.
  Press Record and Pause in your VCR, you should see the DCTV pic now.



        How od you come back from 3D ?
Ayalon M. Hermony,    Internet: [e-mail]


On Mon, 24 Jul 1995, Thomas Krpic-Mocilar wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have bought a DCTV (PAL) from AmigaOberland more than a year ago and only
> used it for digitizing (and printing) pictures. I used it on my A3000
> without problems.
>
> But when I tried to get a DCTV animation on video tape, I got no result.
> I connected the "video out" interface of the DCTV with the "Scart"
> interface of a Hitachi VHS-recorder. Although I think the cable was
> correct and I did everything right, no (!) picture appeared on the VCR
> screen. Has anyone faced similar problems? Is something wrong with the DCTV
> unit?
>
> I then tried the same with my old A500 (2.5 meg RAM). The DCTV didn't
> even produce a colour image at all but only greyscale pictures. The
> animation recording didn't work as well. Why is there no colour output on
> the A500 (RGB output)?
>
> I would be glad if I received help.
>
> T.K.
>
>


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 10:04:04
Subject: Re: Video boards
From:    Ayalon Hermony <[e-mail]>


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



On Tue, 25 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

>    In the PC world,  has anyone or has Impulse devised a compatibility list
> for Graphics boards that are proven to work in all VESA modes with Imagine.
>  I think this would be a very useful list for the Amiga users that are
> contemplating moving to the PC.
>    I think the list should be of those boards that run stock without third
> party work arounds such as UNIVESA. Or a tri-list of those that work stock,
>  those that work with third party workarounds,and those that do not work at
> all.
>    If anyone wishes to start one ( I can ) let me start the list by adding
> mine,
> Diamond Stealth 24 VLB - works in all modes
>
>
> Render on....... andon........ and on.........and....
>

Tseng4000p 2M RAM, PCI on Pentium 100MHz.

        How do you come back from 3D ?
Ayalon M. Hermony,    Internet: [e-mail]



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 10:21:16
Subject: Re: Lights in raytrace.
From:    [e-mail] (Patrick Sauvageau)


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

>I really don't understand why lights that work in scanline don't work in trace.

>
>To be more specific, creating a sphere, giving it a 'light' attribute,
>seeing that it works fine in scan but throws no light in trace.
>
>Somone was kind enough to point out that a little bit of fog attribute will
>"let the light out", and that works well thank you.
>
>But this seems very kludgy. Counterintuitive. Why do my lights need to be
foggy?
>
>
>Tom Ellard, Severed Communications Australia [e-mail]

It's beacause light do not come from the surface of a "light" object, but
from it's axis. Since in a sphere, the axis is inside the object, the
surface is blocking all the light. If you want to add a light source in your
scene, you can just add an axis and make it "light".

Remember: polygon do not emit light; axis do, allway.

-----
Patrick Sauvageau
([e-mail])



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 10:51:55
Subject: RE:Inertia
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi Mike Cheng!

The answer to your problem is spline interpolation, set in the action bar of the

object(group)in the action editor. This is set to doing spline interpolation by

default, but by turning their values to zero, I think that will give you the
wanted mech look your after. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Later

Tom Granberg (RenderBrandt)





Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 11:23:26
Subject: Render Model (was Re: Scanline and Trace)
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne) (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Andrey, on Jul 25 you wrote:

> Here are the results of the rendering times comparison that I
> promised:
>
> RESULTS OF THE RENDERME SURVEY ON COMPUSERVE 6/25/95 - 7/2/95
>
  <deleted>

Thanks for that, very informative and useful when the time comes to
upgrade.

As my original message asked if we should'nt define a standard render model
for future reference, is there any detailed information on what project was
actually used to get these render times. I'm looking to the future when
someone may, for example, add an 060 or some other board to their computer
or Impulse releases a version for another platform.
They could render the "model" and we would have an accurate comparison to
add to the list.

Thanks for the feedback,  Bob

  : Robert (Bob) Byrne : [e-mail] :
  :   Amiga  A3000/25  :  Ballina, NSW  Australia  :



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 11:23:46
Subject: Re: Lights in raytrace.
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

Hey Tom,

      Try sizing the axis of your object up, till it exceeds the outer
surface of the sphere, and see if the light works then.

On Wed, 26 Jul 1995, Tom Ellard wrote:

> I really don't understand why lights that work in scanline don't work in trace
.
>
> To be more specific, creating a sphere, giving it a 'light' attribute,
> seeing that it works fine in scan but throws no light in trace.
>
> Somone was kind enough to point out that a little bit of fog attribute will
> "let the light out", and that works well thank you.
>
> But this seems very kludgy. Counterintuitive. Why do my lights need to be fogg
y?
>
>
> Tom Ellard, Severed Communications Australia [e-mail]
>
>


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 11:25:16
Subject: JPEG Pictures!!!
From:    Fernando D'Andrea <[e-mail]>


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

    Hi, imagineers!
    I liked this idea (send small JPEG pictures from Imagine
renderings). Everybody who got a cool result and get small sized
JPEGs from it could send it by email.
    Just to remember: a "small JPEG" can't be larger than 10, 12 Kb.
    Sorry my poor english.


*********************************
Fernando Pena D'Andrea.
E-Mail: [e-mail]
*********************************


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 11:29:57
Subject: Fingerprint-fault
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi!
This is cool, correcting my own mail?

Well if you noticed, you would have to inverse the specular mapping as well, if

you didnt do it in your image proccesing program?. Imagine will use the luma and

color values to determine the specularity on the object. Another tip is to use
that same map as a hardness mapping, remember to cross the inverse button to get

zero or 50% if you mix/morph it 0.50, hardness on the fingerprints itself.

Bye for now!

Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 11:30:58
Subject: Bying PentiumPC
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Bill Graham wrote among other things:

-platform "war" (stupid term, really). I'm going to keep my amiga(s), but
-there is no denying the rendering speed increase. Please reply to me directly
-at [e-mail]

Yepp, the speed increase itself is infact a good reason to outstand the F***ING

DOS. Speed increase means that you get more work done in less time, plus as
somone else stated, you can make sure it looks right by playing around.
We also got PAR on one of the Pentiums, but that to are a DOZZZZ program, and
that is a bit anoying, since I would have to quit Imagine or anything else for
that mater, to use it. But still a great software/hardware, wouldnt be without
it a second.
So PentiumPc's are good enough as work horse goes, but no way I'm using it for
other things than realy heavy applications. Ok Photoshop runs hell of a lot
faster on it to!
So a multiplaform choise works best for me, but anyone with different needs,
will do different things. I'm no Amiga or Pc freak, I love doing graphics, and
as such I have to give my A4000 Warp4040 a warm hug due to the imense diverse
and cheap software you could by for it, as well as a superior OS in terms of
usabilety.

Later!

Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 11:41:44
Subject: Object format
From:    [e-mail] (Darryl Lewis)


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

I'm considering writing a programming utility that would allow imagine
designed objects to be included in games.
Does anyone know what the programming structure of the object files are?
Has anyone done anything with the objects files before?

Darryl

-- Via DLG Pro v1.0

               #####\             _             /#####
               #( )# |          _( )__         | #( )#
               ##### |         /_    /         | #####
               #" "# |     ___m/I_ //_____     | #" "#
               # O # |____#-x.\ /++m\ /.x-#____| # O #
               #m.m# |   /" \ ///###\\\ / "\   | #m.m#
               #####/    ######/     \######    \#####


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 11:42:06
Subject: Re: DCTV
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

Hey,

      You asked about 'readdctv.'  It's a pd program that reads a dctv
file and converts it back to a 24bit file.  It can be used as a batch
processor, if you invoke the amigados dpat function.

      I'd say its only drawback is that the files seem to come out a
bit dark, compared to the original 24bit source.  But hey, for folks who
don't have access to Fred and AdPro, it's better than nothing.

      I don't even remember where on aminet I found it.  Lemme know,
I'll send you a copy.


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 11:56:20
Subject: Re: An old challenge - How are diamonds done ?
From:    "JOSEPH F. HART" <[e-mail]>


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

Greetings......

     This is an update to the list of attempts I have made to
make a transparent faceted diamond using a standard brilliant cut.
I am very grateful for all the kind responses I have received so far.
The following things have been attempted so far, without success :

Solid diamonds with attributes set as follows :
reflectivity     - red=  0, blue=  0, green=  0
filter           - red=255, blue=255, green=255
color            - red=255, blue=255, green=255
refractive index - 2.42
     This is the original problem.

Hollow diamonds with an interior set of surfaces similar to the
exterior :
     The interior set of faces tend to cancel the refraction
     effects caused by the outer set of faces.

A lower refractive index :
     This is the only thing so far that produces a transparent faceted
     diamond, but with a very low refractive index around 1.1

A higher value for RDSP :
     This appears to have no effect whatsoever on increasing the
     transparency.  The maximum value available is 16.

Selecting all edges and making them hard :
     This appears to have no effect whatsoever on increasing the
     transparency.

I hope I haven't skipped anything.....:-)  My sincere thanks go to
all who have responded so far.  Please keep up the good work.....:-)


___________________________________________________________________
                  |         Internet: [e-mail]
Joseph Hart       |     /// Plink   : OSS542
Niagara Falls, NY | \\\///  Ham call: WA2SND
                  |  \XX/   FreeNet : [e-mail]
                  |     *** AMIGA - Computers for REAL MEN ***
===================================================================


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 12:07:31
Subject: Re:Radiosity
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


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


Rick Heidebrecht writes:
(about radiosity)
>I know, its really, REALLY slow,

Havinf seen radiosity generated images, I too wish for the effect.
But saying the process is "really, REALLY slow," may be a major
MAJOR understatement.  I found a German sight of the Web where they
were using a Thinking Machines CM5 with 128 processors and it took
days to render a rather boring room.  Somewhere, perhaps 3D Artist,
there is an article about a recent implementation of radiosity in a Mac
package.  Rendering time went from about a half an hour for a trace
to something like five days for the radiosity rendering.

However, there may be ways of setting it up that are much more
efficient.  One company, Lightscape I think is there name, says their
system, used on SG's allows real time walk thrus.  They don't say if
that is after days of set up.

Greg Denby


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 12:10:13
Subject: Inertia ??
From:    Mike Cheng <[e-mail]>


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

Hi all,
      whilst rendering last night I managed to generate an inertia like
effect even though I didn't want it. And I actually would like to get
rid of it!
      The Scene: I created a logo in the spline editor.  I wanted to
achieve the effect of the letters starting in the horizontal position and
then one by one rotating up into the vertical, pivoting about the bottom
of the character (clear?).
I created a bunch  of states with the letters in the required 90 and 45
degree angles such that as one letter reached 45 degrees the next one would
start to rise... and as one letter reached the vertical position, the
next would be at 45 degrees.  A sort of cascade effect.
A quickrendered animation in the details editor and it all looked very nice
and mechanical.

      The Effect: Scanline rendered anim.  The letters seem to 'bounce'!
Before each letter starts to rise up, it would rotate down a little bit
and then pop back up [This movement downwards would actually occur in the
frames *before* the character was even defined to have move!!]. When the
letter reached the upright position it would overshoot by just a fraction
(probably only 2 frames worth) and then return to the upright position.

      Although, in the end, this gives a more natural looking movement, I
really want to know why I am not getting the purely mechanical movement
that I specified.

      Any takers?

MiKE (Cstar on #amiga)
  [e-mail]  http://joffre.newcastle.edu.au/



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 12:41:18
Subject: Re: Imagine 4.0 Questions
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

> 4.0 will be available for Amiga and Windows; other
> platforms have been mentioned as well.

Correction, Imagine 4.0 will *not* be available for Windows, only for
DOS. A separate program WinImagine will be released after 4.0 is out.

Andrey

ZIPtag * (D)inner not ready:  (A)bort (R)etry (P)izza



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 12:42:22
Subject: Re: Radiosity
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

> Am I the only one that would like to see radiosity in Imagine 4.0?  I
> know, it's really, REALLY slow, but you can do things that just can't be
> done with raytracing.  I think if the guys at Impulse could find time to
> implement radiosity it would really put Imagine over the top.

I'd much rather see better interface than radiosity.


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 12:56:02
Subject: Motion Blur Trick
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi!

I have come up with a good way doing motion blur for real, I think so anyway and

shall test it when I get back from Siggraph.
But having used Lightwave for a while as well as Imagine, I think it should
work. Lightwave uses it's Antialiasing threshold to make motion blur. So I
figured that if you took the finished rendered pictures into lightwave as a
animated backdrop. Dont ad lights, just standard rendering setup, but with 8 or

12 antialiasing steps, it will create real motion blur. And I dont think it
would take up so much extra rendering time either. If this works I will start
using Lightwave as my motion blur "plug in" for Imagine.

Later!

Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 13:02:35
Subject: Any way to save paths as x,y,z coordinates?
From:    Aki Laukkanen <[e-mail]>


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

I know this must sound ridiculous but is there any way to save paths
as x,y,z coordinate queue? I know this effect would be possible by
extruding an edge (or a point) along a path and then saving the
results. Unfortunately atleast Imagine 2.0 AF cover version (I'm a
poor guy) doesn't allow this. It's only possible to extrude faces and
it's a tad tedious process to manually delete thousands of points. Or
is there an another way to achieve this? The intended use would be in
our (Stellar) demo production as a object movement editor. (I wrote my
own editor using splines but it's pretty unintuitive)


.... RTFM.

* Offline Orbit 0.75a *


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 13:27:11
Subject: Re: Inertia ??
From:    --Craig <[e-mail]>


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

I'm pretty sure this is a result of the spline interpolation that
Imagine uses. (I'm also pretty sure someone else has answered this
already, but that's the problem with getting almost 100 email a day:
phase lag). Anyway, Imagine is doing some sort of spline fit that
creates a curve going from 0 to 90 degrees rotation. In your case, the
fit seems to give a slight downward curve first. Playing with the
initial and final velocities (and possibly the number of frames,
depending on how they've implemented it) should clear up your problem.
I would suggest setting the intial velocity to either + or -0.01 and
the final velocity to either either 0 or - or +0.01. Not sure which
way it's oriented, and I'm on a PC, so I can't check it out.

Use 'Make Anim' with 'Quick Stage' in the Stage Editor to get a fast
preview of your work. In my experience, it's about 10 times faster to
preview than Make Anim without Quick Stage.

Hope this helps.

  --Craig
[e-mail]


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 13:29:10
Subject: Mr. Mike H
From:    [e-mail]


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

I am an Imagine user, I was wondering if it would be possible to
purchase just the "manual" from Impulse since I had it stolen from me
awhile ago at work...if so please let me know.

PANTERA
[e-mail]




Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 13:32:36
Subject: Looping Timeline
From:    [e-mail]


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

well I took somebodies advice about vreating a LOOPING "randomripple"
water animation.  What i did was create three different planes, all
having the "random ripple' texture on them, one with the -1 timeline,
the other with a 0 timeline and the last with a 1 timeline.  I morphed
all these together:

putting plane1 on frame 1
putting plane2 on 2-10
putting plane3 on 11-21 and I tried 11-20


when i play back the animation I get a flickering effect showing that
the looping is not working, and YES i did try eliminating the last frame
so that the first and last wouldnt be exactly the same.  but its not
working.  Somebody know what's going on?

PANTERA
[e-mail]




Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 13:35:10
Subject: Rendering speed
From:    [e-mail]


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

could someone with a 120 Pentium please render such a frame and let me
know how long it took to render it in TRACE mode?

checkered ground
2 spehre with differnet textures (you choose, the more complicated the
better)
and maybe 2 lightsources casting shgadows.

I'd apprecite this since I'm definitely going to move on to the PC,
cause i can't understand why anyone could have the patience to wait for
the AMiga to catchup to the PC. =)  thanks!

PANTERA
[e-mail]




Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 13:36:28
Subject: Lensflare
From:    [e-mail]


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

is it me or does the lensflare on lightwave look better than the one in
Imagine, I was just curious, since they both seem very similar but i
thought i noticed a slight difference.  thanks!

PANTERA
[e-mail]




Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 13:46:26
Subject: Re: letter from Olga! =)
From:    Dave Rhodes <[e-mail]>


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

> > What the hell do people wanting citizenship in exchange for sex have to do
> > with Imagine.
>
> Hey, at this point, I'm considering soft shadows in exchange for sex!

 ..well I'd swap my citizenship for a cross platform amiga 3.0 to PC 3.3
and-all-points-north imagine upgrade.(and a pent 120, 64Mb ram etc.etc... )

  Come on,  - I've hardly used it....




--

~===========================================================================~
 Dave Rhodes - [e-mail] - Yorkshire - England -
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 13:50:19
Subject: Re: Professional vs. ?Amateur
From:    [e-mail] (Imagine Users Mailing List)


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

>
> On Mon, 24 Jul 1995, Kent Marshall Worley wrote:
>
> >
> > The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers looked raytraced to me!
> >
>
> Nah, raytraced characters usually have better acting skills! :)
>

A friend of mine did the Scorpion animations for that movie - he was using
Prisms.  Whatever Prisms uses, that's what it is in the movie I guess.

Lucky b*****d - he has a couple of Indigo 2 Extremes in his living room,
works from home...

j.



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 13:54:19
Subject: Re: Virtual memory in Imagine.
From:    [e-mail] (Imagine Users Mailing List)


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


> So, after all that verbal diahorrea my question is, does 3.3 utilise a swap
> file arrangement to solve this problem, akin to 3DStudio's solution. (I know,
> 3DStudio is much more expensive, but Imagine seems so well kitted out in other

> areas - as above - why not here).
>
> If you can understand my meaning here, please email me.
>

I too have had this problem with Imagine - in fact it's one of the things that's

preventing me from using it right away for some stuff I'm doing (using Truespace

instead).

A few days ago I saw a post from someone that stated how to make Imagine
work under Win95 - is it possible that Win95's virtual memory scheme would
be used by Imagine if run that way?  I know that Win95 makes it's VM available
to apps run in a DOS box - i.e. 16 Megs of real memory + 24 Megs of Win95 VM
= 40 Megs of RAM to a DOS application run in DOS box.

If that were the case, then problem solved.  Otherwise, I too would like to
cast my vote for some sort of Virtual Memory scheme for Imagine.  Until then,
I'm a little unwilling to use it in case I get into a "my scene is too big
for Imagine" bind - which I am apt to do.

j.




Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 14:01:39
Subject: Re: JPEG Pictures!!!
From:    [e-mail] (Imagine Users Mailing List)


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


> Of course, *I* should speak, right! I've sent UU files to the IML ohh, 3
> times this month? Sure, I felt it was For The Common Good, but why
> should my judgement be any better than that of other IML members who
> feel their render holds some cosmic value? Maybe it's time for another
> debate? After all, a year has passed, and the people on the List aren't
> all the same as last year. Whaddya say?
>

I think that the exchange of images amongst members of the IML shouldn't be
restricted - it's very useful and quite pleasing to see the results of your
fellow Imagine users efforts.  So, decision one, don't squash image exchange.

Now, using the mailing list is obviously a pain in the butt for some members
of the list - those that pay for their mail by the article, etc.  Also,
those with off-line readers are probably not too happy with having to sit
through a 15 minute download just for one message.

So, why not set up an easily accessible ftp site that people can use to swap
images?  <ahem> This is where I step in.  I run an Internet Presence Provider
here in Los Angeles, and I personally own over 7 hosts on my network.  I would
be more than happy to set up an image swapping site if it were needed and
wanted - and I may even be able to turn it into a Web gallery if it were big
enough and used often enough to justify the effort.

Thing is - isn't there something like this already?  Keep in mind that I have
no limits to disk space, access time, etc (they're my machines after all) and
we're connected via redundant T1 to the 'net.  So, if there's any interest
in this, I'll gladly set it up for the Imagine mailing list.

j.

[e-mail]


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 14:21:30
Subject: Re: Re:Mike H
From:    Dave Rhodes <[e-mail]>


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

   Tom Granberg said,

> Auch! I'll say Mike must be getting pissed by all this shit throwing, that is
if
> he read this mailing list. Even if I dont think that anyone of you is being
> unfriendly, I do think that some of the crap recieved by you is sometimes
> deserved. I've talked to Mike a lot of times,sometimes he is busy, and sometim
es
> he had the time to discuss other things than Imagine as well. But ofcourse whe
n
> someone call and ask for basic things they could read in the manual or complai
n
> about things everyone knows about or have mentioned a trilion times, maybe you

> to would be a little harsh voiced?

 I've got to agree with you Tom, I think that what some people get from
Mike H. is a reflection of their attitude when they communicate with him.
 We all know he's not the _customer-is-always-right_ , silver-tongued
 Yes-sir, No-sir three-bags-full-sir type of guy, (..He wouldn't have my
respect if he was), but he's not a liar, and he's not out to cheat us out of
anything. It's been said before,- if he was, we'd never hear from him at
all.
    Have you noticed that whenever someone attacks him/Impulse in public,
he responds in private ?

    One last thing on this subject, (for me..) .

 When I first joined this list, not so long ago, one of the first personal
mails I got was from Mike H.  It was about two lines long, and was only a
jokey comment about my sense of humour (!) , but boy, was I thrilled to
get personal mail from the guy who owns the company that makes my favourite
software, all those miles away...
   Now I reckon he reads the list, see's my name come up for the first time,
and he sends me a note to say welcome. That's customer support skill.


--

~===========================================================================~
 Dave Rhodes - [e-mail] - Yorkshire - England -
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 14:21:30
Subject: Re: Re:Mike H
From:    Dave Rhodes <[e-mail]>


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

   Tom Granberg said,

> Auch! I'll say Mike must be getting pissed by all this shit throwing, that is
if
> he read this mailing list. Even if I dont think that anyone of you is being
> unfriendly, I do think that some of the crap recieved by you is sometimes
> deserved. I've talked to Mike a lot of times,sometimes he is busy, and sometim
es
> he had the time to discuss other things than Imagine as well. But ofcourse whe
n
> someone call and ask for basic things they could read in the manual or complai
n
> about things everyone knows about or have mentioned a trilion times, maybe you

> to would be a little harsh voiced?

 I've got to agree with you Tom, I think that what some people get from
Mike H. is a reflection of their attitude when they communicate with him.
 We all know he's not the _customer-is-always-right_ , silver-tongued
 Yes-sir, No-sir three-bags-full-sir type of guy, (..He wouldn't have my
respect if he was), but he's not a liar, and he's not out to cheat us out of
anything. It's been said before,- if he was, we'd never hear from him at
all.
    Have you noticed that whenever someone attacks him/Impulse in public,
he responds in private ?

    One last thing on this subject, (for me..) .

 When I first joined this list, not so long ago, one of the first personal
mails I got was from Mike H.  It was about two lines long, and was only a
jokey comment about my sense of humour (!) , but boy, was I thrilled to
get personal mail from the guy who owns the company that makes my favourite
software, all those miles away...
   Now I reckon he reads the list, see's my name come up for the first time,
and he sends me a note to say welcome. That's customer support skill.


--

~===========================================================================~
 Dave Rhodes - [e-mail] - Yorkshire - England -
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 14:38:00
Subject: Metaballs
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


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

-> Since everyone is raving about the new mataballs modeller, I thoug=ht-> menti
on the metashape modeller in GIG's 3DGO. It works like a meta=bal-> modeller, ex
cept it also lets you use any other primitive in the p=rog-> (cubes, cones, toru
ses (tori?))A little birdy (with a crowbar) told me Metaballs will be implimente
din Imagine as an FX that will work both in Detail and Stage editors.   /-------
-----------------------           ___   ___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen
                  / __  /__/ /__/  /_   \ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.
      /___/ / \  /  /  /     / \  | [e-mail]     HA
US BBS (805-683-1388)  |           "Irony can make revenge a welcome alternative
"   \_____________________________________________________________--- =FE InterN
et - GraFX Haus BBS - Santa Barbara, Ca - [phone]

Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 15:35:55
Subject: Fuzz texture tip...
From:    [e-mail] (John Prusinski)


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

Quick tip:

        Just playing around with the Fuzz texture in 3.3 (PC)
I discovered (as I was working on a backdrop curtain for a
stage set) that by setting the fuzz color close to the base
color but lighter (in this case light magenta over purple) and
cranking the specularity of the object while keeping it in the
same color range (in this case VERY light magenta) and the
hardness down, I was able to get (by playing with the texture
size) a very believable range of fabric textures from coarse
wool blanket to fine velvet (which in my case was just what
the doctor ordered)!
Not sure if this would have the same effect with a smooth
object like a floor or a primitive, but it works great for objects
with lots of folds in them to catch the light.

