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- Path: sparky!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!pk-asdg
- From: pk-asdg@cup.portal.com (Perry S Kivolowitz)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
- Subject: Re: ASDG Morph effects in AmigaWorld
- Message-ID: <63934@cup.portal.com>
- Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 19:34:58 PDT
- Organization: The Portal System (TM)
- Distribution: world
- References: <713453808.AA25726@csugrad.cs.vt.edu> <63798@cup.portal.com>
- <bobl.71lm@bobsbox.rent.com>
- Lines: 83
-
-
- Steve Davis asks:
-
- >Well how do you determine the areas of the screen to morph? ...
- >Do you use splines?
-
- Many of the morphing systems available today use a mesh or grid based
- approach which employs a linear or spline based interpolation scheme as a
- back end. Most of these systems have exactly the same user interface.
-
- All I will divulge at this time is that MorphPlus does not share this user
- interface. Rather it uses a different approach which apparently allows
- morphs to be put together more precisely in less time.
-
- >How about memory requirements?
-
- Nearly all of the effects contained in MorphPlus have a dual precision
- capability. In the ``fast'' modes, less memory is used in general. In the
- ``high quality'' modes, greater precision is computed (using more memory).
-
- In the ``fast'' modes, MorphPlus has basically the same memory requirements
- as ADPRO. In the ``high quality'' modes, as much as a few more megabytes
- of RAM may be required.
-
- There should be no problem doing highly precise morphs at broadcast video
- sizes on an 8 megabyte Amiga.
-
- >How many control points did you have?
-
- There were about 150 user entered correspondence pairs in the morphs shown
- in the (hasty) ad. However, MorphPlus's morphing method allows for
- internally synthesized correspondence pairs so that the actual number used
- internally can be much higher (and you spend less time setting up the
- correspondences).
-
- >Your perspective effect is possibly the one simple tool most missed
- >in ADPro. A perspective composite loader for ADPRO would really
- >give me a boner. ;-) Also, I look forward to the "swirl" effect
- >that you used on the penny. Are these effects anti-aliased?
-
- Part of the division between the fast and high quality modes includes the
- degree of antialiasing employed. In the fast modes, very little is done.
- In the high quality modes, everything is internally anti-aliased.
-
- The pennies shown in the ad were done before the anti-aliasing methods were
- in place (ie: done in fast mode).
-
- >And what *OTHER* effects do you plan to have in it???
-
- Some additional effects will be shown in next month's ad.
-
- Bob Lindabury says:
-
- >Good. I imagine we will be seeing a new add in the next 3 months then.
-
- A new one next month, actually.
-
- >I was very interested in the fact that there *was* movement in these
- >morphs. Morphing from one image to the next is fine but for any paying
- >work, we must morph a sequence of video frames and this is something we
- >are looking for at a reasonable cost. Hopefully the interface to
- >achieve this will be as good as the final output suggests.
-
- Morphing of moving video is fully supported.
-
- We did a moving morph test for a Hollywood studio (during a visit to our
- company) which they said was on par with that which could be expected from
- ILM or PDI. Except the moving morph we did, we did in a day.
-
- >Future ads should probably show at least a single screen shot of the
- >interface.
-
- Remember that morphing is but one of the effects in MorphPlus. As it is,
- we feel we can't adequately convey the full power of the effects in the
- space of a full page (and that's without showing the interface). The GUI
- will undoubtedly be shown in the many articles which will be written about
- the product.
-
- >I guess that the new ideas gleaned at Siggraph will be incorporated into
- >this first release?
-
- While we did pick up some pointers from attending SIGGRAPH, much of the
- product was already in place (this was very VERY gratifying).
-