Amiga Plus 1995 #5 & #6/Amiga Plus CD - 1995 - No. 5 and 6.iso/pd/grafik/lightwave/iml-faq7

Text File | 1995-07-02 | 151KB | 3,403 lines

+======================================================================+
|                         Imagine Mailing List                         |
|                      FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS                      |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                             Compiled By                              |
|                          Gabriele Scibilia                           |
|                           Michael B. Comet                           |
|                              Steve Mund                              |
|                            Mark Oldfield                             |
|                             Dave Wickard                             |
+======================================================================+

        This is the Frequently Asked Questions posting for the Imagine
Mailing list.  This posting is sent every so often to answer general
questions that users of the 3D rendering software, Imagine by Impulse
Inc. may have.  It is aimed toward all users, especially newcomers to
the program.

        If you find any errors or have answers to other frequently asked
questions that you would like to have included in this posting, please
send e-mail to: [e-mail] (FAQ List).


        - Gabriele S.

========================================================================

Last Update   : June 24, 1995 Saturday
Issue Number  : 7
What's New    : Section 1, No 1.   Added more magazines and archive
                                   info, added bulletin boards list,
                                   added models and textures libraries.
                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

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

CONTENTS:
=========

    SECTION 1 - Support Products/Sites
         1] Imagine related: References/Help Books/Magazines/ftp sites,
            BBSes, Models/Textures (pics) materials.
         2] How do I reach Impulse?
         3] What is the Imagine Mailing List and how to get it?

    SECTION 2 - Modeling and Detail Editor
         1] How do I brushmap a ground plane?
         2] How do I make glass?
         3] The Slice command doesn't work or gives me errors.
         4] How can I make a room so that the walls don't have cracks?
         5] When I select a group of points in the DETAIL editor, all I
            can do is drag them...not ROTATE or SCALE interactively.
         6] List of common Index of Refractions
         7] How do you make mirrors?
         8] How do I make "metals" and what are some good gold
            attributes?
         9] Is there a quick way to add faces to my object without
            using the Slice command?
        10] How do I make "wireframe" objects?
        11] How can I create seashells?
        12] May I use more than four textures in Imagine v2.0?
        13] How do I make realistic clouds?
        14] How do I create visible light beams?
        15] How can I simulate underwater ambient?
        16] Does anyone have suggestions for emulating soft shadows?
        17] Can I create 2d/3d smoke effects?  How?
        18] How Bones works (by Lesk and Mark Decker)?
        19] Halo around light sources.
        20] Can a reflective object inside a glass tube render properly?
        21] Help with Slice function, By J. Goldman.
        22] Fog object and global fog: undersea fog spotlight.
        23] Disco ball effect: how simulate some sort of radiosity.
        24] How can I create a candle flame?

    SECTION 3 - Forms Editor
         1] After a Forms Editor object is loaded into the Detail Editor
            and manipulated, it won't reload into the Forms Editor.

    SECTION 4 - Cycle Editor
         1] I made this animation sequence in the Cycle editor, but when
            I set it up in the stage/action editors, the motion of the
            overall object isn't there!

    SECTION 5 - Spline Editor
         1] I tried to import a Postscript font but I got a "Vector not
            found" error.  What does this mean?

    SECTION 6 - Animation, Stage Editor and Action Editor
         1] Even though I move an Object/Camera/Light to a new
            POSITION/ALIGNMENT/SIZE in the STAGE editor, Imagine seems
            to 'forget' what I did!
         2] How do I use the Grow Effect?
         3] How do I use the Tumble Effect?
         4] How do you get something to roll (at the right speed!) while
            following a path?
         5] When I move a Tracked Camera in the STAGE editor, it doesn't
            realign and draw the Perspective view correctly!
         6] When I increase the number of frames in an animation I find
            my scene gets mangled in the first frame.  Why?
         7] How do I use the Sway Effect?

    SECTION 7 - Rendering and the Project Editor
         1] Why do objects render fine in Scanline, but disappear in
            Trace?
         2] I have a problem with Filtered objects/fog and the Global
            Backdrop!
         3] My animation frames look fine, but when animated, they have
            the "crawly" effect.
         4] What situations, parameters, attribute values, etc. require
            the most trace rendering time?
         5] How do I get rid of the "Jaggies?"
         6] How can I figure out pixel aspect for a given resolution?
         7] When making a disco ball effect, will a SPHERICAL light set
            at 255 be bright enough to cause visible spots on the
            surfaces in a scene?
         8] How long should it take to do a full trace picture with
            perhaps one transparent glass on a Amiga 3000/25? Is 4.5 hrs
            too much?
         9] Is there any particular format that Imagine prefers?  Ham?
            32 Color?  EHB?  24 bit 1000 x 1000?
        10] I would like to use conical light sources with my rendering,
            is there anyway "see"in wireframe where the light will fall?
        11] How important is lighting for a rendering, and is there any
            "preset" method used to get good results?
        12] Help with Fog, How do I use it and how does it work?
        13] How can I render in Widescreen/Letterbox format?
        14] I selected Spheres for my particle object, but all I get is
            a polygonal shape!
        15] Help with Fog: if you place a fog object inside another,
            they cancel out, why?

    SECTION 8 - Essence Settings and Other Attributes
         1] Electrical Arc                  (Essence)
         2] Veined Marble                   (Essence)
         3] Rough marble/rock               (Essence)
         4] Soap Bubble                     (Imagine 2.0 and higher)
         5] Spaceship Panels                (Imagine 2.9 and higher)
         6] Bark, mountain, stone effects   (Imagine 2.9 and higher)
         7] Solar corona                    (Essence)
         8] Solar corona                    (Imagine 2.9 and higher)
         9] Sludge                          (Imagine 2.9 and higher)
        10] Marble                          (Imagine 2.0 and higher)
        11] Starfield                       (Imagine 2.9 and higher)
        12] Photon Torpedo                  (Imagine 2.9 and higher)
        13] Spaceship shield                (Imagine 2.9 and higher)

    SECTION 9 - Miscellaneous
         1] What the heck is BTW, IMO and other weird abbreviations...
         2] Rendering and refresh times are MUCH too slow, even with an
            accelerator. Are there any Basic tricks or hints to help?
         3] How long will before my renderings aren't ugly anymore?
         4] Hex edit for Imagine - High Res video mode change Amiga only
         5] What are Particles?
         6] Everything about motion blur, By Mark Allan Fox
         7] 3D stereograms, By Gary Beeton
         8] Working with bitmaps, By Douglas Smith

    CLOSING - Closing statements and Disclaimer

========================================================================
                   SECTION 1 - Support Products/Sites
========================================================================

1] Imagine related: References/Help Books/Magzines/ftp sites.

  REFERENCES AND HELP BOOKS:

    "Imagine 2.0 User Manual", Impulse Inc, 1992.
                   (Yes....read the manual!)

    "The Imagine Companion", David Duberman, Motion Blur Publishing,
         1991

    "Understanding Imagine 2.0", Steven Worley, Apex Software
         Publishing, 1992.

    "3D Modeling Lab", Philip Shaddock, The Waite Group Press,
         ISBN 1-878739-52-2, 1994.

  MAGAZINES:

    These are some good graphics magazines, most of which focus on the
Amiga computer.  If anyone has some other suggestions please post them
to the FAQ list!

    "Amazing Computing for the Commodore Amiga" aka "Amazing Amiga"
    P.O. Box 2140
    Fall River, MA 02722-9969 USA
    (508) 678 - 4200
    (800) 345 - 3360
    (508) 675 - 6002 (FAX)
        (A general Amiga computer magazine, focusing more on how
    to, hints and tips, programming, reviews of software and
    hardware(less ads and more meat than AW))

        "Amiga Video/Graphics Magazine"  (formerly AVID)
        365 Victor Street
        Suite "H"
        Salinas, CA 93907
        (408) 758 - 9386
        (408) 758 - 1744 (FAX)
                (A general Amiga computer magazine, focusing on both
        hardware, software, utilities and graphics)

        "Amiga World"
        P.O Box 595
        Mt Morris, IL 61054-7900
        (800) 827 - 0877
        (815) 734 - 1109
                (A general Amiga computer magazine, focusing on both
        hardware, software, utilities and graphics)

    "AV Video"
    701 Westchester Ave
    White Plains, NY 10604
    (800) 800 - 5474
    (914) 328 - 9157
    (914) 328 - 9093 (FAX)
        (An audio/video and computer magazine.  Has articles about all
    types of video and graphics applications including the Amiga and
    Video Toaster)

    "Computer Artists"
    P.O. Box 2649
    Tulsa, OK 74101-9632
        (A magazine specifically for computer artists.  Articles on
    software and methods from Amigas, PC's and MAC's)

        "Computer Graphics World"
        P.O Box 122
        Tulsa, OK 74101-9845
        (800) 443 - 6632
        (918) 835 - 3161 ext. 400
        (918) 831 - 9497 (FAX)
                (A general computer graphics magazine focusing on the
        latest technology from PC's to SGI's)

        "Video Toaster User"
        21611 Stevens Creek Blvd.           AVID Pubblications,
        Cupertino, CA 95014                 273 N. Mathilda, Sunnyvale,
        (800) 322 - 2834                    CA 94086, USA
                (A magazine focusing specifically on NewTeks Video
        Toaster device.  Nothing related to Imagine, but some more neat
        pictures to look at!)

        "Computer Gazette"
        IHT Gruppo Editoriale S.r.l.
        Via Monte Napoleone, 9 - 20121 Milano
        (39) 02 - 895921

        "Scientific Amigan"
        Dept AZ, POB 60685,
        Savannah, GA 31420-0685, USA

        "Geoffrey William's Computer Artists & Videographer Report"
        aka "The CAV Report"
        CBP, 1833 Verdugo Vista Drive,
        Glendale, CA 90218
        USA (818) 2409845
        USA (818) 2409845 (FAX)

        "XPress" aka "The Amiga CAD Newsletter"
        8231 NE Paulanna Lane,
        Bainbridge Island, WA 98110, USA

        "Nonlinear Nonsense"
        Cedar Software, PO Box 4495,
        Wolcott, VT 05680
        USA (802) 8885275
        USA (802) 8883009 (FAX)

        "3D Artist"
        Columbine Inc. PO Box 4787,
        Santa Fe, NM 87502-4787
        USA (505) 9823532
        USA (505) 8206929 (FAX)
                (Magazine for users of 3D Studio, Lightwave 3D, Topas
        and other popular programs including low-cost programs. Topics
        includes modeling, lighting, camera work, character animation,
        sound, and video)

        "Amigator"
        PO Box 26026, Nepean,
        Ontario, Canada K2H 9RO

  FTP SITES:

        There is now a new ftp site set up for Imagine related items
including pictures, animations, tutorials, objects, and help files such
as previous postings from the list, and this FAQ at:

        wuarchive.wustl.edu
        in the  /systems/amiga/boing/video/imagine

        Under this directory are the following sub-directories:
                art
                archive
                anims
                objects

        Note:  New files cannot be sent directly here.  Instead send
any new files you wish to upload into the same directory:

        /systems/amiga/boing/incoming/imagine

        Files here will/should eventually get moved to the proper
location by the ftp site administrator.  Don't forget to send a text
file explaining the data you uploaded, and where it should be placed.

        The archives are kept by Nik Vukovljak.  They can be found in
the archive subdirectory listed above, and in the incoming/imagine
directory.  New archives may also be posted to aminet.

        Aminet can be reached on the same FTP site (ftp.wustl.edu)
under /systems/amiga/aminet.  Numerous other sites also have the aminet
directories.

  MODELS/TEXTURES LIBRARY:

        Imagination Works
        644 N. Santa Cruz avenue,
        Suite 12, Los Gatos, CA 95030
        USA (408) 3545067

        Antigravity Products
        456 Lincoln Blvd.,
        Santa Monica, CA 90402
        USA (310) 3936650
        USA (310) 5766383 (FAX)

        Visual Inspirations
        809 West Hollywood,
        Tampa, FL 33604
        USA (813) 9356410
        USA (813) 9356513 (BBS)

        View Point Data Labs
        625 S. State street,
        Orem, UT 84058
        USA (801) 2293000
        USA (801) 2293000 (FAX)

        Micro R&D
        P.O. Box 130,
        721 "O" Street,
        Loup City, NE 68853
        USA (308) 7451246

        Syndesis Corporation
        235 South Main Street,
        Jefferson, WI 53549
        USA (414) 6745200
        USA (414) 6746363 (FAX)
        [e-mail]

        Modern Medium
        580 West 8th. avenue Eugene,
        OR 97401
        USA (503) 3434281
        USA (503) 3434325

        AniGraF/X
        PO Box 1715,
        Jacksonville, OR 97530
        USA (503) 7726525
        USA (503) 8570616

        VRS Media
        7116 SW 47 Street,
        Miami, FL 33155
        USA (305) 6675005

        Richard & Esther Shapiro Entertainment Inc.
        335, North Maple Drive,
        Beverly Hills, California 90210
        USA (512) 3281454
        USA (512) 3281455

        Cybergraf Synthiotics
        PO Box 5851, Hanover Center,
        Wilmington, NC 28403-0879
        USA (910) 7625776

        Digital Wisdom
        Box 2070, Tappahannock,
        VA 22560
        USA (804) 7580670
        USA (804) 7584512

        Allegro New Media
        387 Passaic Ave
        Fairfield, NJ. 07004
        201-808-1992

  BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEMS:

        New Horizons
        Stefano Epifani
        ITA (39) 06-88640190
        ITA (39) 06-8862660

        3000+ Amiga BBS
        William Molducci
        ITA (39) 0544-451764

        Digital Pixel
        USA (001) 416-2981487

        Studio Amiga BBS
        USA (001) 817-5572111
        USA (001) 817-5572112

        Toaster BBS
        USA (001) 616-7912109

        The Graphics Alternative
        USA (001) 510-5242780

        The Intersection BBS
        USA (001) 410-7425452

        Lightwaved BBS
        USA (001) 510-2280886

        Vertech Design's Graphic Connection
        USA (001) 503-5918412

        You Can Call Me Ray
        USA (001) 708-358611

        Pisquare
        USA (001) 301-7259080

        The New Graphics BBS
        USA (001) 908-4690049

        GraFX Haus BBS
        USA (001) 805-6831388

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

2] How do I reach Impulse?