John
________________________________________________
|  "The next great step toward a planetary holism is a     |
|    partial merging of the technologically transformed    |
|    human world with the archaic matrix of vegetable     |
|    intelligence that is the Overmind of the planet."        |
|                                                    -Terence McKenna         |
|_______________________________________________|



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 15:43:16
Subject: Grisly details of radiosity
From:    [e-mail]


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


     can't seem to reach Al's host 'brutus' so I may as well post...



     if a light or object moves, you get to do ALL the radiosity
     calculations again-- because you never know what that object or light
     could do to _every_ other object

     Clearly, radiosity performs the best if you only move the camera
     (which is pretty flexible, compared to raytracing, etc.). I've never
     seen it done, but I suppose you could cheat and move small objects
     with the assumption that they won't affect anything. In fact, by
     moving only the camera and insignificant objects, you could do some
     pretty killer animation in a short rendering time!


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________

Subject: Re: Re[2]: Radiosity
Author:  Al Nehl <nehla@brutus> at ALTERNET
Date:    7/26/95 2:22 PM


Drew,

   What happens to the computational complexity if a light moves?

Al Nehl




Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 17:19:21
Subject: Re: Inertia ??
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Jul 26, 11:10am, [e-mail] wrote:
>

>     The Effect: Scanline rendered anim.  The letters seem to 'bounce'!
> Before each letter starts to rise up, it would rotate down a little bit
> and then pop back up [This movement downwards would actually occur in the
> frames *before* the character was even defined to have move!!]. When the
> letter reached the upright position it would overshoot by just a fraction
> (probably only 2 frames worth) and then return to the upright position.
>
>     Although, in the end, this gives a more natural looking movement, I
> really want to know why I am not getting the purely mechanical movement
> that I specified.
>

It's the way spline interpolation works.  If you don't want that, use a linear
interpolation.



--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 17:20:07
Subject: Imagine 2.0 Question. (DXF's)
From:    [e-mail]


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


I'd like to confirm or disconfirm something if I may:

Does DXF import/load/whatever definitely *not* work in
the Imagine 2 version distributed with the book "3D Modelling Lab"
by Shaddock? Thanks in advance for any authoritative response.

Denis B. Ryan


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 17:47:03
Subject: Re: Tear Drop Quickie
From:    Fernando D'Andrea <[e-mail]>


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

> Good tip, but Steve Worley wrote about this years ago in Understanding
> Imagine 2.0, so lets give him credit.
>
> On Sat, 22 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:
>
> > Just found a QUICKY way to make a tear drop (water drop) shape.  All you
> > do is add a sphere in the detail editor, then go to CONFORMATIONS,
> > select CONFORM TO SPHERE and just pres ok.  THERE you GO!  Hope you guys
> > get "some" use out of this.
> >
> > PANTERA
> > [e-mail]
> >
>
    Well, do a drop is relatively easy. Hard to do is the effect of
the drop hitting the water (at least in 2.0 version).  :( . Could
someone help me to create this easily?

*********************************
Fernando Pena D'Andrea.
E-Mail: [e-mail]
*********************************


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 18:31:04
Subject: Inertia. I'm a dud!
From:    Mike Cheng <[e-mail]>


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

D'oh!
How could I be so silly!  Thanks to andrew who was the first to come back
with an answer.  Of course, I was stupid enough last night to leave
'spline interpolation' on.

You may shoot me at your leisure.  Thanks in advance for the avalanche of
replies I deserve for this oversight.

render on
MiKE (Cstar on #amiga)
  [e-mail]  http://joffre.newcastle.edu.au/




Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 18:42:08
Subject: FOUND Solution to 3.3 Bug!
From:    Jim Shinosky <[e-mail]>


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


It appears that the following message got bounce and the IML never received
it so I'm reposting it.  Here goes:


Ok, ok, ok.  I wish I hadn't mentioned the problem I had with Imagine
creating a new directory for 3.3.  After all it was only a minor annoyance
to me and most of you seemed more interested in responding to that than my
real problem.  Well, here's what 3.3 did wrong:

With all(or most) of my objects I have 3 states: DEFAULT, BEGIN, and END.
The reason that my quickrenders looked fine and my renders from the project
editor were messed up is because 3.3 loaded my objects up in the DEFAULT
state(I'm pretty sure 3.2 loads it up in the state you saved it in and I
never save objects in their default state) and all of their attributes
were properly configured, so they looked good at first sight.

BIG PROBLEM FOLLOWS:

However imagine took all of my objects(about 30 of them with 4 to 8
textures and maps each) and modified all of their states except DEFAULT
in the following way:
   1) It took the new brightness slider and cranked it to 255 for all
      objects.  (BAD!)
   2) It took every single friggin' texture and gave it a mix/morph value
      of 0.5.  (VERY BAD)
      Since I my mountain object was white to begin with and the texture
      map was given a 0.5 mix/morph value the object looked like it had
      a white glow about it.

Impulse, what were you thinking?!

Anyway, it took quite a while to fix all of that for the objects just in
this project.  I've got a lot more in other, older projects but they can
wait.  Thanks to those few people who actually tried to help with this one
even though I figured it out myself.

Hopefully this will help anyone else who might come across this.



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 18:47:34
Subject: Re: Render modes
From:    Fred Aderhold <[e-mail]>


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

> -> From: [e-mail]
> ->
> ->    I have the full complement of VESA video modes, but I want to be a
> -> to use one mode for the editors, and quick-render to another video mo
> -> IE., I run the editor in 800x600 or 1024x768, but I want to quick-ren
> -> to 640x480 and have it displayed on a 640x480 screen! It always displ
> -> on the same size screen as my editor is in. I'd also like to be able
> -> use even smaller quick-render sizes (320x200, 160x100, etc), but thes
> -> pics are way too small displayed on a 800x600 or 1024x768 screen...

Here's a suggestion - setup a new render preset 320x240. Use it for your
quickrender resolution. This way, when the quickrender is displayed, you
see it in a 640x480 screen. That is, it doesn't take up the whole screen,
and it looks better (less jaggy).

----------------------------------------
Fred Aderhold
[e-mail]

If you can keep your head while all around
you are losing theirs, you probably haven't
checked your answering machine...
--------------------------------------------



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 18:52:04
Subject: RE:Radiosity (not slow!)
From:    [e-mail]


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

Radiosity is NOT slow!  It allows raytracing in a few seconds on slow
computers.  Because radiosity is a pre-rendering calculation, its only
calculating once.  Then the raytracing continues but doesn't have to
calculate the light at all!  Meaning NO shadows rays are cast.  Only
reflections and rfractions are calculated.

                                                     ---Lum


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 19:08:10
Subject: Re: The bumps slide off my slug!
From:    [e-mail] (Steve Gardiner)


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


Mike McCool wrote :
>
>     My only problem here is that if my slug/worm flies by the
>camera too close, the texture loses its illusion of 3d, and
>looks like a flat pattern on the skin.  But hey, back off, and it looks
>cool.
>
>
>Good luck, fellow sicko.
>

Mike,
The most likely reason that your bumpy skin looked flat on when you zoomed
up close, is because the bumps aren't real. The textures are messing with
the surface normals of the object to create shadows and highlights which
seem like bumps. However, once the camera gets too close the illusion (which
is what it really is) is uncovered.

Does any of that make sense ?? Somebody else on the list can probably explain
it better/fill in the gaps...

Cheers
--
  +-----------------==============+================-----------------+
  |  Steve Gardiner               | Paying my debt to society...    |
  |  [e-mail]     | Working in Business Publishing !|
  +-----------------==============+================-----------------+


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 19:52:51
Subject: RE: Siggraph
From:    Kevin Bonifield <[e-mail]>


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


On Wed, 26 Jul 1995 16:11:02 -0400  [e-mail] wrote:
> Is Siggraph open to the public, is there an entrance fee or something?
>
>
It is open to the paying public... ;-)

See http://www.siggraph.org for more info and registration forms.
There are various levels of access depending on whether you
attend courses or just check things out. There is also a
deadline, so hurry!!!!  Can't remember what it is but one
has passed already for early-birds.  If you can't find the web
page send me email and I will forward you more info (all my
brochures are at work).

Happy rendering!

  //Kevin

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Kevin Bonifield  -***-  SpaceCom Systems
Software Engineer
Phone: [phone]
Fax  : [phone]
Inet: [e-mail]
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-





Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 20:22:21
Subject: Video boards
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

[hack]
>     In the PC world,  has anyone or has Impulse devised a compatibility list
>for Graphics boards that are proven to work in all VESA modes with Imagine.
> I think this would be a very useful list for the Amiga users that are
>contemplating moving to the PC.
[hack]

I have a Cirrus 5434 PCI with 2MB of ram on. It will not work in Imagine on
it's own but does work with UNIVESA. With univeas I can get up to
1024x768x64000 out of it.
Chris Hall.

|--------------------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by Chris Hall                  ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from Great Briton ||
|                                                        ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]                 ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :                           ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/index.html       ||
|                                                        ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-                   ||
|              03 10 34 46 32 43                         ||
|--------------------------------------------------------||
 \---------------------------------------------------------\




Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 20:22:24
Subject: Re: Imagine wrong Colours
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


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

>Chris,
>
>   In recent days I've come to feel there  are a few folks on this list who
>are extremely ,sensitive to the size of a posting to the list. If find out
>why, please share the news with me. I think your sig. is fine. What's the
>problem?

I don't know what the problem is? People being bitchy maybe. Any way, I have
modified it slightly but thanks for you support.
Chris Hall.

|--------------------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by Chris Hall                  ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from Great Briton ||
|                                                        ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]                 ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :                           ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/index.html       ||
|                                                        ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-                   ||
|              03 10 34 46 32 43                         ||
|--------------------------------------------------------||
 \---------------------------------------------------------\




Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 21:07:00
Subject: Re: Don't kill me if this don't work
From:    [e-mail] (Ron Saggers)


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

In-Reply-To: <[e-mail]>

> Subject: Don't kill me if this don't work

Worked beautifully at this end mate. Try making the glass a little thinner
maybe for more realism??

Hi all Ive just joined and will be a listener only, for a while.  I am
running a second user Imagine 3 on a Miggy 4k 040 with 12 meg fast ram
and VMM. I started with the Imagine 2 give away on the magazine cover.

Ron Saggers





Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 21:11:02
Subject: Siggraph
From:    [e-mail]


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

 Is Siggraph open to the public, is there an entrance fee or something?




Thanx


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 22:04:49
Subject: Re: Siggraph
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

>  Is Siggraph open to the public, is there an entrance fee or something?

If you register at the door, it's $50.

Andrey


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 23:22:05
Subject: Re: Realistic Glass!!!! (long)
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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

On Wed, 26 Jul 1995, Bill Boyce wrote:

> >To: [e-mail]
> >From: [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)
> >Subject: Re: Realistic Glass!!!! (long)
> >
> >>OK, I know all of you probably remember the "cups.jpg" problem.  Well I'm no
t
> >>gonna send the glass I made(unless you want :) <<ducking>>  But what I've
> >>done is to create glass!
> >>
> >>A) REVELATIONS
> >>---------------------------
> >>Yesterday I was sitting there with a plastic glass(is that possible?) and I
> >>picked it up, stared in amazement. I said to myself, " thats why imagine
> >>can't create glass".  What I had seen was specular spots from every light in

> >>the room cast on the material not in spots but rather linear, up and down
> >>along the surface.  Well I know imagine can't do this, so I set out to try t
o
> >                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >Sure it can.
> >Have you tried making sure the edges (ie where Rim and Base join the
> >body) are 'Sharp' ie 'Make Sharp'. This is something I have recently
> >discovered to make a huge difference on these type of objects, and
> >you do end up with linear highlights, and great rim highlights. I've
> >just finished an object using this and it looks great, without any
> >special mapping tricks.
> >
> >The guts of it is, always analyse your object for edges which should be
> >sharp and make them sharp! It makes a big difference to phong smoothing,
> >too.
> >
> >Bill
> >
>

The problem with this is that, unless the glass has a LOT of sides, it's
going to look faceted(or whatever), it won't look smooth and round
anymore, like a glass should.


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 23:26:25
Subject: Re: Motion Blur Trick
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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

>Hi!
>
>I have come up with a good way doing motion blur for real, I think so
anyway and
>shall test it when I get back from Siggraph.
>But having used Lightwave for a while as well as Imagine, I think it should
>work. Lightwave uses it's Antialiasing threshold to make motion blur. So I
>figured that if you took the finished rendered pictures into lightwave as a
>animated backdrop. Dont ad lights, just standard rendering setup, but with
8 or
>12 antialiasing steps, it will create real motion blur. And I dont think it
>would take up so much extra rendering time either. If this works I will start
>using Lightwave as my motion blur "plug in" for Imagine.
>
>Later!
>
>Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)
>
Save yourself the time - it won't work. Well, I doubt it. What lightwave does
is calculate the position of it's objects 'between frames' when doing multiple
anti-aliasing passes. The backdrop won't move, won't be interpolated, and so
won't show any motion blur. Sorry! And correct me (please!) if I'm wrong. It
would
be great if this worked, but I can't see it.



Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 23:33:16
Subject: Re: Lights in raytrace.
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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

On Wed, 26 Jul 1995, Patrick Sauvageau wrote:

> >I really don't understand why lights that work in scanline don't work in trac
e.
> >
> >To be more specific, creating a sphere, giving it a 'light' attribute,
> >seeing that it works fine in scan but throws no light in trace.
> >
> >Somone was kind enough to point out that a little bit of fog attribute will
> >"let the light out", and that works well thank you.
> >
> >But this seems very kludgy. Counterintuitive. Why do my lights need to be
> foggy?
> >
> >
> >Tom Ellard, Severed Communications Australia [e-mail]
>
> It's beacause light do not come from the surface of a "light" object, but
> from it's axis. Since in a sphere, the axis is inside the object, the
> surface is blocking all the light. If you want to add a light source in your
> scene, you can just add an axis and make it "light".
>
> Remember: polygon do not emit light; axis do, allway.
>
> -----
> Patrick Sauvageau
> ([e-mail])
>

But why would it work ok in scanline but not trace?


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 23:35:25
Subject: Re: HOW MANY!
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-22 14:13:39 EDT, you write:

>Hi there!
>
>How many of you guys do graphics for a living, graphic design, animators
etc.
>It
>would be interesting to know.
>

I work as a promotions editor at QVC Inc.  I also have a small freelance
business in video, programing, etc.
I have done a few animation for my business, and am SUCESSFULLY trying to
bridge the gap between editing and graphic, animation, design.

Jim


Date:    Wednesday, 26 July 1995 23:41:04
Subject: Re: Looping Textures
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Dave Rhodes <[e-mail]>
>
> > time=0; you can't loop these textures, since they're not based on some
> > repeating feature, like the 360-degree period of a rotation or some
> > sine-based function.
>
>  Ahhh.. now I get it, although if I'd thought about it I _should_ have
> known...
>   Obviously, the tute I saw was based on the waves texture, which is a
> sine based thing, as opposed to the fractal/noise based ones which aren't.
>
>     Not having 3.3 yet, I'm restricted to trying this with textures which
> have their own fade parameter, but I can't wait to try it out.

Well, yes and no. You can try it with any pre-3.3 texture, whether it has
a fade parameter or not. (Most don't, as you know) Just create two bright
background planes, and apply only one texture to each. The plane closest
to the camera should have the texture which is 100% visible at the start
of the sequence. Then, simply morph that plane's Filter settings from
0,0,0 to 255,255,255 in order to show more and more of the other plane,
with the other texture on it.




Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 00:58:39
Subject: Lights in raytrace.
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Tom Ellard <[e-mail]>
>
> I really don't understand why lights that work in scanline don't work
> in trace.
>
> To be more specific, creating a sphere, giving it a 'light' attribute,
> seeing that it works fine in scan but throws no light in trace.
>
> Somone was kind enough to point out that a little bit of fog attribute
> will "let the light out", and that works well thank you.
>
> But this seems very kludgy. Counterintuitive. Why do my lights need to
> be foggy?

Because, Tom, when you set the Light attribute, you're not making each
_face_ of the object a light, you're giving those attributes to the
object's _axis_. If you position the axis inside an enclosed area, like
the default position for a primitive sphere, there are two possible
outcomes:

1) You're in scanline mode, where shadows are not calculated. Rays
emanating from lightsources merrily travel through objects like
neutrinos through the Earth.

2) You're in trace mode, _and_ the lightsources have the "cast shadows"
button activated. Light rays will stop at the first opaque face they
encounter, so a default sphere will shed no light... except inside
itself. Move the camera inside the sphere and you'll see it with your
own eyes.

The fog thing exploits an undocumented (?) "feature" whereby fog
objects, due to their semitransparent nature, will let light shine
through their faces unaffected (I think). Whether this is a bug or a
feature depends on whether it will save your hide (as in your case), or
whether you wanted the light to be affected (e.g. tinted) by the foggy
objects it passes through.




Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 01:30:35
Subject: Re: A message from Mike...
From:    Ted Stethem <[e-mail]>


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

  Is this really from Mike H.? or did you ghost-write it? Just kidding. In
all fairness to Impulse, there have been a lot of improvements made to
Imagine from 2.0 to 3.3 like Zone rendering, Bones and Fast Bones,
Copy&Paste in the Action Editor, interactive wireframe in the perspective
window, great DXF loader, dynamite Postscript font loader for the Spline
Editor, deformation tools, plus many others. Many of these came about
because of users requests (demands?) on the IML and some did not come
about without a lot of, let's say, heated discussion.
  I knew Zack was the main programmer and a program the size of Imagine
is monstrous for one person to be in control of. It is a credit to his
abilities but also, sooner or later, the realization has to occur that
large programs have to be modularized and handled by teams. The era of
the maverick programmer is not dead but it will be unlikely that the
individual programmer will be able to compete with large programming
teams. I know the team approach to programming can be argued against as
leading to bloated code. But I think Imagine is showing the symptoms of a
program that has become larger than the creator, accounting for some of
the less than desireable characteristics.
  I have suggested to Mike that Imagine be modularized into seperate
Modeling and Animation modules and he has not been overly enthusiastic
about that suggestion. And the more I look at how deeply imbedded the way
Imagine handles file structures and operating screens, I understand why
Mike has held this view. It would be akin to having to remove the
skeleton from a patient to rearrange it and the operation may end up
killing the patient.
  I am still looking forward to all the things that are rumored to be in
V3.4=4.0. The Metaballs might just be totally killer. The Detail Editor
has always been one of the most powerful modeling tools around and these
additions will make it more useful.
  I just hope Impulse will make more changes towards encouraging
third-party or plug-in support, though. Alliances make organizations
stronger, not weaker.

Sysop of:

****************************************************************************
*           ______     __   _____   ______   __  __   ____   ____          *
*          / __  /\ /\/ /\ / _  /\ /_  __/\ / /\/ /\ /___/\ / _ /\         *
*         / __  / //   / // // / / \/ /\_\// __  / //___/\//   / /         *
*        /_/ /_/ //_/\/ //____/ /  /_/ /  /_/ /_/ //___/\//_/\_\/          *
*        \_\/\_\/ \_\/\/ \____\/   \_\/   \_\/\_\/ \___\/ \_\/\_\          *
*          __  __     __   __   __  __   ____   ____   _____   ____        *
*         / /\/ /\ /\/ /\ / /\ / /\/ /\ /___/\ / _ /\ / ___/\ /___/\       *
*        / /_/ / //   / // / / \ \/ / //___/\//   / //__  /\//___/\/       *
*       /_____/ //_/\/ //_/ /   \__/ //___/\//_/\_\//____/ //___/\/        *
*       \_____\/ \_\/\/ \_\/     \_\/ \___\/ \_\/\_\\____\/ \___\/         *
*                     ((( GATEWAY TO CYBERGRAF/X )))                       *
*   [ A3000/470 Meg HD/10 MB RAM PARNET -> A3000/040/1.7 Gig HD/20MB RAM]  *
*   [ 3 Nodez USR V.34 28.8K DST  Amiga/IBM/Mac/3D Grafx Conferences    ]  *
*   [  Node1:(206)-6976999! | Node2:(206)-Ringdown | Node3:(206)-PRIVATE]  *
****************************************************************************
Over 1 Gigabyte of Imagine Objects, over 3 Gigabytes of Texture Maps,
LightROM CD on-line plus tons of 3D Studio Objects and Lightwave Objects!


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 01:31:45
Subject: Phong edges (Was: Realistic Glass!!!! (long))
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Bill Boyce <[e-mail]>
>
>Have you tried making sure the edges (ie where Rim and Base join the
>body) are 'Sharp' ie 'Make Sharp'. This is something I have recently
>discovered to make a huge difference on these type of objects, and
>you do end up with linear highlights, and great rim highlights. I've
>just finished an object using this and it looks great, without any
>special mapping tricks.

Yes, do remember that Phong shading interpolates the surface normal
between the current face and the neighbouring face, if the connecting
edge is not flagged "sharp". An example:

  | 0
  | 1
  | 2
  | 3
__| 4
5

When modelling a wine glass, you'd typically have long faces on the
sides of the glass, leading to tiny faces representing the top surface
of the rim. (Obviously, my diagram is upside-down. Mmmm, let's make our
object a glass cover that fits over the cheese tray. Yeah, that's it.)

The numbers represent some abstract kind of angle, with 0 representing
surface normals that point to the right, and 5 those that point
downwards.  You see how the surface normal changes all over the large
face, from 0 to 5, all because of the tiny rim. This causes the "flat
areas seem to bulge like pillows" problem familiar to new 3-D users.

The standard ways to get around this are:

1) define the connecting edges as sharp. This is fine, if you want a
sharp look to the corner.

2) create intermediate faces between the vertical and horizontal faces.
This will soften the effect, but the long vertical face's surface normal
will *still* vary towards the normal of the next, almost-vertical, face.

In my modelling bag of tricks. I have a solution that allows me to have
my cake and eat it too: perfectly flat-looking areas where I want them,
soft corners where I want them, all with a minimum of faces to keep
object complexity down.

I just model the large, flat area in two parts, and make the edge part
really skinny. I can then leave all edges soft, so there won't be any
discontinuities, yet the large flat area will look perfectly flat.

    |0
    |0        | = large flat area (one set of faces)
    |0
    |0
    |0        I = another set of faces, parallel to the large set.
    I0            Should be very narrow, just running along the
____I2.5          Edge that connects to the horizontal face.
5 3.7

In this case, both "|" and "I" faces have a surface normal of zero, and
"_" faces have a surface normal of 5.

The "_" and "I" normals vary from 5 to zero, as is expected. The big
difference, however, is that the "|" edges have normals that vary FROM
ZERO TO ZERO. Badabing, badaboom.



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 01:45:59
Subject: World Size (was Re: Memory...)
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Robert Byrne <[e-mail]>
>
> According to the V3 manual the world size extends 16000 units along the
> three axes, ie. -16000 to +16000.
>
> The default world size is 1024 units in all directions, anything outside
> this area will not be rendered in Trace mode.
>
> Now that seems to be a contradiction, because the Global World Size
> defaults to 0,0,0 and the world is sized dynamically. I assume then that
> doing a quickrender in Trace from the Detail Editor means you are limited
> to 1024 units but a render in the Stage is dynamic.

