Amiga Collections: The Best of Public Domain/Best of Public Domain, The Nr.41 (19xx)(Garfield, Andi)(DE).zip/Best of Public Domain, The Nr.41 (19xx)(Garfield, Andi)(DE).adf/docp

Text File | 1989-11-20 | 58KB | 1,094 lines

                               TURBO MANUAL



  TURBO... To be faster, to accelerate, to increase performance.

INDEED, Turbo Silver is, to say the least, going to do it's best to uphold
this title.  Your new Silver is faster, and easier to use than the previous
version.  One word of caution.  If for some reason you have still not been
able to understand all of the operations of Silver, please make sure that
you refresh yourself on the basics.  This new manual does not attempt to
cover all of the software, just the changes and additions.

For those of you who are getting ready to use Silver for the first time
please be aware that the Turbo version is based upon the original Silver,
it is to your best advantage to move back to the beginning of the manual,
and start from scratch.

Now a few words about speed.  ie  TURBO... Speed.  Silver is fast, Now it is
even faster.  WHY?   The answer is not that simple.  However, it won't make
you feel any better, if we waste lots of paper in the explanation.
Simply put, we have decided to use a technique called Octree.
What's an Octree?  Once again simply put, and Octree is the division of the
screen, or 3D world, into a series of small squares or quadrants.
By dividing the 3D world into these smaller areas, the tracer must only
trace where there is information to trace.  Also, when it does "hit" something
to trace it has much less to trace.

How much speed increase can I expect ?..  What would have taken 6 hours in
Silver, will now take less than 40 minutes in Turbo Silver.
This is only an average.  For some scenes that are very complex, ie they have
many glass objects, all reflective with dithered sky the trace times could be
3 to 4 hours.  The reality is, that if you tried to trace this scene in
Silver, it could have taken 12 to 15 hours or more.

Will my accelerator 68881 and 68020 board make it any faster?  NO.
We have jumped this hurdle.  Turbo Silver will get some small advantage of
having these boards and faster processors, but the yield is possibly only 4
to 10 percent decrease in trace time.  Consider that these boards are rather
costly,  we think that the increase in speed is not worth the dollars spent.
As these boards become more productive, we will implement Silver to these
boards and you will get trace times that will Knock your socks off.
Until then we are sure that Turbo Silver will make you very happy.


WHAT HAS CHANGED.

In an attempt to keep things organized, each new change will be explained
from  left to right on the menu bar.  The major change, however, does not
really show up on the menu bar.

ALL THE WORLD IS A TRIANGLE AND WE ARE BUT IT'S OBJECTS.

In Silver you were given Primitives, ie the sphere , ring, disc, tube,
rectangle and square.  The objects,although adequate to build many new objects,
were limiting.  The ability to manipulate these objects, was at times very
difficult.  Herein lies the major change to TURBO SILVER.  With the exception
of the perfect sphere, all other objects are made of triangles.  This feature
will give you the ability to build "any" object that you want.  There is still
a set of triangular primitives, they are Cone, Sphere, Tube, Disk, Torus
(or those of us who don't know "doughnut") and Ring.  This list of objects
has been placed into TURBO SILVER for your convenience.  You could, in truth
make any of these shapes in TURBO SILVER with the new Spin and Extrude
commands.  To find these new shapes, pull down the leftmost menu called EDIT.
Under this menu is the CUSTOM object.  By accessing this menu item you will
find a requestor that has several options.  Each of the shapes mentioned are
listed in the top of the requester.  Click on any one of these objects, and
the object word will be moved down to the middle of the requester.  This
action, of course, means that you want this object to be added to the Editor
work-surface.  The other options that must be attended to are the Major size,
and the minor size as well as the divisions.  The Major size is the outer
dimensions of the object.  If you make a Torus 200 in Major size, it's
diameter will be 200 hundred units large.  The minor size is the inside of the
Torus, by making this 20 units you would have made a bicycle tire.  Go ahead
and try it, you will be able to see for yourself.  The last factor in the
custom item is the divisions.   With the Torus and the sphere you are limited
to 36 divisions.  With all other objects, you are limited to 100 divisions.
A division is the amount of sides that an object will have.  A sphere with 4
divisions is not going to be real smooth and round, however with 18 and up it
will be very smooth.  This applies to all objects.  The more divisions the
more triangles, the more triangles the smoother the object.  The smoother the
object becomes the slower the trace time.

Not to worry, slower does not mean from fast to snails pace, each division
adds about 1 or 2 percent of increase on trace time. Consider that in Silver
you would have had a heck of a time making a torus and after having done so
you would have had to bound it to death.  The trace time would still have been
rather slow as compared to the times you will achieve using TURBO SILVER.

After you have given the custom shape it's major, minor and division
information you only have to click in the upper left hand close box of the
requester and like some kind of magic the object will make itself known to you
on the editor work-surface.  In many respects, the same concept is still
resident with TURBO SILVER.  From this point on, the differences of Silver,
and TURBO SILVER start to diminish as it relates to objects and their creation.

As long as we are on objects, lets take a look at a special object called
AXIS.  It is also found under the EDIT menu.  Why is it so special?  It is
from this object that we can spin and extrude objects.  With these features
you can make letters, wine glasses, tea pots or whatever you desire.

Instead of just telling you about them, let's make a couple of objects.

    FIRST  The WINE GLASS.

By selecting the axis from the edit menu, you will be given a cross hair on
the editor work surface, with all three axis marked with either a X, Y or Z.
If all has gone well the axis should look like the diagram below.



Notice that the Z axis goes up and down, and the X goes to the right and left,
while the Y, (which at this point, is only viewable from the TOP view.)  goes
into the screen and to represent depth.

All spins are done around the Z axis.  This is important to remember.  You
can't spin around the other axis.  Some people feel more comfortable calling
a Spin by its other name, lathe.  It makes no difference what you call it,
it's only important to know that the little bugger works around the Z axis.