    Impulse Inc.
    8416 Xerxes ave. North
    Brooklyn Park, Minnesota 55444
    USA

    [phone]
    [phone]
    FAX: [phone]
    Compuserve: 76004,1767

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

3] What is the Imagine Mailing List and how to get it

    (From the Imagine Mailing List Sysop, Dave Wickard)

        The Imagine Mailing List is a wide variety of Amiga computer
artists sharing friendship and knowledge. The main thrust of the List is
the Imagine renderer. Subjects discussed though have varied widely.
There are discussions of Imagine and it's competitors, Imagine wish
lists for future versions, 3D rendering principles in general, single
frame recording techniques and many more.

        With first day users thru battled scarred veterans  :-)  there
is someone at your level of knowledge on the List. We are always glad to
see questions from every level of user. So often a simple and seemingly
embarrassingly easy question will lead to an interesting comment on a
related topic.

    New products, both hardware AND software, are discussed as to their
relationship with Imagine and Amiga 3D rendering.

    Names of Amiga luminaries dot the list, and often join in to lend
their insights without the usual "noise" of a USENET newsgroup.

    There are over 300 individual sites receiving the Imagine Mailing
List, and they include many networks, BBS systems, user groups, and
individual computer artists from literally around the globe.  We share
one thing.  Interest in each other's work with Imagine.

    YOU can get the Imagine Mailing List. All you need is access to
Internet mail. Simply mail to the following address:

         [e-mail]

and in your subject line, enter the word "subscribe".

    If you are reading this from a Commercial System, ask the
Amiga Coordinator to set up an Imagine Mailing List area that
everyone can read.

========================================================================
                  SECTION 2 - Modeling and Detail Editor
========================================================================

1] How do I brushmap a ground plane?

    The problem with brushmapping a ground plane is that the ground
itself is off 90 degrees in relation to its' axis for proper brush
placement.  (Add a primitive plane, a ground and compare them).  The
following will properly set a ground wrap:

         1) Add a ground object, select it, go into attributes, select a
            brush to use.
         2) You will now be in a requestor for the type of brushmap and
            placement etc...
         3) Select TRANSFORM AXIS
         4) Click on ALIGNMENT and set X = -90.  Leave Y and Z at 0
         5) Click on SIZE and leave X = +640.  Set Y = +2, Z = +400
         6) Click on POSITION and Leave X = -320, Y = -200. Set Z = +1
         7) Click on PERFORM.
         8) If you want the brushmap to repeat forever click REPEAT.
         9) Click OKAY.

        Your brushmap will now be placed correctly.  You can of course
resize it on the X/Z axis if you wish for scaling purposes.

        Basically step 4 re-rotated the brush axis properly and 5 and 6
fixed the size and position which Imagine screws up since it thinks it's
brushmapping on the other axis.

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

2] How do I make glass?

        You can use the following Attribute setting for a default glass:

                   RED  GREEN  BLUE   VALUE
    COLOR          0    0      0      *
    REFLECT        0    0      0      *
    FILTER         255  255    255    *
    SPECULAR       255  255    255    *
    DITHERING      *    *      *      255
    HARDNESS       *    *      *      255
    ROUGHNESS      *    *      *      0
    SHININESS      *    *      *      0     (Very important see below!)

    PHONG = ON
    INDEX = 1.50
    FOG LENGTH = 0.00

    This should give you glass.

    One thing many people get confused by is:

         1) Shininess must be set to ZERO.  If you set this to anything
            but 0, the FILTER setting will not work.  This is just the
            way Imagine works since FILTER usage assumes shininess
            automatically.
         2) No background.  To get glass, you need surroundings.  If you
            render a glass cup on a pure black screen, you'll probably
            just see the highlights.  Adding global colors for Scanline
            and Ray Trace will give your object something to refract.
         3) Ray Trace.  To get refraction of surrounding objects
            exactly, you need to Trace, though scanline WILL approximate
            refractivity.

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

3] The Slice command doesn't work or gives me errors.

    Due to the complexity of doing a 3D slice, sometimes Imagine gives
errors, or actually crashes during this operation.

    Things to do if you plan on using this function are:

         1) Save _ALL_ currently loaded object BEFORE trying to slice.
         2) If you get an error, move one of the objects slightly and
            try again.  Moving one of them may yield a working slice.

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

4] I'm making a house which has many rooms and thus many walls, what is
    the best way of adding walls to the house so that they leave no
    cracks in the corners ?

        Three possible methods ---

        1. You can design your walls to be nice dimensions like 100
           or 1024 instead of 383.38. Place your axis at the corner
           of each wall. Then, to get seamless joints, use "snap to
           grid" in the project editor which will instantly adjust
           your walls to a perfect fit (If wall lengths are multiples
           of the grid line spacing).

        2. Create a 2D outline of the floorplan and extrude it up.
           Then simply pop a ceiling and floor on it.  The floorplan
           could be created either in Imagine or even a paint program
           and then auto-traced.  This means you will have to bust up
           a few polygons to add the windows and doors, but that is a
           minor task if you have a complex floorplan.

        3. A cheesy option is to make your walls too big. Then
           INTERSECT them. You get a mess BEHIND the wall, but if you
           don't look there, you'll never see it.


      wall 1           |
     ------------------+--
               \|/     |
      bug-eyed O.O     | wall 2
        monster v
                       |
                       |
      camera X

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

5] When I select a group of points in the DETAIL editor, all I can do
   is drag them... it doesn't let me ROTATE or SCALE that clump of
   selected points.

        Imagine will let you move selected points, as well as rotate
and scale them. The limitation is that you cannot do this interactively
in Version 1.1 or earlier by using the mouse: The Transform command does
the manipulation. The picked points can be translated, scaled, rotated,
and positioned INDEPENDENTLY of the rest of the object. Rotations and
scalings all use the object's axis a reference point.  Absolute
positioning will move the FIRST point you pick to the location you
choose, and the rest of the picked points will be translated an equal
amount.  Interactive dragging is accomplished using the "drag points"
mode.

        Note: Versions 2.0 and later support interactive point editing.

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

6] List of common Index of Refractions (and not so common too!)

         (All items except Vacuum are in alphabetical order)
         (STP = Standard Temperature and Pressure)

         MATERIAL                      Index
         -------------------------------------
         Vacuum ...................... 1.00000 (exactly)

         Air (STP).................... 1.00029
         Acetone ..................... 1.36
         Alcohol ..................... 1.329
         Amorphous Selenium .......... 2.92
         Calspar1 .................... 1.66
         Calspar2 .................... 1.486
         Carbon Disulfide ............ 1.63
         Chromium Oxide .............. 2.705
         Copper Oxide ................ 2.705
         Crown Glass ................. 1.52
         Crystal ..................... 2.00
         Diamond ..................... 2.417
         Emerald ..................... 1.57
         Ethyl Alcohol ............... 1.36
         Flourite .................... 1.434
         Fused Quartz ................ 1.46
         Heaviest Flint Glass ........ 1.89
         Heavy Flint Glass ........... 1.65
         Glass ....................... 1.5
         Ice ......................... 1.309
         Iodine Crystal .............. 3.34
         Lapis Lazuli ................ 1.61
         Light Flint Glass ........... 1.575
         Liquid Carbon Dioxide ....... 1.20
         Polystyrene ................. 1.55
         Quartz 1 .................... 1.644
         Quartz 2 .................... 1.553
         Ruby ........................ 1.77
         Sapphire .................... 1.77
         Sodium Chloride (Salt) 1 .... 1.544
         Sodium Chloride (Salt) 2 .... 1.644
         Sugar Solution (30%) ........ 1.38
         Sugar Solution (80%) ........ 1.49
         Topaz ....................... 1.61
         Water (20 C) ................ 1.333
         Zinc Crown Glass ............ 1.517

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

7] How do you make mirrors?

        The trick with mirrors (or especially chrome-like objects) is
not setting the attributes of the mirror correctly, but making sure that
the environment is set up so something will be reflected into the
camera.

        If a mirror is TOO reflective, the mirror can actually become
invisible!  This is because the mirror's own flat glass/metal flat
coloring is overwhelmed by all the reflected light.  You see a PERFECT
reflected image, so the object itself isn't shown.  This is especially
true with flat mirrors.

        Some attributes that give a nice mirror polish:

                       RED  GREEN  BLUE   VALUE
        COLOR          150  150    150    *
        REFLECT        200  200    210    *     (a bit of a blue tint)
        FILTER         0    0      0      *
        SPECULAR       255  255    255    *
        DITHERING      *    *      *      255
        HARDNESS       *    *      *      255
        ROUGHNESS      *    *      *      0
        SHININESS      *    *      *      0

        PHONG = ON
        INDEX = 1.00
        FOG LENGTH = 0.00

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

8] How do I make "metals" and what are some good gold attributes?

        One thing you can do to make your objects look more like metal
is to give them a specular setting close to the main color of the
object, but higher in intensity.  One mistake is to often make the
specular a pure white.  This makes objects look more like plastic than
metal.  For example, if you are trying to make gold, don't make the
specular pure white, but try a bright yellow or yellow/orange creame
color.

        Another problem is that many metals reflect the world.  For
example a chrome ball is pretty much just a shiny mirror.  Thus, if you
want to make realistic metals you will need to at least simulate
reflection. This can be done by adding a global reflect map, doing a
true ray trace or even just setting sky colors in the stage editor.


        You can use the following Attribute setting for a default gold:

                       RED  GREEN  BLUE   VALUE
        COLOR          205  205    80     *
        REFLECT        180  160    125    *
        FILTER         0    0      0      *
        SPECULAR       255  255    160    *
        DITHERING      *    *      *      255
        HARDNESS       *    *      *      255
        ROUGHNESS      *    *      *      0
        SHININESS      *    *      *      0

        PHONG = ON
        INDEX = 1.00
        FOG LENGTH = 0.00

        This should give you something close to gold.  Note that the
reflect values are fairly high.  You may wish to lower them to see how
it would look if you don't have anything to reflect etc...

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

9] Is there a quick way to add faces to my object without using the
   Slice command?

        Here is a neat trick to add faces.  This method works best with
an object that is basially concave (such as a circle).

        1] Make the outline of your object, i.e.: points and edges.
        2] Extrude the object a distance away.
        3] Pick all the points that were just made...i.e.: The ones
           that now comprise the back face.  Using Bounding box
           selection would probably be helpful.
        4] Choose Join!
        5] Translate the now 1 pt back on the Y axis by the distance
           you extruded from, and position the point somewhere in the
           center of the object.

        The object is now a solid faced object with all faces connected
to one point on the center, just like the primitive disk object.

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

10] How do I make "wireframe" objects?

        There are at least two methods to simulate wireframe objects
using Imagine (version 2.9 or higher), the first is memory expensive,
it uses  the Latticize function, the second uses new Death Star
textures family (again, only 2.9 or higher):

    - Use the Latticize function and enter a value of about -0.05 in
      the requester.  This will turn your entire object into a wire-
      frame, made up form narrow tubes.  If you just want part of the
      object wireframed, then select the edges you want in Pick Edges
      mode and perform the Lattice from there.  This adds a lot of extra
      polygons though, a sample primitive sphere (24x12 sections) needs
      14,608 bytes before, 92,224 bytes after the Latticize function.

Here's another way for creating the wireframe with square or rectangular
wireframe openings:

    - Set the objects filter values to 255, 255, 255.  Apply one of the
      Death Star family of textures to the object.  Set the Bevel Filter
      value to 0 (zero). What you get is the bevel portion of the
      texture showing only.  Voila! "Wireframe".  Of course, you may or
      may not want to adjust the bevel width and the bevel slope.

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

11] How can I create seashells?

Tutorial by Gabriele Scibilia:

        The following 10 steps show how obtain a scallop  sea-shell  (or
something similar to it!):

        - Add axis
        - Add lines like this (use front view):

                                z
                    __    ...   |       ...    __
                .__|  |__|      +---x      |__|  |__.

              -130         .... 0 ....              130

        - Invoke the extrude req:
                to length 200
                scale x   0.5
                sections  10
        - Add a primitive tube: radius 120
        - Scale down the tube: 70% only y (shift-y)
        - Adjust the tube position to cut the extruded shape like this:
                          _________
                         /         \
                        /\         /\        top view
                       /__\_______/__\

                        |           |
                      cutted      cutted

        - Select extruded shape then tube and slice them
        - Delete resulting objs except the 2 'planes'
          ('planes' should be part.2 and part.3):
                          _________
              part.2     /---------\

                           and this          top view
                          _________
                         /         \
              part.3    /           \
                        \_         _/
                          ---------

        - Select first part.2 and then part.3, join them
        - Invoke mold req and conform to sphere:
                sphere radius 100
                object radius 320

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

12] May I use more than four textures in Imagine v2.0?

        Yes and no, to use more than four textures using Imagine v2.0
You can use 'Add axis' function, define texture/s (the axis one/s) with
'Apply to children' gadget on.  Now You can group the axis to the object
to avoid four textures limit, just one note:  this little tip has some
side effects with layered textures, just try it.

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

13] How do I make realistic clouds?

        There was several way to simulate 2d "non-realistic" clouds
to use as background, You can:

        a.  map some digitized pictures on a plane or a semisphere
            (or use a so called scenery generator and/or a mandelbrot
            generator utility like FractInt);
        b.  use a mix of textures like filter noize and color noize
            (i.e filnoiz2, colrnoiz2, Imagine v2.9+) on two planes,
            the nearest to camera with white shades, the second with
            gray ones (isnt it overcast?).

        How about realistic 3d clouds?  I can advise You to map (with
flat color map and flat filter map) or to use textures (the ones above)
on many planes or shapes one behind the other, it can be a little tip.


Tips by Mike McCool:

        This may be a long shot, as I've only tried this technique for a
cloud cover.  That is, a blanket of clouds over a landscape I'm looking
down on from only a couple of miles up--not from outer space.

        For this effect, I use a plane, and two Essence Textures.  But I
see no reason why it might not work using a sphere, slightly larger than
the diameter of your planet, to simulate an atmosphere.

        (This idea for a cloudcover was first posted, BTW, back in Oct
of 1994, and I hope the generous fellow who shared it with us will
forgive my deleting his name from the end of his post.  Who cares about
the author, right?  Just use him, suck him dry, and discard him, like
TopGun Vampire).


        Make your slightly larger sphere, make it a cloudy color, near
white on all the color guns, and with transparency values all at about
40.