I just created a super-simple primitive sphere and replicated 16
additional copies to a distance of 17,000 units. A trace quickrender
would complain that the world octree volume was too large. I then scaled
the object down by 0.9, and the error didn't appear. This confirms that
nothing is allowed to exceed 16,000 units away from the origin.

The quickrender showed all the spheres, so world size is not limited to
1024 when quickrendering from the Detail editor. It's either auto-sized,
or fixed at 16,000. Either way, you don't have to worry about losing
parts of your objects in Detail quickrenders, and there doesn't seem to
be a contradiction -- the default world size (in old versions of
Imagine) simply applies to Stage/Project renders only.



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 01:49:02
Subject: Imagine 2.0 Question. (DXF's)
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> Does DXF import/load/whatever definitely *not* work in
> the Imagine 2 version distributed with the book "3D Modelling Lab"
> by Shaddock? Thanks in advance for any authoritative response.

Imagine's DXF import wasn't very robust until version 3.1, when it was
given a major overhaul. I'm sure others will interject with their own
work experiences, but for now, just remember that versions 3.1 and above
are what you really want.



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 01:59:33
Subject: Re: Virtual Memory
From:    [e-mail] (Gregory Helleren)


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

Hi Damon (Damon LaCaille), in <Pine.BSD/.3.91.950724174423.18699C-100000@hookomo
.aloha.net> on Jul 24 you wrote:

> On Mon, 24 Jul 1995, Vance Schowalter wrote:
>...
> I might as well reply to this message than create a new message. Does
> anybody know if Gigamem works very well w/ Imagine?  I wanted to render a
> few objects, but most of them require at least 12-14 megs, and I
> unfortunately only have 10.  And by the way, how much is Gigamem?  And
> yet one more question put to you, how much is the PC version of Imagine?
>
Yes, Gigamem works very well with Imagine 2.x and 3.x. I find that it is
best to disable VM during object loading/manipulation (or at least choose
the "USE REAL MEMORY FIRST" option). Otherwise retrieving objects from VM
can make the process a little tedious. Prior to rendering, I enable VM and
sit back and wait :)

You need to be aware that Gigamem can use either a swap file or a swap
partition for VM. If you use a swap file, it *must* be on a different
logical partition to the application (Imagine) and any data you require
(objects, textures...).

Love Peace and Aspirin
Gregg

--
+------------------------------------------///\/\/\_Amiga Technologies_/\/\+
  Gregory Helleren      AMIGA is REBORN  /// Lecturer Information Technology
  Developer - LaseRage                  ///  SEMC TAFE Western Australia
  Ferndale W.A. Australia  ___/\___/\\\///   [e-mail]
  CBMNET:[e-mail]\XX/    [e-mail]
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+




Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 02:05:58
Subject: Re: Imagine 2.0 Question. (DXF's)
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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

On Wed, 26 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

>
> I'd like to confirm or disconfirm something if I may:
>
> Does DXF import/load/whatever definitely *not* work in
> the Imagine 2 version distributed with the book "3D Modelling Lab"
> by Shaddock? Thanks in advance for any authoritative response.
>
> Denis B. Ryan
>

The version distributed with the book is the full version, unfortuneatly
it doesn't handle dxf's too well.  I hear this problem has been fixed in
3.2(someone let me know if I'm wrong).


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 02:09:46
Subject: A message from Mike...
From:    [e-mail]


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


Even though I don't like to re-post private mail, Mike requested I post this.

This was written to me after a series of friendly correspondences and will shed
some light on Impulse and the man we now know as Crowbar Mike.  :)

On Jul 26,  6:07pm, [e-mail] wrote:
>

> Craig
>
> Please post for eveyone to read, as well as yourself.
>
> We, like all of you want great software, with cool things to use and things
that
> make the work eaiser.  There are some problems that many users dont
understand.
> Here is a list of them, read them, chew them up, throw them away, but they are

> the meat of the matter for Impulse.
>
>     We used to be in this nice warm fuzzy place call the Amiga, it died and
> with it we had to move to the nasty and not often easy to use PC.  We were
real
> unhappy.  We as a company must pay the bills, in order to do this we have
spent
> 3 years making our way over to the pc, mind you it has been at best an uphill
> battle.  We blew the memory manager thing, we used the wrong compiler, we were
> just dumb.  WE have however learned how to move on from this and maybe we are
> wiser for the mess up.  It cost us a year.
>
>     We have only recently added to the programming staff, up until this
time,
> there was only one person doing the code for Imagine, Imagine that, one guy
has
> written all the code that you have seen for 5 years.  He is still in charge of

> IMagine and he is not yet crazy.
>
>     Impulse wants to know, what you want, no kidding.  Simple statements
like
>
>     Please put Soft edge shadows into Imagine.  That is all it takes, things
> like "Render Macho 3D has it and it works great and why dont you do it,"  well

> that just irks the helll out of us.  Why, becuase we have so many things that
> the others dont that it seems people only pick on the few items that we are
> missing, and these become the BIG issues.
>
>     Our goal has been and still is very simple, to bring you the user the
> best software for 3D rendering that we can write.  We do our best, and some
> times we get in over our head.  It seems like we have things well under
control
> for the moment, until a new OS comes over the horizion or Intel goes broke or
> who knows what.
>
>     Argument, slander, and bad attitudes only get people upset.  If you feel
> strongly about something and want to really lobby for a feature, call me
direct.
> 612 425 0557, tell them that you are from the IML and want to speak to CROWBAR

> Mike ( I like that name) and I will make myself available to you and will
listen
> as long as you want to talk.  I wont promise that your requests will be
> implemented, but I will promise that we will listen and discuss the problem or

> feature that you feel strongly about.  I think that this is as direct as I can

> get.
>
>     We are comitted to your continued support and happiness with our
> software.  It is through a co-operative effort that this software will get
> better, it depends as much on you as it does on us.  We could make the best
> features of any software company and if we had no users it would be for
naught.
>
>     Buy the upgrades, use the software, tell us what you want and from time
> to time, it might not be a bad idea to let us know what kind of a job we are
> doing.  A pat on the back or a kick in the ass, both mean that you are using
> what we have done and appreciate it.
>
>     I will not be on the IML for that much longer, we are putting up our own
> web page with a area for mail suggestions,  This  IML will be an important
area
> for users to discuss and plan, I think it is better if you do so with out our
> input.  You will all be invited to visit our new area and get a handle on
whats
> going on with Impulse, Imagine, Digimax and other new products that we have
> planned for 95-96.
>
>     Thanks again for all of your support and criticism, we grow because you
> care, WE ARE STILL LISTENING>...
>
>
>     Michael C. Halvorson
>     President, Impulse, Inc
>
>
>
>     Keep on Tracin, it does the mind a world of good.
>
>-- End of excerpt from [e-mail]




--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 02:16:44
Subject: Looping Timeline
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

Pantera, what you don't understand is that you can only do a real
looping sequence with textures that look exactly the same at the
beginning and end of the sequence. Examples:

- Rotating any texture 360 degrees along an axis;

- Morphing a texture color from red to yellow and back to red;

- Changing an angle parameter, like the Essence Plasma phase angle,
  from n to n+(360 or a multiple of 360).

Things that do NOT repeat:

- Any fractal or noise texture. Seed or Time parameters of 0.000, 1.000,
  2.000, etc. will NOT create the same appearance, quite the contrary.

If your texture falls into the first group, then yes, you can create a
smoothly-looping sequence by setting things up so that the last frame
looks exactly the same as the first, and rendering all but the last frame.

If your texture falls into the second group, you can _fake_ repeatable
behaviour by cross-fading between two sets of attributes:

      FRAMES               1         1
                  123456789012345678901

      ACTOR       A-------------------B   "A" = 1-frame actor bar for
                                                  version "A" of object.
                                            "-B" = 20-frame actor bar for
                                                   version "B" of object.
                                                   Imagine creates 19
                                                   transition frames, 2-20.

      "A" TX TIME -1       -0.5       0
      "B" TX TIME 0         0.5       1

      "B" VISIBLE 100%      50%       0
                    |         |         |
All you see is _____|         |         |
an object textured            |         |
as per Time = 0.              |         |
                              |         |
You see an object textured ___|         |
with a mix of two textures,             |
one with Time = -0.5 and                |
the other with Time = 0.5.              |
Both textures are evolving              |
due to the variation in                 |
their Time value.                       |
                                        |
You see an object textured as per_______|
Time = 0. The fact that this appearance
comes from texture B at Time = 0,
rather than Texture A at Time = 0 as
in frame 1, is immaterial. The object
looks the same, and that's what counts.

You have now created a sequence where the last frame looks exactly like
the first, and everything is softly faded in and out; hopefully, the
effect will look natural. You can now use the standard method: render
all but the last frame. This is how to create a seamless looping
sequence from things God Never Intended To Repeat. Got it?



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 02:23:04
Subject: Rendering speed
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: [e-mail]
>
> could someone with a 120 Pentium please render such a frame and let me
> know how long it took to render it in TRACE mode?

Pantera, there is a full comparison benchmark posted on the IML even as
we speak. If you just subscribed to the IML, then maybe you missed it by
a few hours; in that case, tell me in e-mail and I'll mail you a copy;
I've kept it for reference.

The benchmark was pretty similar to the scene you describe. Basically, a
Pentium 120 will trace any such simple in a minute or two. You really
don't need an exact time, do you? (I guess not, since your description
left the textures to be determined)



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 02:30:24
Subject: Re: Lights in raytrace.
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


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

> From: Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>
>
> > It's beacause light do not come from the surface of a "light"
> object, but
> > from it's axis. Since in a sphere, the axis is inside the object, the
> > surface is blocking all the light. If you want to add a light source
> in your > scene, you can just add an axis and make it "light".
> >
> > Remember: polygon do not emit light; axis do, allway.
> >
> > -----
> > Patrick Sauvageau
> > ([e-mail])
> >
>
> But why would it work ok in scanline but not trace?

Because in scanline, Imagine doesn't do _any_ shadow calculation,
remember? Lights shine _everywhere_, even <cough> Where The Sun Don't
Shine. (As I previously said, the heroes of my "hearts" animation _do_
look like a pair of buttocks B^D)





Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 03:08:19
Subject: Re: Inertia ??
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Mike, on Jul 26 you wrote:

> Hi all,
>     whilst rendering last night I managed to generate an inertia like
> effect even though I didn't want it. And I actually would like to get
> rid of it!
>     The Scene: I created a logo in the spline editor.  I wanted to
> achieve the effect of the letters starting in the horizontal position and
> then one by one rotating up into the vertical, pivoting about the bottom
> of the character (clear?).

Bill Boyce gave a good explanation of your problem but perhaps you could
try a different tack instead of using States.

For the simple rotations you require, try using the Rotate20 effect. If you
wanted your first letter to reach the upright position after 30 frames you
could begin the rotation of the next letter at frame 15 and so on for the
remaining letters.

You might like to add the Sway effect at the same time and make your
letters look drunk :-)

-- Bob

  : Robert (Bob) Byrne : [e-mail] :
  :   Amiga  A3000/25  :  Ballina, NSW  Australia  :



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 03:18:04
Subject: Re: Lights in raytrace.
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Tom, on Jul 26 you wrote:

> I really don't understand why lights that work in scanline don't work in trace
.
>
> To be more specific, creating a sphere, giving it a 'light' attribute,
> seeing that it works fine in scan but throws no light in trace.
>
> Somone was kind enough to point out that a little bit of fog attribute will
> "let the light out", and that works well thank you.

Assuming you are using V3+ of Imagine -

Ever wondered why Impulse put wide blank margins in the V3 manual?
Great for adding tips like the above.

> But this seems very kludgy. Counterintuitive. Why do my lights need to be fogg
y?

Read page 166 of the manual and add the Fog tip.

-- Bob



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 03:45:08
Subject: Re: Imagine wrong Colours..Fixed!!!
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-21 06:19:24 EDT, you write:

>Wow!! After two weeks of putting up with odd colours or even worse having to
>QR in 256 colours(YUK), It was that simple.
>
>Golly, I hope that button wasn't there in 3.2. If it was I hope it was an
>undocumented feature (I feel like a bit of a dill).
>
>Regards
>BillD
>Don't Ponder .... Imagine!
>
>

Your problem is still there. Yes this button exists in several earlier
versions of Imagine. With this button on Imagine tries to use a 24bit VESA
mode to display the render. With the button off Imagine uses a 8bit VESA mode
and dithering to display the render. Your problem is reversed color chanels
(BGR instead of RGB). I also have this problem with my ATI MACH32 card. And
UNIVESA did fix this.

Falko


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 04:21:29
Subject: Re: Hack wanted for PC screen size.
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-23 04:50:27 EDT, you write:

>Subj:        Hack wanted for PC screen size.
>Date:        95-07-23 04:50:27 EDT
>From:        [e-mail] (Dave Wilson)
>To:  [e-mail]
>
>

There is no hack. I takes Imagine version 3.2 or 3.3 and a VESA compatible
display card.

Falko


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 05:11:41
Subject: Re: The bumps slide off my slug!
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


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

> unsolicited comment! I almost fell off my chair. If he noticed my slug,
> it means that Conform To Path truly is, as I'd written, a low effort/high
> payback effect.
>
  i got a 'car' object to conform to a path by mastake it looked good until
it sunk under the 'ground' plane :( or is that ;) im not sure -ive deleted
the anim now :-|


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


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 05:27:38
Subject: Re:Crowbar Mike(sort of)
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


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

> Hi there fellow thinker, Mike Vandersomme.
>
> I cant say how much I agree on your comment, and yes lets stop this stupid "I

> dont like Mike very much, bla bla"

 yep isnt this supposed to be the imagine mailing list you can always try
one of the flame news groups if you want to -some are pretty funny

 BTW-i read in a magazine about a '3d artist(e) who phoned impulse with a
question and he got answer of something like -gee that is a bit of problem
-but we are in the middle of a big table tennis game right now

 i thought this was pretty funny although the person who wrote the article
didnt (this is going back a bit)

 Duncan


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


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 05:53:07
Subject: Re: Realistic Glass!!!! (long)
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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

>On Wed, 26 Jul 1995, Bill Boyce wrote:
>
>> >To: [e-mail]
>> >From: [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)
>> >Subject: Re: Realistic Glass!!!! (long)
>> >
-----
>> >>Yesterday I was sitting there with a plastic glass(is that possible?) and I

>> >>picked it up, stared in amazement. I said to myself, " thats why imagine
>> >>can't create glass".  What I had seen was specular spots from every
light in
>> >>the room cast on the material not in spots but rather linear, up and down
>> >>along the surface.  Well I know imagine can't do this, so I set out to
try to
>> >                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> >Sure it can.
>> >Have you tried making sure the edges (ie where Rim and Base join the
>> >body) are 'Sharp' ie 'Make Sharp'. This is something I have recently
>> >discovered to make a huge difference on these type of objects, and
>> >you do end up with linear highlights, and great rim highlights. I've
>> >just finished an object using this and it looks great, without any
>> >special mapping tricks.
>> >
>> >The guts of it is, always analyse your object for edges which should be
>> >sharp and make them sharp! It makes a big difference to phong smoothing,
>> >too.
>> >
>> >Bill
>
>The problem with this is that, unless the glass has a LOT of sides, it's
>going to look faceted(or whatever), it won't look smooth and round
>anymore, like a glass should.
>
>
>   ~Rick Heidebrecht~
>
You misunderstand. Only the rim and base should have sharp edges ie not
phong shaded. The sides of the glass should be left 'soft' ie phonged



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 06:05:40
Subject: Re: lensflare
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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

>is it me or does the lensflare on lightwave look better than the one in
>Imagine, I was just curious, since they both seem very similar but i
>thought i noticed a slight difference.  thanks!
>
>PANTERA
>[e-mail]
>
Imagines is supposed to be physically accurate, where Lightwaves is
aesthetically accurate (!?). Lightwave allows star filters and the
like which give a 'richer' effect to the flare, and more sophisticated
'glow' to the light. Impulse - please spend some more time studying
Lightwaves flares - network bosses love them.



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 06:16:28
Subject: Help on Island Trace
From:    [e-mail]


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

Recently I ran into a problem that made me think of a couple of things I
would like to see in 4.0.  I am creating an island like Myst except it looks
nothing like Myst.  After creating everything I needed to add a sky.  However
I knew that using a sphere and scaling it fairly large would slow down the
trace.  It did significantly.  I would have been happy with just using a
backdrop but unfortunately when animating the camera the backdrop bobs up and
down in the ocean since it moves with the camera.  I would have been happy
with just creating a blend of orange to blue to dark blue but when you set
your sky blend in globals, you don't see much of it unless your camera view
extends from the horizon to the +horizon.  The clouds texture is cool, but
really slows down renders.  The only solution I could come up with was to
take everything out of the scene and render the animation of just the sky and
camera movements.  Then create a flic out of it and use that as a backdrop.
 Unfortunately, using a flic as a backdrop in globals is very costly, since
the entire background of the sky would be animated when the camera moved.
This would create an incredibly huge FLC file.  In fact I don't think my
computer would have enough ram.  Any suggestions would be appreciated, but
what I think would be great in a future version would be the ability to
actually see the global brushmap.  Also it would be nice if you could have
more than 2 blends in the sky blending and adjust where the blends take
place.  At present the scene is taking about 30 minutes to render a 640 x 480
frame.  I have a 486 - 66 w/ 20 meg ram, no doubt if I had a pentium things
would be faster.

Stephen G.



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 06:24:48
Subject: Re: Pentium speed
From:    [e-mail] (DThompson)


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

At 12:55 AM 7/26/95 -0400, Richard Heidebrecht wrote:
>On Tue, 25 Jul 1995, DThompson wrote:
>
>> the work with adpro, fred, and my Par, but for less than $2,400 I got a 90
>> mhz machine with a Gig of hardrive space and 32 megs of ram. It's even
>
>Is the $2,400 a typo?  Last time I checked, a 1gig hardrive was about
>$500 and 32 megs of ram is about $1,500.  That means you only paid $400
>for everything else.  If the $2,400 was not a typo, please tell me where
>you got your pentium(in other words, where I will be buying my next
>computer:)
>
>
>   ~Rick Heidebrecht~
>
You're probably buying off the shelf from some large chain or from some
business supply company to get those figures. 32 megs of ram was only about
$900 and 1 gig of hard drive amounted to around $270. Buy from some small
computer company who will build the machine you want. Unless ram prices have
gone up, it should be less than that now. All you have to do is look.

Dave Thompson
>
>
>



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 07:36:43
Subject: Re: Lights in raytrace.
From:    Scott F Tracy <[e-mail]>


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

> > scene, you can just add an axis and make it "light".
> >
> > Remember: polygon do not emit light; axis do, allway.
> >
> > -----
> > Patrick Sauvageau
> > ([e-mail])
> >
>
> But why would it work ok in scanline but not trace?
>
>
>    ~Rick Heidebrecht~
>
>
>

Light passes through objects in scanline thats why you don't get shadows.
In raytrace the solid objects stop the light ray.


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 09:42:46
Subject: Re[2]: Motion Blur Trick
From:    [e-mail]


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


     I must agree with Bill-- given a 2D image, there's no way that
     Lightwave could make any kind of accurate blur unless it used AI and
     fuzzy logic between frames! It would not know what objects are moving
     fast and which are holding still (correction- it would know that they
     are all holding still...)


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________

Subject: Re: Motion Blur Trick
Author:  [e-mail] (Bill Boyce) at ALTERNET
Date:    7/26/95 6:56 PM


>Hi!
>
>I have come up with a good way doing motion blur for real, I think so
anyway and
>shall test it when I get back from Siggraph.
>But having used Lightwave for a while as well as Imagine, I think it should
>work. Lightwave uses it's Antialiasing threshold to make motion blur. So I
>figured that if you took the finished rendered pictures into lightwave as a
>animated backdrop. Dont ad lights, just standard rendering setup, but with
8 or
>12 antialiasing steps, it will create real motion blur. And I dont think it
>would take up so much extra rendering time either. If this works I will start
>using Lightwave as my motion blur "plug in" for Imagine.
>
>Later!
>
>Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)
>
Save yourself the time - it won't work. Well, I doubt it. What lightwave does
is calculate the position of it's objects 'between frames' when doing multiple
anti-aliasing passes. The backdrop won't move, won't be interpolated, and so
won't show any motion blur. Sorry! And correct me (please!) if I'm wrong. It
would
be great if this worked, but I can't see it.




Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 10:23:58
Subject: Re: JPEG Pictures!!!
From:    [e-mail]


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





I seem to remember some debate about this topic last year, and the
consensus was that posting unsolicited binaries to the IML was not a
good thing. You could certainly post an enthusiastic message saying,
"hey look at my great render", and send the file through e-mail to those
who replied privately; this way, the people on the IML who didn't want
to / couldn't handle large IML messages would be spared the aggravation.

     It might be reasonable to send a small (10-15K) file through the list,
     as long as we tag the image in the subject line something consistent,
     like this format:

     IMAGE: imagename.imageformat (optional description)

     The subject line should be less than 72 characters. For example:

     IMAGE: SPOTS.JPG, 10K (A render of several gold and black spots)

     This way readers can see that the subject is in fact an image, and
     delete before downloading.

     The big question is this: does a 10K image cause people to read in all
     10K, or just the header? If you are paying for email service and you
     get stuck with a 10K download that you can't stop or control, yeah, I
     can see some really pissed off IML'ers out there. I know that there
     are programs that deliver just the headers, so hopefully by now
     everyone has one of these.

     If people just grab thier headers, they can delete the images without
     downloading and looking at them. And let's be real, whenever there is
     a render, don't we all want to see something?

     Another option: Sharky had at one point offered to showcase some
     Imagine (or whatever) renders on his homepage. Is that offer still
     good? If so, maybe we should flood SHARKY'S email box with images and
     he can post them.

     I for one am happy to get images. If anyone want to flood ME with
     renders, go ahead, I burn CD's for a living, so I can handle SOME of
     the bandwidth. Too bad I can't run a mailing list on my machine,
     though (sniff...), or a web server to the world!! I'd love to run a
     server and display all your images next to mine!

     -AC


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 11:06:53
Subject: Re: Mr. Mike H
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne) (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Pantera, on Jul 26 you wrote:

> I am an Imagine user, I was wondering if it would be possible to
> purchase just the "manual" from Impulse since I had it stolen from me
> awhile ago at work...if so please let me know.

Contact Impulse, perhaps if you could send them your Master disk to prove
ownership, they would ablige.

-- Bob


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 11:31:32
Subject: Re: Tear Drop Quickie
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne) (Robert Byrne)


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

Hello Fernando, on Jul 26 you wrote:

> > > Just found a QUICKY way to make a tear drop (water drop) shape. ...

>     Well, do a drop is relatively easy. Hard to do is the effect of
> the drop hitting the water (at least in 2.0 version).  :( . Could
> someone help me to create this easily?

There are some old tutorials called The Imagine Compendium by Steve Worley
and others on the LightROM CD.  One of them is a tutorial on the Forms
Editor and as it happens he describes how to make a water splash.

I'll email it to you.  If anyone else wants it and there are no objections
I can post it here in a couple of days.  It's about 4Kb uuencoded.

-- Bob


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 12:26:13
Subject: Re: Help on Island Trace
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

Go back a couple of weeks in the archives, and find a great post by Tom
Granberg, suggesting a way to actually trick your backdrop pic into
'keeping up with' your camera movements.

I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but it sounded damn logical to this
little mind.

(I saved the post, so if you can't find it, lemme know).