Now to the glass.  Notice, that at the top of the screen in the menu bar, the
view that you are presently working,on is show, ie Top, Front and Right.
Check to make sure that we are in the Front view.  A new feature is now going
to be added to your arsenal before we make the Wine glass.  By using the
Right Amiga key, and depressing the 5 key on the Amiga's numeric keypad, you
will see that there are now the words "add points"  shown.  This means that
where ever you place the cursor with the mouse, you will get a  point, of
course you have to depress the left mouse button first.

The wine glass can now be simply made by adding a few points and spinning them
around the Z axis.  For this exercise we are going to make a wine glass that
has a lid or top to it.  After all, what difference does it make you aren't
going to be able to drink from it anyway.  (Next program, one that makes
objects come to life, boy are we stretching it there).

View the diagram below.  See where all of the points are?  They have the
appearance of a wine glass.  There is however, a very important point to make
here.  The first and the last points that you add to the screen, are the
points that are used to do the spin with,.  The are to the object its spine
points.  So, when you duplicate the wine glass on your editor worksurface,
make sure that you follow the point list as shown.


The last important point about spin is this.  Make sure that the first and
last point share the same X co-ordinate, that is if you wish the object to
have symmetry and appear like the wine glass.  If you have the points at
different X co-ordinates, the object will be off kilter.  It wont hurt TURBO
SILVER,  it will just make your wine glass look like something a bit warped.
If you like warped things, go for it.


You may ask, how am I going to know if the points are on the same X
co-ordinate?  Simple, go over to the View menu and pull it down.  Down there
towards the bottom of the menu is the option named, COORDS ON.  Select this
option and the co-ordinates will be shown in a nifty little box that comes up.
This information is directly related to the position of the cursor.  By using
this feature, you can be very precise as to where you place your points.  If
you are done using the Co-ords box, you can make it go away by using the pull
down menu and select Co-ords off or simply hit the go behind box in the upper
tight hand corder of the box.

This little feature will make you life very easy when you attempt to make very
complex objects.

Use the Right Amiga in conjunction with the numeral 2 key, and change from
point mode to object mode. Now that we are in object mode, choose spin from
the object menu.  There will be a small requester that comes up and asks how
many divisions.  The max amount of divisions that you can have on spins, is 36.
By using 36 divisions, you will have a very smooth and highly complex set of
triangles.  For this exersize, try using 10 as the division number.  Close the
box by clicking in the upper left hand close box, wait about 1/2 second, and
if all has gone well, you should have a wine glass that looks similar to the
one shown in the above diagram.

If for some reason you don't have a wine glass, or something looking close to
a wine glass, restart.   Use the Amiga E command for erase, and start over.
Pay close attention to the starting and ending points and the proper placement
of the points.  Also, make sure that you were in object mode, when you told
TURBO SILVER to do the Spin.

Before you forge on, try some other type of Spun objects, a cup, a table leg,
a chess piece, a pencil, or a rocket ship body.  You see, the sky is the limit,
when you know how to use Spin.

Now would be a good time to tell you what each of the Right Amiga and numeric
keys can and will do.

    Right Amiga 1    Group Mode
    Right Amiga 2    Object Mode
    Right Amiga 3    Point Mode
    Right Amiga 4    Face Mode
    Right Amiga 5    Add Point Mode
    Right Amiga 6    Add Face Mode
    Right Amiga 7,8,9 & 0 are reserved for future use.


By using these different keys, you can move between the modes of operation.
These modes of operation are independent of each other.  This is to say, that
if you are in point mode, you can not get at the face of an object and the
converse is true as well.  In face mode you can only get at faces, not points.
The only exception  is that while in group mode you can get at objects if they
are not tied to other objects in a group.

Try the following, Place a custom cone on the editor work-surface.  You decide
the size and divisions of the object.  Having done this try each of the modes.
You already know that the center point of the object where the axis is is the
place where you can select the entire object.

Notice, that when you are in object mode and you select the object, it now
turns blue instead of orange.  We found that this is more pleasing to the eye,
and it is easier to see. When you have first added an object to the
worksurface, you will see that the object is a light orange.  This is a
special color, that let you knows  the object is ready to be selected.  You
can do this by depressing the F1 key .  The object should now turn blue.  If
you would now like to move this object by using the mouse, use the Amiga M
command to MARK the object.  The object will now turn green.  This as in
Silver means that the next mouse click on the work-surface will move the
entire object to this point.  To deselect this object depress the Amiga M key
and the object will once again turn  Blue.  If you wish to totally deselect
the object and turn it WHITE simply click anywhere on the screen other than
the object and the object will turn white or de-selected.

This preceding procedure, is one that you must make yourself familiar with, or
the true power of the triangle editor will be of no value at all.

The next process that we need to deal with, is how to get at points and faces.
If you don't have an object on the screen add one of some type, other than the
perfect sphere.

Now, move into object mode, and select the object that you are working with.
(it should be blue now).  Use the Amiga 4 key, this will place you in Face
mode.  You should see the word face in the upper menu bar.  If you don't,
check to make sure that the proper key stroke was used..  You are now in Face
mode.  By using the Amiga N, B or H key we can travel through the faces of the
object.  Try first the amiga N.  One of the faces of the object should now be
green.  In some cases you may have a very small face picked, if so go to the
next by using the Amiga N.  Do this, until you have a face picked that is
large enough to see.  The next item to try, is to select this face by
depressing the F1 key. The green face or triangle will now turn RED.  This
means that it is now selected.

So far so good..  Let's throw some more goodies in here.  Hold down the Left
Shift Key.  Look up at the top of the menu bar.  Notice, that the word Multi
and a number 1 appears.  When you release the LEFT SHIFT key the Multi marker
will go away and the number next to it will be dropped.  You have just entered
the Multi Zone.