        Apply the CLUSTERBUMP texture:

        clump scale:      5000
        cluster scale:    3.3676
        clump coverage:   1
        edge color fade:  0.6
        clump bump:       0.3
        cluster bump:     0.6
        cluster red:      200
        cluster green:    200
        cluster blue:     200

        all other settings at 0, to make a nice puffy cloudcover.

        To tear holes in this layer, so your planet's visible through
the clouds, apply the BLOBF texture:

        initial scale:    120
        #of scales:       4
        scale ratio:      0.4
        amplitude ratio:  0.4
        time ratio:       0.4
        time:             0
        T1 start:         0.2
        T1 end:           0.4
        T2 start:         0.8
        T2 end:           0.96
        Filter red:       255
        Filter green:     255
        Filter blue:      255

        Raytrace (sorry) and shadows should be on, and the textures are
animatable, for a nice kind of cyclonic disturbance effect.

      This is all in my head for anything but planes over flat ground;
I haven't tried it for spheres.

      Again, thanks to that author who first posted this idea back in
October.  I've used it with great fun ever since, and can't wait to try
it on a planetary scale.

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

14] How do I create visible light beams?

        Here it is an extract from a discussion between Charles
Blaquiere and P.Sauvageau:

PS>     I have find that the best way to make visible light is to use
PS> conical shaped bright objects. I use linear texture to augment
PS> transparency along the y axis, so the cone is semi-transparent
PS> (160-160-160) at the source and full transparent (255) at the end.

CB>     In addition, you could use the Ghost or Fakely textures; they
CB> would give you more control over the transparency falloff. This is
CB> off the top of my head, BTW; I haven't actually tried it to see if
CB> it gives better/worse results than plain ole fog.

PS>     One thing that I have done is to use FilterNoize applied on a
PS> parent axis, with "Apply to children".  When I rotate the light
PS> cone, I do not move the parent axis.  This way, you will see the
PS> light beem moving in an immobile cloud of irregular smoke or fog.
PS>     One of the problem I encoutered is that Filter Noise seem to
PS> override the linear transparency setting, so the beem do not appear
PS> to vanish as it come farther from the light source.

PS>     A conical lightsource is cast in the Y axis direction and the
PS> linear texture extend in the Z direction, so you will have to rotate
PS> the texture axis to have it's Z pointing in the same direction as
PS> the light source Y axis.  The transition lenght of the texture must
PS> be a little shorter than the lenght of the object or the edge of the
PS> cone will be visible.  Make the cone object transparency to 150, and
PS> the texture 255.  Make the cone object bright.

PS>     A very interesting effect can be made with this kind of light
PS> beem in an animation: I wanted the light beem to appear to be casted
PS> through smoke or fog.  I applied a pastella texture on the cone to
PS> make it appear to be more irregular, but when the light move, the
PS> effect look verry artificial. So I added a parent axis to the light.
PS>     This axis have the pastella texture with "apply to children"
PS> property. To animate the light beam, I moved it in the cycle editor,
PS> while keeping the parent axis untouched.  When animated, the light
PS> beem seem to move in an immobile cloud.

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

15] How can I simulate underwater ambient?
    (little tip by Curcio Nicholas)

        Enter the detail editor and follow these six steps:

        1.  Take a sphere and make it a blue color;
        2.  Remove approx. the top 2/3 of the sphere;
        3.  Apply the "crumpled" texture (3.x);
        4.  Apply the "transpar" texture (3.x);
        5.  Add an axis, and make it white light source;
        6.  Place the axis above the piece of sphere and group them.

        Enter the stage editor, place this object high above your scene;
the light coming through the crumpled spots makes a great underwater
effect.

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

16] Does anyone have suggestions for emulating soft shadows?

        Again, there are many working methods to simulate soft shadows
using Imagine, try these:

    - Place two lights in the exact same location.  One will have the
      normal intensity that You want to illuminate Your scene & cast
      shadows.  The 2nd light is less intense and doesn't cast shadows.

    - 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.


    - Simulate soft shadows by using a bunch of lights closely placed on
      a plane (not a plane object, just a mathmatical plane)
      perpendicular to the stuff You want rendered.  You may get some
      banding doing this, but with enough tweeking, the results are
      pretty good.   Note:  The total amount of light coming out of this
      light-pack should add up to no more than 255 in any one color if
      You're using non-diminishing light sources.  For example, if You
      are using 10 light sources and you want a white light, set all the
      color params to 25.5.  It's easiest to build all the lights by
      using axes in the detail editor and them group them (don't forget
      to make them all shadow casting).


Tips by Martin Keitel:

        There is a trick that might work at least for rather simple
objects (like spheres).  Add the fakely-texture on your object so that
it affects the filter.  Adjust the parameters so that the object is
fully transparent in the edges (255, 255, 255) and just a little in the
middle (or not at all, if you want a dark shadow).  Remove all the other
textures to speed up rendering.  Render in ray trace and you get a soft
shadow.  Oops!  The object seems a little fuzzy.  No problem.  Now
render the scene again so that there is only the object (or objects)
that was changed.  This time use the original object with it's proper
textures.  It will replace the fuzzy object, but the soft shadow will
remain.  It might be convinient to use layers in this...

        Oh, I forgot to mention that when you render the scene again
with only the shadow casting object, you must of course use the previous
picture as backdrop image.  Maybe you figured out this yourself.  One
more thing: Fakely-texture uses the angle between the object's surface
and the viewpoint to determine the effect.  So it really works fine for
soft shadows only on round objects.  Is there a texture that changes
filter simply according to the distance from the object's axis?  Ghost
won't do, because it needs a fog object, and fog objects don't cast
shadows.

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

17] Can I create 2d/3d smoke effects?  How?

Tips by Andrew Andrew McDonald:

        I've just been playing with the Nebular texture to create a
little animated smoke. Works great, and I just thought some of you with
3.0 might make some use of this info.

        Remember to render fog objects in front of a background object,
and that this texture will apply to the area bounded by the texture
axis, not the entire object. Scale the texture axis to affect the shape
of the fog.

General Notes:

        Noise 1 seems to affect the quality of the swirls. Higher
numbers adjust the thickness and reduce the transparency. Noise 2
affects color transitions, color intensity of nebular color as set in
texture requester, and color mixture, or grain.  Grain appears as a
very pointillated surface, as if there are thousands of dots of color
rather than a smooth gradation or defined boundaries between object and
nebula colors.  Higher numbers of Noise 2 intensify the nebular color
and increase grain.

        Fog length and the 'T' value work together to determine amount
and density of the fog appearing on the object.  For stills I would set
the 'T' value between .6 and .8, object fog length at .1, and adjust
the 'Fog Length at T' to get the right density of fog. I would use the
'T' value combined with some of the noise values to create a fluctuating
fog, or even to morph from a dense fog to one very nearly dissipated.


        A nice, swirly smoke might use the following attributes in the
nebular texture requester.  I used these on a sphere primitive with
diameter of 300, so use that number as a reference to fog length.

        Object color:   R:150   G:150   B:175

        Object Fog length:      .1

        Nebular attributes:
                Fog Length at T:500
                T:.8
                Noise 1 Magnitude:5.0
                Noise 1 Velocity:1.0
                Noise 2 Magnitude:.2
                Noise 2 Velocity:10.0
                R:150   G:100   B:225

        The texture axis forms a square completely inside the sphere
object, whose corners touch the inside surface of the sphere.

Tutorial by Massimiliano Marras:

        - Detail editor
                - Add primitives: sphere
                - Attributes: color 255,255,255      fog 140
                        clrnoiz texture:
                        color 140,140,140      r,g,b,color vary 0
                - Particles:  cube
                        random align
                        interpolated
                        dimension 150 units
                - Save obj


        - Action editor:
                - Add particle effect to loaded sphere
                  (to all anim frames)
                        emission
                        travel dista 200 units
                        scaling 1
                        time to terminal h 2
                        elasticity 50
                        time to terminal z TOT/2
                        velocity .5
                        min angle x -5
                        max angle x 5
                        wind velocity 5
                        wind angle 33
                        wind start TOT*(-1)
                        wind stop TOT
                        emission 95%
                        SET ALL OTHER VALUES TO 0

                        TOT = number of tot frames

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

18] How bones work (by Lesk and Mark Decker)?

Tutorial by Lesk:

        - Detail editor:
                - Add primitives: tube
                        Radius = 30
                        Height = 300
                        Circolar sections = 12
                        Vertical sections = 3
                        close both bottom and top

        Looking the front view You should have a similar shape:

                ......
                ||||||  top  section
                ......
                ||||||  mid  section
                ......
                ||||||  base section
                ......

        Note that when we refer to a section that means the points
above and below are selected.  For example, the top section is:

                ......
                ||||||
                ......

        The last row of points is used twice, once for top section and
once for mid one.

                - Select tube
                - Mode, pick faces
                - Pick method, drag box
                - Shift select top section (points above and below)
                - Functions, make subgroup, tip1
                - Deselect faces
                - Shift select mid (all pts above and below mid faces)
                - Functions, make subgroup mid1
                - Deselect faces
                - Shift select base section
                - Functions, make subgroup base1
                - Deselect faces
                - Shift select top and mid section
                - Functions, make subgroup midall
                - Deselect faces
                - Shift select top, mid, and base
                - Functions, make subgroup baseall
                - Deselect faces

        If you think about this for a minute it will all make sense
especially concerning how this thing is going to bend.

                - Mode, pick groups
                - Pick method, points
                - Object, add axis
                - Select this axis
                - Move axis to center of tip1 (top section)
                - Deselect axis
                - Object, add axis
                - Select axis
                - Move axis to center of mid1 (mid section)
                - Deselect axis
                - Object, add axis
                - Select axis
                - Move axis to center of base1 (mid section)
                - Deselect axis

        Now comes the tricky part the order here is very important and
You may have to try this a few times until it works just right.
        Use the find requester and choose the axis in the base section,
doing it this way should make the order correct.

                - Mode, pick object
                - Select axis for object
                - Shift select axis in base1
                - States, group
                - Deselect
                - Select axis in base1
                - Shift select axis in mid1
                - States, group
                - Deselect
                - Select axis in mid1
                - Shift select axis in tip1
                - States, group
                - Deselect

        What You have done here is simply grouped your axis.  You now
want to make certain that these axis are in the proper order so that
when You bend say Your finger, they move just like Your finger would
top to bottom.  If they are out of order it will still work but it would
look like some double jointed contortionist...

        Go back to group mode and check this out, and make very certain
that the order is right. Click on the tip axis and it should be the only
one blue.  Deselect it and click on the axis in the mid section, both it
and tip axis should be highlighted.  Deselect them and click on the axis
in base1 and all three axis should turn blue. Now the hard part: go back
to pick object mode and then click on the object axis, it should be blue
with a yellow line connecting it to the base1 axis.
        If none of the above is correct all progress is at a halt, go
back, remove all the groups and try it again this order is important!

        So either clear it all out and start the project over or go back
to group mode, select an axis and ungroup, repeating until everthing is
ungrouped.  Make sure there are no groupings at all!  Then go back to
object mode pick and sadly start again. You will get this, it just takes
a little practice.  Also this is not a replacement for the manual read
through it so You have the concepts, believe me it will really help.

        Now having that done correctly we can move on make sure nothing
is selected and go back to pick group mode.

                - Select axis in tip1
                - States, bones subgroups
                        bigsub: browse tip1
                        smallsub: browse tip1
                - Select axis in mid1
                - States, bones subgroups
                        bigsub: browse midall
                        smallsub: browse mid1
                - Select axis in base1
                - States, bones subgroups
                        bigsub: browse baseall
                        smallsub: browse base1
                - Save entire object/group now

        If you think about this it really makes sense what has happened
at this point.

                - States, create default state
                - Select buttons shape and grouping
                - States, create start state
                - Deselect all
                - Select axis tip1 and rotate in the x 30 degrees
                - Select entire object
                - States, bones update
                - States, create bendtip1
                - Select axis in tip1 and rotate another 30 degrees in x
                - Deselect all
                - Select axis in mid1 and rotate it in x 30 degrees
                - Select entire object
                - States, bones update
                - States, states create midbend
                - Deselect all
                - Select axis in tip and rotate 30 degrees in x
                - Select axis in mid and rotate 30 degrees in x
                - Select axis in base and rotate 30 degrees in x
                - Select entire object
                - States, bones update
                - States, create basebend
                - Save entire group again
                - States, make stateanim
                        start
                                15
                        bendtip
                                15
                        midbend
                                15
                        basebend
                                15
                        start
                                0
                - States, play stateanim

        I sure hope this works for You and if You find any errors or
things that just don't work feel free to let me know.

Tips by Mark Decker:

        I learned a few things that might help somebody else along:


1.      Once you are in Pick Objects, pick first the parent axis, then
the child axis.  In Lesk's tube example, if the axes are numbered from
top to bottom, first pick axis number two, then hold down shift and pick
axis number one and group.  Next pick axis number three, then hold down
shift and pick axis number 2, and so on down selecting the object itself
followed by the "root" bone and grouping them last.  When I first tried
this I was using the bounding box to pick both axes at once, and I think
it may have been picking them in the wrong order.

2.      It helps immensely to move any axes out of the way (shift M
moves the axis of an object but leaves the object in place) so that they
do not overlap while grouping.  Once the grouping is correct, you can
move the axis back into place without affecting the grouping.

3.      Subgroup assignment is probably the trickiest procedure and was
at the start the hardest part for me to grasp.  It has not been well
explained to date, but I'll see if I can help without muddying the
waters any further.  Each axis gets two subgroups assigned to it,
helpfully referred to as "Big" and "Small".  To the best of my
understanding, the Big subgroup is the set of all faces which will be
affected by motion of the axis.  If a face is not in the Big subgroup,
its never going to change no matter what that particular axis does.  The
Small subgroup is a subset of the Big subgroup, which means it can only
contain faces which are also in the Big subgroup, but usually won't
contain all of them.  The Small subgroup moves and rotates with the
axis, but all of its faces keep their shape and orientation with respect
to each other.
        So if the faces outside the Big subgroup don't change, and the
faces inside the Small subgroup don't change shape, all that's left is
the faces which _ARE_ in the Big subgroup, but _ARE NOT_ in the Small
subgroup.  These faces form the actual joint, and actually stretch and
deform to keep the other two sets (the outside and the Small subgroup)
smoothly connected.
        Maybe an example will help.  Think of a robotoid arm with no
fingers, no wrist.  It has two parts, a forearm and an upper arm, and
hence two bones (axes). The parent axis (bone) sits at the center of the
shoulder, with its Z axis pointing at the elbow.  The child axis sits at
the center of the elbow, with its Z axis pointing at what in a more
highly evolved robotoid would be the hand.
        You need two subgroups for each bone.  Lets start with the
forearm.  The Big subgroup for the forearm will include all of the
forearm and just a little of the upper arm above the elbow, enough to
allow the joint to stretch to maintain a smooth connection.  The Small
subgroup will contain most of the forearm, up to just below the elbow.
The faces around the elbow which are in the Big subgroup but are not in
the Small subgroup will be the ones which stretch and deform to allow
the joint to connect smoothly.
        On the upper arm, the Big subgroup will contain all of the
forearm, all of the upper arm, and a little of the shoulder it is
attached to.  The Small subgroup contains all of the forearm, and most
of the upper arm up to just below the shoulder.  Again, it is the faces
between these two where all of the deformation takes place.