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 12:30:26
Subject: Spline Int.
From:    [e-mail]


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

whats spline interpolation? what is it good for and whyt would you use
it...sorry for the ignorance...




Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 13:19:26
Subject: Virtual Memory
From:    Aki Laukkanen <[e-mail]>


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

> Yes, Gigamem works very well with Imagine 2.x and 3.x. I find that it is
> best to disable VM during object loading/manipulation (or at least choose
> the "USE REAL MEMORY FIRST" option). Otherwise retrieving objects from VM
> can make the process a little tedious. Prior to rendering, I enable VM and
> sit back and wait :)

Erhm, I find VMM 3.1 to be much more stabler and faster which even has
much more features and no stupid fallbacks. Not to mention that it's
shareware and not a commercial product.


.... I don't mind straight people, as long as they act gay in public.

* Offline Orbit 0.75a *


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 13:19:27
Subject: Object format
From:    Aki Laukkanen <[e-mail]>


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

> I'm considering writing a programming utility that would allow imagine
> designed objects to be included in games.
> Does anyone know what the programming structure of the object files are?
> Has anyone done anything with the objects files before?

Better have look at the sources of TDDD3Dlib. It can convert TDDD
objects to many formats including ttddd (an ascii format). Infact our
own converter does read ttddd format and convert it to our private
format.


.... Insufficient memory: add 4 megs and retry

* Offline Orbit 0.75a *


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 13:38:15
Subject: Imagine 2.0: What a Discovery!
From:    [e-mail]


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

Hello,

I almost accidentally picked up Waite's "3d Modelling Lab" and am VERY impressed

with what appears to be a very full-featured, powerful package. This is the x386
version.

I AM finding it very difficult to come to speed on it, though, as the Waite book

is a very poor substitute for a manual.

Any suggestions?

The card in the back of the book allows one to upgrade to version 3 for
$300 but I'm afraid that this is beyond me :-(


Are there many PC users of Imagine?

Why is it such a secret?

__jeffrey weiss



:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
jeff weiss  [e-mail]  TCP/IP 44.94.249.101 N0IRR  612.825.4746 H
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 14:10:09
Subject: 3.3 PC Bugs
From:    Marc Reinig <[e-mail]>


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

Here are two bugs in the 3.3 PC release.

1. "Ignore Lens Flair" option on Light attribute selector window kills
   directional attribute of a light:

   1. Create a light object in the detail editor (Controlled Falloff,
      Circular, Directional). Make sure the Ignore lens Flair is NOT checked.

   2. Shine it on a plane so the "cone" of the light only partially
      illuminates the plane.

   3. Quick Render the scene, turning off the quick render light so only the
      light you created provides illumination.

      You should get what you would expect.

   4. Now check the No Flare box.

      The light ceases to be directional and becomes omni directional when
      rendered in the stage editor.

      If the SoftEdge ITX is used, the penumbra works correctly over the
      defined region for that light, but the light is still omni directional
      (i.e. inside the defined cone, the light is correctly shaded, but
      outside the penumbra, it returns as omni). Weird!

2. Moving the axis of an object while constraining X is broken:

   1. In Detail Editor, create a sphere.

   2. Shift-M followed by X (to move the axis only, but prevent motion in the
      X direction.).

   3. Attempts to move the axis in either the Top or Front view in any
      direction fail. Motion in the side view is fine.



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 14:19:34
Subject: Re: JPEG Pictures!!!
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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

On Wed, 26 Jul 1995, Charles Blaquiere wrote:

> I seem to remember some debate about this topic last year, and the
> consensus was that posting unsolicited binaries to the IML was not a
> good thing. You could certainly post an enthusiastic message saying,
> "hey look at my great render", and send the file through e-mail to those
> who replied privately; this way, the people on the IML who didn't want
> to / couldn't handle large IML messages would be spared the aggravation.
>
> Of course, *I* should speak, right! I've sent UU files to the IML ohh, 3
> times this month? Sure, I felt it was For The Common Good, but why
> should my judgement be any better than that of other IML members who
> feel their render holds some cosmic value? Maybe it's time for another
> debate? After all, a year has passed, and the people on the List aren't
> all the same as last year. Whaddya say?
>
> (My opinion: TINY demo images showing features of upcoming, unreleased
> versions of Imagine are OK. Anything else, well... let me see what
> everybody else thinks first)

Somebody (Fernando, I think) had a good idea, just limit the size to
about 10-12k per picture.  If, in conjuction with this, we also limited
the number of pictures posted to about 3 or 4 per day, I hardly think
this would be too much to handle for anybody's e-mail account.  I for one
would like to see what you guys are doing on a regular basis, it spawns
creativity.  If anybody has a problem with an extra 45k in their mailbox,
let the IML know.  We could take a survey, but I don't think everybody wants
their mailbox filled with an extra hundred letters about "I do or don't
want pictures posted on a regular basis".


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 14:21:14
Subject: Re: Imagine 4.0 Questions
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-27 02:07:00 EDT, you write:

>Not that I know of. They never said 4.0 would be the last Imagine, just
>that they would sit down and think real hard about the product's
>direction once 4.0 is done.

Actually I believe I saw on CIS that 4.0 is the last Imagine version for DOS.
 I also remember in a post from (Crowbar) Mike that the Windoze version when
released would get an initial bug squashing but I gathered from the message
that they wanted to work on some new products for awhile.  This was brought
up because I had asked him about a constant update program for the windoze
version.  I think (my opinion, not based on actual knowledge of what is
planned) they will get the windoze version out and take a break for a bit
while they work on the new toys they want to publish.  I think it could be
good for Imagine in the long run because I realize the value of putting down
an ongoing project after years of work and trying for a fresh perspective.  I
just would really like to know what the new products are going to be:)))))
Bob...........




Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 14:21:16
Subject: Re: Imagine 2.0 Question. (DXF's)
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-27 06:34:57 EDT, you write:

>Imagine's DXF import wasn't very robust until version 3.1, when it was
>given a major overhaul. I'm sure others will interject with their own
>work experiences, but for now, just remember that versions 3.1 and above
>are what you really want.

I can say for sure that Imagine does not want to import dxf files from
AcadR13 (although acad will import dxf from Imagine).  But dxf is so large a
file it really doesnt matter that much to me anyway.  Acad will export to 3ds
format and Andrey's program 3ds2im does a very nice job of converting all 3ds
objects to Imagines format.  It has helped me out quite a bit since there are
some very nice solid modeling features in the new acad and it compliments the
Imagine modler quite nicely.
Bob............





Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 14:21:39
Subject: Re: Metaballs
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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

On Thu, 27 Jul 1995, Charles Blaquiere wrote:

> > From: Mike Vandersommen <[e-mail]>
> >
> > A little birdy (with a crowbar) told me Metaballs will be implimented
> > in Imagine as an FX that will work both in Detail and Stage editors.
>
> Oh yeah, right -- this reminds me of another upcoming 4.0 feature:
> you'll be able to use Action editor F/X modules in Detail. Saves you all
> that setup work currently needed just to snapshot the object as deformed
> by the F/X.
>

That's great, but it begs the question "Where do you find out all this
stuff?"


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 14:24:48
Subject: Mr. Mike H
From:    [e-mail]


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

Mr. Mike H:

I'm sorry if I keep bringing up the glow around the lgith effect
thingie, I'm just curious if you guys will implement these light effects
in 4.0...i know its a very over-done effect but it doesnt hurt to have
it accessible to Imagine users, and I'm pretty sure its not very much (i
hope not) complicated to add to imagine.

Another is the haze effect, is there a way to eliminate the PIXEL #
parameter, its very awkward to think that you'd need to change this if
you're changing your rendering resolution as well as if there is less
haze on one object that the other.


Thanks,
PANTERA
[e-mail]



p.s. i also sent another e-mail asking you if i could purchse the 3.0
manual since i had it stolen from me a few months ago...please let me
know. =)




Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 14:27:29
Subject: Re: Lights in raytrace.
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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

On Wed, 26 Jul 1995, Charles Blaquiere wrote:

> 2) You're in trace mode, _and_ the lightsources have the "cast shadows"
> button activated. Light rays will stop at the first opaque face they
> encounter, so a default sphere will shed no light... except inside
> itself. Move the camera inside the sphere and you'll see it with your
> own eyes.

Why not just turn off the shadow casting on the axis in the attributes
requestor?  Shouldn't it then behave like a light in scanline mode(go
through objects)?


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 14:48:20
Subject: Re: Imagine 2.0 Question. (DXF's)
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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

On Thu, 27 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> I can say for sure that Imagine does not want to import dxf files from
> AcadR13 (although acad will import dxf from Imagine).  But dxf is so large a
> file it really doesnt matter that much to me anyway.  Acad will export to 3ds
> format and Andrey's program 3ds2im does a very nice job of converting all 3ds
> objects to Imagines format.  It has helped me out quite a bit since there are
> some very nice solid modeling features in the new acad and it compliments the
> Imagine modler quite nicely.
> Bob............

Would you kindly let us know where this program can be found?  I know
somebody mentioned it before, but at the time I didn't need it so I
wasn't really paying attention(I know, I'm a moron:).


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 15:00:38
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Radiosity
From:    RIX JAMES <[e-mail]>


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



On Wed, 26 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

>
>      I think I would like radiosity, too. My understanding of the speed is
>      that you can specify how many recursions you want and the time goes up
>      exponentially (or faster!) with the level of quality you ask for. But
>      after the radiosity calculations are done, all the objects have their
>      magic numbers and you can rapidly render as many camera views as you
>      want (like walk-throughs) and you can add ray-tracing for shadows and
>      reflections and whatever else you need.
>
>      So it radiosity were implemented such that you go to the stage or
>      project editor and ask for "level 3" radiosity calculations before
>      doing a rendered walk-through, it would not actually take up
>      inordinate amounts of time.
>
The big problem with this approach is if you were to move the objects.
Whenever an object is moved radiosity will have to recalculated.


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 15:56:37
Subject: Virtual memory in Imagine.
From:    [e-mail] (Simon Wilkinson)


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

Hi.

Having noted some of the impressive features in Imagine 3.3 (bones, lense flares

etc..) I am considering buying it for the PC.  There is, however, one thing
left still bugging me.  Memory.  When using Imagine 2.0, I have noticed some
disconcerting phenomena occuring with complex model renderings.  Basically,
parts start to disappear.  Taking a typical example, when I tried to render
the honey-bee included with the 3D Modelling Lab book, legs, wings and other
assorted body parts were omitted.  Having only 8Mb (yes, very sad), I
attributed this to lack of memory.  What I'm worried about, is that even if
I expanded to 24 or 32 Mb, with the current trend I expect only 2 or 3 bees
would render fully in the same scene before the above occured again.  Although
I appreciate that this bee is an incredibly complex single object (25,000
polygons I think), I'm still worried that whole scenes with many objects
would fail to render effectively, even with 32 Mb of RAM.

So, after all that verbal diahorrea my question is, does 3.3 utilise a swap
file arrangement to solve this problem, akin to 3DStudio's solution. (I know,
3DStudio is much more expensive, but Imagine seems so well kitted out in other
areas - as above - why not here).

If you can understand my meaning here, please email me.


Thanks.

Si.


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 16:28:01
Subject: Stuff from Aminet
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


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



You probably wouldn't have guessed it from the subject heading, but this
question goes out to you guys using PC's.  I recently got some files
related to Imagine off Aminet.  Somebody once mentioned that LHA.exe
could be used to decompress lha-compressed files on the PC, which was
good, because I have LHA.exe, and the files from Aminet where LHA
compressed.  However, when I tried to decompress the files I got some
kind of error message(broken file, or something like that).  Do I need a
different decompression program?

Also, is there a difference between Imagine objects on the Amiga and PC?
I'm guessing that most of the Imagine objects on Aminet where done on the
Amiga, and I'd like to know if they will work on my PC(assuming I can get
them decompressed first).


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 16:37:07
Subject: Re: Fuzz texture tip...
From:    [e-mail] (John Prusinski)


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

>John, thanks for that insight! Luxurious fabric backgrounds (silk,
>velvet...) can be just the thing needed for some projects. Your message
>is going straight to my archive directory.
>
>

I'm honored! :-=)>  Incidentally, I had a brain spasm and after a bit of
experimenting discovered that the same technique, with a very fine
"grain" and very close color tolerances (and no specularity) can be used
to create a perfect simulation of the surface of a pool table.  Billiards
animation, here we come!

John



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 17:35:42
Subject: Re: JPEG Pictures!!!
From:    [e-mail]


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

I would love to see small jpegs of the work people are doing.

But, with one stipulation!

If someone posts a small jpeg (maybe we could set a limit) they should
include a short description of the steps taken to build it. (techniques,
short-cuts, textures, effects, etc.) That way these become tutorials to learn
from, and that's why I'm here.

Rick

PS - I'm suprised after the endless posts about Amiga vs PC, "Crowbar Mike",
a Russian prostitute, and so on, that anyone would gripe about someone
posting a good example of a new rendering technique.


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 17:39:19
Subject: Re: Imagine 4.0 Questions
From:    [e-mail]


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

> And what of the talk (and hint in the 3.3 install sheet) about 4.0
> being the last Imagine? Has Impulse elaborated/explained?

I've been told there will be an Imagine 5.

Rick


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 18:33:49
Subject: Re: I need a Job!!
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Jul 27,  1:16am, [e-mail] wrote:
>

>  How did you get in the door if you don't mind me asking?
>  You must be a good illustrator or artist.  Do you use Imagine with any of
> your work at Disney?
>
> Stephen
>-- End of excerpt from [e-mail]

Since I seem to get asked this by a lot of people, I figured that I would post
my story to the list.  This may help some of you who dream of making 3D
animation their career.  Just keep in mind that from the time I started using
Imagine to the time I started at Disney took about 4 years, so be patient.

Okay- here is my background.  In college I majored in Physics and minored in
art.  After working as a programmer for NASA for a couple of years I saw Pixar's

"Tin Toy" and decided 3D animation is what I wanted to do.

After much research, I bought a (then new) Amiga 3000 and a recently released
version of Imagine 1.1.  I did some demos, joined my local SigGraph charter and
met up with a guy who was art director for a CD ROM company.  He liked my demos
(done to VHS with DCTV) and hired me to do some animations for a CD ROM called
"Shark Alert".

After showing my animations after one of the meetings, the lead animator for the

biggest post production house in Washington DC, asked me if I would like to
train on an SGI (using Prisms software) and freelance to relieve him of some of
his burden since he liked my Amiga stuff.  As I was learning Prisms, he got
hired by Rhythm & Hues in L.A. and the post production facility that I was
training at bought another facility out and brought over their animators,
leaving no positions for me (who still didn't have real production experience).

I later trained some on WaveFront at another facility and sent out demo reels
everywhere.  I was now in my 6th year as a programmer for NASA.

My reel got noticed at Disney and I got hired as a TD (technical director) since

I didn't have real production experience.  I am more of a programmer here, but
hope to some day work my way into CG animation.

Sorry to say, but it is very unlikely that anyone would get hired here (or at
practically any high-end facility) as a CG (computer graphics) animator without
SGI experience and proficiency with packages like Alias, SoftImage and Prisms,
unless they have some serious work experience and an extremely impressive demo
reel.

It is far easier to get in through the technical door.  If you are a strong C
and C++ programmer on the UNIX platform AND have animation experience, then
there are a lot of facilities looking for TD's with such experience.

However, a great way to break in as an animator is a lot of the new games
companies popping up.  Impressive animations using Imagine will get noticed at
such companies and it can be a great start and a great place to get started on
high-end packages such as Alias and SoftImage.  These facilities pay a lot less
than the big special effects and film houses, but are great places to start.

And no, we don't use anything except SGI's at work.

Anyway, good luck to everyone!

Craig




--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 19:09:45
Subject: Don't kill me if this don't work
From:    Torgeir Holm <[e-mail]>


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

On 25-Jul-95 17:29:16, CausticLum wrote:

>Here it is in all its glory!  This is is my first try and did it in about an
>hour or two.

Wow, almost looked like a real 3D render :)

I'll have to try that tutorial of yours.


Torge!r


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 19:09:47
Subject: Motion Blur Trick
From:    Torgeir Holm <[e-mail]>


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

On 26-Jul-95 13:56:02, Granberg Tom wrote:

>I have come up with a good way doing motion blur for real, I think so anyway
>and  shall test it when I get back from Siggraph. But having used Lightwave
>for a while as well as Imagine, I think it should  work. Lightwave uses it's
>Antialiasing threshold to make motion blur. So I  figured that if you took
>the finished rendered pictures into lightwave as a  animated backdrop. Dont
>ad lights, just standard rendering setup, but with 8 or
>12 antialiasing steps, it will create real motion blur. And I dont think it
>would take up so much extra rendering time either. If this works I will start
> using Lightwave as my motion blur "plug in" for Imagine.

Lightwave renders the object several times, in different positions, and then
combines them to create the motion blur. The anti aliasing setting decides how
many positions the object is rendered in (it is moved slightly before each
anti-aliasing pass).

The best way to create motion blur in imagine, is to render your animation
with too many frames (slow motion anim..), and compose groups of images to
create individual, motion blurred, frames. It is a lot slower than the LW
motion blur though, because you have to render everything for each frame, and
not just the moved objects.

BTW: anyone else remember Steve Worley's Motion blurred bowling picture that
came with understanding imagine 2.0? That was created using this technique.


Torge!r


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 19:24:41
Subject: RE:Realistic Glass(long)
From:    [e-mail]


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

==O snip O==
>Have you tried making sure the edges (ie where Rim and Base join the
>body) are 'Sharp' ie 'Make Sharp'. This is something I have recently
>discovered to make a huge difference on these type of objects, and
>you do end up with linear highlights, and great rim highlights. I've
>just finished an object using this and it looks great, without any
>special mapping tricks.
==O snip O==

Making the edges sharp won't help.  The phong algorithm makes spots only.
 Never will it make a strip.  In order to make a strip that runs up and down
you have to fake it.  I've tried it your way and it didn't work.

                                                 ---Lum


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 19:28:09
Subject: RE-Motion blur(p)
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


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

Hi!

I guess I hoped for to much?
My glorious idea didnt work, shit! It would have been nice tough.

Later!

Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 19:46:40
Subject: How about...
From:    [e-mail]


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

Hi Mike first I'd like to say...sorry.  I really feel bad for you taking all
this shit. Now here is my nice suggestion:
I'd like a light that the beams curve inward.  Kind of like a lens. The
farther you get from the light the brighter and smaller the spot gets.  This
would also help for planet shading.
DIAGRAM:
|---_____\
|--------------\   <--Thats the focal point.
|--------------/  ^
|------------/

Me and my bad ASCII drawings!

                                               ---LUM


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 19:50:15
Subject: Pallete Generation
From:    [e-mail]


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

Why is there a pallette generation for 24 bit images in Imagine PC version?

If the subproject is set to 24 bit - why does Imagine have to generate a
pallette?

I could understand if the subproject were set to 256 colors.

The good thing is that after I render the first image in detail or any other
editor, I just set the requestor to use previous pallette and all renders
come out fine because there is no pallette in a 24 bit picture.

If I am wrong let me know.


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 19:59:06
Subject: Re: Imagine 2.0 Question. (DXF's)
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


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

> Would you kindly let us know where this program can be found?  I know
> somebody mentioned it before, but at the time I didn't need it so I
> wasn't really paying attention(I know, I'm a moron:).

You can get it from my homepage at http://www.websharx.com/~silicon.

Andrey


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 20:06:09
Subject: Re: Imagine 2.0 Question. (DXF's)
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-27 13:50:38 EDT, you write:

>Would you kindly let us know where this program can be found?  I know
>somebody mentioned it before, but at the time I didn't need it so I
>wasn't really paying attention.

I know Andrey has it posted on CIS in the Imagine library.  Where else he has
it located I'm not sure.  I see his name on the list here frequently so I'm
sure he will jump in and get you some good info on where you might best pick
the file up.

Bob....................




Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 20:53:15
Subject: Re: Stuff from Aminet
From:    Roger Straub <[e-mail]>


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



On Thu, 27 Jul 1995, Richard Heidebrecht wrote:

>
>
> You probably wouldn't have guessed it from the subject heading, but this
> question goes out to you guys using PC's.  I recently got some files
> related to Imagine off Aminet.  Somebody once mentioned that LHA.exe
> could be used to decompress lha-compressed files on the PC, which was
> good, because I have LHA.exe, and the files from Aminet where LHA
> compressed.  However, when I tried to decompress the files I got some
> kind of error message(broken file, or something like that).  Do I need a
> different decompression program?
>

Some Amiga users have encountered this problem. When you download the
*.lha files from an FTP site, set the transfer mode to binary - type
`bin' w/o the quotes.

>
> Also, is there a difference between Imagine objects on the Amiga and PC?
> I'm guessing that most of the Imagine objects on Aminet where done on the
> Amiga, and I'd like to know if they will work on my PC(assuming I can get
> them decompressed first).
>

The file format is the same. The only thing that isn't compatible with
both versions (Amiga & PC) is the procedural textures. Ok, and the
brushmaps, but those can be converted. I think there were two textures
that were included in the PC version and not in the Amiga version;
Caustics, and something else.

>
>    ~Rick Heidebrecht~
>
>
>

That'll be $0.02, please.

See ya,
      Roger


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 21:44:18
Subject: CityBuilder and Space Essentials
From:    Cedric Georges Chang <[e-mail]>


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

Select Solutions, a mail order company, is selling CityBuilder and Space
Essentials for Imagine.  I have never heard of these products.  Can anyone
comment on them?
Thanks

Cedric

--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cedric Chang             Mechanical Engineer            // Amiga 3000 '040
[e-mail]    Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute   \X/  CgFx/EGS Piccolo
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 21:58:35
Subject: Re: Video boards
From:    [e-mail]


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

Your ideas are really what I had intended.  That is, for users of Imagine to
relate experience with their boards and let everyone else know what works.
 We really are on the same wavelength.


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 22:05:01
Subject: Re: Professional vs. ?Amateur
From:    [e-mail]


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

On Jul 26, 12:50pm, [e-mail] wrote:
>

> >
> > On Mon, 24 Jul 1995, Kent Marshall Worley wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers looked raytraced to me!
> > >
> >
> > Nah, raytraced characters usually have better acting skills! :)
> >
>
> A friend of mine did the Scorpion animations for that movie - he was using
> Prisms.  Whatever Prisms uses, that's what it is in the movie I guess.
>
> Lucky b*****d - he has a couple of Indigo 2 Extremes in his living room,
> works from home...
>
> j.
>
>-- End of excerpt from [e-mail]

Prisms does both- it has a raytracer and a scanline mode (I believe that it has
shadow mapping now).

My co-worker said that her husband did the Scorpion animation for the Power
Ranger movie and that he works from home.  Small world, eh?

Craig





--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 22:07:21
Subject: Re: JPEG Pictures!!!
From:    Roger Straub <[e-mail]>


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



On Fri, 28 Jul 1995, Bill Boyce wrote:

>
> I for one use an offline reader. I'm already getting 50 odd massages a day
> just from IML and don't really want the images - I haven't even investigated
> decoding them yet. Well, I want the images, but not as mail. This sounds
> like a great solution. It gets my vote, and thanks for the offer!
>

Would it be feasible to set up another mailing list, for those of us who
want the images? The IML Images Mailing List?

>
> Bill
>
>

That'll be $0.02, please.

See ya,
      Roger


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 22:07:47
Subject: Re: Render speeds
From:    [e-mail]


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


(Excerpts from recently posted results of the renderme survey on
compuserve 6/25/95 - 7/2/95)

>                SCANLINE    TRACE     IMAGINE VERSION
>                 mm:ss      mm:ss

>COMPUTER TYPE

>  AMIGA

>    AMIGA 2500   03:10       08:14          V3.2
>    (68040/33)
                         ...