Let's digress for a minute or two.  Remember in Silver 1.1 and greater, that
when you wanted to select several objects,  there was no real way to do so,
other than using the group command.  Well, if this activity would have
prevailed in TURBO SILVER ,you would never have been able to change faces of
object to other colors, or perform massive maneuvers on more than one face at
a time.  If you imagine that it is possible to build an object with in excess
of 1000 triangles (even bigger than that) you would have gone bananas trying
to get at all the faces to use them properly.  This is the reason for Multi
Mode.

Back to the Multi Zone.  Use the Amiga N command, to pick the next triangle in
the list.. Now, hold down the LEFT SHIFT KEY, and depress the F1 key at the
same time.  You should now have another RED triangle on the screen. You have
Multi Picked two Triangular faces of the object that you have placed on the
worksurface.  SO WHAT?  As we said before, this gives you the ability to color
several triangles with one command, or in all cases, perform some rather
bizarre effects on these triangles.

While you have the Triangles in red, change the color of these triangles by
using the Amiga ";" key, to bring up the color requester.  The default color
of faces is white.  Make a simple color change, by sliding the Blue slider all
the way to ZERO.   Either close the color box with the mouse, or hit the
return key.  Those faces that are selected in Red, are now Red in color.  This
is the color that the tracer will give to this triangle, when it does its
tracing.

By using this mode in either point, or object, group and face you can alter
almost every aspect of the objects or faces and points that you are dealing
with.  In the Face mode, you can increase the size of the triangles, by using
the Scale option.  You can rotate them by using the Rotate option.  And you
can position or translate them.  There is a major difference in the Position
mode and the transition mode.

By using the position mode, all of the Faces, Objects or Points, would all
move to the point in space, that you have selected, for the Position move.
Imagine, if you will, that you have all of the points of one side of a box
selected.  If you were to move all of them to the same point they would in
essence, be making a cone out of that one face.  On the other hand, if you
translate each of these points in 3D space, they would all stay relative to
the last position to each other.  So in this case if the points of one side of
a box were selected and piked (RED), and you translated them along one axis,
you would probably just be stretching the box out.  Try doing some of this,
select a few points, turn them the RED using Multi Mode and position them to
one point.  See what a mess that makes?  OK Use the Amiga U key for UNDO.  Ah
that's better, Use Multi Mode once again.  Select and pick several faces.
Rotate them on the Z axis 45 degrees.  Depress the return key, and now take a
look at what you have.  Is that bizarre or what ?  Imagine that you have a
column made up of a couple of hundred faces.  Color the faces so that they are
alternating red and white, use multi pick for this operation.  Now rotate the
points, 90 degrees VIOLA you now have a candy cane.

While we have told you to do all of these things you have probably noticed
that ROTATE, SCALE and TRANSLATE all have two options.  One is world space,
and the other is Local Space.  The difference between the two is simple. The
TURBO SILVER  3D world has a set of fixed axis, Z is always Up and Down , X is
always left and right, and Y is always in and out.

These functions are fixed.  However, when you have an object that is in this
world and you rotate that object  on it's own axis ,then you are rotating in
local space.  In this manner, you have full flexibility to manipulate any
object in any way that you wish.

If you are so inclined try rotating an object in Z axis, about 45 degrees in
the world space option.  View this manipulation, then rotate the same object
45 degrees in X in world space.  Now rotate the object 45 degrees in X in local
space.  You can see the difference.  Although we have not suggested the type
of object that you should use, any object that you add will be evident in it's
movement.


    EXTRUSION

The ability to extrude an object will make the process of creating letters and
numbers, as well as many other objects very simple. Let's create the letter M
and extrude it .

You must first clear your work-surface of other objects, and add a new axis.
Notice that once the axis has been placed on the work-surface, that the axis
has rather small markers.  These markers are only 32 units in length.  You can
increase the size of the axis, by using the size command in the object menu.
Do so now, increase the size of the Z axis to 200 and the X axis to a size of
150.  These axis lines are a very good reference point for making objects.
They do not affect the object in other way, besides giving you an orientation
to where they live in the 3D world.  Use them as you will.  However we have a
tendency to make them bigger than we think we will need, so that we have a
very good reference to where our points and faces are.

View the diagram of the letter M, shown below.


Notice that we had to enter Add Point mode, Amiga 5.  The order that you place
points is of no major concern in the extrude mode.  It just makes sense to
try and follow some sort of logic.  Therefore, we have listed the order that
we have placed these points on the screen.   Please attempt to the same.  Make
the size of the letter rather large.  At least 30% of the screen.  Now move to
the Point mode Amiga 3.  In this mode you can now move and manipulate the
points.  If for some reason they are not in perfect order or at right angles
to each as they should be, simply click on the point and then click again
(double click).  The entire object will turn green.  Not to worry. The whole
object will not move when you click in a different place, just the point that
you are working on will be moved.  Of course you don't have to use the mouse,
you can use the position choice under the object menu.

Do the best that you can, after you have completed the sequence of creating
the border of the letter M.  Use first the Amiga 2 key to move to object mode,
the entire set of points should still be selected.  Now use the Amiga C
[or copy command] to throw these points into a special copy buffer.  The
reason for this, is that we at a later time, will want to put a face on the
letter that we are creating.  In some cases you will want to extrude something
that has no front or back face.  In this case you will not have to copy this
object into the copy buffer.

Make sure that the object is blue or selected, then under the object menu,
select the EXTRUDE option.  Having done so, the extrude requester will appear
asking you for the distance to extruded.  Type in 100.  This means that we are
going to make the letter M 100 units deep on the Y axis.  Extrude always works
on the Y axis.  It makes no difference where the axis is relative to the
object or world space.  What ever the orientation the extrude will follow the
Y axis.