4.      Once your grouping is all set up, go back to Pick Groups and
pick the actual object which is the parent of all these bones.  All the
axes should be turn blue (in the default color scheme) to indicate that
they have been picked as well.  Then create your "DEFAULT" state, being
sure to select both Shape and Groups.  You may need to select properties
as well if you want to do brush or texture tacking, but I'm still having
problems with this myself, so I'm not sure.

5.      In order to manipulate the bones, you need to be in Pick Groups
mode. You have to pick the axis you want to manipulate, rotate (or move)
it, and accept the change.  To see the result you have to pick the base
object again (still in Group mode) and select Update Bones and it will
then warp your object to conform to the new bone positions.

This has gotten a lot more long winded than I intended, but I hope it
helps clarify a few things for someone.

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

19] Halo around light sources.

        There are several ways of doing this.  The first method works
under version 2.0 and 3.0, it takes the most work, but looks terrific if
done correctly.  The second method works under 2.0 and 3.0, and is
easier, 3.0's version looks better due to the textures involved.  The
third method use Lens Flare and works only under 3.0.

        You can refer to an easy example, a simple lightbulb.  Think 2D
for a bit, remember that the visible lightsource described is the type
you'd see on film.  What's a light look like?  Well, there's a central
disk of light that seems to be a constant brightness, the bulb itself.
As you go further outward a secondary disk of light surrounds the
central disk: this is the first halo, it is roughly twice twice the size
of the central disk.  It fades out rather quicky, it's, essentially, the
part of the light that "burns" the film.  Go further outward.  There's a
second halo, it's very dim and eventually fades out.  This halo varies
in size, but can usually be set to eight times the size of the
original disk.  This is the halo that is create when the light is
dispersed by atmospheric conditions.  So with that in mind:

Radial texture method:

        - Create a disk using Imagine's standard disk parameters.
        - Copy the disk and scale the new one by a factor of two.
        - Copy the larger disk and scale the new one by a factor of
          four.  You should now have three disks of varying size.
        - Position the disks so that the smallest is in front of the
          middlesized.  The middlesized is in front of the largest.

        - Make the smallest disk Bright with a Color of 255, 255, 255.
          Also, make it a lightsource.

        - Apply Radial textures to the middlesized and largest disks.

        - The middlesized disk should be Bright and have a Color of
          150, 150, 255.  The Radial texture should be set so that the
          disk's transparency is set to 0, 0, 0 at the center.  Create a
          transition distance over the radius of the disk so that
          transparency is 255, 255, 255 at the disk's edge. You want the
          disk's color to fade as it moves toward the edge of the disk.

        - The larger disk should be Bright and have a Color of
          255, 255, 255 and a Transparency of 170, 170, 170.  Set the
          Radial texture so that the color fades to total transparency
          (255, 255, 255) at the disk's edge.

        - Transform the smallest disk's axis ONLY.  Bring up the
          Transformation Requester, Rotate the Z axis 180 degree. Select
          the Transform Axis Only button and Perform. The disk's Y axis
          should be pointing exactly opposite the other disks' Y axis.

        - Group the three disks together using the smallest disk as the
          Parent.

        This is a basic "Light w/halo" object. When rendering it be sure
to always point the Y axis at the camera.  It's easy to do: just Align
Y axis to Track to Object Camera.  Render that, and see what you get. In
this example the smallest disk acts like the bright lightbulb, the
second disk acts like the film burn area, and the third disk acts like
the atmospheric dispersion area.  The object, being 2D, has some
limitations.
        A primary limitation is that this object only works well in
Scanline situations, this is because in Trace Mode the two larger
Radial mapped spheres block the smaller disk's light travelling
backwards.  To work around it create an axis, make it a Lightsource,
place it behind the larger disk, group it to the smallest disk.  It
isn't infallible, however...
        Experiment with values.  The Color values given above were for
a standard high intesity lightsource.  Always remember what your
lightsource would look like in the real world.


Fog method:

        - Create a primitive sphere.
        - Make it Bright with the Color values 255, 255, 255.
        - Copy the sphere and scale it slightly larger than the original
          sphere primitive.
        - Make this sphere a Fog object by experimenting with Fog Length
          values.  Color it as necessary.
        - For those with Imagine v3.0 assign the Ghost texture to the
          foggy sphere, experiment with values.



If you're using Imagine 3.0  you can use the Sparkle texture. If you've
downloaded Milan's textures (BTW, Thanx, Milan!) there is one itx in
there that is useful, but my memory fails me as to the name.  I don't
have essence, so I don't know what there might be in there.  Hope this
helps...


Lens flare:

        You could use the Lens Flare effect that comes with Imagine 3.0,
just disable the flaring and have only the halo turned on.  Easy.

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

20] Can a reflective object inside a glass tube render properly?

        You have discovered one of the famous "behind glass" raytrace
bugs that have ALWAYS plagued Imagine.  You also cannot get a glass
attribute inside a glass attribute object to render!  There is NOTHING
you can do but try to fake the effect (i.e. wrap a brushmap around your
sphere to imitate the sourroundings,maybe a global brushmap would work?)
        A possibly solution is to copy your glass tube and scale it
slightly smaller or larger so you get a double-walled tube.  You have to
use a global map and an animated chrome spheres going up the tube.  They
all reflected the global map correctly.
        So, what you should do is to make the glass-tube have both an
inner AND an outer wall (make two tubes, one slightly smaller than the
other and join them to a single object).  Then put your chrome ball
inside.
        The secret is that the ray has to travel trough two (2) faces
with glass-attribute-settings (or any other transparent material for
that matter).

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

21] Help with Slice function, By J. Goldman.

        Slice is so weird.  Here are a few things I've discovered about
Slicing.

        Interestingly, you can Slice anything.  You do not have to have
multiple objects to perform a slice.
        So what?  Well, most of the slice problems I've run into arise
from messed up object geometry.  For instance, say you want to use
boolean functions to create a complex object, *NEVER* Join and Merge
objects you want to later Slice.  It doesn't create sliceable geometry,
always Slice objects together and then Merge, this usually insures
good geometry.

        To find out whether an object will perform well under a Slice,
perform Slice on the single object itself, if you get errors the object
will not Slice well in the future.
        If that single object actually separates into multiple parts it
means the object didn't have continuous geometry to begin with.  Usually
because of duplicate points. It probably won't slice well in the future.
        Here's an example. Slice a primitive sphere, it should result in
one sphere.
        Now take two spheres, Join and Merge them and Slice. You'd think
it would act like a single object.  It should Slice to itself. If you do
not get an error you'll get multiple objects proving that the object
geometry was bad.
        In any case you must fix the geometry. If your object errors you
are fairly screwed unless you have a saved copy of the object with good
geometry (i.e. an object saved before a function messed with its
geometry).
        If your object splits into multiple objects you must Merge those
objects to create continuous geometry. Here's where I'm not sure what is
really true.  Can someone confirm this?
        If you Merge an object duplicate points are not erradicated, if
you Merge an object in Points Mode duplicate points WILL be erradicated.
Is this true?  If so, then to Join Sliced objects you should Merge
objects AND points.

        So, as advice try Slicing each individual object to be sliced.
Make sure those are okay.  If they are, Slice 'em.  Merge (or Join and
Merge) the resulting objects/parts the way you want (deleting
unneccesary parts), and Slice the new object.  If THAT'S okay then the
next Slice should work.
        I've gotten into the habit of testing the 'Sliceability' of
every object I will Slice and every object I have Sliced.  I rarely run
into problems.
        The one downside to Slicing everything (as opposed to just
Joining) is that your poly count goes way up.
        Imagine does need a better Slice/Boolean function...

        Of course, if it's an edge to close to an edge problem you could
just offset one of the objects to be sliced slightly...

        Hope some of this helps...

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

22] Fog object and global fog: undersea fog spotlight.

Tips by Dylan Neill:

        I was reading through an old IML archive and saw that someone
said that fog objects didn't work in global fog.  Well I got news for
you!  It does!  So I've made a little underwater scene with low rolling
hills along the ocean floor and a submarine that appears from out of the
fog.  Ok so heres how you make a cool fog spotlight...


        - Add a primative cone (and leave it OPEN at the bottom for the
          best effect)
        - Press F1 to select it
        - Go into attributes
                - Set the fog length to 50
                - Make it bright
                - Add the ghost texture with these settings:
                        150    fog length at T
                        1      T
                - Hit OK and OK to get back to the detail editor
        - Add an axis
        - Select it with F1
        - Go into the transformation requester
        - Click position and type 100 in the Z box.  Then OK

The axis should be sitting on the top of the cone.

        - Rotate it -90 degrees around the X axis so that the Y axis
          points down into the cone.
        - Press s and scale the whole axis object by a factor of 1.56
          and press space
        - Press s then l then shift Y to and scale it by a factor of 2.

The Y axis should now reach all the way down the cone.

        - Go into attributes
                - Click light
                - Click on point source, round shape, cast shadows
                - Click OK
                - Add the light texture 'softedge' with default settings
                - Click OK to go back to detail editor.
        - Select both the axis and the cone and select group
        - Save it

        And now you have a fog spot light to rival those of Lightwave.
One thing to note though is that you must keep the wide end of the
object hidden in what ever you're lighting up. eg. if you are pointing
it at the ground, scale it so that the wide end is underground. You can
make another one which has a closed bottom but it doesn't look rounded
like this one.  Render two, side by side and find out.


Notes by Randy R. Wall:

        Well, I can tell you why you think the fog object is working and
that's because you have the ghost texture added to it, but I can tell
you if you take this texture off the object it will not render the fog
thicker for the object.  In fact even with the Ghost texture it still
doesn't look completly correct at the edges.  Try using it with a thick
global fog and you will see what I'm talking about.

        It does produce an effect similar to what one would expect, and
in a light fog would probably work just fine.  But I wouldn't go so far
as to say fog objects do render correctly.  Try a fog object with a
nebula, fogtop or fogpaint textures and you will see that the fog object
becomes clear in spots.

        Anyways, I'm not knocking your fog spotlight.  It probably works
great.  It looks familar to something I posted a tutorial on for 2.0 a
long while back.  But modified a bit for 3.0.  Not that thats what you
did.  I'm just saying it looks familar, but then many effects do.

        But Fog objects by themself still do not make the fog thicker.

        But on the other side this can produce a nice shield effect for
something.

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

23] Disco ball effect: how simulate some sort of radiosity.

Alan Gordie:

        Last night I was trying to do a disco ball effect, you know like
saturday night fever:)

        I made a primitive sphere and scaled and rotated selected points
to make angular patches on the sphere then made it reflective 90% and
put it inside of a box (extruded plane) then aimed two lights from 2
angles.  Ok so far, but...

...when I render, I can see the reflection of the light on the wall in
the sphere, but the light shining off the sphere is not hitting any of
the walls...argh

        Is this something which Imagine cannot do or am I doing
something wrong?


Curcio Nicholas:

        No raytracer (that I know of) can do this.  To reflect lights
you need a radiosity raytracer.  These aren't too common and take
forever to render scenes.

        What you could do is make some sort of transparency map (or use
the transpar.itx texture with something else as I did with the
underwater lighting) and put a light source inside the disco ball so
that the light shines out from the ball.


Goldman:

        Actually, it's something ray-tracers in general can't do.
Scenes are rendered opposite to convention.  That is, a ray is traced
from the camera to a light, not from the light to the camera.
Therefore, light reflecting off of objects, bouncing, and in turn
hitting other objects is not possible.

        A technique exists, called Radiosity, that attempts to simulate
"real-world" lighting effects.  Unfortunately, Imagine (as well as the
majority of commercial software on the market) does not have this
rendering capability.  It's just as well since the process is extremely
processor intensive (read: takes a loooong amount of time), though the
results can be stunning..

        Since 3D visualization is just a simulation anyway, you can fake
the effects with several well placed lights or textures.

        I suppose you could make an inner sphere with lots of holes in
it.  Stick a point lightsource in this and have the whole thing rotate.
It wouldn't be the best method (points of light would be sharp), but it
would do.

        Anyone know what would happen if you made a sphere totally
transparent, but totally reflective?  Would a lightsource (with shadows
enabled) pass through it?  Would the object look like glass from the
outside (because of the high reflectancy) at the same time?  If so, then
take your orignal sphere object, give it 255, 255, 255 filter, and
255, 255, 255 reflect values.  Hopefully, the inner sphere will act as a
gobo/cookie thing while the outer sphere gives the impression of the
disco-ball glass.


Craigh:

        Sorry, ray tracing doesn't work that way (usually)...You need
radiosity.  The portion of the wall will check to see if lights are
pointed at it when it is being shaded, but will NOT check to see if
REFLECTED light is impinging upon it.

One way to do this:

        Use Scanline rendering (or ray-tracing, but make sure the new
lights are outside the disco ball if using ray-tracing).  Set up a
cluster of multi-colored blinking spotlights inside the disco ball that
rotate with it and point outward.

        The original lights will illuminate the disco ball and the new
lights will illuminate the wall with the spinning/blinking effect seen
in your favorite disco-theque!  This will also allow you to use a nice
lens flare since the new spinning spot-lights will occasionally point
directly at the camera!


Randy R. Wall:

        No Imagine won't bounce light off of objects (yet).  But you
could probably make a good fake for it using a Sphere with the RadWind
and Transpar textures.  And an axis set to a point source light inside
of the sphere.

        I haven't tried this but am sure with some work it would shoot
little squares all over your walls as you rotate your disco ball.  One
problem I can think of is you may not be able to have the nice
reflective look that the object you have already tried.  But then with
the correct setting it might be possible.  Maybe the metal texture set
to chrome on the sphere as well might help?