>    AMIGA 3000   14:57       47:30          V3.2

>    AMIGA 4000   05:35       15:47          V3.2

>    AMIGA 4000   02:07       05:45          V3.2
>    (68040/40)


>  PC

                         ...


>    PENTIUM 60   00:49       02:24          V3.2


>    PENTIUM 75   00:33#      01:57#         V3.2


>    PENTIUM 90   00:35       01:42          V3.2
>                 00:36       01:44
>                 00:35       01:52
>                 NONE        01:53
>                 00:28#      01:37#


>    PENTIUM 100  00:25#      01:28#         -


>    PENTIUM 120  00:23#      01:20#         -


    ************ GET THE LEAD OUT ESCOM!!!!!!!!!! ************


(Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system)  -- Dave



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 22:08:29
Subject: Re: Help on Island Trace
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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

>Recently I ran into a problem that made me think of a couple of things I
>would like to see in 4.0.  I am creating an island like Myst except it looks
>nothing like Myst.  After creating everything I needed to add a sky.  However
>I knew that using a sphere and scaling it fairly large would slow down the
>trace.  It did significantly.  I would have been happy with just using a
>backdrop but unfortunately when animating the camera the backdrop bobs up and
>down in the ocean since it moves with the camera.  I would have been happy
-SNIP-
>Stephen G.

If a backdrop was O.K., how about something I often do to get around this
problem. Stick your backdrop image on a simple (2 poly) plane and put that in
the background. Use Newmode in the stage editor to size and position it in the
camera view so the edges never show in the animation, and away you go. Oh, and
align it to the camera to get the initial alignment.

Bingo Bango! The same effect as a backdrop, but wihout the movement. Great for
star scapes, too. Not sure on the rendering time effect, but it shouldn't be
to bad.

Bill



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 22:08:38
Subject: ------=> Sorry NO Subject!
From:    [e-mail]


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

>>I might as well reply to this message than create a new message. Does
>>anybody know if Gigamem works very well w/ Imagine?  I wanted to render a
>>few objects, but most of them require at least 12-14 megs, and I
>>unfortunately only have 10.  And by the way, how much is Gigamem?  And
>>yet one more question put to you, how much is the PC version of Imagine?

>Try VMMV31.lha from Aminet. Don't know the exact path and can't look it up
>while composing this message (I'm on a PC :( ).

Do any of these virtual memory programs work on an Amiga 3000 that has
no ROM chip and so loads Kickstart into Fast RAM?  Someone told me
that they couldn't work on such machines for reasons that have to do
with the MMU...

                    -- Dave



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 22:10:15
Subject: My Spline Editor/Metaballs preference flip-flops :)
From:    [e-mail]


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

>A little birdy (with a crowbar) told me Metaballs will be implimented
>in Imagine as an FX that will work both in Detail and Stage editors.

As an FX???  On second thought, I think I'd rather have a
spline modeller...

                         -- Dave



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 22:26:57
Subject: Re: Re:Mike H
From:    Torgeir Holm <[e-mail]>


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

On 26-Jul-95 13:21:30, Dave Rhodes wrote:

> When I first joined this list, not so long ago, one of the first personal
>mails I got was from Mike H.  It was about two lines long, and was only a
>jokey comment about my sense of humour (!) , but boy, was I thrilled to
>get personal mail from the guy who owns the company that makes my favourite
>software, all those miles away...

Hey, I've also gotten private emails from Mike H., and they have never been
rude or unpolite. Some have just been jokey comments like the one you
received, and others have been questions asking for more details about
subjects I was discussing on the list at the time.

I guess he gives you your attiude right back to you :)


Torge!r


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 22:26:59
Subject: Re: lensflare
From:    Torgeir Holm <[e-mail]>


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

On 27-Jul-95 17:05:40, Bill Boyce wrote:

>>is it me or does the lensflare on lightwave look better than the one in
>>Imagine, I was just curious, since they both seem very similar but i
>>thought i noticed a slight difference.  thanks!
>Imagines is supposed to be physically accurate, where Lightwaves is
>aesthetically accurate (!?). Lightwave allows star filters and the
>like which give a 'richer' effect to the flare, and more sophisticated
>'glow' to the light. Impulse - please spend some more time studying
>Lightwaves flares - network bosses love them.

Is it just me, or does it seem strange that we're all (well, at least the
majority of 3D artists) trying to replicate an effect that motion picture
directors try hard to avoid?

And by the way: I prefer the flares in imagine over the lightwave ones.. You
just have to work a little more to set them up correctly. Using flares in
lightwave is like putting up a big billboard saying "Look everyone!! I am
using lightwave!"


Torge!r


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 22:39:40
Subject: Re: 3.3 PC Bugs
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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

>Here are two bugs in the 3.3 PC release.
>
>1. "Ignore Lens Flair" option on Light attribute selector window kills

Cool - Lens flares with flair. Why hasn't the Amiga version got this flag!
Imagines flares could use more flair :)



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 22:54:06
Subject: Re: Motion Blur Trick
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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

>On 26-Jul-95 13:56:02, Granberg Tom wrote:
>

>The best way to create motion blur in imagine, is to render your animation
>with too many frames (slow motion anim..), and compose groups of images to
>create individual, motion blurred, frames. It is a lot slower than the LW
>motion blur though, because you have to render everything for each frame, and
>not just the moved objects.
>
>BTW: anyone else remember Steve Worley's Motion blurred bowling picture that
>came with understanding imagine 2.0? That was created using this technique.
>
>
>Torge!r

The latest (?) DV magazine has a great article on using an old cel animators
trick
of only animating that which moves (like that makes sense). What I mean is, you
only render the moving objects, and composite in objects that don't move, which
you render seperately, and only once.  This makes no sense, even to me. Yes,
English is my first language. Hmm. an example is in order.

If you had a scene where a plane flew towards some buildings, and the buildings
didn't move and the camera didn't move, then you render one frame with just the
buildings, then render the animation with the plane and no buildings, then
composite the two together. That's the generic description. In Imagine in
practice
you use layers to set what is and isn't rendered, then render the buildings
first
and use them as a backdrop image in the plane rendering. Comprendez?

In programs which have alpha channels you can render a foreground frame as well
and use compositing software, so the plane could fly behind some buildings
and in front of others. Roll on Imagine 4.

The upshot of this is, you save big time on rendering because imagine only
has to
render the buildings once.

And they took a whole article to explain this! Actually, it's worth getting. At
least read it in the shop.

Bill Boyce



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 22:59:40
Subject: Re: Virtual memory in Imagine.
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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

>
>> So, after all that verbal diahorrea my question is, does 3.3 utilise a swap
>> file arrangement to solve this problem, akin to 3DStudio's solution. (I know,

>> 3DStudio is much more expensive, but Imagine seems so well kitted out in
other
>> areas - as above - why not here).
>>
>> If you can understand my meaning here, please email me.
>>
>
>I too have had this problem with Imagine - in fact it's one of the things
that's
>preventing me from using it right away for some stuff I'm doing (using
Truespace
>instead).
>
>A few days ago I saw a post from someone that stated how to make Imagine
>work under Win95 - is it possible that Win95's virtual memory scheme would
>be used by Imagine if run that way?  I know that Win95 makes it's VM available
>to apps run in a DOS box - i.e. 16 Megs of real memory + 24 Megs of Win95 VM
>= 40 Megs of RAM to a DOS application run in DOS box.
>
>If that were the case, then problem solved.  Otherwise, I too would like to
>cast my vote for some sort of Virtual Memory scheme for Imagine.  Until then,
>I'm a little unwilling to use it in case I get into a "my scene is too big
>for Imagine" bind - which I am apt to do.
>
>j.

Is the problem linear though? ie if it won't render in 8Mb then 3 bees won't
render
in 24 Mb?? The best solution, virtual memory being as slow as it is, is slicing
the render in as many slices as it takes a la Lightwave. This would incur less
of a performance penalty, wouldn't it?

And wouldn't it be nice if it told you it didn't have enough memory, rather than

just dropping bits out? I once render sveral hundred frames over several weeks
just in time for a deadline, and found my tablecloth dissapeared in several
frames.
The only option was to paint it back in. That was a nightmare :(



Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 23:15:36
Subject: Re: your mail
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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

>
> Do any of these virtual memory programs work on an Amiga 3000 that has
> no ROM chip and so loads Kickstart into Fast RAM?  Someone told me
> that they couldn't work on such machines for reasons that have to do
> with the MMU...
>
>                     -- Dave
>

Not confirmed on my home machine,--but I have a friend at club who runs
VMM all the time on his A3000.  To my knowledge, the only limitation was
that you have to have WB 3.x.  (I made the mistake of trying Gigamem.
Should have spent my money upgrading workbench, instead).


Date:    Thursday, 27 July 1995 23:44:43
Subject: Re: JPEG Pictures!!!
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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

>
>> Of course, *I* should speak, right! I've sent UU files to the IML ohh, 3
>> times this month? Sure, I felt it was For The Common Good, but why
>> should my judgement be any better than that of other IML members who
>> feel their render holds some cosmic value? Maybe it's time for another
>> debate? After all, a year has passed, and the people on the List aren't
>> all the same as last year. Whaddya say?
>>
>

>Now, using the mailing list is obviously a pain in the butt for some members
>of the list - those that pay for their mail by the article, etc.  Also,
>those with off-line readers are probably not too happy with having to sit
>through a 15 minute download just for one message.
>
>So, why not set up an easily accessible ftp site that people can use to swap
>images?  <ahem> This is where I step in.  I run an Internet Presence Provider
>here in Los Angeles, and I personally own over 7 hosts on my network.  I would
>be more than happy to set up an image swapping site if it were needed and
>wanted - and I may even be able to turn it into a Web gallery if it were big
>enough and used often enough to justify the effort.
>

>[e-mail]
>
I for one use an offline reader. I'm already getting 50 odd massages a day
just from IML and don't really want the images - I haven't even investigated
decoding them yet. Well, I want the images, but not as mail. This sounds
like a great solution. It gets my vote, and thanks for the offer!

Bill



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 00:08:18
Subject: Re: Virtual memory in Imagine.
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-27 12:30:30 EDT, [e-mail]
(Simon Wilkinson) writes:

>does 3.3 utilise a swap file

Imagine doesn't and DOS doesn't but Windows does and WinImagine is coming.

Rick


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 00:11:59
Subject: Re: Imagine 2.0: What a Discovery!
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-27 17:20:16 EDT, [e-mail] writes:

>I almost accidentally picked up Waite's "3d Modelling Lab" and am VERY
>impressed

It sounds as though you may be fairly new to this list.  If you are I
recommend you keep reading the posts and hold on.  You'll learn plenty right
here.  No matter how new you are to Imagine if you have any questions, ask
them and they will be answered.  From what I here about 2's manual you're not
missing much.

Don't worry, there are plenty of PC Imagine users out here.  And I don't know
if Imagine is such a secret.  Most 3D graphic mags make reference to Imagine
on a fairly regular basis.  Now remember Impulse is not the size of the likes
of Autodesk so not much money is spent on advertising, so no, you don't see
many ads.

Don't throw that card away!  After you're comfortable with 2 and read on this
list what people are doing with 3 and up, you'll be looking in the couch
cushions for change to upgrade.  Another option, if they still have it, is
Imagine Lite for $99.  It's Imagine 3 without bones and cycle editor.  Of
course Imagine 4 is coming, and it has a whole program's worth of new
features over 3!

Have fun.

Rick


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 00:13:46
Subject: Re: JPEG Pictures!!!
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-27 17:51:56 EDT, [e-mail] (Imagine
Users Mailing List) writes:

>So, why not set up an easily accessible ftp site that people can use to swap
>images?

Plenty of us from America Online (including Lum who always starts this) that
can't upload files to the net.

Time to look for a new server, I guess.

Rick

PS - 15 minute download? Time for a new modem.  Lum's took me about 15
seconds.  Good reason though for a size limit.


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 00:39:20
Subject: Re: Motion Blur Trick
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-27 18:43:54 EDT, you write:

>The best way to create motion blur in imagine, is to render your animation
>with too many frames (slow motion anim..), and compose groups of images to
>create individual, motion blurred, frames. It is a lot slower than the LW
>motion blur though, because you have to render everything for each frame,
and
>not just the moved objects.
>
>BTW: anyone else remember Steve Worley's Motion blurred bowling picture that
>came with understanding imagine 2.0? That was created using this technique.

There is an flc on Compuserve called prop.flc done by GreG tsadillas with a
beta of Imagine 4.0 and it is in a word outstanding.  Not only does it have
great motion blur but provides the reverse strobing as well.  It is to drool
for, but we should all have it soon.

Bob...........


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 00:42:52
Subject: Re: JPEG Pictures!!!
From:    [e-mail]


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

In a message dated 95-07-27 17:51:56 EDT, you write:

>So, why not set up an easily accessible ftp site that people can use to swap
>images?  <ahem> This is where I step in.  I run an Internet Presence
Provider
>here in Los Angeles, and I personally own over 7 hosts on my network.  I
>would
>be more than happy to set up an image swapping site if it were needed and
>wanted - and I may even be able to turn it into a Web gallery if it were big
>enough and used often enough to justify the effort.
>
>Thing is - isn't there something like this already?  Keep in mind that I
have
>no limits to disk space, access time, etc (they're my machines after all)
and
>we're connected via redundant T1 to the 'net.  So, if there's any interest
>in this, I'll gladly set it up for the Imagine mailing list.

I think a site like this would be great.  I would very much like to see what
everyone else is doing with Imagine.  Actually seeing an image would provoke
allot of "how did you get that effect" type questions which would be
informative for everyone I think.  I hope it happens.

Bob.........




Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 01:03:01
Subject: Re: JPEG Pictures!!!
From:    Steven M Powell <[e-mail]>


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

> >So, why not set up an easily accessible ftp site that people can use to swap
> >images?  <ahem> This is where I step in.  I run an Internet Presence
> Provider

You have my vote for a common site to display Imagine pics.
Render on!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                       Phoenix



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 01:22:47
Subject: Re: Imagine 2.0 Question. (DXF's)
From:    Sharky <[e-mail]>


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



On Thu, 27 Jul 1995, Richard Heidebrecht wrote:

> On Thu, 27 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:
>
> > I can say for sure that Imagine does not want to import dxf files from
[snip]

> Would you kindly let us know where this program can be found?  I know
> somebody mentioned it before, but at the time I didn't need it so I
> wasn't really paying attention(I know, I'm a moron:).
>

Hiya!

Try checking Andrey's homepage at http://www.websharx.com/~silicon, I
believe it's linked there and may also be available via anonymous ftp as
well.

Aloha,
      Sharky


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 01:49:09
Subject: Re: How about...
From:    Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Thu, 27 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> Hi Mike first I'd like to say...sorry.  I really feel bad for you taking all
> this shit. Now here is my nice suggestion:
> I'd like a light that the beams curve inward.  Kind of like a lens. The
> farther you get from the light the brighter and smaller the spot gets.  This
> would also help for planet shading.
> DIAGRAM:
> |---_____\
> |--------------\   <--Thats the focal point.
> |--------------/  ^
> |------------/
>
> Me and my bad ASCII drawings!
>
>                                                ---LUM

Kind of like an inverse spotlight?


   ~Rick Heidebrecht~




Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 03:06:13
Subject: Re: JPEG Pictures!!!
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne) (Robert Byrne)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello Charles, on Jul 26 you wrote:

> I seem to remember some debate about this topic last year, and the
> consensus was that posting unsolicited binaries to the IML was not a
> good thing. .......

> <deleted>

> (My opinion: TINY demo images showing features of upcoming, unreleased
> versions of Imagine are OK. Anything else, well... let me see what
> everybody else thinks first)

I have a uucp account with virtually no restrictions on incoming mail, but
I can see a problem with masses of jpegs coming in for no apparent reason.
If someone is providing a tutorial and needs to add a descriptive pic or
even an Imagine screen grab then that would be great.

I think an ideal solution would be a site for IML.art which could be
accessed via ftp but I don't know what would be involved in setting
this up. Pics could be held for a limited time then deleted, similar to
Aminet/pub/private.

-- Bob


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 03:38:06
Subject: Re: I need a Job!!
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


As far as Imagine goes, I do know a guy who got a job with Industrial Light and
Magic with a demo reel consisting only of 5 minutes of Imagine animation.

So anything is possible!!



--
 _____________________________________________________________________________
            __
          #####       Craig Hoffman
         #~ ~###      [e-mail]
          @ @ #?)
          <  /|       Walt Disney Feature Animation
          `-' /
          |__/
 _____________________________________________________________________________



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 05:01:46
Subject: Re: Stuff from Aminet
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amiga Imagine files are the same as PC versions.  I use Winzip 5.6 for
Windows and have LHA.EXE (dated 1991)  It has always worked for me.  Once in
a while I have had problems extracting things due to the long filenames, but
usually it will truncate the filename and extract fine.

s.g.


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 09:07:43
Subject: Upload - Download Sites
From:    [e-mail] (Dave Wilson)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                Hi, I'm just wondering if there is a common site for
Picture and Object Ups and Downs?  I have some stuff I would
like to share and I would like to see stuff that everyone else
has done.  If there isn't one, shouldn't we make one?
{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}
{}                                                             <   President
- BrainWave Productions     {}
{}   Dave Wilson - Imagineer and More  >   Keyboards, Grafx, And Animations
{}
{}     [e-mail]     <            For State Of Affairs.
{}
{}                                                             > "t e C h n
o L O g y   i S   g o D !"         {}
{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 09:16:29
Subject: How To make a SUN?
From:    [e-mail] (Dave Wilson)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                I know this has been covered several times but I'm
a twit.  I'm trying to make a good SUN object and I'm having
a real tough time.  The sun is not going to be viewed close up
at all but I need it in my solar system.  The closest I would get
to it would be about Venus so I'll need to get enough detail for
that kind of distance.  I can get decent surface features but
all the corona effects are really hard to get.  there was a demo
put up way back that showed something about using a layered
object which was real nice (if I remember correctly).

                I'm using 3.0 on a dx4/100 with 16 megs ram.
Thanks in advance.
{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}
{}                                                             <   President
- BrainWave Productions     {}
{}   Dave Wilson - Imagineer and More  >   Keyboards, Grafx, And Animations
{}
{}     [e-mail]     <            For State Of Affairs.
{}
{}                                                             > "t e C h n
o L O g y   i S   g o D !"         {}
{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 09:28:38
Subject: Re: Motion Blur Trick
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello Bill, on Jul 28 you wrote:

> The latest (?) DV magazine has a great article on using an old cel animators
> trick
> of only animating that which moves (like that makes sense). What I mean is, yo
u
> only render the moving objects, and composite in objects that don't move, whic
h
> you render seperately, and only once.  This makes no sense, even to me. Yes,
> English is my first language. Hmm. an example is in order.
>
> If you had a scene where a plane flew towards some buildings, and the building
s
> didn't move and the camera didn't move, then you render one frame with just th
e
> buildings, then render the animation with the plane and no buildings, then
> composite the two together. ......

I've used this technique myself when animating on a highly textured ground
plane. Just render the ground once and use compositing. The down side is
when you have to have shadows you need the background in every frame.

-- Bob


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 09:37:22
Subject: The last suggested Imagine improvement
From:    [e-mail] (Dave Jacob)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is my idea--why not include a seperate module that will allow the Imagine
users themselves to construct their own add-ons? Kinda like a Imagine
Toolbox, built into a GUI along the lines ala KAI ?  The combinations
would be infinite and we could share the best on the list.

Dave


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 09:57:09
Subject: Re: Spline Int.
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello pantera, on Jul 27 you wrote:

> whats spline interpolation? what is it good for and whyt would you use
> it...sorry for the ignorance...

It's explained in the manual, but I understand yours was stolen. :-(

Basically, if you have set an object to move to two absolute positions (B,C)
over 10 frames, spline interpolation will create a smooth arc that tweens
between these positions.

A,B,C  =  Key frames
 / \   =  Discontinuous Knot
.....   =  Spline Interpolation



              .B.
           .  / \  .
         .  /     \  .
        .  /       \  .
       . /           \ .
       A/             \C


-- Bob


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 11:04:54
Subject: Render speeds
From:    Aki Laukkanen <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


> >    AMIGA 4000   02:07       05:45          V3.2
> >    (68040/40)

No times for the Cyberstorm 060 board?


.... This message has been cruelly tested on cute furry little animals.

* Offline Orbit 0.75a *


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 11:06:06
Subject: Image Mailing List Idea
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------




So, why not set up an easily accessible ftp site that people can use to swap
images?  <ahem> This is where I step in.  I run an Internet Presence Provider
here in Los Angeles, and I personally own over 7 hosts on my network.  I would
be more than happy to set up an image swapping site if it were needed and
wanted - and I may even be able to turn it into a Web gallery if it were big
enough and used often enough to justify the effort.

     As far as I know, there isn't an "image exchange" site. Yes, AmiNet
     has some pix, but we are talking about fast turnaround, 10K images to
     detail a question that we are having ("Why does my glass look plastic?
     Here's a render of it right now") and to solve problems.

     Based on the last day's mail, here's my suggestions:

     1) Use jay's offer and set up a small IML for just images. Anyone who
     doesn't want images doesn't have to get them. Anyone does want them,
     well, every day there are some.

     2) Posting Images to a Web Page. This was, users, such as AOL users,
     can access the page and view an image if they are trying to help solve
     a problem. Bandwidth would only then be the requested picture.

     3) Allowing either jay or some kind user to uudecode/un-MIME images
     sent by users who are using providers that "filter" them from easily
     sending binaries (AOL again). A user could e-mail an image to a
     mailserv on jay's machine that would automagically uudecode the image
     and place it in the "inbox" on the web server.

     4) (Optional) Allowing users of the mailing list (Image Mailing List)
     to mail to a common user "postpic", who would be the same as #3, so
     that users can upload binaries either though FTP or e-mail.

     5) Verify that jay's server will be up for a while and that the
     service that is being offered isn't a "fair weather" service; i.e., it
     will be around for a while.

     6) Credit to users on the IML and the new IML for each image. A
     one-line caption will do, or the option to "gallery" a user's work.
     This could be done with some fancy PERL scripts to auto-build a web
     page.

     Lucky 7) Ask some users to help administer the New IML. I would
     volunteer for that!

     Person problems/opinions with/of this? Send to me!

     New ideas: send to the mailing list.

     Flames: Cook some marshmallows and chill out!

     -AC


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 11:17:05
Subject: Re: Stuff from Aminet
From:    [e-mail] (joop van de wege)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>However, when I tried to decompress the files I got some
>kind of error message(broken file, or something like that).  Do I need a
>different decompression program?
Nope, but you need to transfer them in 8bit binary mode.
If you're using an ftp program do this on the commandline:
type bin

If you're using WWW to get them from Aminet then you should configure you're
brower to handler *.lha as an binary just like .zip .mpg etc.
Other possiblity is that once in a while Wuarchive is having problems and
sends *.lha as 7bit. On the Amiga you can run a nice program called 'Fixlha',
which also works for other 7bit transferred files, to repair the archive.

>Also, is there a difference between Imagine objects on the Amiga and PC?
>I'm guessing that most of the Imagine objects on Aminet where done on the
>Amiga, and I'd like to know if they will work on my PC(assuming I can get
>them decompressed first).
Pure objects should be fine.
Watch out with whole projects because the staging file will hold AmigaDOS
filenames (looooong) and paths, '/' instead of '\'.