After completing the input of the number 100, close the extrude requester by
clicking in the upper left hand close box of the requester.  In what will seem
like a blink of the eye, the letter M will do a re-draw.  It's done.  You say
you don't believe it?  Choose the view Top option in the View mode.  See, we
told you so, there should be, if all is correct a series of triangles moving
in on the Y axis.   Of course if you view the letter M from the right view you
will see that the triangles move out on the Y axis.  You have done your first
extrude with TURBO SILVER !..The only problem that we have now, is that the
Face of the M is not there.  We have the solid outline of the letter M.  This
makes for some interesting effects.  For this exersize however, we intend to
make sure that  this M has a front and a back.  Remember when we copied the
front of the M and then extruded the other?.  Well now is the time to use the
Amiga P for paste to throw that M face back on the screen.  It will place
itself directly on the front of the extruded shell.  Before you click the
mouse anywhere, use the Amiga M to mark this object.

Move your cursor well to the left of the position that it now holds, and
depress the left mouse button.  The pasted, non extruded M will now move to
this location.

You must now make this M shell have a set of faces associated to it.  The
process of making faces is very much like the game of connect the dots.  We
must create triangles out of all of these points.  This process adds the
surface to the object.  View the diagram below.


ADDING TRIANGLES TO THE M SHELL


To add triangles or faces, we must be in the Add Face mode.  Use the Amiga 6
key to enter this mode.  You will see that at the top of the menu bar are the
words Add Face.

To add the faces click on the point that is marked 1 on the above diagram.
Note, that after having done this, the Add Face menu header will have the
number 1 after it.  Move to point 2 and click here with the mouse.  The number
2 will now be shown after add face in the header.  Click on the third point
marked 3.  You have now added a face to the letter M.  Proceed with this
process, following a logical process to in essence, fill the face of the M
with triangles or FACES.

Admittedly the process of adding these faces can be a bit tricky, we have
opted for complete flexibility to the addition of faces. WE could have limited
the use and done this automatically, this would have limited your creative
Impulses and allowed you a very stuffy way to make objects.

Last but not least ,we must make yet another copy of this object and keep it
in the paste buffer for a moment.   Enter Object Mode, Amiga 2, using the
Amiga C for copy.  Copy this object.  Use the Amiga M for mark, the object
should turn green.  Align your cursor in such a way that the letter face will
fit directly in-front of, and perfectly over the  extruded object.  This is
best accomplished by placing the cursor directly in the center of the extruded
axis, and clicking with the mouse button. Minor adjustment may be needed.
Use the translate option in the object menu to make ever so small movements
along the X or Z axis..  Now we must get the back face on the M.  Move to the
Top View.   Use the Amiga P or paste command to place the copied face back on
the editor work surface.  Mark it or turn it green using the Amiga M command.

Place the cursor at the back of the extruded M and click in the appropriate
place.  You should now have a Front and back as well as an extruded middle to
the Letter M.  View it from all angles to make sure that all objects align
themselves properly.

The final command is to now resolve the objects, into one object.  Use the
Join command found in the Edit Menu.  Before we can join these objects, we
must enter the Multi Mode and select these three objects.  They will all or
should be blue in color.  While they are still blue execute the Amiga J
command.  This will join these three objects into one perfect object, as well
as eliminate unneeded points that share the same space.  Caution, if for some
reason you want to be able to treat these three objects as individuals, you
could have used the Group command instead of Join.  The processes would have
been the same with this exception .  Instead of the Amiga J command you would
have used the Amiga G command.  This action will not resolve the points that
share the same space.  However these objects can not be returned to its normal
state of three objects, once you have used the join command there is now way
to UN-JOIN these objects.  Group is a undo-able function.
Join is forever.

This ends the first chapter of TURBO SILVER, if you have not understood any
functions that have been explained here, don't go to the next chapter until
this all makes sense.  Of course you can always call us if you are having a
problem with any of these concepts at 612-566-0221.


    To Light is human To Refract is Incredible

The next issue at hand, is the new lighting module.  Under the attributes menu,
you will find a few new options.  The first that we should take a look at is
Material.

Under the Material menu are the sub menu items.  They are:

    Air
    Glass
    Water
    Crystal
    Custom.

When you make a new object and add it to the editor worksurface, you will see
that it always defaults to air.  Air has the lowest level of refraction, in
reality while using Turbo Silver  Air has no refraction associated with it.
The other materials however, have very definate values associated to them.

    Glass has an refraction index of 1.66
    Crystal has a refraction index of 2.00
    Water has a frefraction index of 1.33
    Custom can have a range of 1.00 to 3.55

This index system will give you the most used properties for Ray Tracing.
However, the use of the custom index will give you the complete span of indexs
for all know substances.  We have listed a few others for your reference.

    Emarald        1.57
    Quartz        1.55
    Diamond        2.42
    Topaz        1.61
    Ruby        1.77
    Sapphire    1.77
    Salt        1.54
    Lapus Lazuli    1.61

You are not limited to any of these numbers.  It is best that you experiment
with the custom menu item of Refraction to acheive the results that most
please your eyes.  A rule of thumb however, the higher the refraction index,
the slower the tracer will be. (If you would like a list of refractive indexes
for many different materials pick up a copy of CRC Handbook of Chemistry and
Physics 63rd Edition Published by CRC Press, Inc of Boca Raton, Florida.

This book is about a foot thick,.Refer to pages E-375 through E-382  This
amazing book also has reflective indexs, giving indexs for such things as
Pears, Apples and Cotton, a virtual plethora of information.  (now that we
think about it,we are not sure that you can do with out this book.  The
problem is that we have no idea what is costs, probably more than the price of
Turbo Silver.) OH, Don, the programmer GURU just walked by and said you can
probably pick up a used copy for $25.00, now the question is where do you find
a used copy of this book, whew this is getting crazy )

The obvious reason for this, is that the amount of rays that must be bent and
twisted in the Silver world become very time consuming when the index is high.
Never-the-less,  it's up to you to decide where the trade off is between
trace time and final output.