        I'm only gueussing with all of this but do believe the Transpar
texture will be the key to success.


Randy R. Wall:

        Well, sense I had nothing else to do I thought I'd give a quick
try at that Disco Ball and see if what I thought would work would.

        I think it works pretty nice, but there were a few things I did
not try sense I wanted to post something for you before I hit the sack.

        Anyways, heres what I did for a fairly simple Disco Ball, but
one that still looks and works nice.

        - Add a Sphere
        - Load the Chrome Attribute
        - Add the RadWind texture and set it to:

                Radial Scale    -1.0    Color 1 R   255.0
                Z Scaling        3.0    Color 1 G     0.0
                Sweep Division  20.0    Color 1 B     0.0
                Fraction 'On'    1.0    Color 2 R   255.0
                Dist Travelled   0.0    Color 2 G   255.0
                Min Spacing      0.4    Color 2 B   255.0
                Max Spacing      0.4    Reflect Adj   1.0
                Transparancy     0.0

        The colors can be changed to what you like, but its a good idea
to have one a darker color so that when the Transpar texure lights the
walls with the little squares some of them will be darker than others..
It maybe a good idea if you are going to have a couple of colored lights
hitting the Disco Ball to use a grey color like 100,100,100 for the dark
color and 255, 255, 255 for the lighter color.

        Anyways on to the rest of the Disco Ball.

        - Now Add the Transpar texture and leave it at the defaults
        - Now Add an Axis to the center of the ball and set it to a
          Point Source Light and Cast Shodows.

        Now your ready to render it.. If you don't have a lot of things
to reflect or lots of glass objects you maybe able to speed things up by
setting the RSDP in prefs to 2.  If you do have a lot of things to
render than set it to what need be.  But if you want to test out the
Disco ball so you can set it up how YOU like it then I would recomend
putting it in a box with an open end for viewing and set RSDP to 2.
This should work fine for these test.

        The only thing I found I didn't like about it is the squares are
all the same distance apart, but the dark and light colors help break
this up a bit as well as having the windows Min & Max Spacing fairly
large.  You could make these smaller to make the Ball look a bit better
but I didn't like the sqaures on the walls so close together when I did
this.  But then I was testing it in a fairly small box.. I think in a
larger box it might look quite good.  Especially if there were other
things in the room for the squares to interact with.. Anyways something
for you to play with..

        Well I hope you like the looks of it.  I tried the Mosaic
texture on it and that looked pretty cool too, but not quite right. I
think these Disc Ball actually have many different shapes on them so the
produce different shapes on the ground.  But the Mosaic texture was a
bit to much.  I was going to try a combination of a couple of texture,
but thought it would take a while to play around with this and really
only wanted to see how my suggestion would work sense I was only
guessing about it.  And sense it did work I figured I'll leave the
playing around with the textures for you..

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

24] How can I create a candle flame?

Tips by Torgeir Holm:

        Take your basic candle-flame ellipsoid shape and add the
following attributes:

        Fog Length: 0.10

    Texture: Ghost

        Fog length at T: 400
        T: 0.8

    Texture: FogTop

        Fog length at T: 200
        T: 0.5
        Noise Magnitude: 0

        Place the axis so that the origin is in the tip of the flame
and the bottom of the bounding box is 2/3 towards the bottom of the
flame.  With the Z axis pointing up.

    Texture: Fireball

        Color1: 255,255,100
        Color2: 200,030,000
        Noise: 0
        Reflect&Filter 1&2: 0

        Place the axis so that the origin is in the bottom of the flame
and the end of the Y axis is in the tip.

BTW: my object was about 60 units wide, and 150 units tall.

        You can now add a child axis in the middle of your flame and
make it a lightsource.

        To animate this, make sure the Y axis points upward (do this
before adding textures, as their placement is relative to the axis), and
move the the object up along a wavy path with conform to path.  Then
move the path back dovn a mirror copy of itself, so that the flame stays
in the same position.  Makes a really nice and realistic candle-flame.


Tips by Mike Rivers:

        If you have version 3.0 or higher, here's a free candle tip:

        - Make a brushmap with a vertical gadient from the white (top)
          to black (bottom).
        - Then make another brushmap that is solid white.  Apply the
          gradient map to the candle as a 'reflectivity' map and appy
          the solid white map as a 'reflection' map.  This makes the
          candle stick glow like a real lit candle.

========================================================================
                       SECTION 3 - Forms Editor
========================================================================

1] I was working in the forms editor on an object, and loaded it
    into the detail editor for modification.  However, I can't seem
    to be able to get it back into the forms editor!  Help!

        Simply put, you cannot load objects saved from the detail editor
back into the forms editor.  The reason is the forms editor requires
a specified object structure which the detail does not.  Thus, saving
an object in the detail editor loses that information.

        When you work with the forms editor is recommended that you keep
a spare copy of the FORMS OBJECT saved separately from any detail
object. In this way you can then go back and make modifications in the
forms editor.

========================================================================
                       SECTION 4 - Cycle Editor
========================================================================

1] I made this really great animation sequence in the cycle editor,
    but when I set it up in the stage/action editors, the motion of
    the overall object isn't there!

        When using the cycle editor, Imagine only remembers changes in
size, position, and so on in relation to the main parent.  Thus, if you
make a change to the parent object, it gets forgotten.  What this means
is if you make a nifty robot jumping cycle, and make it in the cycle
editor so the robot actually move up etc... all that will be remembered
is the changes to the legs, arms and anything OFF of the PARENT.  The
overall rotations and movements to the main object will be gone.

        Two solutions exist.  One is to simply make those changes in
the stage editor each time you need to.  The second is to group a plain
axis before you start to your object.  (ie: Make the parent have a Null
link).  Then, you can rotate everything by rotating the main child
grouped right under this null axis.  This way you aren't moving the
"parent", and everything will be remembered.

========================================================================
                       SECTION 5 - Spline Editor
========================================================================

1] I tried to import a Postscript font but I got a "Vector not found"
   error.  What does this mean?

        There are a couple of different formats of Postscript files.
If Imagine doesn't like one, it will pop up this or other errors.  In
that case you will either have to use another Postscript file, or find
a software package that will convert it from that format to one Imagine
will load.

========================================================================
          SECTION 6 - Animation, Stage Editor and Action Editor
========================================================================

1] Even though I move an Object/Camera/Light to a new
   POSITION/ALIGNMENT/SIZE in the STAGE editor, Imagine seems to
   'forget' what I did!

    All objects must have timelines split wherever there is a change in
position, alignment or size.  If you do not set this up, Imagine will
forget the changes no matter what.

    Rather than going back and forth to the ACTION editor and adding
timelines, you can have Imagine automatically create the timelines
properly so everything tweens as normal.  There are the "Position Bar",
"Alignment Bar" and "Size Bar" commands under the OBJECT menu in the
STAGE editor.

    So, if you have just gone to a frame and are making a new POSITION,
ALIGNMENT or SIZE for an object (or camera or light) to tween to, press
RIGHT AMIGA and 7/8/9 respectively.  Or use the respective bar commands
from the OBJECT menu.  This will extend or put a 'split' in the timeline
for you (you can check this in the ACTION editor).  Also, don't forget
to "Save Changes"if you want to keep the motion!

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

2] How do I use the Grow Effect?

        To use the grow effect, create an object in the DETAIL editor
that you wish to have 'extrude' over time.  Create a spline path as
normal in the detail editor.  This will be the path the object extrudes
along during the animation.

    GROUP (not join) the object with the PATH AS THE PARENT.  If you do
not make the path the parent, it will not work.  To do this, select the
path, then hold shift and select the object, then select group.  Save
your GROUP for loading in the animation.

    Finally, add the effect in the ACTION editor for the grouped object.

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

3] How do I use the Tumble Effect?

        The tumble effect is used to tumble 1 or more objects during an
animation.  To tumble an object, create your object or objects in the
DETAIL editor.  Still in the detail editor add an axis.

        Group (not join) the AXIS to all the objects you want to tumble
with the AXIS AS THE PARENT.  Then load the GROUP into the STAGE/ACTION
editor and add the effect as normal.

        NOTE: The reason for the null object (axis) as parent is that
Imagine does not TUMBLE the PARENT, just the children.

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

4] How do you get something to roll (at the right speed!) while
   following a path?

        Getting an object to spin (like a plane doing a barrel roll) is
easy- you align to path, then set Y rotation to be from 0 to 360 and it
will do a complete spin. This is not in the right direction for a
rolling ball, though. [Annoying feature- you can't say from 0 to 720 for
two spins, or 0 to 3600 for ten.] To get it to roll I created a second
path, which was basically a larger copy of the first, so the first path
was just inside of the second path. I had an axis (a track) follow this
new, outside path, then used "align to object" to make the sphere point
to the axis.

        Thus, as the ball moved along its path, one end (the positive Y
axis direction) was always pointed at right angles to the direction of
motion.  Is this clear? Now using the "initial Y angle" and "final Y
angle" I set them to 0 and 360 and it rotated as it rolled. As a special
effect, I raised the "track path" a little in the Z direction so the
sphere looks a little bit like a top rolling around, since the spin axis
was not horizontal anymore.

        An alternative would be to make a cycle object, rolling around
the X axis.  This is equally valid, but I did it this way first.

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

5] When I move a tracked Camera in the STAGE editor, it doesn't realign
   and draw the Perspective view correctly!

        If you have Imagine 2.0 or higher, press RIGHT AMIGA and the K
key together, or select "Camera (Re)track" from the OBJECT menu.  This
will make the camera repoint to the track from the new position and will
redraw the perspective view.

        If you have an older version of Imagine (or if you just want to)
you can press RIGHT AMIGA and the C key or select "Goto" from the FRAME
menu.  Go to the current frame you are already on which will cause
imagine to redraw everything.

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

6] I have found that after creating a scene in the Stage editor, and
    then deciding that I want an animation and adjusting the highest
    frame count, my scene gets mangled in the first frame.  Why?

        Well, it seems to me that this will happen if you don't split
your channel bar from the first frame (where you want stuff to be
exactly) to the second frame. I usually setup my scenes so that I have
the first frame all set as it should be and then I do my transformation
from frames 2-whatever. In this way, the first frame is ALWAYS where
it's suppose to be no matter what changes I make in the remaining
animation.  If you look at your channel it should have a break between
frames 1 and 2 and then be continuous (if that's the way your animation
works out) from 2 on.

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

7] How do I use the Sway Effect?

        Sway is used to make several objects oscillate back and forth
on their own axis.  You can use it to create underwater grass, or an
army of those obnoxious red liquid-filled glass birds!

        Just create all the objects you want to animate, then group
them to a parent axis, load the group in the Stage editor, then add the
Sway FX bar in the Action editor.  Sway will make all children of a
parent object oscillate; the parent is unaffected.  The key is in the
grouping: using Sway on a single object will do nothing, since the
parent is never affected and in this case, there would be no children to
affect.

========================================================================
               SECTION 7 - Rendering and the Project Editor
========================================================================

1] Why do objects render fine in Scanline, but disappear in Trace?

    There are 2 possible causes for this.
         1) You are running out of RAM
         2) You objects are outside of the World Boundary

    To check #1 (for the Amiga), pull down The Project editor after you
start a render during the initialization phase.  Click once on the
Workbench backdrop and you should see how much RAM you have on the top
of the screen.  As Imagine starts to render, this will decrease.  If it
becomes close to 0, chances are, that's your problem.  To solve that,
buy more RAM.

    The other possibility is that the objects are outside of the world
boundary.  The world boundary is basically a box in which your objects
are placed.  When you enter the STAGE editor, you are placing objects in
this "virtual box" whose center is 0,0,0.

    When you Trace, Imagine clips ALL objects that fall outside of the
box.  The size of the world boundary is set in the ACTION editor.  In
this editor, there should be an item named GLOBALS.  Whatever numbers
are set in the SIZE timeline becomes the size of the box so that it lies
from +/- Value for X,Y and Z.  The default is no information present,
which Imagine assumes is +/- 1024 units for all 3 coordinates.

        Thus to fix this problem you can:
         1) Scale your entire scene to fit inside the +/- 1024 size
            boundary
         2) Add a size line and set the X,Y,Z to the values you need
            (This can be found by using "coordinates" in the STAGE
            editor and moving the cursor around to find the values)
         3) Add a size line and set the X,Y,Z sizes to 0,0,0.  This will
            force Imagine to calculate the world size for ALL frames
            based on where objects are for the FIRST frame.  This is
            important since if your objects move farther out during
            subsequent frames, you will have to set the size manually
            (see 2 above) since it will now be outside the computed
            boundary, and thus clipped.

    Note: The world boundary has no effect in Scanline rendering.
    Note: Setting the World Size to 0,0,0 regardless of problems will
          usually DECREASE Trace times!

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

2] I have a problem with Filtered objects and the Global Backdrop!

        For some reason, clear or glass like objects will not be clear
when used with a backdrop.  To get around this render with "genlock sky"
and then use an image processing program to composite the rendered image
onto the background pic for each frame.  Fog objects have a similar
problem.

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

3] I have created an animation (Hurrah!) and when I look at each of
    the individual frames, they look just as I thought they might.
    However, when I animate them, anywhere I have applied the
    "roughness" parameter, surfaces look animated...with lots of
    "crawling" effect on them. What gives?

        Roughness should NOT be used on objects that will be animated.
(Unless of course, the "crawley" effect is what you're after). This is
caused by a bug in the roughness algorithm. One of the main work-arounds
suggested, is by using a very small or fine bump-map. Another work-
around is to create a DPaint (or for that matter ANY IFF) multi-gray
shaded screen and apply it as an altitude map.

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

4] What situations, parameters, attribute values, etc. require the most
    trace rendering time?

        The list is long: reflections and refractions increase rendering
time significantly, anti-aliasing (0 longest)-BTW this you must edit in
the .config file and resolve depth (also in .config file), number of
polygons, camera position (obliqueness), size of brush maps and even the
numerical entries of solid textures, resolution, display and render
modes etc etc.

        The big ones are refraction, edge level(antialiasing, reflection
(along with "depth") and #of polygons. Pretty well in that order too.
Remember that a higher refraction index is longer rendering time also.
And yes the scale of the object means a LOT. Imagine uses something
called an *Octree* to calculate the scene.  This is related to the world
size setting which is also discussed here in article number 1 above.
The difference can go from *hours* to minutes, so scale your scene by
the size you make your world.  You can select everything in the scene
(including camera and lights) and scale it interactively.