Joop




Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 11:23:01
Subject: RE:Realistic Glass(long)
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>==O snip O==
>>Have you tried making sure the edges (ie where Rim and Base join the
>>body) are 'Sharp' ie 'Make Sharp'. This is something I have recently
>>discovered to make a huge difference on these type of objects, and
>>you do end up with linear highlights, and great rim highlights. I've
>>just finished an object using this and it looks great, without any
>>special mapping tricks.
>==O snip O==
>
>Making the edges sharp won't help.  The phong algorithm makes spots only.
> Never will it make a strip.  In order to make a strip that runs up and down
>you have to fake it.  I've tried it your way and it didn't work.
>
>                                                 ---Lum
I tested it again this afternoon and it worked fine. Note that the
position of the highlight changes (actually becomes more accurate) so if
you set up a glass without sharp edges and there is a spot, there probably
won't be one after you make them sharp - it's 'there', its just shifted.
Try setting up a scene with the light beside the glass and spin the glass
end over end so you catch the highlight. If you still don't get it, you
may have misconstrued my original post - let me know how you get on.
Repeat - I tried it this afternoon and it worked fine!

Bill



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 11:26:35
Subject: Re: VMM
From:    [e-mail] (joop van de wege)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>Do any of these virtual memory programs work on an Amiga 3000 that has
>no ROM chip and so loads Kickstart into Fast RAM?  Someone told me
>that they couldn't work on such machines for reasons that have to do
>with the MMU...
Yes, as plain and simple you can get.

I have an A3000 and used to have a bootrom which loaded Kickstart.
Now I do have 3.1 and won't go back. Its worth it for me because I have a
gfxcard.
Just to be sure I'll look it up in the docs of VMM.

Joop


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 11:29:28
Subject: Re: lensflare
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>On 27-Jul-95 17:05:40, Bill Boyce wrote:
>
>>>is it me or does the lensflare on lightwave look better than the one in
>>>Imagine, I was just curious, since they both seem very similar but i
>>>thought i noticed a slight difference.  thanks!
>>Imagines is supposed to be physically accurate, where Lightwaves is
>>aesthetically accurate (!?). Lightwave allows star filters and the
>>like which give a 'richer' effect to the flare, and more sophisticated
>>'glow' to the light. Impulse - please spend some more time studying
>>Lightwaves flares - network bosses love them.
>
>Is it just me, or does it seem strange that we're all (well, at least the
>majority of 3D artists) trying to replicate an effect that motion picture
>directors try hard to avoid?
>
>And by the way: I prefer the flares in imagine over the lightwave ones.. You
>just have to work a little more to set them up correctly. Using flares in
>lightwave is like putting up a big billboard saying "Look everyone!! I am
>using lightwave!"
>
>
>Torge!r
>
Probably because most people set everything on in lightwave and get the
'billboard' effect you describe. You can actually switch on and off all
the constituent parts - like Imagine, only there are a lot more parts - thus
allowing some subtlety. I've heard someone say the Lightwave 4 lens flare
requester fills the screen! It's always nice to have options, even if you
don't always use them.

On the subject of everyone overusing them, most of my clients like the stuff
to look like computer graphics - realistic, but with little hints like
flares to say 'this was done on a computer'. Some sort of ego thing on the
art directors part, I suppose.

We all know flares went out in the '70's.

Bill



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 11:30:29
Subject: Re: VMM
From:    [e-mail] (joop van de wege)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>Not confirmed on my home machine,--but I have a friend at club who runs
>VMM all the time on his A3000.  To my knowledge, the only limitation was
>that you have to have WB 3.x.  (I made the mistake of trying Gigamem.
>Should have spent my money upgrading workbench, instead).
Not true anymore. It was a mistake in the distribution archive (3.0) which
was solved in 3.1, that is if I'm correct. And it needed 2.1 instead of 2.04,
had todo with locale.library support.
What you do need is MUI(2.x), but go for 2.3 which is also on Aminet.

Joop


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 11:33:24
Subject: Re: 3.3 PC Bugs
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>Here are two bugs in the 3.3 PC release.
>>
>>1. "Ignore Lens Flair" option on Light attribute selector window kills
>
>Cool - Lens flares with flair. Why hasn't the Amiga version got this flag!
>Imagines flares could use more flair :)
>
>
Replying to my own message. Cool.

Just for the team at Impulse - I do like Imagines flares. Thanks guys. Don't
want you getting the wrong impression, or being depressed all weekend (grossly
overating the importance and effects of my messages)



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 11:38:33
Subject: Re: Help on Island Trace
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>In a message dated 95-07-27 20:45:38 EDT, you write:
>
>>If a backdrop was O.K., how about something I often do to get around this
>>problem. Stick your backdrop image on a simple (2 poly) plane and put that
>in the background.
>>Bill
>
>Thanks for the tip, I have used that many times for stills however in an
>animation where you are moving all over the island and the camera is
>rotating, the backdrop method doesn't work because you would eventually see
>the edge of it when the camera rotated.  This is an Island like Myst where
>you are going all over the island and seeing the landscape from different
>viewpoints.
>
>stephen g.
>
Can you get you hands on, or make, a 360 degree backdrop? Cylinder map, and
away you go. As long as you don't look up ...



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 11:45:34
Subject: Re: How To make a SUN?
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>                I know this has been covered several times but I'm
>a twit.  I'm trying to make a good SUN object and I'm having
>a real tough time.  The sun is not going to be viewed close up
>at all but I need it in my solar system.  The closest I would get
>to it would be about Venus so I'll need to get enough detail for
>that kind of distance.  I can get decent surface features but
>all the corona effects are really hard to get.  there was a demo
>put up way back that showed something about using a layered
>object which was real nice (if I remember correctly).
>
>                I'm using 3.0 on a dx4/100 with 16 megs ram.
>Thanks in advance.
>{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}
>{}                                                             <   President
>- BrainWave Productions     {}
>{}   Dave Wilson - Imagineer and More  >   Keyboards, Grafx, And Animations
>{}
If you can wait for Essence for PC (due soon I believe) it has a great
cylindrical fractal transition texture that's just the bees knees for
a corona. Not sure if there is a substitute in the Imagine textures that
this suggests as a replacement. It even animates great. Wack it on a disk,
align to camera and away you go.



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 12:10:12
Subject: Re: How To make a SUN?
From:    Roger Straub <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have a copy of the object which I made from the tutorial. I'll send it
to you. If anyone else wants it, just mail me.

See ya,
      Roger


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 12:18:05
Subject: Re: JPEG Pictures!!!
From:    gregory denby <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


It would be great to have a site devoted to Imagine technicalities.
Just little samples of tricks people have found and such.  This is
opposed to sites like aminet/pix/trace/imagi where one can put one's
pride and joy 3 day mega render.  Perhaps Impulse's site may begin
to feature monthly competitions ala POV, where one can see really fine
work.  But for those of us thrashing through problems here on the IML,
a common place to load illustrations would be most welcome.

If "[e-mail]" were so kind as to host one, I'm sure we'd all
be thankful.

Greg Denby


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 12:53:09
Subject: Two Tiny Wishes
From:    Stuart Hogton <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


 Here are a couple of things I think would be very useful in Imagine. I am
only using 3.0, so I do not know if they have been implemented in later
versions. Well, here goes :

      When you use Set Zone, it would be nice if a coloured box was
displayed in the Perspective window to show you it was there.

      When rendering a scene and you press cancel, I would like to see
a confirmation box appear. This would allow me to effectively pause mid-
render and quickly do something else that was urgent.

 That was it! Keep up the good work Impuse. I have great pleasure using
3.0 and I will upgrade in a few weeks as soon as I get some cash.

      Stu.



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 13:00:19
Subject: Help on Island Trace
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> From: [e-mail]
>
> nothing like Myst.  After creating everything I needed to add a sky.
> However I knew that using a sphere and scaling it fairly large would
> slow down the trace.  It did significantly.
....
> The only solution I could come up with was to take everything out of the
> scene and render the animation of just the sky and camera movements.
> Then create a flic out of it and use that as a backdrop. Unfortunately,
> using a flic as a backdrop in globals is very costly, since the entire
> background of the sky would be animated when the camera moved.
> This would create an incredibly huge FLC file.  In fact I don't think my
> computer would have enough ram.  Any suggestions would be appreciated, but

Why do you have to create the background layer as a FLC? Why not simply
render it as a series of individual frames? You could then import this
into the backdrop layer, no sweat.



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 13:09:37
Subject: Re: I need a Job!!
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> From: [e-mail]
>
> As far as Imagine goes, I do know a guy who got a job with Industrial
> Light and Magic with a demo reel consisting only of 5 minutes of
> Imagine animation.

And I know a guy who became an animator on Robocop, the TV series, from
his all-Imagine demo reel. The reel showed real animation talent, and
that's what the Robocop people wanted.



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 13:15:14
Subject: Re: Stuff from Aminet
From:    RIX JAMES <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------



On Thu, 27 Jul 1995, Richard Heidebrecht wrote:

>
>
> You probably wouldn't have guessed it from the subject heading, but this
> question goes out to you guys using PC's.  I recently got some files
> related to Imagine off Aminet.  Somebody once mentioned that LHA.exe
> could be used to decompress lha-compressed files on the PC, which was
> good, because I have LHA.exe, and the files from Aminet where LHA
> compressed.  However, when I tried to decompress the files I got some
> kind of error message(broken file, or something like that).  Do I need a
> different decompression program?
>
> Also, is there a difference between Imagine objects on the Amiga and PC?
> I'm guessing that most of the Imagine objects on Aminet where done on the
> Amiga, and I'd like to know if they will work on my PC(assuming I can get
> them decompressed first).
>
>
>    ~Rick Heidebrecht~
>
>
>
The only difference between Amiga and PC objects is the path used to
obtain textures and brushes.  On Amiga the directories are deperated byu
'/', on the PC they are seperated by '\'.

Jim Rix


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 13:19:59
Subject: Resolution vs. aspect ratio
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Osuch)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm trying to render some images for ouput as slides. I'm using 1/4
Kodak Photo CD res - 1536 x 1024, but when I render, the image is
stretched vertically when compared to a 640x480 pic; i.e. a small
section of the top and bottom are cut off. anyone have an idea what
aspect ratio I can use to correct this?

     - Bill



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 13:27:38
Subject: Imagine 2.0: What a Discovery!
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to the wonderful world of Imagine! Like some roller coasters,
it's a wild ride, but some of us just keep getting on time after time.

> From: [e-mail]
>
> I AM finding it very difficult to come to speed on it, though, as the
> Waite book is a very poor substitute for a manual.

Surprise -- the Waite book is head and shoulders above the original
manual. Sorry to say, but what you have in your hands is one of the best
pieces of documentation available. It does concentrate on modelling, and
therefore is light on animation, but a new book by Philip Shaddock is due
out this year; presumably, it would pick up where this one left off:
animation features, and functions added after 2.0.

> Any suggestions?

For readability and completeness, the bible has always been Steve
Worley's "Understanding Imagine 2.0", which is unfortunately out of
print. You might be lucky and get a used copy if you ask on the
newsgroup comp.graphics.packages.lightwave -- lots of ex-Imagine users
over there. In my mind, digging around until you find Steve's book is
the single best thing you can do for yourself.

This forum is also a great source of information, as are its archived
offshoots: "Dare to Imagine", a collection of tips from IML users,
available online and in print form from Impulse ($20, call for
availability); and the IML FAQ, now in its 7th edition, also available
online. I don't have the exact locations for you, but others will jump in.

> The card in the back of the book allows one to upgrade to version 3 for
> $300 but I'm afraid that this is beyond me :-(

I'm unsure whether this steep upgrade price is still valid; better call
Impulse and ask them. We all have a different budget to work with; for
some people, even $100 is too much to ask and if so, I'm afraid you're
stuck with 2.0. However, if you decide you like this 3-D stuff, and that
with the help of the additional documentation I've mentioned you enjoy
working with Imagine, then by all means do yourself a favor and get on
the upgrade train! We're up to 3.3 and quite frankly, I wouldn't be
caught dead using 3.0, much less 2.0. The number of features that have
been added, and the interface improvements, are quite mind-boggling. 3-D
software is a very competitive business, and for Imagine to still be
alive in 1995, means that Impulse has had to add _a lot_ to their old
2.0 version.

> Are there many PC users of Imagine?

Currently, the user ratio is 10 Amiga copies sold for every PC copy; but
the constant upgrade program, which to me would indicate
current/srious/dedicated users, runs 4:1 in favor of the PC.

> Why is it such a secret?

Go fig. Also-ran programs sometimes offer incredible value for the
dollar, but may not get press coverage for a varity of reasons. Perhaps
Impulse doesn't advertise as much as other companies; perhaps reporters
are too lazy, or genuinely too busy, to look further than "the big 3"
or whatever. Black Belt's WinImages, for example, is a graphics
powerhouse, and it retails for $99 US; but have you ever seen it pitted
against other image-processing bigwigs in a magazine roundup? Noooooo,
not that I've seen.

To me, this topic is wide-open to conjecture and conspiracy theories
alike. Perfect for online debate, dontcha think? ;^)


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 13:35:36
Subject: Re: Render speeds
From:    RIX JAMES <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------



On Fri, 28 Jul 1995, Aki Laukkanen wrote:

>
> > >    AMIGA 4000   02:07       05:45          V3.2
> > >    (68040/40)
>
> No times for the Cyberstorm 060 board?
>
>
> ... This message has been cruelly tested on cute furry little animals.
>
> * Offline Orbit 0.75a *
>
I wiull have a Cyberstorm very shortly.  Will the person who made the
test image please send it to me so I obtain times.

Jim Rix
[e-mail]



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 13:40:33
Subject: Re: Resolution vs. aspect ratio
From:    RIX JAMES <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------



On Fri, 28 Jul 1995, Bill Osuch wrote:

> I'm trying to render some images for ouput as slides. I'm using 1/4
> Kodak Photo CD res - 1536 x 1024, but when I render, the image is
> stretched vertically when compared to a 640x480 pic; i.e. a small
> section of the top and bottom are cut off. anyone have an idea what
> aspect ratio I can use to correct this?
>
>      - Bill
>
>
The aspect ratio you want to use for anything NOT presented on a
computer's screen is 1:1.

Jim Rix


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 15:16:09
Subject: RE:Lens Flares
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi!

I do agree, with the one that said "it's like puting up a billboard sayin, I'm
using lightwave" But it would be usefull with some additional controll over the

Imagine lensflares. Here is som ideas:

1. fade behind objects! A must, realy!
2. Noise edge on the glow. Kind of like the texture controll.
3. A percentage value on the glow, so you could controll the "power" of your
glow point.
4. This would be cool but not necesary, Lensflares as a lite texture, and not a

global effect. The same goes for the haze effect!

Later!

Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)





Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 15:34:10
Subject: RE:Sun with corona
From:    Granberg Tom <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi there!

I've made such a sun once way back in Im2.0, but I think it should work now as
well!?

Here goes.
Make the sun a basic sphere, put on some good textures that makes a good moving

sun surface (Agate works fine). Now for the corona you will need a disk that is

bigger than the sphere, when I made this I used Essence textures but you could
probably use the fireball texture. Scale the texture so it reaches the disk
edges, make the inner coolor the same as your sun. The outer color should be
redish and fully filtered. Now comes the cool part, even if you are not making
an anim you should do this anyway. Make sure your disk have their axis pointing

the way it did when you added it. load it to stage, and place it exactly where
your sun is. Go to action editor and delete the disks alignment bar, then add a

track to object bar, where you type in "camera". Thats all folks. To animate the

corona you could make some states and maybe use another texture as your base on

your disk (Wormvein is cool) and use the Fireball as the last texture to fade
out the edges with a raged edge, just remember to cancel the inner color, so it

doesnt cancel out the Wormvein textures color,do this by typing in a negative
value in the color box.

Later!

Tom Granberg (Renderbrandt)



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 15:34:28
Subject: Re: JPEG Pictures!!!
From:    Douglas Smith <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Imagine Users Mailing List wrote in a Mail about "Re: JPEG Pictures!!!":
IUML :So, why not set up an easily accessible ftp site
[snip]
IUML :I'll gladly set it up for the Imagine mailing list.

WOW, what a great offer !

Thanks 2M

This is the correct way to do things, I remember when Lum's cups were
bouncing around, that certainly shouldn't be allowed to happen again.

Also using an FTP site will allow Images of a reasonable quality and
size to be exchanged.

Of course, we can always say, "I have this problem with depth of field,
this is what I did, look at ftp://???????"

I would hope that the only images posted to IML are ones that all the
subscribers are interested in, as was said before, new features etc.

Cheers,

Doug.
--

[e-mail]
Amiga 4000/40 10M 214, 540 HD  Not better, just different.
When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the
one I've never tried before. -- Mae West


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 18:44:30
Subject: Re: Resolution vs. aspect ratio
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Osuch)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>
>
>On Fri, 28 Jul 1995, Bill Osuch wrote:
>
>> I'm trying to render some images for ouput as slides. I'm using 1/4
>> Kodak Photo CD res - 1536 x 1024, but when I render, the image is
>> stretched vertically when compared to a 640x480 pic; i.e. a small
>> section of the top and bottom are cut off. anyone have an idea what
>> aspect ratio I can use to correct this?
>>
>>      - Bill
>>
>>
>The aspect ratio you want to use for anything NOT presented on a
>computer's screen is 1:1.
>
>Jim Rix
>
>
That's the problem - obviously, I CAN'T use 1:1, because that setting is
distorting
the image (I'm on the PC, BTW).

     - Bill



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 19:25:15
Subject: Stuff from Aminet
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[hack]
>You probably wouldn't have guessed it from the subject heading, but this
>question goes out to you guys using PC's.  I recently got some files
>related to Imagine off Aminet.  Somebody once mentioned that LHA.exe
>could be used to decompress lha-compressed files on the PC, which was
>good, because I have LHA.exe, and the files from Aminet where LHA
>compressed.  However, when I tried to decompress the files I got some
>kind of error message(broken file, or something like that).  Do I need a
>different decompression program?
>
>Also, is there a difference between Imagine objects on the Amiga and PC?
>I'm guessing that most of the Imagine objects on Aminet where done on the
>Amiga, and I'd like to know if they will work on my PC(assuming I can get
>them decompressed first).

I recently downloaded the enterprise object from aminet to use on my PC. I
had no error messages when decompressing the file but did get a 'special
flag. Skipped' message if the amiga file name had more than one '.' in it. I
also noticed that if the first 8 characters of the amiga filename where the
same for a few objects/imagemaps in would over write them. What I did was to
print out a list of the archive and check the file sizes to see which I had
missed. The image files are in LBM format on the pc.

I also had to check through the entire object to change all the image map
file locations. This took a while but worked. I don't know about textures
because there were none on the enterprise.

Hope this helps.
Chris Hall.

|--------------------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by Chris Hall                  ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from Great Briton ||
|                                                        ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]                 ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :                           ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/index.html       ||
|                                                        ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-                   ||
|              16 37 38 15 27 05                         ||
|--------------------------------------------------------||
 \--------------------------------------------------------\




Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 20:00:00
Subject: Re: Lights in raytrace.
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are the speres transparent? The fog gives a nice glow around a light as well.

Rod Macey: [e-mail] - Pre-press/Graphic Designer
Home: A2000/30 FPU 4MB RAM [soon to be 12 8-)] Imagine 3.0
Work: Power Macs, Sun Sparc & Pee Cees too.
"Sometimes the hard way is the only way!"



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 21:45:59
Subject: Re: Inertia ??
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> From: Robert Byrne <[e-mail]>
>
> For the simple rotations you require, try using the Rotate20 effect.  If
> you wanted your first letter to reach the upright position after 30
> frames you could begin the rotation of the next letter at frame 15 and so
> on for the remaining letters.

....and once you've defined the timing for that rotation, you could use
the Action editor Cut/Paste function to add this bar to all other
letters, suitably staggered in time. Your situation just CRIES OUT for
Cut/Paste.



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 21:57:00
Subject: Re: Metaballs
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> From: Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>
>
> That's great, but it begs the question "Where do you find out all this
> stuff?"

On the IML, Mike Halvorson is read-only. On CompuServe, he's read/write. B^)





Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 22:01:25
Subject: Pallete Generation
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> From: [e-mail]
>
> The good thing is that after I render the first image in detail or any
> other
> editor, I just set the requestor to use previous pallette and all renders
> come out fine because there is no pallette in a 24 bit picture.

One way would be to leave an image called "Palette.pic" in your project
directory, and to select "Specify File", rather than "Generate 1st". I
assume Imagine would then skip the spurious palette generation step,
instead taking its cue from the image on disk.




Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 22:14:44
Subject: The last suggested Imagine improvement
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> From: Dave Jacob <[e-mail]>
>
> Here is my idea--why not include a seperate module that will allow the
> Imagine users themselves to construct their own add-ons? Kinda like a
> Imagine Toolbox, built into a GUI along the lines ala KAI ?  The
> combinations would be infinite and we could share the best on the list.

Interesting idea. Mind fleshing it out a bit?



Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 22:30:19
Subject: Virtual memory in Imagine.
From:    Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> From: Simon Wilkinson <[e-mail]>
>
> parts start to disappear.  Taking a typical example, when I tried to
> render the honey-bee included with the 3D Modelling Lab book, legs, wings
> and other assorted body parts were omitted.  Having only 8Mb (yes, very
> sad), I attributed this to lack of memory.  What I'm worried about, is
> that even if I expanded to 24 or 32 Mb, with the current trend I expect
> only 2 or 3 bees would render fully in the same scene before the above
> occured again.  Although I appreciate that this bee is an incredibly
> complex single object (25,000 polygons I think), I'm still worried that
> whole scenes with many objects would fail to render effectively, even
> with 32 Mb of RAM.

Simon,

we all have different ambition levels, from the overeager "Yay! I got
Imagine installed. Now let's duplicate the Star Wars Death Star battle
scene before going to bed" type, to the hand-wringing "Oh my, this logo
is over a thousand faces! What shall I do?". I myself am overly
conservative, so my instant reaction is...

25,000 POLYGONS? IS HE _NUTS_??

But that's just me. I've tended to be very meek when it comes to Imagine
projects; you may be more ambitious. All I can say is, Imagine is one of
the smallest programs you can imagine, for all that it does. I'm sure
you could pare down the primitives to recreate Alan Henry's honeybee
with 10,000, or even 2,500 polygons. With 32M, you'd then have enough
memory for a whole swarm of bees. Remember, if only one or two bees will
ever come close to the camera, you only need to model those in detail.
All other bees can be much more crude.

WARNING: incredibly neat tip follows!

Or, you can render your project in groups of objects, defining each group
in a different Action/Stage frame. You'd then use the Globals Backdrop
feature to pick up the previous frame as a backdrop, and render all
frames in the Project editor. (For example, frame 1 has a sky sphere, and
a mountain range; frame 2 uses "pic0001" as its backdrop, and has a
grassy plane and trees; frame 3 uses "pic0002" as its backdrop, and has a
few bees; and so on, defining objects from back to front) When the last
frame is done, it would contain the single image you were attempting to
build. This way, you only need to define in each frame as many objects as
your RAM will allow, but you can still create very complex images in the
end.

This tip is not mine; it comes from the creative mind of a CompuServe
user, whose name I have forgotten.


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 23:21:34
Subject: Re: Stuff from Aminet
From:    Fredster <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- [ From: Fredster * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] --

> I recently downloaded the enterprise object from aminet to use on my PC. I
had
> no error messages when decompressing the file but did get a 'special flag.
> Skipped' message if the amiga file name had more than one '.' in it. I
also
> noticed that if the first 8 characters of the amiga filename where the
same for

When you get that "special file skipped" message you have to extract the
file with the /a1 switch. This forces LHA to extract all the files in the
archive.

--------------------
Fred Aderhold
[e-mail]

Brownies - not just for breakfast anymore!
--------------------


Date:    Friday, 28 July 1995 23:29:58
Subject: Image Exchange
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think the idea of an Image Exchange page is great.  Divide into two portions:
hints/tips/questions images ("check my image 'blahblah.jpg' and see if you
can tell me what I screwed up") and gallery images ("check out my mega-render!")