Every face and object can be refractive. By default, all faces are white, this
means that the object that is glass, will have a White tinge to the edges.
If you would like the edges to be other colors, simply change the color of the
object.

    As a possible exersize try the following.

Place a perfect sphere on the worksurface. Make the size of the Sphere     100
units in X.

Place a cone from the custom menu behind the sphere, [about 20     units behind.]
Color this cone red.

Select the Sphere and make it Glass, by selecting this option in the Attributes
menu. Leave the color of this object alone for this trace.

Set your camera and light source so that the objects are lighted properly, and
you have a good view of the objects.  Of course the view that we want to have,
is a view where we look through the sphere and     see the cone behind it.

Set your horizon and zenith colors to the same color, your choice. Trace it.

The trace time should be under 50 minutes.
When done, you should now see that TURBO SILVER does refraction.  The cone
behind the sphere will be abarated or twisted, just like it would be if you
looked through a glass ball.

With refraction, you can let your imagination run wild.  For the last time,
let us warn you.  Glass takes time to trace, and the more glass items that you
use the more time it takes .  Included on your Turbo Silver disk is a picture
called Chessboard. This took 8 hours to trace.  Notice that the chess pieces
are all lead crystal and the board itself is reflective.  We hope that you
agree that the time was worth the wait.  The picture is real neat.


The other attributes in this menu are much the same as they were in Silver.
The only area that needs a little discussion is reflection.

    The mirror of the 3D world.

Reflection, we have found after hours of use that there are some pecularities
to Reflection.  If you move the sliders ,RGB, all to have a value of 255 you
have a perfect mirror.  The object will all but dissapear. Consider that this
is the way it would be in most cases in the real world.  The problem is that
there are no perfect mirrors in the real world.

As you bring the sliders RGB values down, the mirror becomes less reflective
and begins to mush the images that it sees.  The chess board has a reflective
index of R 128, G 128 and B 128.

If you want to make Shiny objects, you need set only one gun or Slider value
to about 240. The other sliders are somewhat less important.  If you want to
make a gold shiny object, set the Red Gun to about 255, the green slider to
192 and the Blue slider to about 32. Make the object color black or RGB all
set to zero (0).

The problem with Refelction and Shinny is that the environment and the objects
around the reflective object add to, and enhance the reflection.  If you place
a perfect reflective sphere in black space, it will not be able to be seen.
Of course this is a really dumb idea, so don't  do it.  (it really is dumb).
The point of this, is that you have to create a world for reflection to be of
any value.  A gold sphere in a blue world make not look really gold.  However,
if you take a golden object and, shine only blue light at it, it will also not
look very gold.

The problem with the 3D world, is that Silver gives you a perfect and somewhat
indefinate world.  With this in mind, if you want a gold ball, place it on a
table top, sitting next to a wine glass with a pear and an apple next to it.
You will get a much better reflection because the gold has something to reflect
back to the eye.

The other attribute that has much to do with reflection, is specularity.  You
know those little shinny hot spots that you see on real world objects.  When
you make something that is specular, the hot spot or area adds to the realism
of the object.  Specularity is the final touch to a flashy, reflective object.
We can't stress enough, that you must experiment with these attributes in order
to acheive the results that you desire.


The other change in attributes is the addition of, under the shading menu item,
the option called Smooth or Facit.  When you shade something smooth, this is
very angular in makeup.  Silver will make every attempt to smooth out the edges
and make the object look roundish.  However, if you tell the object to be
Facited, the edges will be very precise and hard edged.  When you make an
alphabet, most likely you will want them to be facited.

Notice that the numeric keypad now functions in the folowing manner. While you
are in a requester where there are sliders, you can control the values with the
numeric keypad.  The color, reflective and filter color handlers all work in
the following manner.  the top row of keys 7 thru 9 control the Red Slider, 4
thru 6 control the Green Slider and 1 thru 3 control the Blue slider.  By
depressing the 7, 4 or 1 keys the color slider will move to the left, or
lessen the number.  The 8,5 and 2 keys will cause the slider to be set to the
next lowest perfect setting.  This is similar to what the tab key used to do.
The 9,6, and 3 keys all increase the value of the sliders.  Of course you can
still use the mouse and grab the slider to perform these operations.

These numeric functions also work on the Size, Position or any slider that has
fractional value.  On sliders that have fixed ranges the numeric key pad does
nothing, sliders like Roughness and Specuality.  We are sure that this will
speed up your work  After you get use to it, it really is faster than the
mouse. (OK for those who still have the torrid love affair with the mouse, you
may be faster). A last note on the Numeric Keypad, if you hold down one of the
keys, the slider will begin to move very rapidly, yeah verily it will boogie
if thou aren't careful.  So go easy on that heavy finder.

         STENCIL

Among the numerous features of Turbo Silver, is the Stencil Command.  It
resides in the editor next to the Brush Menu.  Stencil, in many ways, is very
similar to Brushes.

The major difference from Brush to Stencil, is that a stencil can not be
wrapped around anything, it is free standing.  Stencils are one Pixel in depth,
and can be any width or height..  Stencils are added  by selecting ADD stencil
under the ADD menu.

In order to make a Stencil, you will need a paint program.  The procedure for
making a Stencil is as follows.

Enter you paint program, and create a ZERO color Background.  Over this
background draw, paint or otherwise MUNGE some pixels on top of the Zero color
background.  For this first test, write you name, in white, using a rather
larger drawing tool.

Save this picture as "YOUR NAME" make sure that it is saved in IFF format.
The resolution mode makes no difference.

Enter Turbo Silver, and make a new cell.  Enter this cell and ADD Stencil.
You will see that an axis has appeared.  In order to see the stencil in proper
proportion and easier view mode, rotate this axis in the X axis, world space,
90 degrees.  With this axis selected  (ie blue in color), pull down the stencil
menu and select one of the unused Stencil markers.