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

5] How do I get rid of the "Jaggies?"

        The .config file for anti-aliasing defaults to 30. This is ok,
but not great. The best is 0 and final rendering should always be 0. So
you must edit this file every so often (before opening Im) or build a
front end on the work bench (requires programming knowledge, though).
BTW, the anti-aliasing is EDLE in .config file.

        {for those unfamiliar with the term jaggies - they refer to the
way lines drawn by computers tend to haved a jagged or stair stepped
appearance, instead of a smooth continuous line.  This is usually found
more in low resolution images.}

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

6] How do I figure out the pixel aspect for a certain resolution
    display?  I am rendering a picture to be displayed on a macII
    at 1024x768.  Does anyone know the formula or is it device
    dependent?

        Pixel aspect ratio depends both on the aspect ratio of the
display device (your monitor) and the resolution that fits onto that
screen. Most monitors use a 4 x 3 aspect ratio so that to achieve square
1:1 pixels, the resolution must also be 4:3. 1024 x 768 will achieve
this as well as 640 x 480. The Amiga typically uses a non-square aspect
ratio of about 1.2:1 such as 320 x 200, 640 x 400, 768 x 480, etc. So
the pixel ratio can be found using...

  (horiz res. / horiz display size) : (vert res. / vert display size)
If your monitor has a 4:3 aspect, you should have 1:1 pixels.

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

7] When making a disco ball effect, will a SPHERICAL light set at 255
    be bright enough to cause visible spots on the surfaces in a scene?

        No, I bet that a light of 255 won't work too well. So crank
it up to 2000!  Lights are not limited to 255 (It is logical that lights
can be as bright as they want).  Values above 500 or so are pretty
severe; they cast strong shadows, like a very sunny day. Above 3000 or
so and it looks like you're world is lit by nuclear weapons.

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

8] I have a Amiga 3000/25.  How long should it take to do a full
    trace picture with perhaps one transparent (nearly) glass?
    Does 4.5 hours sound reasonable to you?  I am running the
    floating Point version of Imagine.

        The floating point version of Imagine uses inline floating point
code for maximum speed.  It does not use the libraries.  I suspect that
the non-FP version uses the libraries, just in case. You can probably
SPEED UP your trace time SIGNIFICANTLY by scaling up the whole scene in
the stage editor (see question 4 above!). A trace time of 4.5 hours on a
3000/25 definitely a "wee bit" on the high side for a scene as simple as
you describe.

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

9] Is there any particular format that Imagine prefers?  Ham?
    32 Color?  EHB?  24 bit 1000 x 1000?

        The best is a 24-bit image, of course. Anything works, but the
color range of a 24-bit will beat the tar out of a 16 color any day.
Exceptions would be objects with a few discrete colors, like a red,
white, and blue flag. Then a 24-bit and a 4 color image are equal in
quality. Note that Imagine converts them all to 24-bit internally,
though- the memory goes down equally for a 100 by 100 4-color as it does
for a 100 by 100 24-bit.

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

10] I would like to use conical light sources with my rendering,
     is there anyway "see" in wireframe where the light will fall?

Note: In imagine 2.9, the ability to turn on 'Light Lines' was added in
    the Stage editor.  The following describes another way to 'see' the
    light in the Stage editor before this feature was implemented.  Of
    course you can still use this in 2.9 and above.

        For conical lights, the X-axis size determines the radius of the
light beam at the distance set at the Y-axis.  This if a light has a X
size of 50, and a Y-size of 200, the light would have a circle with the
diameter of 100 units at a distance of 200 units from the light's axis
itself.

        You can use this information to create a conical light object in
the detail editor.  By creating a wireframe light, you can then load the
light in and actually "see" and resize it to get an idea for the lights
size.

        Add a primitive cone object.  Then position the axis of the cone
such that it is at the exact tip op the cone object.  Finally rotate and
resize the cone's axis so the Y axis extendes to the end of the cone
and the x-axis (which should allready be set okay) has the diameter of
the cone.

        The above can be done in 4 steps using the transformation
requestor, make sure that the "transform axis only" box is checked
in steps 2,3 and 4:

          1] Add a primitive cone with default values.
          2] Set the Position on the axis -100 on the Z-axis.
          3] Set the axis alignment to -90 on the X-axis.
          4] Set the axis size to X=50, Y=100, Z=50.


    Front or side view of cone:      Z---X
                                    /|\
                                   / | \
                                  /  |  \
                                 /   |   \
                                /    |    \
                               +-----|-----+
                                     Y

        Once this is done you will now have a cone object with the
axis set correctly to be a light.  It is not yet however a light source.
Go into the attributes requestor for the object and click on the box
labeled "light".  In here is a standard light box just like those in
the action editor. Click on conical, and set the color and other options
as you wish.

        At this point you must remove any faces from the object.  If you
do not do this, when you render the object will will have a white cone.
Simply go into "Pick Faces" mode and then "Select All" of the faces and
finally "Delete" or "Cut" them.  You will now have a wireframe cone
light.  Save this object.

        From now on, you can load this as a normal object into you
renderings and resize, scale and move the light around as you wish.  The
only drawback to this method is that to change light parameters such as
color or shadows, you must re-edit the object in the detail editor and
then resave it.

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

11] How important is lighting for a rendering, and is there any "preset"
     method used to get good results?

        Lighting in computer graphics is a very important element in
creating images.  It takes a while of experimenting with different types
of lights and settings to get good results, but there is one basic setup
that can also be used as a starting point.

        The basic approach is one used for lighting real world video
scenes.  It is known as a "3 point" light setup since it involves 3
light sources.

        The first light source named the "key" light is the main light
for the scene.  It is usually placed about 45 degress above and to the
side of the camera.  This provides overall light so you can see your
objects etc...

        The second light is known as the "back" or "top" light.  Place
this light above and slightly behind the center of your scene.  In video
this is used to show highlights on a persons hair so you can tell where
the back of their head is.  In this case, it provides a similar function
so that you can see the back parts of objects.  This is typically set at
about 2 times the key lights intensity, though for computer graphics a
setting equal to or less than that of the key is usually enough.


        The final light is the "fill" light.  This is usually placed
at a 45 degress angle below and to the side of the camera so that it
is on the opposite side of the "key" light.  This light should be dim
and possible colored and diffused to give some illumination to any part
of the scene not covered fromt the other lights.  For rendering this
means lowering the intensity and or making the light "diminish in
intensity".

        With this setup there should be an improvement over any
rendering using just one light.  As a test setup a ground and a
stationary object.  (The typical chrome ball with cool highlights on a
checkered ground works well here)  Render once scene with just one light
(the key light only).  Then add the other 2 or more fill lights and re-
render it.  There should be a big difference.

        Also, don't forget that lights can be colored, can cast shadows
and can be "conical spotlights".  All this can be used to give greater
value to your scene.

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

12] Help with Fog, By J. Koszarsky

    Fog isn't too bad once you get the hang of it.  There are a couple
problems to be aware of though.  Overlapping fogs will cancel each other
out wherever they overlap.  Fog objects should be closed objects.  If
you have a tube be sure to close the ends up.  And when you scale your
object up or down you should be aware that the fog length will not scale
with your object, I found this very annoying.

    Imagine you have a 100x100x100 cube and you make it a fog object.
What does the fog length mean?  If you make your fog length 50 units and
then move a non-fog object into the fog, once it goes beyond 50 units
you won't be able to see it anymore.  50 units is the point at which an
object inside the fog will be totally obscured by that fog.  If you
shorten the length to say 25 then the fog will become more dense.
Making the length larger creates a less dense fog.  If the length is
greater than 100 then you will be able to see objects on the other side
of the cube.

    Using global fog in the Stage/Action editors is similar but it is
applied everywhere, like an infinite plane.  You can however control the
heights(Z) where the fog begins & ends.  So if you wanted fog in a grave
yard you could tell it to start at the ground level and end as high as
you want, depending upon what your are looking for in your scene.  The
fog length works the same as with objects.  If it is set to 100 units
then any object in your scene that is beyond 100 units will be hidden in
the fog.  For a very subtle fog I sometimes set my length to 2048 or
greater, this is very thin.

    There is another annoying feature of fogs.  It looks great when used
for making atmosphere on a planet but it will illuminate the entire
planet, no matter where the light source is placed.  So you can't get a
dark side if you have the fog around the entire planet.  You can get
around this by using a half sphere fog for the atmosphere and aligning
it to your lightsource.

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

13] How can I render in Widescreen/Letterbox format?

        Besides making for some neat looking animations, this will also
lower rendering times.  For a render that would normally be 768x482 or
so, make it 768x380.  Leave the ratio just as it is (6:7).  Any where
from 380-330 or so will look pretty good.

        Remember though that Imagine will still show the entire normal
view of the animation in the Stage editor's preview window.  This means
that while you can see objects at the top of the screen here, they might
actually be cropped in the final rendering.

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

14] I selected Spheres for my particle object, but all I get is a
    polygonal shape!

        In order for you to get spheres in the particle object you will
have to render in Ray Trace, not Scanline.  Otherwise you end up with a
faceted sphere of only a few polygons.

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

15] Help with Fog: if you place a fog object inside another,
    they cancel out, why?
    (By Ian Smith)

        I was looking over an older list of bugs that were still not
fixed when I came across the fog canceling out other fog objects.
Remembering previous messages about transparent objects I wondered if
it would work for fog.  It does, sorta.

        Imagine only renders flat, one sided triangles.  To make a solid
object, Imagine keeps track of if it is inside or outside of an
imaginary solid.  When a ray hits a face with fog or transparency, the
ray is considered 'inside' until it hits another edge.  That is why if
you place a fog object inside another, they cancel out.  When the ray
hits the second fog object, Imagine considers the ray having exited
the fog object.  This is actually a good thing, albet tricky at times.

        The solution to both problems as noted before on the list, is
to make sure all objects are solid entities with no common or open
edges.  Picture trying to make a yellow sphere of fog with a second red
fog sphere inside.  If you try this, what happens is you get a sphere of
yellow fog, but it has a hole in it where the red should have been. This
is the canceling effect.  What you do now is to set the inner sphere to
the same attributes as the outer one.  You now have created a true
hollow fog object.  The trick is to now use a third sphere, make it a
red fog, and put it inside the hole.  You have to be careful to make
sure it is just a little smaller than the hole.  Try to make it about
0.001 units smaller.  An easy way is to duplicate the inner surface of
the sphere and then scale it down slightly.

        I included a uuencoded object you can test render (please refer
to IMLarc61.lha at IML landfill for these uuencode objs).  It contains
8 CSG spheres...

RIGHT.LARGE       - Large yellow fog.
RIGHT.UPPER       - Small yellow fog inside.
RIGHT.LOWER       - Small red fog inside.

LEFT.LARGE        - Large yellow fog.
LEFT.UPPER        - Small yellow fog inside.
LEFT.LOWER        - Small red fog inside.
LEFT.UPPER.OUTER  - Inner surface of LEFT.LARGE surrounding LEFT.UPPER
LEFT.LOWER.OUTER  - Inner surface of LEFT.LARGE surrounding LEFT.LOWER

        When rendered, the object on the left renders correctly, showing
a yellow fog sphere with a red splotch of fog in the bottom corner.  The
top yellow fog does not show up because it is the same color and density
as the larger sphere.

        The right sphere however, renders incorrectly.  It shows a
solid, shaded red sphere in the bottom, and at the top is a hole where
the smaller yellow sphere should be.

        Now Imagine is still not doing for quite correct.  For one, this
trick does not work for global fog!  I tried surrounding a fog object
with a shell that was the same density and color as the global fog, but
it simply caused the fog object to vanish completely!  I was hoping this
would allow the use of fog objects with global fog, but no luck.
Secondly, and more important, the above example with red fog inside is
still not what shoudl happen.  The object on the right SHOULD render
correctly.  In reality, you do not chop holes in fog and stick other
peices of fog inside.  The two fogs should add their fog properties
together.  I have no idea what goes on inside Imagine, but I can take a
guess that each ray has a fog/transparency flag that gets toggled when
a ray hits a surface.  What they need is not a flag, but an array of
flags to keep track of how many layers of fog they have penetrated.
Perhaps link this to the reflection resolve paramater in preferences.
Then we could have true additive fog.  You can fake it by manually
adding the attributes together and settign the inner fog object to that.

        BTW, I tried a negative fog length and it resulted in a totally
invisible object.  I wasn't sure WHAT I expected, but figured it was
worth a try. :-) I also ran these tests in Imagine 2.0 and 3.2 to test
for diffrences.  Other than 3.2 being about 25% slower to render than
2.0 they worked the same.

========================================================================
            SECTION 8 - Essence Settings and Other Attributes
========================================================================

1] Electrical Arc  (Essence)

        Here's how to make an electrical arc between two rods, like
something out of Frankenstien's lab.

    1] Start with a plane with 255 R,G,B on Color and a light blue
       (or whatever color you want the arc to be) in Filter.
    2] Use Ringfract as follows:
         Set the Z axis to point out of the plane, (rotate 90 on X)
         Low Trans Start=30      Low Trans Width=5
         Hi Trans Start =40      Hi Trans Width =5
         Set the color to 0,0,0 for RGB.
         Leave other settings at defaults
       Place the axis of Ringfract in the middle of the bottom edge of
       the plane.
    3] Now use Swapcrf to swap the color and filter values. Do this by
       setting all parameters to 0, and then setting the following
       values to 1:
         Filt -> N Color = 1
         Refl -> N Refl  = 1
         Color -> N Filt = 1

        Now when rendered, there should be something similar to an
electrical arc (or maybe some sort of plasma).  To have the arc grow,
rotate the Ringfract axis on X up or down so that the plane and cylinder
do not intersect at 90 degrees.  If you animate this it looks like the
arc gets taller until the arc breaks (i.e. the plane no longer
intersects Ringfract's cylinder in a curve, but instead in two lines).

        Also setting the plane to bright will make it look correct
in dim scenes.

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

2] Veined Marble  (Essence)

        The veinedmarble texture is used twice, once for large, widely
spaced veins.  The second use is for finer, closely spaced veins.

        For veined green marble set the object color to 40,80,40 for
Red Green and Blue respectively. The texture veins are a gray-green
color.