This way the IML stays as a true mailing list of questions, answers, and comment
s,
and we have image transfer available only as needed or desired.
Joel


Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 00:19:34
Subject: Beyond Imagination
From:    [e-mail] (Andrew Herbert)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

***  Public Announcement to all PC Imagine Users !!!  ***

Beyond Imagination is a On-Line help system for Imagine and includes hints, tips
, and tutorials
on just about everything.

Beyond Imagination runs under Windows and is totally free, it can be downloaded
from
http://uptown.turnpike.net/H/Herbert

Thank you for your time.

- Herbert


>> Email: [e-mail] <<
>> HTTP://uptown.turnpike.net/H/Herbert/ <<



Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 00:48:23
Subject: Re: How To make a SUN?
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello Dave, on Jul 28 you wrote:

>                 I know this has been covered several times but I'm
> a twit.  I'm trying to make a good SUN object and I'm having
> a real tough time. .......

>                 I'm using 3.0 on a dx4/100 with 16 megs ram.

There's a tip in Dare2Imagine and the FAQ called Solar Corona that uses the
FireBall, Nebula and Ghost textures.

-- Bob


Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 00:50:54
Subject: Tools
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi all,

We all have our preference for one platform or another. Some of us
use only one, others use two or more platforms. What I would like to
do is compile a short, trivial survey to see what the IMLers are using
for 3D modelling/rendering only. I know many of you might use other
platforms for other types of work or entertainment, but as the IML is
about 3D, I think this survey should only relate to this subject.

Send the replies to me privately, with the subject line in this format:

Re:Tools_platform/platforms

Where platform/platforms is either;
ami for Amiga only
pc for PC only
amipc for Amiga and PC
amiother for Amiga and another platform
pcother for PC and another platform, or
amipcother for Amiga, PC and another

Don't bother sending any content, as I will be just tallying up the
subject lines, then deleting the message.

The deadline is August 8, as I have a week of between leaving my old
job and starting my new one. I'll publish the results shortly after.
Please note, this is not the start of any kind of war. It might be
interesting to see just who is using what.


Rod Macey: [e-mail] - Pre-press/Graphic Designer
Home: A2000/30 FPU 4MB RAM [soon to be 12 8-)] Imagine 3.0
Work: Power Macs, Sun Sparc & Pee Cees too.
"Sometimes the hard way is the only way!"



Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 01:29:10
Subject: Re: Resolution vs. aspect ratio
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello Bill, on Jul 28 you wrote:

> I'm trying to render some images for ouput as slides. I'm using 1/4
> Kodak Photo CD res - 1536 x 1024, but when I render, the image is
> stretched vertically when compared to a 640x480 pic; i.e. a small
> section of the top and bottom are cut off. anyone have an idea what
> aspect ratio I can use to correct this?
>
>      - Bill

Try 2:3. 512 is a common denominator for both measurements.

-- Bob


Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 01:29:14
Subject: Re: How To make a SUN?
From:    [e-mail] (Darryl Lewis)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>a twit.  I'm trying to make a good SUN object and I'm having
>a real tough time.  The sun is not going to be viewed close up
>at all but I need it in my solar system.  The closest I would get
>{}

 BB> If you can wait for Essence for PC (due soon I believe) it has a
 BB> great
 BB> cylindrical fractal transition texture that's just the bees knees for
 BB> a corona. Not sure if there is a substitute in the Imagine textures
 BB> that
 BB> this suggests as a replacement. It even animates great. Wack it on a
 BB> disk,
 BB> align to camera and away you go.

Having both an Amiga and PeeCee, I find that an acceptable effect can be
made using a primative sphere set to be a light source. Then add the
attributes ghost and fog. Play with the values a bit until your happy with
the size of the corona and the glow. Oh yes, also set it's colour to a
yellow, if it's our sun in the attributes.
I still have not come up wih sunspots of solar flares, but give me time :-)

Notes:
I'm trying to build a model of the Ringworld (for the non Sci Fi people
:it's a book by Larry Niven about a 'planet' that is a flat ring that
encircles the sun. It's diameter is approximatly the orbit of the earth,
with peole living on the inner surface facing the sun. They are held there
by centrifugal force).
I use the PeeCee to do all the modelling and test renders (because [sob!
:-(] it's faster than the amiga), then I do the final renders on the amiga,
because ,in my opinion, it produces better pictures. It also has essence
and a lot of other utilities that can be used to manupulate the images that
aren't available (or cost tooo much) on the PeeCee.
Darryl

-- Via DLG Pro v1.0

               #####\             _             /#####
               #( )# |          _( )__         | #( )#
               ##### |         /_    /         | #####
               #" "# |     ___m/I_ //_____     | #" "#
               # O # |____#-x.\ /++m\ /.x-#____| # O #
               #m.m# |   /" \ ///###\\\ / "\   | #m.m#
               #####/    ######/     \######    \#####


Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 02:01:23
Subject: Re: Two Tiny Wishes
From:    [e-mail] (Robert Byrne)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello Stuart, on Jul 28 you wrote:

>     When you use Set Zone, it would be nice if a coloured box was
> displayed in the Perspective window to show you it was there.

And where it is too, otherwise you could just have a flag in the title bar.

>     When rendering a scene and you press cancel, I would like to see
> a confirmation box appear. This would allow me to effectively pause mid-
> render and quickly do something else that was urgent.

You've got my vote. Two excellent suggestions.

--Bob


Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 03:35:40
Subject: Re: Beyond Imagination
From:    Al Nehl <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Andrew,

   I just pulled "Beyond Imagination" from your site. What a nice piece of
work. You have truly rendered a great service to the community. Thank you.



At 11:19 PM 7/28/95 PDT, you wrote:
>***  Public Announcement to all PC Imagine Users !!!  ***
>
>Beyond Imagination is a On-Line help system for Imagine and includes hints,
tips, and tutorials
>on just about everything.
>
>Beyond Imagination runs under Windows and is totally free, it can be
downloaded from
>http://uptown.turnpike.net/H/Herbert
>
>Thank you for your time.
>
>- Herbert
>
>
>>> Email: [e-mail] <<
>>> HTTP://uptown.turnpike.net/H/Herbert/ <<
>
>
>

--
Sincerely,

Al Nehl

Steer by the stars above, not the lights of each passing ship.



Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 04:16:11
Subject: One minor bug.
From:    [e-mail] (Chris)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

the info button in the project screen always shows SUNDAY as the rendering
day even though the rest of the time and date info is correct. been around
since version 2 to 3.3.

it's the little things that annoy me :)




Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 04:31:18
Subject: Re: Lights in raytrace.
From:    [e-mail] (Tom Ellard)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>> > scene, you can just add an axis and make it "light".
>> > Remember: polygon do not emit light; axis do, allway.
>> But why would it work ok in scanline but not trace?
>Light passes through objects in scanline thats why you don't get shadows.
>In raytrace the solid objects stop the light ray.

I have a conceptual problem with this, as the other attributes are applied
to the surface of the object. Consider fog - this alters the opacity of the
surface, enough for the light to "get out."

So when I give my sphere the 'light' attribute I'm following the general
useage of the attributes requester, expecting the entire sphere to be a light.

But no problem, I'll leave the concepts behind. :-)


Tom Ellard, Severed Communications Australia [e-mail]



Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 06:24:01
Subject: Re: JPEG Pictures!!!
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Douglas,

> Imagine Users Mailing List wrote in a Mail about "Re: JPEG Pictures!!!":
> IUML :So, why not set up an easily accessible ftp site
> [snip]
> IUML :I'll gladly set it up for the Imagine mailing list.
>
> WOW, what a great offer !
>
>
> This is the correct way to do things, I remember when Lum's cups were
> bouncing around, that certainly shouldn't be allowed to happen again.
>
> Also using an FTP site will allow Images of a reasonable quality and
> size to be exchanged.
>
 and objects could put here too

..............................................................................
..                                                                           .
..                                [e-mail]                    .
..                                                                           .
..............................................................................


Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 08:41:00
Subject: Re: Imagine 2.0: What a Discovery!
From:    [e-mail] (Ron Saggers)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

In-Reply-To: <[e-mail]>

> We're up to 3.3 and quite frankly, I wouldn't be
> caught dead using 3.0, much less 2.0. The number of features that have
> been added, and the interface improvements, are quite mind-boggling. 3-D
> software is a very competitive business, and for Imagine to still be
> alive in 1995,

Is there an upgrade path from a /second user/ imagine 3.0?
I bought the version 3.0 a few months back complete with disks and
manual, but no reg card :}
Ron




Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 11:46:28
Subject: Why
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

why have i stopped receving mail from the IML?
PANTERA
[e-mail]




Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 15:07:00
Subject: Stuff from Aminet
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-> From: Richard Heidebrecht <[e-mail]>->-> compressed.  How
ever, when I tried to decompress the files I got s=ome-> kind of error message(b
roken file, or something like that).  Do I =nee-> different decompression progra
m?I seem to remember someone else having this problem a while back.What version
of IBM LHA do you have? I have v2.13 and never seemto have any problems extracti
ng Amiga LZH or LHA files.-> Also, is there a difference between Imagine objects
 on the Amiga a=nd-> PC?Nope...no difference.  Only problems you run into is bru
shes thatare sometimes associated with the attributes. The filenames anddirector
ies can be a pain, since Amiga uses longfilenames. However,now that 3.3 includes
 a file browser, that problem has been finallyaddressed.-> I'm guessing that mos
t of the Imagine objects on Aminet where done= on-> Amiga, and I'd like to know
if they will work on my PC(assuming I =can-> them decompressed first).Yep...they
 work just ducky.   /------------------------------           ___   ___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen                     / __  /__/ /__/  /
_   \ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /___/ / \  /  /  /     / \  |
[e-mail]     HAUS BBS (805-683-1388)  |           "
Irony can make revenge a welcome alternative"   \_______________________________
______________________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Haus BBS - Santa Barbara,
 Ca - [phone]

Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 15:14:00
Subject: Re: Video boards
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-> From: [e-mail]->-> Your ideas are really what I had intended.  That is
, for users of =Ima-> relate experience with their boards and let everyone else
know wha=t w->  We really are on the same wavelength.For those on a budget, the
Diamond SpeedStar Pro (ISA) works greatwith Imagine on the PC. However, in order
 to get all graphics modesyou must use the UniVesa driver.   /------------------
------------           ___   ___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen
       / __  /__/ /__/  /_   \ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /___/
 / \  /  /  /     / \  | [e-mail]     HAUS BBS (805
-683-1388)  |           "Irony can make revenge a welcome alternative"   \______
_______________________________________________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX
Haus BBS - Santa Barbara, Ca - [phone]

Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 15:24:00
Subject: Re: JPEG Pictures!!!
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-> >we're connected via redundant T1 to the 'net.  So, if there's any= in-> >in
this, I'll gladly set it up for the Imagine mailing list.->-> I think a site lik
e this would be great.  I would very much like t=o s-> everyone else is doing wi
th Imagine.  Actually seeing an image wou=ld-> allot of "how did you get that ef
fect" type questions which would =be-> informative for everyone I think.  I hope
 it happens.You got my vote! I'd love an Imagine FTP and Web depository that doe
s=n'trequire me to access wuarchive.wustl.edu. I NEVER get through....   /------
------------------------           ___   ___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen
                   / __  /__/ /__/  /_   \ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.
       /___/ / \  /  /  /     / \  | [e-mail]     H
AUS BBS (805-683-1388)  |           "Irony can make revenge a welcome alternativ
e"   \_____________________________________________________________--- =FE Inter
Net - GraFX Haus BBS - Santa Barbara, Ca - [phone]

Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 15:34:00
Subject: My Spline Editor/Metaball
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-> From: [e-mail]->-> >A little birdy (with a crowbar) told me Metabal
ls will be implime=nte-> >in Imagine as an FX that will work both in Detail and
Stage edito=rs.->-> As an FX???  On second thought, I think I'd rather have a->
spline modeller...=2E..don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger. I'm still trying
toconceive how you'd use an FX in the Detail editor. But thenchrome spheres over
 a checkered ground still turn me on. :)   /------------------------------
     ___   ___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen                     / __  /__/
/__/  /_   \ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /___/ / \  /  /  /
/ \  | [e-mail]     HAUS BBS (805-683-1388)  |
      "Irony can make revenge a welcome alternative"   \________________________
_____________________________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Haus BBS - Santa B
arbara, Ca - [phone]

Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 15:44:00
Subject: Re: I need a Job!!
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-> From: [e-mail]->-> As far as Imagine goes, I do know a guy who go
t a job with Industr=ial-> Lights and Magic with a demo reel consisting only of
5 minutes of-> Imagine animation.-> So anything is possible!!I know a guy here a
t GTE who hired in 25 years ago and is about ascompetent as a chimpanzee on acid
.I'd rather be LUCKY than GOOD anyday. :)   /------------------------------
      ___   ___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen                     / __  /__/
 /__/  /_   \ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /___/ / \  /  /  /
 / \  | [e-mail]     HAUS BBS (805-683-1388)  |
       "Irony can make revenge a welcome alternative"   \_______________________
______________________________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Haus BBS - Santa
Barbara, Ca - [phone]

Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 17:52:00
Subject: Re: Upgrade paths
From:    [e-mail] (Gareth Qually)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


> From: Charles Blaquiere <[e-mail]>
>
> It's much better than the Amiga version. You get all these independent
> windows, and an enhanced interface that includes a ridiculously easy
> timeline interface. Open the timeline, open the file requester,
> multi-select an entire directory's worth of image files, and boom, there
> they are one one row of your timeline. Then, drag & drop an effects
> button from the toolbox into the timeline; that's how you add processing
> to your images. Double-click on the effect, and up pop all the
> parameters, which you can change at will -- you can even adjust spline
> curves to vary any parameter over time. This is POWERFUL and EASY stuff.
> I don't think you'd miss ARexx one bit. Finally, add some render icons
> to save your work, and set the timeline into motion.
>
It sounds like an amazing package, I can't wait to recieve it.
It will open so many doors for different effects.

The amiga packages on that have crossed to the pc, have done a great
service to the computer community. They have come from a platform
that had compact yet powerful programs. They are now going to give those
fat bloated pc corporations a run for their money. Their massive programs
with lots of dormant code and slow routines, are going to have problems
when with some luck the amiga packages woo lots of pc users. Also making
major changes to existing packages involves a lot of money, work and time.
But the best reason why I think amiga packages will do well, is their low
price.

Chow...

[e-mail]

 * AmyBW v2.11 *
.... And where were YOU  on 29 Jul 1995 around 18:52:12?


Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 20:21:05
Subject: Vmm/mui
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some nice sould recommended a mui update.  In the process of
checking/moving my mui files, I lost the main program.

I just got off a half hour wander through Aminet, found everthing
pertinent to Mui except mui itself.

Could someone with tighter grey cells point me in the right direction:
where can I find the latest version of MUI?

Thanks insufferably.


Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 20:24:04
Subject: Making textures 'stick'
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is there an easy way (or ANY way) to keep a texture or brush from changing as
parts of the object move?

An example: Using the HAND.BON object and applying any texture or brush
(dithcirc or bathtile are dramatic ones), bending one of the fingers causes
the texture or brush to change on the finger as it bends.

I can guess what's happening: the texture for any given face of an object is
calculated based upon the face's relation to the texture axis, so as the
faces
move with respect to the axis, the texture changes.

How can I make the texture 'stick' so it looks like 'skin'?

Thanks.

Alan.



Date:    Saturday, 29 July 1995 20:27:43
Subject: Question for PC users
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Question for PC users:  Has anyone noticed a 'problem' with mouse movement in

v3.2 and 3.3?  The 'problem' I'm seeing is the cursor pauses and skips.  This

did not happen in v3.0.

(Before you say it, NO, THE MOUSE IS NOT DIRTY.  I can run v3.0 with no
skipping, then immediately go to v3.2 or v3.3 and see the problem.)

I am using a Logitech MouseMan Sensa with driver v6.43.

HAS ANYONE ELSE SEEN THIS?

Thanks.

Alan.



Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 06:12:44
Subject: This is getting old!
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyone how has PharLaps DOS extender I NEED to talk to you!

                                                ---Lum


Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 06:28:56
Subject: Phong errors, rotoscoping
From:    Tom Ross <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi y'all!

Can anyone explain the error message "setup phongs:weight error"? It
occurs when I put my object (which has a brushmap sequence) more than once
on the same timeline in the Action Editor, to have the sequence repeat
again. I can get around this by putting the object in only once for the
same amount of frames, but I'd rather not since this makes the sequence
slow and jerky.  The message suggests I could revise the object somehow to
fix this?. . .

Also, the manual, or an addendum after 3.0, mentions rotoscoping with
backdrops. I understand this concept for 2D, but what is it in 3D? and
how could I use it?

Thanks

Baby Shoeless


Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 07:10:50
Subject: Ftp to amiga
From:    Tom Ross <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm a beginner at ftp'ing. I can find stuff and download it as far the
VAX cluster here at Union College, but how can I get it from there to my
Amiga at home?

Thanks

Tom R.


Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 07:31:22
Subject: Re: Beyond Imagination
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since IMAGINE-PC does not run under windows and requires the /NOEMS switch
for mem-managment could this "HELP" be written for DOS. Or is there a trick
to get IMAGINE under windows? I think an on-line help is a good idea as long
as Idon't have to reboot to use it.

>
>Beyond Imagination runs under Windows and is totally free,



Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 08:24:33
Subject: PC animation playback?
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think IMAGINE is one of the more powerful packages available (wish it
would be marketed for better visability) but I have a question for anyone
that may have a solution.

The problem is that I would like the animation to be 24bit true color (high
color would be OK. The playback on a PC with a standard SVGA card (DIAMOND
STEALTH) shows color distortions (flashes / bad colors / etc.) which makes
it unusable. IMPULSE says use 256 colors and lock the pallete. This is no
solution. If IMAGINE can generate 24bit animation it should be able to play
it back. Anyway, IMPULSE also said they are working on an expensive hardware
fix for this and couln't give me anymore info.

The color flashing is due to color pallete updates frame to frame. Each
individual frame can be displayed with no problem. What I've been doing is
generating the frames in TGA format (24bit), then going to a program called
VFD to make an FLC animation. I use VFD because the pallete generation and
dither is much better than IMAGINE's 256 color renders. I've also tried DTA
but this reverses the color triad (Red <-> Blue) and DFV for playback.
Playback of the 24bit FLC's with DFV with my ISA video card was not fast
enough. Another program I've tried is CMPEG but this gives a ''MALLOC' error
when I try to generate MPEG (first I have to filter the frames through
PaintShop Pro to convert to uncompressed TGA).

Does anyone know about this hardware that IMPULSE has mentioned or anything
other method that will interface with IMAGINE to playback 24bit 640x480 (if
not larger) animations as 24bit?

--------------------------------------------------
     VFD continues to be upgraded with new features.  For the latest version,
     GO GRAPHSUP on CompuServe and download VFD.ZIP from the Format Conversion
     library section.

     VFD support is provided on CompuServe in the Graphics Support forum
     (GO GRAPHSUP).  Leave a message in the Format Conversion section for
     prompt response.  Direct support is also provided from Internet at:

                         [e-mail]

     The author of VFD may be reached at the following address:
     (For credit card registration orders, see below.)

                             Bob Williamson
                             PO Box 172349
                             Arlington, TX
                             76003-2349
                             U.S.A.
-------------------------------------------------
DTA Support:

     "David Mason" on "The Graphics Alternative", [phone],
    and on "Channel 1" BBS, [phone].
    "76546,1321" on Compuserve.
-------------------------------------------------
           Paint Shop Pro Technical Support

Technical support for Paint Shop Pro can be obtained from:

USA
---------
JASC, Inc.
10901 Red Circle Drive
Suite 340
Minnetonka, MN 55343 USA

Tele: (9am to 5pm USA central time)
    [phone]

CIS: GO JASC

---------------------------------------------
CMPEG support:


This program is copyrighted (C) Stefan Eckart, 1993. You can use, copy
and distribute this program at no charge but you may not modify or sell
it. I don't take any responsibility regarding its fitness, usefulness
etc. (#include <your_favourite_disclaimer>). Comments, bug reports,
questions to:

  Stefan Eckart
  Kagerstr. 4
  D-81669 Muenchen
  Germany

  email: [e-mail]





Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 11:26:59
Subject: Re: PC animation playback?
From:    Damon LaCaille <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------



On Sun, 30 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> Does anyone know about this hardware that IMPULSE has mentioned or anything
> other method that will interface with IMAGINE to playback 24bit 640x480 (if
> not larger) animations as 24bit?

I think what you need is a PAR, or personal animation recorder.  Or get
an amiga with a toaster :)

As far as I can tell, and I'm no knowledgable person on this subject, you
need a separate piece of hardware that stores these pictures onto a hard
drive, then sends them frame by frame to a specialized VCR with a
controller on it. Then you can play back the animation.  I don't think
ANY computer is fast enough to read in a 24-bit 640x480 picture (if GIF
file, usually what, 500k+?) 30 times a second to play it back in
realtime. That seems a bit much even for a pentium doesn't it?  I don't
hard drive speeds are quite that fast yet. You're looking at a minimum of
15mb/second transfer rate (and that's for the smaller 24-bit color files
at 640x480). Do you think your graphics card could handle 15mb/sec
viewing rate? That's an aweful lot to ask on a card.

Like I said, I don't know much on the subject, but this is definitely the
right place to post it for those types of questions. If someone could
correct me, I'd be glad to read it. I'd  like to know more about this too.

Also, doesn't a video toaster do this too?  I have a 3000 and was
wondering which type of Toaster I could buy to fit in here. I've heard
only a certain kind will fit... is that true?  Also will it do about the
same thing as a PAR with a VCR?  Any help is appreciated, thanks!

Damon



Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 11:30:46
Subject: Re: vmm/mui
From:    Damon LaCaille <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------



On Sat, 29 Jul 1995, Mike McCool wrote:

> Could someone with tighter grey cells point me in the right direction:
> where can I find the latest version of MUI?
>
> Thanks insufferably.

Mike,
 are you sure you didn't find a file called MUI23usr.lha ?  I believe
that's the file I downloaded from aminet.  Also for all you people who
absolutely HATE using ftp.wustl.edu, I have an alternate site that is
FAST!!! (i dunno, should I say this? Might slow down my own rate :)

If you have Mosaic or Netscape access, try

http://www.eunet.ch/~aminet

I'm not sure if there's an FTP version out there for it, but I don't see
why there wouldn't be.  Trust me, this is almost a sure bet for logging
on everytime (I've never been denied yet, and it's been more than a
month) and it's always FAST, no matter what time of day/night it seems.

Thought y'all might want to know :)



Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 11:30:46
Subject: Re: vmm/mui
From:    Damon LaCaille <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------



On Sat, 29 Jul 1995, Mike McCool wrote:

> Could someone with tighter grey cells point me in the right direction:
> where can I find the latest version of MUI?
>
> Thanks insufferably.

Mike,
 are you sure you didn't find a file called MUI23usr.lha ?  I believe
that's the file I downloaded from aminet.  Also for all you people who
absolutely HATE using ftp.wustl.edu, I have an alternate site that is
FAST!!! (i dunno, should I say this? Might slow down my own rate :)

If you have Mosaic or Netscape access, try

http://www.eunet.ch/~aminet

I'm not sure if there's an FTP version out there for it, but I don't see
why there wouldn't be.  Trust me, this is almost a sure bet for logging
on everytime (I've never been denied yet, and it's been more than a
month) and it's always FAST, no matter what time of day/night it seems.