Under the Stencil menu, choose the load option for this selected Stencil, just
as you would do for brush.  When the requestor appears, select the Stencil
that you have named "YOUR NAME".

View the Stencil to make sure that Turbo Silver recognizes the Stencil.

Place your camera and light source, so that you have a good view of the
stencil, check it in wire frame.

Leave the Editor and trace this cell.  Trace time should be very short.

Once the trace is done, choose the show option.
Assuming that all has gone properly, you will see your name floating in free
space.

Stencils cast shadows, and can have all of the Turbo Silver Properties  that
are available to you in the editor menus.  You can make reflective  colored
glass stencils if you like.

Now comes the tricky part.  You can assign a brush directly to this Stencil.
In other words, you apply a brush to the stencil and cause any picture to be
applied directly to the stencil.  The only factor that must be maintained is
that the brush axis and the stencil axis must occupy the same space.


Of course you must group the brush to the Stencil, by making the Brush axis
the parent, and the Stencil the child of the Brush.  The process of doing this,
will map the brush directly to the Stencil and will allow the pass through
color to remain it's integrity.

In a sense you can think of Stencil, as an internal, GEN-LOCK,  Silver locks
on the zero color of the Stencil and passes all information through the zero
color option.

If there is a drawback to Stencil, it would have to be the fact that the
Stencil is only one pixel in depth.  If you rotate a Stencil, you will find
that as it moves to a perpendicular orientation to your eyes, it will vanish.


    VIRTUAL DISK FILE SYSTEM

One of the problems with a product that uses points and faces, is that     the
objects that you build can become rather large.  In some cases, a cell can
contain a data file that exceeds 200 or 300 K.  This would be a    very large set
of points and faces.  The problem now, would be that you could not load these
objects into your computer, and create an animation much larger than a few
cells.  This would be a real problem for our friends that have limited memory.


    ENTER THE VIRTUAL DISK SYSTEM.

    Here is how it works.

When you enter a cell and create an object or series of objects they     will
be saved immediately to the disk, once you exit from the editor to the
animation screen.

In this way, you only have one cell in memory at any time, and     thereby,
getting a more efficient use of the computers memory.

When you enter a cell, there will be a momentary load cycle from the disk.
We have optimized this load, so that you will not be waiting very long to see
the object or objects associated with that cell.

    THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR OF THE VIRTUAL DISK IS AS     FOLLOWS.

DON'T worry about, it is there, it works and saves you lots of memory.



                              NUFF SAID.
          STORY BOARD

Possibly one of the most unique features of Turbo Silver is the Story option.
Before giving you a complete description of the Story option, it is
appropriate to discuss a few terms and clear the air about them.

TWEENING.... This word is very much like other over-used terms. To tween an
animation,is the process by which the computer, or the animator, figures out
the next perfect move of an anthropomorphic object.

In the early days of animation, there were the master animators who drew Key
cells.  From these Key cells, another journeyman artist would draw the cells
that were between the Key cells.  They would do the standard walk cycles, or
what ever was called for, in the movement orientation of the entire scene.
There was, to say the least, much conversation between the Master Artist and
the Journeyman as to how the movement should be staged and how the cells
should be "TWEENED".

The Amiga is a powerful computer, never-the-less is does not at this moment
have a software product that understands true Tweening.  Even the Story option
in Turbo Silver is only a partial implementation to this process.  We have
spent many hours reviewing other software products that claim to do tweening.
All of them fall short somewhere along the process.

This is not to say that the other software that we have reviewed is bad, quite
the contrary, much of what we have reviewed is rather interesting.  Never-the-
less, at this time, no company that we are aware of has this tweening problem
addressed.  We are diligently working on this process and hope that in the
future we can give you an upgrade that will address tweening and all that goes
with this process.

Story should be thought of as a more flexible version of Geometric
Choreography or Geomography, (this is our word, we made it up to suit
ourselves)  One of the major drawbacks of any animation process, is the fact
that you must create each cell in the animation.  This process can become very
tedious and trying.  Hopefully, Story can make this process much easier for
all of us.

Having said all of this, just what is STORY?  A simple answer would be as
follows.  The ability for objects, groups, and PATHS to follow other paths
over a series of cells.

As you already know from previous chapters, Silver now has the ability to
create free-form objects.  You could add an axis on the work surface, and
assign to it several arbitrary points.  These added points would constitute a
path.  The path starts with the first point placed, and ends with the last
point placed.

The other feature that we previously discussed, was giving a name to an object.
This name is now even more important.  If you do not assign a name to a path
or an object with a series of points you will not be able to move objects
along this path.  This feature will become even more clear as you attempt to
make a story.

The last comment on story before we do one is this, please follow the
procedures that we outline, do not deviate from them.  Story is very
structured and must have the steps as outlined followed verbatim.

    SO LET'S MAKE A STORY.

We are going to make a story where a sphere travels around a path that lives
in the Z and X axis.

To begin, open a new file with Silver called STORY. (unique idea don't you
think).

Enter the first cell. (if you are using a Floppy system make sure that you
have enough room on one of the disks to save all of the information that we
are going to make)  It might be wise to have a fresh floppy in DF1.  Make sure
that you save this new file immediately onto DF1.  In-fact, you should open
this new file from DF1, this will cause the least amount of confusion.

Having entered the first cell, add to the worksurface a custom sphere of 50
units major, 50 units minor, and 3 sides.  Cose the custom box.  A small
sphere like object will appear on the worksurface.  Select this object by
depressing the F1 key, it will turn blue.  Mark it by using the Amiga M
command.  Move your cursor to the right of this object, and depress the left
Mouse button.  We have done this, so that it is out of the way of the next
object that we are going to add to the worksurface.