  Text#1   Text#2    Parameter        Text#1   Text#2    Parameter

  800.0    300.0    Initial Scale       4.0      5.0      Turbidity
    7.0      7.0    # of Scales         0.9      0.98     Color Level
    0.4      0.4    Scale Ratio       120.0    120.0      Color Red
    0.6      0.6    Amp Ratio         150.0    150.0      Color Green
    0.4      0.4    Time Ratio        120.0    120.0      Color Blue
    0.0      0.0    Time                0.0      0.0      Fade 0..1
    1.0      1.0    Sharpness           0.0      0.0
   20.0     10.0    Vein Spacing        0.0      0.0

        Rotate the second texture 45 degrees around the X and Y axes
with respect to the first texture.  You may want to rotate the first
texture as well.

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

3] Rough marble/rock   (Essence)

        This uses 2 textures, one for a main color variation, and
the other for the bump/roughness.  This is very effective for creating
stone surfaces.  Try these settings on a primitive plane.

    Object Attribs   R   G   B    Value
        Color     = 136 118 128
        Specular  = 153 134 132
        Dithering =                255
        Phong = On
        All others at 0.

    Texture 1:  fractalcolor       Texture 2:  bump
        Parameter        Value        Parameter        Value

        Initial Scale       15        Initial Scale       5
        # of scales         5         # of scales         4
        Scale Ratio         0.4       Scale Ratio         0.5
        Amplitude Ratio     0.4       Amplitude Ratio     0.5
        Time Ratio          0.4       Alt. Adjust         3
        Time                0         Fade 0..1           0
        Base->1 Trans       0.3       Axis placement left at default
        1->2 Trans          0.6
        Color 1 End         1
        Color 1 Red         70
        Color 1 Green       60
        Color 1 Blue        60
        Color 2 Red         255
        Color 2 Green       240
        Color 2 Blue        240
        Fade 0..1           0
        Axis placement left at default

        When rendered an off gray stone will be created.  Great for
caverns, dungeons and so on.  Just slap it onto the walls or columns
to give it good-ol' natural look.

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

4] Soap Bubble (Imagine 2.0 and higher)

    COLOR  REFLECT  FILTER  SPECULAR
    R 250    10      192      255
    G 215    10      162      245
    B 225    10      133      238

    Dithering     Hardness    Roughness  Shiniess  Index of refraction
        0        245 (Or less)     0         0            1.08

    Then Add a Pastella Texture with the following data in each column:

    102.333374   100.00
      0.0          0.0
    255.0        255
      0.0        180
    100.0         80
      0.0        110
    255.0          0.0
    100.0          0.0

Now, try render it, and remember to put a object behind, and try to make
several copies, and make a complete bubble bath!

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

5] Spaceship Panels  (Imagine 2.9 and higher)

        This uses the RADWIND, TUBEWIND, or RECTWIND textures to create
multicolored spaceship panels:

    - Add a primitive sphere with it's default values.
    - Apply the RADWIND texture (or other 2 textures depending on the
      shape of your object)
    - Make these adjustments to the texture variables:

Column One     Two
      ____    ____
       1       210       *These params will will give you panels that
       3       210        are randomly colored from the two color ranges
      60       210        defined in column two.
       0       190       *Play around with some of the variables to get
       1       190        the effect right for you.
       0       190
       0        -1
       0         0

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

6] Bark, mountain, stone effects (Imagine 2.9 and higher)

        This uses the WRINKLE texture.

    - Add default cylinder and CLOSE the TOP
    - Select the top edges of the cylinder and MAKE SHARP
    - Apply the WRINKLE texture and render.
        This will look like bark around the cylinder....play with the
        noise functions to adjust the look of the bark.

Now make these changes to the Texture:

Column One     Two
       ___     ___
       0.5     150      * This will look like the sides of a mountain
       0.5     150        around the Cylinder.  On the top of the
      10.0     150        cylinder it will look like granite.
       1.0      20      * When applied to organic objects the vertical
       0.5      50        faces will have the rivulets, the horizontal
       0.0      20        faces will be granite-like.
       0.0       0      * Try changing the first three variables in
       1.0       0        Column one to 10,10,1 respectively.  The
                          resulting look will make the cylinder look
                          like a core sample around the cylinder, while
                          the top of the cylinder will have a marble
                          like quality.

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

7] Solar Corona, By Cyrus J.Kalbrener (Essence)

        This uses 1 sphere, 3 disks and 2 Essence textures.

    - First use varyabsrgb to create changes subtle changes on the
      suns surface between white hot and light yellow.

    - Then use a disk for the corona, rotate the oject axis so that
      the y axis was perpendicular to the surface of the disk and add
      the cylindturb texture with the z axis extending perpendicular
      from the surface of the disk. We used cylindturb because we could
      translate the texture along it's z axis to create the illusion of
      movement much more effectively than radialturb.

    - Then add another disk and place it less than 1 unit behind the
      first, apply the radial Impulse texture to create the glare around
      the sun.

    - Now apply radial to another disk, this time making it black
      to blot out the stars behind the corona that would show through
      the glare (it looks pretty unrealistic without it).

    - Make sure all objects are bright, and parent the second and third
      disks to the first.  We can save the sun itself as one object,
      and the corona group as a second object.  In the stage editor
      track the corona to the camera so that it would always be
      perpendicular to the camera (only good if the camera is moving a
      little bit).

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

8] Solar Corona, By Scott Kirvan  (Imagine 2.9 and higher)

        This uses the FIREBALL, NEBULA and GHOST textures to create.

    - Add a primitive sphere with it's default values, turn on bright.
    - Apply the FIREBALL texture.
    - Make these adjustments to the texture variables:

Column One     Two
      ____    ____
       0       0
     255       0
     255       0
     100       0
     200       0
      30       0
       0       0
       0.4     0

     Size:   (86, 86, 86)

    - Add a primitive sphere with it's default values except for the
      size values, they should be, at least (75, 75, 75)

     Color:  (255, 85, 0)         Fog length:  0.01

    - Apply the NEBULA texture.
    - Make these adjustments to the texture variables:

Column One     Two
      ____    ____
     325       0
       1       0
       0       0
       5       0
       0.2     0
       1     255
       1     255
       0     100

     Size:   (4.5, 4.5, 4.5)

    - Apply the GHOST texture.
    - Make these adjustments to the texture variables:

Column One     Two
      ____    ____
    1200       0
       1       0
       0       0
       0       0
       0       0
       0       0
       0       0
       0       0

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

9] Sludge, By Scott Kirvan  (Imagine 2.9 and higher)

        This uses the DINOSKIN texture:

    - Add a primitive cylinder (size: 88, 88, 175)
    - Make these adjustments to the attributes variables:

    COLOR  FILTER  SPECULAR
    R 255   255      38
    G 255   255      38
    B 255   255      38

    Hardness    Index of refraction    Phong
      20              1.50

    - Apply the DINOSKIN texture.
    - Make these adjustments to the texture variables:

Column One     Two
      ____    ____
      10       0
      10       0.5
      10       0
       2       0
       0.3   190
       0.6     1.73
       2       0.5
       1       0

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

10] Marble, By Rob Freundlich

        Make your object a pale white (190-ish on all the RGB sliders),
high Shiny value, high Hardness, low Roughness, Specular just a few
shades below the object color, ummm, possibly others as well.
        Apply two wood textures.  The textures are rotated with respect
to each other. Both have very wide bands (and a low number of bands) and
a large Variation value (for "burl" effect, according to Understanding
Imagine).  The color of each texture is a darker shade of grey than the
object, and the two textures have slightly different colors.

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

11] Starfield  (Imagine 2.9 and higher)

        We all know that Imagine's starfield is very cheesy at
best. Here is a great solution for Imagine 2.9 and higher users:

    - Create a sphere that is as large as your world, minimum size
      should be at least 1000 units along each axis.
    - Set the sphere's filter values to 255 for each R,G,B component.
    - Apply the CONFETTI texture and make these adjustments to the
      default values:

     Color 1:  (255, 255, 255)    V1:  .53    Size:  .25
     Color 2:  (100, 100, 100)    V2:  .55

        Make sure the camera is somewhere in the center, and render.
Voila!  A great Starfield!
        Refer to the docs on the confetti texture to make any
adjustments that you like.
        Also, try making a short anim with just the sphere, and just
change the camera's perspective, you can get a nice space warp effect.

        This actually gives a good looking starfield with almost no RAM
consumption.  Plus, you can easily set the colors and frequency.

        As a suggestion,

        1] Make the sphere bright to make sure the stars show up.
        2] Make a copy of the sphere and scale it slightly smaller or
           bigger and rotate it so it's at a diff angle.  Then, you'll
           get a cool rotate effect when you move the camera.

        This is called "stellar parallax", and it will never happen in
real life, simply because all the stars are so far away that you
basically can't move fast and far enough to make their relative
alignments change in this kind of obvious way.

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

12] Photon Torpedo  (Imagine 2.9 and higher)

        In Detail, create a default primitive sphere.  Copy it, scale it
down to .8, Paste it and group the 2 objects together.  The larger
sphere's attributes's should look like this:

    COLOR
    R 255
    G 0
    B 0

    Fog length     Phong    Bright
        125


    Then Add a FogPaint Texture with the following data:

        T: .8
        Denser Color: 255, 100, 0
        2nd Color: 255, 0, 0

    Scale the axis to be just as big as the sphere.


The smaller sphere's attributes should look like this:

    COLOR
    R 210
    G 15
    B 15

    Phong    Bright

    Light:

        Color: 500, 0, 0
        Point Source
        Controlled FallOff

    FireBall texture:

        Color 1: 255, 15, 15
        Color 2: 200, 30, 0
        The rest of the settings are 0.

    Axis size should be slightly larger than the sphere.


        Load this object into Action after setting the # of frames.  Add
the Spike effect on frames 2 (right after the torp exits the torpedo
tube) to the last frame that the object will be in the camera's view.
You might want to tweek the Spike settings.  Set up the motion in Stage,
and you're all set.  Render and serve.

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

13] Spaceship shield, By Charles Blaquiere  (Imagine 2.9 and higher)

        To do a Star Trek-like "shield absorbs energy blast and
dissipates it", you need to create a sphere for the shield. You then use
Shellturb combined with SwapCRF to _vary the transparency_ of the
texture and make the energy blast visible.  Here's an example:

    - Create a standard Imagine sphere.  Scale in Z by 0.5.
    - Give it a color of 255,255,255 and click on Bright.  Add the
      Bandturb (not Shellturb) texture.
    - Edit the texture as follows:

Column One     Two
      ____    ____
       0       0.4          Axis position: 110, 0, 0
      20       0.4          Alignment: 0, -90, 0
      30       0
      20       0
      10       0
       5       0
       4       0
       0.4     0

    - Add the SwapCRF texture.  All parameters should be 0, except
      Color -> N Filt which should be 1.
    - Add the Solid texture.  Leave all parameters at -1 and set Color
      to 50, 255, 200.
    - The texture order should read, from top to bottom:
      Bandturb, SwapCRF, Solid.  If not, use the Priority button to make
      it so.

    - States/Create DEFAULT, click Textures/Brushes on.
    - States/Create START, click Textures/Brushes on (This is not a
      typo.  Unless I'm mistaken, you should refrain from using the
      default state in an animation, which is why I had you create an
      identical state).

    - Change the texture:
      Time to 1     Fade to 1     Position to -50, 0, 0

    - States/Create END.

    - In Action, morph from START to END over N frames.


        You'll see an energy blast hit the right side of the image,
where the ship inside the shield would presumably be pointing, and
travel along the shield, dissipating as it goes along.

How does it work?

        The base object is white, and gets a turbulent band of black
applied to it using Bandturb.  Then, SwapCRF turns this color
information into _filter_ values -- black means no filter, white means
fully transparent.  This makes part of the shield visible.  All that's
needed is to give the visible parta of shield a color using Solid.
Finally, we create two states, START and END, which allow the texture
axis to travel from one end of the shield to the other.  The END state
also has Bandturb's Fade parameter set all the way to 1, so that the
texture loses strength as it travels along the shield.  Just add a ship
inside the shield, and a starfield in the background.  The effect is
beautiful.


Bug alert:

        Imagine 3.1 doesn't remember texture parameters and axis
settings very well when you use States.  Until that bug is fixed, you
will need to create two separate objects, Shield-start and shield-end,
and morph from one object to the next.  No big deal.

========================================================================
                        SECTION 9 - Miscellaneous
========================================================================

1] What the heck is BTW, IMO and other weird abbreviations...

    BTW is an abbreviation for "By The Way".
    IMO is an abbreviation for "In My Opinion"
    IMHO is an abbreviation for "In My Humble Opinion"
    IML is an abbreviation for "Imagine Mailing List"
    :) is a sideways smiley face
    :( is a sideways frowny face
    ;) is a winking-eye face  etc...

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

2] My rendering times and even my refresh times in the editors are
   much MUCH too slow, even with an accelerator. Is there any
   basic tricks or hints that are often overlooked that might help
   me out?"

        Always be sure to MERGE your objects. This eliminates multiple
faces, points and lines. Some objects have a VERY large number of these
and it can slow your times down by up to 1/2!

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

3] When does one get good enough so that they don't render ugly
    pictures!

        Practice with a simple objects (to cut down trace time) over and
over and over.  Varying lighting & color etc.  This will allow you to
get the effect you want which is only a technical problem.

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

4] Hires Video modification for Amiga Imagine From James R. Walker

***Note:  The following explains how to modify the actual executable
    file of Imagine.  Do this at your own risk!  If you have any
    problems or end up trashing your copy of the program it is your
    own fault.  It is highly recommended that you make a backup copy
    of the program before you mess with it.

Ok, here's how it works... (If you don't have an Amiga, don't do this!)

Get a filezapper type program. (NewZap DPU FileZap Hex etc...)

Look up your version of Imagine on the chart below.

Edit the executable at the bytes indicated in the chart. The block #s
and byte #s are shown in decimal.  The hex numbers in parenthesis are
the hex versions of the block numbers.  The bytes to modify are, of
course, in hex.  Replace the resolution you find there with the
resolution you want.  Then save the new file. (I don't have to remind
you to keep a backup of Imagine on hand!)

