Multimedia Toolkit 2/Multimedia Toolkit 2.iso/imagine/text/archive.10

Text File | 1993-03-12 | 136.3 KB | 3,323 lines

IMAGINE archive: collected off of [e-mail]

ARCHIVE X
Aug. 7 '91 - Aug. 26 '91

If you have questions or problems with this file, email Marvin Landis
at [e-mail]

note: each message seperated by a '##'

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Subject: Re: Impulse upgrades: reply
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1991 14:45:16 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

[e-mail] writes:


>Forwarded through me from Steve Gillmor of Impulse.


>We eagerly await your positive reply, Mr. Menzies.

>Sincerely,
>Steve Gillmor
>Director of Software
>Impulse, Inc.



        First, I appreciate your reply. I might mention though, that as far
as:
>...attempted through numerous means that Mr. Menzies fails to acknowledge,
>to inform these people..",

I have no knowlege of what these "means" were. They did not materialize here
and have not been for sometime now. Certainly they were not in the form of an
Imagine newsletter as was mailed to users in the US. Sending in your warrenty
cards and then never hearing from Impulse again, is now the norm here and as
I have  heard, in places elsewhere too.

however, if your intention is:

>In our upcoming newsletter, which will be mailed planet-wide,  we will
>reiterate this offer.

that problem will certainly disappear and I'm sure for most, this alone is
representative of the quality support that Impulse has so often stated it
provides and that users likely require the most.

As I can see that you are listening, I hope I can assume that a situation
such as described in my original message will also be less likely to happen.


>We are saddened,...  Mr. Menzies is no longer going to be using our product.

Yes, but I was sadder:) After 2 phone calls inquiring after it, it was
still never sent to me.


Nevertheless, Imagine is a  powerful product that has brought 3D animation
to a very large group of users. Imagine (TS etc) have always  delivered
more power for the buck,IMHO. With the return of the newsletter and hopefully
closer check on update requests, I would once again be confidant recommending
this product knowing the product's support will be as it is advertized.



--stephen


--
Stephen Menzies
Email: [e-mail]

##

Subject: Imagine & AREXX
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 91 08:30 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Scott Busse)

Glen, I can understand your pessimism about Impulse implementing AREXX, but not
about whether they could do it well...  Isn't Steve Gillmore writing articles
about AREXX programming in the AW Tech Journal or something? (is he the
software mgr. for Impulse?) I think he's the one we need to work on!
--
* Scott Busse email:           O    O   O_     _      ___ .....
* CIS 73040,2114              |||  /|\  /\   O/\_     /         O    )=|
* [e-mail]    l   | |   |\    / \   /\                _\
* [e-mail]                  Live Long and Animate... \

##

Subject: Re: Ocean Sunset
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1991 09:38:59 -0500
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

How about a 24 bit version?  Or maybe the actual project that I could
render myself.  I too would like to see it on the ColorBurst.

Where did you say you were now?...CA?  I think that's what you said.  If
so, I COULD visit when I go to San Diego (pushed back to the end of Sept.
or Oct.).

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])


##

Subject: Re: Upgrade
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1991 15:58:48 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

[e-mail] (Caleb J. Howard (Product Support)) writes:

[stuff deleted]
>My apologies to all but Mr. Menzies for this.  I would have limited my responce
>to Mr. Menzies, but for the fact that he called me a pirate.  I, in my high-
[stuff deleted]

>-caleb



        Yes, you're quite right, I do owe you an apology. My message
_would_ implicate you. I now realize that your's was intended as a
small personal story and not  suggestive of anything beyond that nor for
general use. And I am  sorry for that. Admittedly, I did (do) not see the
purpose served or necessity of Commodore Canada (Product Support) need to
express satisfaction at the same time as when users here are not. This too,was
wrong of me. Not only to confuse you with a company but either way, you both
have every right to say what you please, when you please. I may have seen
it as _bad timing_ or _short circuting_, but it doesn't excuse my rudeness ,
any implications ,as well as any inconvienience I may have caused you,
Mr.Howard
        Please accept my apology.


Stephen Menzies


--
Stephen Menzies
Email: [e-mail]

##

Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1991 12:12:12 -0500
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

I got an anim from a friend that consists of a stationary camera, light
sources (don't know how many) and a rotating logo inside a container
that is an inverted glass dome over a wooden base.  It is also stationary
(the logo rotates above the base inside the dome).  The dithering pattern
on the wooden base, especially at the highlight areas, changes as the
anim progresses.  It doesn't change regularly, but it does so several
times throughout the anim, and continuously in some sequences of frames.

Does anyone have any suggestions? This was done with Imagine 1.1.

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])


##

Subject: Ocean Wave brush.
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 91 14:09:08 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Hey, guys. We are up to 1150 messages... volume keeps increasing!



