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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: Press Release/Babylon 5 Info/MorphPlus
- Message-ID: <65508@cup.portal.com>
- Date: Tue, 8 Sep 92 19:16:26 PDT
- Organization: The Portal System (TM)
- Distribution: world
- Lines: 87
-
- ***** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE *****
-
- ASDG SETS SHIP DATE FOR STATE-OF-THE-ART AMIGA(R) VISUAL EFFECTS
- PACKAGE. WINDOWS(R) VERSION ANNOUNCED.
-
- ASDG has set an October 1st ship date for MorphPlus(tm), a
- state-of-the-art visual effects package for the Commodore Amiga.
- MorphPlus, already in use in Hollywood for such features as Babylon 5,
- provides cinematic quality full motion morphing and other visual
- effects. ASDG also announced a forthcoming Microsoft Windows version,
- called CineMorph(tm).
-
- Madison WI, August 26, 1992 ----- ASDG Incorporated, the leading
- supplier of innovative color imaging solutions for cinema and video,
- announce an October 1st ship date for its state-of-the-art visual
- effects package, MorphPlus and has announced plans for CineMorph, a
- morphing-only system for Microsoft Windows.
-
- MorphPlus produces cinematic and broadcast quality full motion morphs
- in record time using a proprietary image warping technology and a user
- interface which has been called ``strikingly different'' and ``unique
- and very impressive.''
-
- MorphPlus has already earned a place in major Hollywood productions.
- Mark Swain, animator for Foundation Imaging, the creators of the
- special effects for Babylon 5 said, ``It's scarily realistic.
- MorphPlus produces the most realistic shapeshifting special effects I
- have ever seen on a desktop.''
-
- MorphPlus allows for establishing relationships between source and
- destination images with unheard-of precision. Animators are free to
- add as many relationships as they wish without incurring a significant
- performance penalty as the number of relationships grows large
- (something common to all other morphing systems).
-
- Other state-of-the-art features abound in MorphPlus, such as the
- ability to subdivide an image into logical parts (called groups),
- assign separate acceleration and deceleration curves per group, depth
- arrange groups, and even the ability to set a transparency curve on a
- group by group basis.
-
- MorphPlus's morphing system is so precise and flexible, that it can be
- used to edit fine details of an image, or to create mattes and
- cut-outs.
-
- As for performance, on a non-accelerated A3000, MorphPlus can produce
- a complex full broadcast sized morph in the same time as Pacific Data
- Images's morphing system (the one used for the Michael Jackson ``Black
- or White'' video) running on an ultra-high performance Silicon
- Graphics workstation.*
-
- Incredibly, morphing is but one of the special effects provided by
- MorphPlus. Other capabilities allow high quality DVE tumbles and
- fly-bys, mapping images onto rotating spheres, mapping an image onto
- the surface of a pond into which any number of pebbles can be thrown,
- and others. All of these operations are presented in easy-to-use
- WYSIWYG user interfaces.
-
- MorphPlus is compatible with ASDG's award winning image processing
- program, Art Department Professional, although ADPro is not required.
- MorphPlus can also be used with ASDG's recently announced support for
- the Abekas A60, A65, and A66 Digital Disk Recorders to move broadcast
- quality video between platforms.
-
- MorphPlus carries a list price of $295 and requires Kickstart 2.0 or
- later.
-
- On a related note, ASDG has announced the development of a
- morphing-only version of MorphPlus, called CineMorph, for the
- Microsoft Windows environment. CineMorph requires Windows 3.1 or
- later and an Intel 386 processor or better.
-
- For information about MorphPlus, CineMorph, or ASDG's other color
- imaging solutions, contact Gina Cerniglia at ASDG Incorporated, 925
- Stewart Street, Madison, WI 53713 or call (608) 273 - 6585.
-
-
- Art Department Professional is a registered trademark, MorphPlus and
- CineMorph are trademarks of ASDG Incorporated. Amiga is a registered
- trademark of Commodore-Amiga, Inc. Microsoft and Microsoft Windows
- are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
-
-
- ----------
- * 1992 SIGGRAPH Proceedings, ``Feature Based Image Metamorphosis,''
- page 38. Two minutes per frame on an SGI 4D25 with 100 correspondance
- pairs.
-