Notice that Imagine automaticly doubles the vertical resolution for use
in interlace mode.  So, if you want vertical resolution of 462 then you
must tell it to give you 231.  (231 = 00E7 in hex)

 Imagine Version # Horizontal                   Vertical

FP       1.1     Block 393 ($189)             Block 83 ($053)
                 Bytes 220 & 221              Bytes 162 & 163
                 From  02    80               From  00    C8
       (Example: To    02    BC = 700 in dec)(To    00    E7 = 231 dec)

FP       2.0     Block 497 ($1F1)             Block 95 ($05F)
                 Bytes 328 & 329              Bytes 250 & 251
                 From  02    80               From  00    C8

INT PAL  2.0     Block 500 ($1F4)             Block 94 ($05E)
                 Bytes 124 & 125              Bytes 42 & 43
                 From  02   80                From  01   00

FP  PAL  2.0     Block 497 ($1F1)             Block 95 ($05F)
                 Bytes 388 & 389              Bytes 244 & 245
                 From  02    80               From  01   0

INT      2.9     Block 1561 ($619)            Block 119 ($077)
                 Bytes 486 & 487              Bytes 480 & 481
                 From  02    80               From  00    C8

FP       2.9     Block 1529 ($5F9)            Block 95 ($05F)
                 Bytes 82  & 83               Bytes 168 & 169
                 From  02    80               From  00    C8

FP  PAL  2.9     Block 1529 ($5F9)            Block 95 ($05F)
                 Bytes 146 & 147              Bytes 162 & 163
                 From  02    80               From  01    00


FP       3.0     Block   1667                 Block   126
                 Offset  +60                  Offset  +425
                 Abs pos 853564               Abs pos 64937
                 Current value $0280          Current $64


FP       3.1     Block   1765                 Block   131
                 Offset  +424                 Offset  +343
                 Abs pos 904104               Abs pos 67415
                 Current value $0280          Current $64


Block + Offset is commonly used with most disk editors, but some use
the Absolute Porition instead.  Remember to divide the height of the
screen by 4 first, and that you can't use values higher than 127 due
to Impulses use of signed character storage.  127 will give you screen
height of 508.  I don't think its easily possible to hack Imagine to
use an unsigned character to get a higher screen size.  Anyone?

One Final Note:  Imagine PC users have a whole different program than
Amiga  users. This modification will not work on the PC version.  I
would guess that a similar modification for the PC version would be more
complicated, given that VGA modes are more complicated than Amiga modes.

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

5] What are particles?  (Note: Particles were add in Imagine 2.9)

        There are a couple of different meanings and interpretations of
what particles and particle animation software should do.  In general,
a particle is an object, or point in 3D space that is then controled by
parameters mimicking real world physics.  For example, take a point in
3D and apply motion to it as if it were under gravity.  The result
would be it would move downward increasing in speed.  So you can use
particles to simulate wind, exploding, melting and other things that
move points in different ways.

        Particles can also be objects or simple polygonal shapes rather
than just points.  In imagine, you can make a 'particle object' by
modeling a normal object with faces.  Then, using the particle requestor
in the Detail Editor, specifiy that all faces/polygons of the object be
replaced by cubes, spheres, tetrahedrons and so on...or even other
objects.  When you go to render the object, each face will be replaced
with the particle you have chosen.

        This means in Imagine, you can make objects created out of many
'particles' even though you don't use any particle type of motion.  This
is true since you could now take that object, and just animate it
normally using standard key frame techniques and so on.

        However, Imagine does have a new method for applying the motion
control over these particle objects, (or even normal objects, since it
will simply affect the faces).  In the Action Editor you can now use the
particle effect.  This lets you specify how the particle/faces of the
object will be affected over the course of an animation.

        In general, particle systems allow one to simulate complex
motion easily.  They allow one to create many particle objects and to
have their motion defined by mathmatical properties.

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

6] Everything about motion blur, By Mark Allan Fox

        I thought that I would devulge the information I know about this
subject as well as why I sincerly doubt that Impulse will include this
feature in any of the upcoming upgrades.  I will also give some hints as
to how to simulate motion blur (actually it really isn't simulating, it
is the real thing) using Imagine (or any other rendering program for
that matter) and an image processing package.

Motion Blur - What is it?  How do we get it?

        The human eye does not see motion as most computer renderers see
it.  The human eye does not see motion as a continuous set of
instantaneous pictures.  The human eye sees motion through persistence
of vision.  Our eyes are constantly taking visual data from our
surroundings, the data our eyes feed to our brains is not sampled.

        This is a difficult effect to achieve on the computer. There are
algorithms that allow a  computer to achieve real motion blur, but these
tend to be really slow if your using a large number of polygons.  They
get even more complex, and even slower, if you start moving objects
along spline paths (if you're interested, and have access to a good
library, check out Computer Graphics, Volume 17, Number 3, July 1993,
Temporal Anti-Aliasing in Computer Generated Animation).  Much faster
ways of approximating motion blur exist.  These approximations hide some
of the temporal-aliasing (aliasing over time) while the real motion blur
method completely eliminates it.

        Some programs use a method much like the way Imagine casts
multiple rays while ray-tracing to eliminate regular (spacial) aliasing.
This method is called distributed ray-tracing.  While Imagine (3.0) can
cast many rays through the area of a pixel to approximate the pixel's
average color value, motion blur casts many rays over time through the
area of a pixel to determine that pixel's average color value (note
that both methods can be combined without necessarily increasing the
rays cast.  Realistically the number of rays should be increased,
perhaps by a factor of two, because when combined the two methods tend
to have a negative impact on each other's approximations).

        Distributed ray-tracing is fairly easy to implement
_when ray-tracing_.  It becomes infinitely more difficult when using a
scanline renderer (so difficult, in fact that I won't even discuss it).

Motion Blur - Why Impulse probably won't implement it?

        As pointed out above, motion blur is hellishly hard to implement
in scanlining (because scanlining does hidden surface removal on a line,
actually a plane, that passes through a row of pixels).  I'm sure that
this method can, and has, been implemented, but by a company much larger
and richer than Impulse (like Pixar).

        Problems exist in the distributed ray-tracing method as well.
For this method to work it must have information about every objects
position over time (or at least the frame to be traced and the two
adjacent frames).  Imagine's global effects are given access to much
information about a _single frame_, and they can be used to control the
renderer (as in depth of field), but I'm guessing that they can't access
anything but the information about the current frame.  So, Impulse would
have to over-haul Imagine to implement motion blur.  If you look at
versions 2.0, 2.9, 3.0 and soon 3.1, you'll notice that almost all the
new features are add-ons and really aren't integrated into imagine as a
whole. It's great that Impulse planned far enough ahead to allow Imagine
to be so modular that these new features are just added-on.
Unfortunately, I really don't think Imagine's modularity goes far enough
to allow an easy addition of motion blur.  So until Impulse completely
rebuilds Imagine (something, I for one, think is due) I sincerely doubt
that we will see motion blur in Imagine. Of course I sincerely hope that
I am absolutely wrong in the above and that Imagine isn't designed the
way I think it is, then perhaps we might see motion blur in one of the
next few updates.

Motion Blur - How do I do it on my own?

        Motion blur is quite easy to approximate on your own.  However,
it does have costs, namely, increased rendering time (everyone knew that
one was coming), and an increase in storage space for the individual
frames before they are compiled into an animation.  There is a slight
increase in the space the animation will take too.

        Simply put to acheive motion blur render more frames than you
actually need.  So, depending on the amount and speed of the motion in
an animation, you render perhaps 3 times as many frames as you want to
be in your animation.  So if you have a 10 second animation (300 or
240 frames) render 900 or 720 frames.  Then use an image processing
package to average 3 frames into one.  So for frame 1 in the animation
you will average frames 1,2 and 3 (DTA does this on the PC, the command
for compiling the above example into an FLC file would be
<dta pic*.tga /a3>)

        The real trick here is to figure out how much motion blur you
need, if you need it at all.  Generally, I find that if an object moves
across the whole screen in one frame I will want about 30 sub-frames per
frame (big hint:  avoid the above case).  So if it moves across half the
screen I will want about 15 sub-frames per frame.  It's also nice to
always use an odd number of sub-frames.  That way you know the objects
exact location at any given frame (in the middle sub-frame).

        Another problem arises when working on looping animations.  The
first and the last frame will not look correct. What you have to do is
tack on some extra frames before the first and after the last frames.
The number you add depends on the number of sub-frames you are using. If
N is the number of sub-frames you are using you have to add (N/2)-1
frames to each end of the animation.  You then have to set up in the
action editor so that the first (N/2)-1 frames look like the last
(N/2)-1 frames and vice-versa.

         Sometimes you have a scene where motion blur is only needed for
a few frames or to one degree or another.  This is where scene planning
comes into play.  Personally I haven't had enough practice in doing this
to tell anyone how to achieve this.  I have had some success at this, I
just haven't yet realised a good method of approaching the problem.  A
good work around is to plan your camera angles so that you cut from one
degree of motion blur to another when the camera changes views.  If you
have no choice but to have one consistent camera angle then start
drawing time-lines, make lots of copies of the whole project (one for
each degree of blur), and think hard about what your going to do before
commiting yourself to the final render.  Of course if you have a Pentium
100 and a couple gigabytes of hard drive space you may be able to use
brute force and just do everything at the maximum needed degree of blur
(not recommended, as you'll save yourself more time by setting up
everything the hard (or is that the easy) way, especially if this is a
long animation).

        If you have more interests in motion blur try Computer Graphics:
Principles and Practice, Fundamentals of 3D Computer Graphics, the
comp.graphics, comp.graphics.algorithms, newsgroups, or contact me.

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

7] 3D stereograms, By Gary Beeton

        We all know that Imagine allows you to create stereo pair images
for use with special 3D glasses.  But did you know that Imagine 3 will,
with the help of shareware, let's you create 3D images that do not
require glasses and that you can also print?

        I'm talking about SIRDS (Single Image Random Dot Stereograms) or
sometimes called Stareogram; you know, those posters made of dots which,
when you look (persistently) straight through them, will reveal
extruding shapes.

        It's easy!  All you need: a shareware SIRDS generator (I'm not
sure about the PC, but for the Amiga there's a bunch of them in Aminet
under gfx/3d), Imagine 3.0 and a scene.


An example:

        Load an object into the Detail editor (i.e. Cow.iob).  To
simplify the process UnGroup any parts then Join them all together as
one object.

        Attributes should be: Color white, set the rest to zero (0);
Bright should be on (x), set Quickdraw on (x) and Texture: ZBuffer.  Now
reset your perspective view and rotate your object just as you would
like to see it by the camera as viewed in the perspective view.  This is
important because ZBuffer is relative to Global coordinates, and not
relative to the camera.

        Go into the "Top" view window, turn Coordinates on, move your
cursor to the bottom of the bounding box and write down the Y coordinate
(Y1), move the cursor to the top of the bounding box and write down the
Y coordinate (Y2).  These two Y coordinates should be entered in the
ZBuffer texture's Y1 and Y2.  Leave the color settings from white
(255,255,255) to black (0,0,0) (assuming your SIRDS generator expects
white as out and black as in).  Save the object.

        Go into Action editor, Add your object and set camera position
to 0,Y1-n,0 alignment to 0,0,0 where n is the distance from the object
to be viewed.

        Save Changes.  Go to Stage editor, add a light and place it
anywhere in front of the object, turn on camera view and fine tune the
placement of the camera making sure not to change it's alignment.

        Render.

        The resulting image should be a gray scale image which can be
loaded into and processed by a SIRDS generator.  I've had excellent
results with this technique, many of which surpassed some commercially
available SIRDS posters.


The 3-D option: X-Specs "driver"

        The 3-D option in Imagine is designed to produce a format which
is viewable using 3-D LCD shutter glasses called X-Specs.  The X-Specs
"driver" interleaves the top and bottom halves and syncronizes the
right/left lenses with the interleave refresh rate of the display.  The
top and bottom halves appear squashed because each represents one field
(half of the data for a full frame).  Unfortunately for Imagine PC
users, I think X-Specs are only available for the Amiga.  This would
appear to be a vestigial "feature" from Impulses' attempt to make the PC
and Amiga versions have the same look and feel.

        I don't think there is a way to have Imagine separate the images
into separate files.  To overcome this problem I would try doubling the
project's vertical resolution and make the aspect ratio 2:1.  Then use
an image processor to reset the aspect back to 1:1 to unsquash, then
separate the images.  An alternate method would be to manually
reposition the camera for each left and right image (this will be a big
pain if you intend to animate though).

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

8] Working with bitmaps, By Douglas Smith

        I find that the best sort of image to work with is obviously one
made up of lots of lines, some of the best are those nice little
painting illustrations that are always part of the instruction sheet for
model kits.

        If you're using one of these, set your scanner to text mode,
200dpi seems to work best and scan.  Then clean up the image in DPaint,
this is the key step, so don't skimp, get an image made up of smooth
sharp lines.

        If you are using a colour image, you need to get it into two
colours, for this either start drawig on top in DPaint, then stencil
your new lines and rub out the image.  One method that can work, is
to use an Emboss command (have a look at PBM tools), this will
effectivly outline different blocks of colour, you can then just touch
it up in DPaint.  Beware that you tend to loose a lot of dimensional
accuracy doing this unless you have a really hires image, so be careful.

        If the drawing is to scale, mark a scale on it, a simple
graduated bar, preferably one horizontal and one vertical round the part
of the image that you are interested in.  When you clean up the drawing
make sure these scale marks are clear.  You can later use these marks to
scale the bitmap to an imagine grid.

        Now use ConvertIFF/ILBM, say no to the add faces requester, and
in a minute or so all the lines will appear.  Now all you have to do is
to go into pick points mode and tidy it up a little more.  Save this.

        If you have a plan, front and side view you can position these
objects so they are visible in their respective window, but not visible
in the other windows, i.e position the front view so it is say, 500
units in front of the world-centre etc. then redraw speeds are quite
nippy.

        Using this method may be a bit more memory intensive than using
a bitmap, but you can zoom in to see finer detail.  Also the images can
be to a known scale and you can scroll the windows about without loosing
the image.

========================================================================
                CLOSING -  Closing statements and Disclaimer
========================================================================

        Hopefully this document is useful to people out there.  Once
again, if there is anything you want added/changed/deleted, please
e-mail as listed at the top of the document.

        What follows is a small disclaimer so no one gets sued for
information that is harmful or accidentally incorrect or misleading.
(If you find a mistake...please send e-mail so it can be fixed!).

      Disclaimer: There is no guarantee regarding any information
                  presented in this document.  The information may not
                  be correct, useful or helpful.  The reader accepts ALL
                  responsibility for actions pertaining to reading this
                  document regardless of consequence.

========================================================================
END OF IML-FAQ

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