Thought y'all might want to know :)



Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 12:34:28
Subject: Re: How To make a SUN?
From:    Dylan Neill <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Fri, 28 Jul 1995, Dave Wilson wrote:

>                 I know this has been covered several times but I'm
> a twit.  I'm trying to make a good SUN object and I'm having
> a real tough time.  The sun is not going to be viewed close up
> at all but I need it in my solar system.  The closest I would get
> to it would be about Venus so I'll need to get enough detail for
> that kind of distance.  I can get decent surface features but
> all the corona effects are really hard to get.  there was a demo
> put up way back that showed something about using a layered
> object which was real nice (if I remember correctly).
>
>                 I'm using 3.0 on a dx4/100 with 16 megs ram.

I have one that I kept along with pictures of it (Hmm, I wonder if I
should put them on the list! :) Anyway the effect used some essence
textures to create flares off the surface of the sun, I tried it and it
didn't look too bad without the flares. If you want I'll send it to you
and anyone else who wants it.

---
                               |\ /|
                                o O
  ________________________oOO_=( ^ )=_OOo___________________________
 |                        '''     U   '''                           |
 | Gumby Death Man (Dylan Neill) Amiga 1200/6/120  486DX2-66/24/500 |
 | Email: [e-mail]   WWW: http://www.pcug.org.au/~dylann/ |
 |__________________________________________________________________|



Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 14:17:45
Subject: Re: Making textures 'stick'
From:    Roger Straub <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------



On Sat, 29 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

>
> How can I make the texture 'stick' so it looks like 'skin'?
>

All you have to do is set the `LockState' field in the texture requester.
Type `open' into this field and your texture will be "tacked" to the
triangles so that when they move and squish and ooze around, your texture
will go with them.

> Thanks.
>
> Alan.
>
>

That'll be $0.02, please.

See ya,
      Roger


Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 14:47:38
Subject: ANIMATION PLAYER
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

could someone tell me please what is the CHEAPEST animation recorder for
the PC since I'm hoping to get a pentium pretty soon and do some good
stuff on it.  Something that of course campres to the PAR in quality of
the picture...we're talking about 736 by 482 (I think) in 24bit, 30
fraMES PER second.

PANTERA
[e-mail]




Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 14:50:08
Subject: Imagine OBJS
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

couls someone tell me where i could find some EXCELLENT imagine specific
objects...most of the objects i've downloaded from the time i got my
amiga, ,most are merly just IMPORTED from another format...so forexample
the object is not correctly phonged...I'm looking for objects with the
right colors applied to various parts, so its READY to be
rendered...thanks

PANTERA
[e-mail]




Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 16:05:00
Subject: One minor bug.
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-> the info button in the project screen always shows SUNDAY as the r=end-> day
even though the rest of the time and date info is correct. bee=n a-> since versi
on 2 to 3.3.What happens if you actually render on SUNDAY? Will it change toMOND
AY? :)-> it's the little things that annoy me :)=2E..it's those kind of things t
hat give Imagine it's charm. <g>  vrooooom, vroooooooom.   /--------------------
----------           ___   ___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen
     / __  /__/ /__/  /_   \ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /___/ /
 \  /  /  /     / \  | [e-mail]     HAUS BBS (805-6
83-1388)  |           "Irony can make revenge a welcome alternative"   \________
_____________________________________________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Ha
us BBS - Santa Barbara, Ca - [phone]


Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 16:29:00
Subject: Re: Beyond Imagination
From:    [e-mail] (Mike Vandersommen)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-> From: [e-mail]->-> Since IMAGINE-PC does not run under windows and
requires the /NOEM=S s-> for mem-managment could this "HELP" be written for DOS.
 Or is ther=e a-> to get IMAGINE under windows? I think an on-line help is a goo
d id=ea-> as Idon't have to reboot to use it.Actually, Beyond Imagination is a n
ice piece of work. Even thoughyou have to be in Windows to use it. I doubt it wo
uld be quite asuseful in DOS format. However I would sugguest 2 features for the
author to add.1. A search/keyword routine.2. A print out option. It would be ver
y handy to print out   a tip or tutorial you'd like to play with.=2E..otherwise,
 nice job Andrew Herbert! Thanks alot!   /------------------------------
   ___   ___  ___   ___  | Mike van der Sommen                     / __  /__/ /_
_/  /_   \ /  | Santa Barbara, Ca.                     /___/ / \  /  /  /     /
\  | [e-mail]     HAUS BBS (805-683-1388)  |
    "Irony can make revenge a welcome alternative"   \_____________________________________________________________--- =FE InterNet - GraFX Haus
 BBS - Santa Barbara, Ca - [phone]


Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 17:31:29
Subject: Re: PC animation playback?
From:    Cedric Georges Chang <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Jul 30,  7:24am, [e-mail] wrote:
> it unusable. IMPULSE says use 256 colors and lock the pallete. This is no
> solution. If IMAGINE can generate 24bit animation it should be able to play
> it back.

IMHO, Impulse should spend their time improving the renderer and the various
editors.  There are 3rd party solutions to take a series of 24bit images and
convert it into animations.

> Does anyone know about this hardware that IMPULSE has mentioned or anything
> other method that will interface with IMAGINE to playback 24bit 640x480 (if
> not larger) animations as 24bit?

For 640x480x24 anims at decent quality, I agree with Impulse that you need
extra hardware (please correct me if I'm wrong).  What I have been looking
into are Motion JPEG cards.  DPS PAR, DPS Perception, Fast Movie Machine
Pro w/MJPEG, Miro miroVIDEO DC1, and Quandrant Q-Motion are all MJPEG cards
for the PC.  They range in price from around $500 to $2000.  Most of these
cards are sold as video non-linear editors and I'm not sure if any of them
will output to your computer monitor.  They will playback to a NTSC/PAL
monitor, TV, or VCR, which I prefer because you can then record your
animations to show off to your friends :)

If you need to play back your anims on your computer monitor, you may want
to look at SVGA cards with video accelerator chips.  I'm not too familiar
with them, but I believe that they accelerate AVI's which use Indeo or
Cinepak compression.  I also understand that AVI's tend to be low
resolution and the quality isn't that great.

Cedric
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cedric Chang             Mechanical Engineer            // Amiga 3000 '040
[e-mail]    Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute   \X/  CgFx/EGS Piccolo
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 17:43:00
Subject: Re: Beyond Imagination
From:    [e-mail] (John Prusinski)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


>Beyond Imagination is a On-Line help system for Imagine and includes hints,
tips, and tutorials
>on just about everything.
>

Just downloaded your software, and I must say I'm very impressed with the
time and effort you
obviously put into it.  Although I've kept my own archives and FAQs from the
IML, it's great to
have them easily accessible all in one place.  Thanks!

Since you asked for comments, I must say that the one thing that would make
it even more
useful than it already is would be some kind of search function.  Being able
to find every
reference to, say, "glass" at the click of a button would be great!

Not complaining though... I really appreciate what you've done!

Thanks again,

John Prusinski
CyberGrafix
________________________________________________
|  "The next great step toward a planetary holism is a     |
|    partial merging of the technologically transformed    |
|    human world with the archaic matrix of vegetable     |
|    intelligence that is the Overmind of the planet."        |
|                                                    -Terence McKenna         |
|_______________________________________________|



Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 18:04:42
Subject: Re: Complete answer to metaballs.
From:    Gerard Menendez <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------



The articles I read seemed to have metaballs working this way.

The modeller made a spline, and then in a requester added generated
metaballs along it so that he had nice rows of these guys at regular
intervals.  The balls in the ball view were of four different colors each
color indicating how smoothly the surface would flow between balls.  In
this manner a dinosaurs neck was built up quickly with excellent muscular
cording that would be easily bent for animation using the splines.  I'm
assuming that individual balls could also be placed where you want but I
read the article quickly and haven't got back to it.  I'll re-read it and
see if I'm missing anything.


Gerard


Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 19:41:53
Subject: Re: Motion Blur Trick
From:    Torgeir Holm <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>BTW: anyone else remember Steve Worley's Motion blurred bowling picture that
>>came with understanding imagine 2.0? That was created using this technique.
>There is an flc on Compuserve called prop.flc done by GreG tsadillas with a
>beta of Imagine 4.0 and it is in a word outstanding.  Not only does it have
>great motion blur but provides the reverse strobing as well.  It is to drool
>for, but we should all have it soon.

Is it possible for us non compu$erve members to get this flc?

If Jay sets up that ftp site he offered to, maybe some kind compu$erve member
would upload all these goodies there, so the rest of the Imagineers can drool
over them as well..


Torge!r


Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 20:26:29
Subject: Complete answer to metaballs.
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since all of you seem to know the animation part of Metaballs you are
forgetting th modeling part.  From what I undertand in the detail editor
you'll have a menu item called metaball or something.  If yo make a 6 vertex
box, then click on metaball it will be smoothed slowly turning into a sphere.
Every time you click on the metaballs button the shape will be refined,
getting smoother.  In the action editor you'll be able to add a global(?
maybe object) FX that will cause the joining together in your animation.
 Kinda like bubbles or drops of water.

                                              ---LUM


Date:    Sunday, 30 July 1995 23:08:06
Subject: Metaballs/Blobs
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

BY what I've been reading and finding out about metaballs, it seems as though
metaballs are a modelling technique, while blobs are an object type.  If I
see this correctly, each has it's onw strengths, but metaballs seems to be
a higher-level approach, helping to isolate the user from the actual
mechanics/mathematics of the components.  The only blobs I know (I'll be
nice here 8^) are in POV-Ray, which seem to be a fairly powerful but awkward
object type, while it seems that metaballs are a system used by some software
to allow automated "Organication" of objects defined previously through other
primitives.
Just my .02 worth,
Joel


Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 00:27:37
Subject: Re: Metaballs
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> On the IML, Mike Halvorson is read-only. On CompuServe, he's read/write. B^)

Now we just need to find the command to set the flags right.. :)

Andrey


Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 00:31:32
Subject: Re: How To make a SUN?
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> I use the PeeCee to do all the modelling and test renders (because [sob!
> :-(] it's faster than the amiga), then I do the final renders on the amiga,
> because ,in my opinion, it produces better pictures.

Shouldn't be happening.  After all, Imagine for Amiga is the same as
for PC.

Andrey


Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 00:46:07
Subject: Re: Complete answer to metaballs.
From:    [e-mail] (Andrey Zmievskiy)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Since all of you seem to know the animation part of Metaballs you are
> forgetting th modeling part.  From what I undertand in the detail editor
> you'll have a menu item called metaball or something.  If yo make a 6 vertex
> box, then click on metaball it will be smoothed slowly turning into a sphere.
> Every time you click on the metaballs button the shape will be refined,
> getting smoother.  In the action editor you'll be able to add a global(?
> maybe object) FX that will cause the joining together in your animation.
>  Kinda like bubbles or drops of water.

You are wrong.  Metaballs are not like it.  What you are describing is
a feature of Lightwave called Metaform.

Andrey


Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 04:43:13
Subject: Animation Contests
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am an up and coming animator and I would like to  enter an animation
contest or something. Are their any currently going on or is their a place
where I can find out about some.


Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 07:37:10
Subject: Re: PC animation playback?
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Damon,

>
>
> On Sun, 30 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:
>
> > Does anyone know about this hardware that IMPULSE has mentioned or anything
> > other method that will interface with IMAGINE to playback 24bit 640x480 (if
> > not larger) animations as 24bit?
>
> I think what you need is a PAR, or personal animation recorder.  Or get
> an amiga with a toaster :)
>
 i dont know if there is a 'port' to the pc but clariSSA does a very good job
of playing back at speeds of towards 25 fps(ham8) on the amiga also the anim7
format is pretty fast though like i said i dont know if there is an
equivelent on the pc



                              [e-mail]





Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 07:56:56
Subject: Re: Making textures 'stick'
From:    "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi ALorence,

>
> How can I make the texture 'stick' so it looks like 'skin'?
>
 sorry  to all the people who know this

 ok you have 2.9+ ???

  right then load an object or primative add a texture (qrender if you like
 to make sure youre happy with it) now create a state call it 'one' and
check the shape and texture/brush options and maybe the prop option (i dont
know what this does -anyone ??) now go back to your texture (attributes
menu) and in the lockstate box type 'one' now deform the object and create a
new state called 'two' checking the same boxes (do all of them in both
states if you want) and save the object

 now create an animation in the stage/action editors render and hopefully
you will see the texture 'tacked' (impulse talk) to the object as it changes
through the animation
 that should do it

  Duncan


                              [e-mail]





Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 09:49:13
Subject: Vmm/mui
From:    Aki Laukkanen <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> I just got off a half hour wander through Aminet, found everthing
> pertinent to Mui except mui itself.

ftp://ftp.luth.se/pub/aminet/dev/gui/mui23usr.lha or such. You can use
any other aminet site as well. It should be warned that mui V3 is just
around the corner (in beta testing).


.... "Zooropa... Vorsprung durch Technik" -- U2

* Offline Orbit 0.75a *


Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 11:01:55
Subject: Layers
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm such a know-all, I ignored the recent string about layers.  Is there
a way to hide layers in the Project Editor?

Thanks.


Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 12:26:29
Subject: Re[2]: lensflare
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


     I don't think it's so ironic that we like to create lensflares on our
     digital images. While they may have come from iris/lens errors, they
     serve to show that something is a light, and how bright it is. It's
     like that distortion you get when air is very warm. True, it distorts
     the image, but it is another element of the picture just like
     everything else.

     In short, I think that the addition of lens flares in 3D software just
     lets us make -better- pictures.... (Remember when we gained the
     ability to make one object reflect another object? That was pretty
     weird, too. But it simulates real life, and that's often the idea)


Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 12:49:41
Subject: I'd Say Similar or Same
From:    Dave Rhodes <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi
    Darryl Lewis wrote:

> I use the PeeCee to do all the modelling and test renders (because [sob!
> :-(] it's faster than the amiga), then I do the final renders on the amiga,
> because ,in my opinion, it produces better pictures. It also has essence

  I too have both PC and Amiga, but I find no difference in picture quality
between the two, so I do it the other way round, because of the render
speed difference. Some pictures, (noticably lo res ones) seem to _look_
better on my Amiga because of the natural anti-aliasing of the lower
resolution monitor which I use. A low res pic seen on the PC's crisper
and non-flickery hi-res display looks like lego. (..is lego universal ? )

  Of course, having the extra speed of the PC means you can crank up the
res, AA, pallette, etc. etc. and not suffer as much.

  Also, I don't think the new texture playground in 3.3 looks as ultimately
useful as  the wonderful TextureStudio, but as there's no PC equivalent,
it's nearly worth keeping the Amiga for that alone.

1.25 UK pence

--

~===========================================================================~
 Dave Rhodes - [e-mail] - Yorkshire - England -
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 15:13:20
Subject: Re: Complete answer to metaba...
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oppps :(  Sorry, I thought that was metaballs!  Why does lightwave have the
right to use the prefix meta_ ? They should know better.

                                                      ---Lum


Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 15:38:40
Subject: Imagine versions
From:    [e-mail] (Simon Wilkinson)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello folks.

I wonder if someone could tell me exactly what I would need to buy (and how
much it would cost) to obtain the latest version of Imagine for the PC, with
all the latest FX.  I already have version 2, so would upgrading from there.
I heard there was a separate add-on called Imagine Lite that was
necessary to get lense flares etc...

My understanding is..

Upgrade to version 3 (I can get a deal for 133 english pounds)
Upgrade to 3.3 (I don't know if I can do this in one step or how much it is)
Buy add-on effects like lense flare via Imagine Lite? (again, no idea of cost)


If this is wrong, then please correct me.

Thanks,

Si.


Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 16:30:43
Subject: Re: layers
From:    Jim Shinosky <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------




No.



On Mon, 31 Jul 1995, Mike McCool wrote:

> I'm such a know-all, I ignored the recent string about layers.  Is there
> a way to hide layers in the Project Editor?
>
> Thanks.
>


Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 17:00:20
Subject: Re: lensflare
From:    Torgeir Holm <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 28-Jul-95 22:29:28, Bill Boyce wrote:

>Probably because most people set everything on in lightwave and get the
>'billboard' effect you describe. You can actually switch on and off all
>the constituent parts - like Imagine, only there are a lot more parts - thus
>allowing some subtlety. I've heard someone say the Lightwave 4 lens flare
>requester fills the screen! It's always nice to have options, even if you
>don't always use them.

True, the sad thing is, as you said, people turn them all on. I guess if it's
there people will use it, most of the time..

>On the subject of everyone overusing them, most of my clients like the stuff
>to look like computer graphics - realistic, but with little hints like
>flares to say 'this was done on a computer'. Some sort of ego thing on the
>art directors part, I suppose.

Kind of funny that lensflares, originally being an unwanted camera error, has
become that hint. Seems like DGI and Film are moving in opposite directions,
CGI moving towards the imperfect look, while film is moving toward perfect
imagery. Eventually I think they will be equally imperfect/perfect, whenever
that may be.


Torge!r


Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 17:00:28
Subject: RE:Lens Flares
From:    Torgeir Holm <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 28-Jul-95 16:16:09, Granberg Tom wrote:

>I do agree, with the one that said "it's like puting up a billboard sayin,
>I'm  using lightwave" But it would be usefull with some additional controll
>over the  Imagine lensflares. Here is som ideas:

>1. fade behind objects! A must, realy!

NewFlare has this (although it could be better..)

>2. Noise edge on the glow. Kind of like the texture controll.
>3. A percentage value on the glow, so you could controll the "power" of your
>glow point.
>4. This would be cool but not necesary, Lensflares as a lite texture, and not
>a  global effect. The same goes for the haze effect!

Totally agree with you on these three Tom. I would also like to see Hexagonal
flares, amd more color control. Maybe a preview window (like the one in
photoshop)


Torge!r


Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 17:00:30
Subject: Re: Resolution vs. aspect ratio
From:    Torgeir Holm <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 28-Jul-95 12:44:30, Bill Osuch wrote:

>>The aspect ratio you want to use for anything NOT presented on a
>>computer's screen is 1:1.
>That's the problem - obviously, I CAN'T use 1:1, because that setting is
>distorting
>the image (I'm on the PC, BTW).

Maybe on your screen, but the film recorder demands 1:1, at least the
Solitaire and Opal at work do.


Torge!r


Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 17:31:34
Subject: Re: Imagine OBJS
From:    Roger Straub <[e-mail]>


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------



On Sun, 30 Jul 1995 [e-mail] wrote:

> couls someone tell me where i could find some EXCELLENT imagine specific
> objects...most of the objects i've downloaded from the time i got my
> amiga, ,most are merly just IMPORTED from another format...so forexample
> the object is not correctly phonged...I'm looking for objects with the
> right colors applied to various parts, so its READY to be
> rendered...thanks
>

Sure. Check Aminet (ftp.netnet.net under /pub/aminet) under gfx/3dobj.
There's loads of .iobs just waiting to be rendered. Beware, though - most
are Amiga files, and may use long filenames.

> PANTERA
> [e-mail]
>
>
>

That'll be $0.02, please.

See ya,
      Roger


Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 19:08:12
Subject: Animation Contests
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>From [e-mail] Mon Jul 31 05:23:29 1995
>Date: Sun, 30 Jul 1995 23:43:13 -0400
>From: [e-mail]
>To: [e-mail]
>Subject: Animation Contests
>
>I am an up and coming animator and I would like to  enter an animation
>contest or something. Are their any currently going on or is their a place
>where I can find out about some.
>

There is a modelling contest held by someone on the povray server but it is
not restricted to povray. Try http://www.povray.org/ and see for yourself.
This month (August) the theme is alien worlds. I have a copy of the rules
and can post them to you if you wish.

Chris Hall.

|--------------------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by Chris Hall                  ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from Great Briton ||
|                                                        ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]                 ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :                           ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/index.html       ||
|                                                        ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-                   ||
|              16 37 38 15 27 05                         ||
|--------------------------------------------------------||
 \--------------------------------------------------------\




Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 19:08:18
Subject: Imagine versions
From:    [e-mail] (Chris Hall)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>Hello folks.
>
>I wonder if someone could tell me exactly what I would need to buy (and how
>much it would cost) to obtain the latest version of Imagine for the PC,=
 with=20
>all the latest FX.  I already have version 2, so would upgrading from=
 there.
>I heard there was a separate add-on called Imagine Lite that was
>necessary to get lense flares etc...
>
>My understanding is..
>
>Upgrade to version 3 (I can get a deal for 133 english pounds)
>Upgrade to 3.3 (I don't know if I can do this in one step or how much it=
 is)
>Buy add-on effects like lense flare via Imagine Lite? (again, no idea of=
 cost)
>
>
>If this is wrong, then please correct me.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Si.

Version 3 contains lens flare without the need for extra add-on effects. I
got on the upgrade plan by faxing impulse with my credit card details and
address. It cost about =A366 or $100. You have to buy 3 then upgrade to=
 3.3>.

Hope this helps.
Chris Hall.

|--------------------------------------------------------|\
| You have been spoken to by Chris Hall                  ||
| A very tall and generally nice bloke from Great Briton ||
|                                                        ||
| E- mail me at : [e-mail]                 ||
| Or try my WWW home page at :                           ||
| HTTP://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ad87/index.html       ||
|                                                        ||
| Today's lucky lottery numbers are :-                   ||
|              16 37 38 15 27 05                         ||
|--------------------------------------------------------||
 \--------------------------------------------------------\




Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 20:13:29
Subject: Re: Question for PC Users
From:    [e-mail]


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

YES,yes,

   This happens to me too. It's like when I use drag box as my pick method, I
can't see the box until a second or two after I click. Also sometimes it
stall with Constraints turned on.

Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 21:37:29
Subject: Re: lensflare
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>On 28-Jul-95 22:29:28, Bill Boyce wrote:

>True, the sad thing is, as you said, people turn them all on. I guess if it's
>there people will use it, most of the time..
>
>>On the subject of everyone overusing them, most of my clients like the stuff
>>to look like computer graphics - realistic, but with little hints like
>>flares to say 'this was done on a computer'. Some sort of ego thing on the
>>art directors part, I suppose.
>
>Kind of funny that lensflares, originally being an unwanted camera error, has
>become that hint. Seems like DGI and Film are moving in opposite directions,
>CGI moving towards the imperfect look, while film is moving toward perfect
>imagery. Eventually I think they will be equally imperfect/perfect, whenever
>that may be.
>

Options! That's all I ask. Much like the availability of star filters and
the like for traditional film and photo, it's always nice to have the option
when you need it. I guess when star filters came out the were pretty over-
used as well.

Bill Boyce



Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 21:42:10
Subject: Re: layers
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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>I'm such a know-all, I ignored the recent string about layers.  Is there
>a way to hide layers in the Project Editor?
>
>Thanks.
>
No, But...

I believe if you have set which layers are visible in the stage editor,
this is carried over to the project editor for rendering.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's right. My
Imagine machine is elsewhere.

Bill Boyce



Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 21:50:36
Subject: Bug. Amiga 3.2/3.3
From:    [e-mail] (Bill Boyce)


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Hi all. Found a bug (i think) in Version 3.3 & 3.2 for Amiga.

Bump maps get 'cropped' when rendered in Stage/Project, but are fine
in Detail. Lost two hours yesterday before I figured out the work-around.
Tiling the map fixes the problem, so make the background of the brush
so big it doesn't matter if it's tiled.

The fault could be something to do with the brush overlapping the edges of
the object ie the brush is bigger than the object/faces it's on, I'm not
sure. I didn't have time to investigate further.

When I say cropped, I mean only a part of the map shows up. And no,
it's nothing to do with subgroups, alignment or anything like that.
It only does it in stage and project rendering.

If someone is on AOL, could they forward this to Impulse/'Crowbar' Mike.
I'm not sure when I'll get time to fax it to them.

Bill Boyce



Date:    Monday, 31 July 1995 22:59:46
Subject: Re: Tear Drop Quickie
From:    Mike McCool <[e-mail]>


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Hey Bob,

      Thanks, you, for that reminder about the Imagine Compendium.
I've had that one in the drawer for years, and I forgot what a wealth of
helpful info it contains.