For the moment, do not worry about the color or any other property of this
object. For this example, these properties will not be used.     Under the Add
menu, select to add an axis.  In the middle of your CRT will appear an axis.
Select this axis by depressing the F1 key.  It should now be blue.  We must
now add some points to this axis.  Do so in the following manner that is shown
in the diagram below.  We are going to add 10 points to this axis.  Use the
Amiga 5 command to enter Add Point mode.  These points have no other purpose
than to give the basic configuration of the path. and general shape ( The path
could have been any shape that you want )  For this example, we are going to
try and create a circle.

 It really makes no difference if the circle is exact.  For this example, we
simply want to show you how the sphere that we first added, will move when
used with the story command.

The only  other aspect that we need worry about ,is the camera tracking.  Move
the camera out to -300 Y, 100 Z, and Zero X.  Range the camera to be 150 units.
Now, track the camera to the Axis not the sphere.  You remember how to do this,
select the axis making sure that it is blue, and then use the Amiga T command.

Just to make sure that all is well, use the Amiga W command for wire frame
view.  Does it look okay.  If you don't like it, you can of course change the
angle or position of the camera.  There are no magic settings for this
exersize, all we are interested in, is the fact that you can see the sphere as
it moves.


The first point that you added, is the beginning of the path.  Before we
travel any further into the story command, we must give this path a name.
Enter the object mode by using the Amiga 2 command.  Under the Special menu
find and use the command called Rename.  When the requester comes up, clear
the name AXIS from the requester, by using the delete or back arrow keys.
[ SPECIAL note, sometimes the file requesters of the Amiga gets a bit confused.
If this occurs use the Amiga X command.  This will clear all of the unwanted
characters in the text buffer.]

In the  requester, type in Circle  This path or object is now called Circle.
Exit this requester, by clicking on the upper left hand close box.
Now using the same process name the sphere ... Ball

It is now time to apply the story command to the Sphere, or the object called
Ball.

Select the Sphere, using the mouse to do so.  It should be blue.

Under the Object menu select Story option.

A requester will appear, it has several options, for the moment we will    deal
with only one option.  It is the FOLLOW PATH option at the top of the
requester.  In this requester type in the name CIRCLE.

You have now told Silver that you wish the BALL (or sphere) to follow the path
called CIRCLE.  ( Easy right !) Exit the requester by clicking on the close
box.

The last thing that you must do, is place the sphere on the first point of the
path named CIRCLE.  If you have followed the diagram, it is the point directly
below the axis point.

This action tells Silver that you want the movement to begin here, and end in
this same relative position.

Exit the editor to the Animator screen.
Save the file.

Here comes the last set of steps.

TIME.... how long shall this story take.  The only way to tell Silver this, is
by the making of cells.  The more cells you make, the longer it will take the
story to complete or cycle.  If you want a story to take 3 seconds to complete,
as in our first example, we should make about 45 cells.  For this example,
however, let us make seven more cells, so that we have a story that will take
a total of eight cells.  You already know how to make cells using the Amiga M
command.  While holding down the left shift key, select cells two through
eight, then use the Amiga M command.

You now have eight cells made, notice once again that the disk has been
accessed.  This is because of the virtual disk system. Remember the virtual
disk system just works.

Under the Cells menu, select Use Story.  This now tells Silver, that the next
actions should take into account the information  of the story being used in
the first selected cell or cell number one.

Next, select cell #1, making sure that all of the other cells are not selected.

Use the Amiga Z or source cell command on cell one.  Now use the Amiga A
command  (* this is a new command for selecting all of the cells at once)
[in a different story you would not have to select all.  It is in this manner,
that you can have several stories in one animation]  all of the cells will now
be selected, use the Amiga T command.  This has told Silver to apply the story
to all the Target cells.  Having done this, the disk should work for a few
seconds.  After the BUSY cursor has gone away, and the pointer has returned,
you have applied the story to this animation called STORY.

The next thing that you should do, is to check that each cell has indeed moved
the sphere around the path that we have defined.  Go into cell 4, and the
sphere should be almost due north of it's starting position.

Check each of the cells to make sure that the movements, that should have
taken place, have done so.  The only purpose of this activity, is to show you
that the story command does indeed work.


OK!    let's make a quick movie.  Under the Display menu select WIRE FRAME.
This new feature is going to give you  a true, PENCIL TEST Of the animation,
before you render it.

The last two things that you have to do, is to set the LOOP POINT. This is
accomplished by selecting the first cell, and under the Scene menu select the
LOOP POINT option.

You have now set the loop point. Next, select all of the cells using the Amiga
A command.  The reason we must now select all of the cells, is that Silver can
now create partial cell animations, more on this later.

With all of the cells selected, eight in all,  select the Make Scene option.
under the Scene menu  In a few moments, the busy requester will go away, after
the wire frame animation has been built.

Load the scene.
Choose play scene loop.
Sit back and enjoy this little sphere traveling along the circle path.


There you did it, your first movie with Geometric Choreography done for you,
not tweening but close.



       NOW FOR THE POWER of the STORY COMMAND.

You are not limited to only one story.  You can have as many stories going, as
you can keep track of.  Paths can follow other paths.  Anything, with the
exception of the perfect sphere, can be a path.  That's right, a Torus can be
a path.  All you have to do, is give an object  or an axis with a series of
points associated to it's name.  Find another object or path, and tell that
object to follow that path.

This can get very confusing.  As in all of Silver, we probably give you more
options than are resonable to try and comprehend, on the first pass.  Don't
worry too much if this doesn't make all that much sense right now.  We suggest
that you let these statements sink into the grey matter for a while.  Like
magic, your brain will imbue you with the knowledge of how to use this
hierarchy of movement.

You can think of story as a data base manager of movements, and it is totally
relational.  In our first example, we simply made the sphere move along the
path of the other axis, named circle.  Imagine for a moment, that we had added
another axis and named it Square.  It might have had only four points.
The points would have made it look like a square.  Instead of making these
points in Z and X orienentation, we could make the points in the X and Y
orientation, ie the movement associated with this path, would be left and
right, in and out.

We can give the Circle axis a story,  and tell it to follow the path of the
Square.  It would do so, as well the Sphere would follow the path of the
Circle, as it follows the path of the Square.

The application can go on and on.  There are no real limitations to the amount
of stories that can be applied.

You can, as well,have several different stories going on. Stories that have no
relation to other objects or paths, that might be in the Silver world.

The short of this is... you can get real crazy with stories, and it makes
doing the movement a snap.

As you noticed, there are other options in the Story requester.  They are
Scale and Rotation.  You can scale independently in X, Y and Z and as well
rotate in X, Y and Z.  You may enter whole numbers or fractional values.
The fractional values are carried out to the third place for each option.

You already know how scale and rotate work.  The only added feature, is the
local or abs, absolute command.  In local mode.

LAST MINUTE GOODIES:

When you set zone in Silver, to use a smaller space than the whole screen, in
the past you would have to leave the software to reset the zone to the full
screen if you were in an overscan configuration.  No longer is this true.
Under the Display menu is a new option called Reset Zone.  By using this
command Silver will reset the zone to the screen size that you were using
before you set the zone.to a smaller area.

Silver users have expressed the desire to have the colors in Silver, both in
the Animator and the Editor to have the ability to be changed.  We have gone
one step further.

With this version of Silver, there is a file called Silver.Config.   This file
must always be named exactly  SILVER.CONFIG.  This file has all of the
information about how Silver should act when it is running.  the file must be
in the same directory as Turbo Silver.  You can edit or create your own with
any text editor.  The last comment about this file, is that it is not case
dependent.  You can use upper or lower case, it's your choice.

    ITEMS FOR THE SILVER.CONFIG FILE

BGRD 111  This is the notation for the background color, the three numbers
after the notation BGRD are preceded by a space.

IE....   BGRD [space here] ###The numbers are in hex values, for your reference these are as follows:
0 thru 9 are used
A = 10, B= 11, C = 12, D = 13, E = 14, F = 15
If you want a background that is BLACK you would use the following settings:
BGRD 000

The following is a list of the defaults that come in the  SILVER.CONFIG file
that is shipped with this version of Turbo Silver.


    BGRD 000        Background Black
    FGRD FFF        Foreground White
    SLCT F80        Select color of objects  Light Orange
    PNTS CCC        Points Color Light Gray
    PRNT F0F        Color of line used in group mode Violet
    SPNT FF0        Select point color Yellow
    PICK 00F        Pick object color Blue
    ACTV 0F0        Color of active or Marked Objects Green
    PRNT F00        Picked color of point or face Red

LACE F or T  False or F means no interlace  or 200 Line Mode
             True or T means yes interlace or 400 Line Mode
OVER F or T  False or F means non overscan
             True or T means overscan

MODE 0 - 2   0 means Ham
             1 means Lo Res
             2 means Hi Res

SCRN 2 - 8   The larger the number the faster the re-draw,                 default for this option is 4
MULT 1 - 9999    This option followed by a number defines the amount of points
                that can be picked or created, this applies to faces and
                objects as well.


Under the Special Menu is a new command called Sort, you can execute this
command with the mouse or the Amiga Z command.  The purpose of this command is
to REORDER or SORT the points of any  object.  To use Sort, enter the Point
Mode, Amiga 3.  You now must decide the order that you wish the points to be
sorted.  Do this by holding down the LEFT SHIFT key thereby entering MULTI
mode, click on the first point that you want to be the beginning point of the
chosen object, then in what ever succession you desire click on the other
points in the order that you want them to be sorted.  Once all of the points
have been selected or picked use the Amiga Z command.  the points have now
been sorted in the order that you picked them.


THE ESC KEY more commonly referred to as the ESCAPE KEY.  In Silver it is also
know as the " oh boy I wish I had not done what I just did, KEY."
Imagine that you have by mistake gone into the color menu for an item, you
reset the color and then before leaving this menu you decide, " I didn't want
to do that."  No problem, from any menu for any item if you depress the ESC
you will exit the requester, and the changes that you made will not be
implemented.    As you become more used to Turbo Silver you will find this
feature a real time saver.

Animation, you can now animate only portions of a series of cells, that is why
you must do the following if you intend to animate all the cells.

In the previous version of Silver you simply chose the first cell, and then
told Silver to make scene.  Things have changed a bit.

It is now possible to set any cell as the loop point.  To do this, choose the
Movie menu and select Set Loop.  Now the cell that has been picked will be the
loop point.  In this manner you can have a movie that will have a few cells of
introduction and then the looping point of the Movie will play from the Set
loop point.

The other attribute of animation is, as we said before that you can select all
or a series of cells in a list of cells to be animated.  By way of explanation,
assume for a moment that we have a Movie that is 50 cells in length.  We have
established 5 key cells and five different stories applied to these cells.
You just want to see the major changes from Key cell to Key cell.

Imagine further that cell 1, 10,20,30,40 are key cells.  If you select only
these cells (turn them white) and then select the make scene option, Turbo
Silver will ignore the other un-selected cells and animate only the Key cells.
This feature will allow you to get a rough idea of what the finished product
will look like prior to doing and entire animation.

The other aspect of this feature is that in order to do a complete animation
of our 50 cell animation we must use the Amiga A command to select all of the
cell before choosing Make Scene.

If you do not establish a loop point prior to doing a Make Scene Silver will
assume that you want no loop point and will do a straight line animation.

Well................ We have probably forgotten a few goodies, if you get
stuck or you want someone to discuss your problems or ideas with, give us a
call, after all, that is why we are here.




                            HAPPY TURBO TRACING!!!