There have been many uploads, and I thank you all for increasing the
supply of toys for us all to use. As promised, I said I would give out
my trick ocean wave brushmap; it is now found on hubcap in the
BRUSHMAPS directory. Following is the README.

-------

This is one of my best tools for creating advanced effects in Imagine.
It is a 24 bit brushmap of the encoded heights of a computer generated
ocean surface covered by waves. The brushmap is actually a grey
picture, with every pixel corresponding to the height of an ocean
surface. If the pixel is 255 255 255, the height is high, if the pixel
os 0 0 0, the point is low. This brushmap was obviously designed for
use as an altitude brush in Imagine.

The brush was generated by a computer program I wrote which generated
random height fields with the same statistical properties as actual
ocean waves. I could control wind speed, scale, and best yet, time. As
time advanced, the waves would move and slowly change. I created this
program to make an animated ocean; you can see the result in the pic
Ocean_Sunset.

The brush is big; I used a 1024 by 1024 brush for OS, I believe that
this brush is quarter-size. Even so, it takes a good deal of RAM to
load.  It has continuous edges; you can tile the brush without seams,
though if the brush gets very small (so you can see hundreds of
copies) you can start seeing a regular pattern.

To use this, just map it as an altitude brush in Imagine. [Read my
brushmap tutorial if you want to know how altitude brushes work.] Play
with the scale, especially the "Y depth" which modulates how "deep"
the impression of bumpiness works. In Ocean Sunset, I mapped the brush
to a ground; you are welcome to use a plane, or better yet a funky
torus. :-)

Other effects are easy to do with this brush. I wanted to make the
Terminator II logo in Imagine, which has black letters stamped into a
burnished aluminum colored plate.  [Burnishing is the very fine
irregular lines you see on metal sometimes; Aluminum window frames
come to mind]. I made the letters in Dpaint, created beveled versions
of them [I posted how to do this trick maybe two months ago], then
used SLICE to cut the holes in a solid block. Then I applied my ocean
wave brushmap as a very low amplitude altitude map to the block,
STRETCHED considerably in the X direction (so that the waves were very
very close together), and applied as a very small repeating brush.  I think
it repeated about 20 times in the Y direction and 4 times in the X
direction. The "waves" were then just really very long and thin bumps.
Rendered with a world reflection brushmap (blue sky, brown ground), it
looked pretty good!

Anyway, there are lots of fun things you can try. You might use ADPro
or DCTVPaint to colorize it, and use it as a colormap. You could make
sand dunes with a light brown/dark brown version to show how sand
accumulates as ripples in the desert. You could apply it to an object
to give it an irregular surface. Since it tiles seamlessly, you could
make a truly unique stucco wall.

Anyway, have fun with the brush. IF YOU USE IT, please credit me!
Feel free to redistribute it as long as this README stays with it.

-Steve

Steve Worley
934 Oak Lane #1
Menlo Park CA 94025

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                       [e-mail]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

##

Subject: Bad anim dithering
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 91 14:33:13 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Rick Tillery writes:

>I got an anim from a friend that consists of a stationary camera, light
>sources (don't know how many) and a rotating logo inside a container
>that is an inverted glass dome over a wooden base.  It is also stationary
>(the logo rotates above the base inside the dome).  The dithering pattern
>on the wooden base, especially at the highlight areas, changes as the
>anim progresses.  It doesn't change regularly, but it does so several
>times throughout the anim, and continuously in some sequences of frames.

>Does anyone have any suggestions? This was done with Imagine 1.1.


One definate possibility would be that your friend is using
"roughness" in the attribute definition of the objects. Roughness adds
a random addition to the direction light that hits a surface; it is
very sucessful in giving the illusion of a non-smooth surface. The big
problem is that there is no continuity between frames on how the light
will be randomly reflected. One person a few months ago talked about a
rough street he made that looked great, but when animated, it looked
as if it was covered with billions of crawling ants.  :-)

Another possibility is the ditherer. Dithering accumulates color
errors and adjusts adjacent pixels to minimize overall color error in
a local area. If two frames are different in any area, they might
be dithered differently, even at a different location, and you'll get
small changes at the pixel level.

One way to check to see if this is the trouble is to look at two
frames on a 24 bit display. [Like your spiffy ColorBurst!]. If there
is NO difference between the stationary objects, your ditherer is the
problem. If there is a difference, it's probably roughness.

To fix the dither problem, you could render the frames non-dithered.
You could also use The Art Department to try different types of
dithers: Random in particular tends to be a poor ditherer, but very
robust to the pixel-level changes you are having trouble with.

If roughness is the trouble, you can lower it (preferably to 0!). I
never use roughness; if I want an irregular surface, I use the
airbrush in DPaint to fill the screen with grey dots of every
intensity. I then use this as an altitude brush on the rough object.
When rendered, the bumps are stable over every frame, and there is the
added advantage of being able to move the object and camera and have
the object surface roughness change appropriately. You can also change
the scale of the roughness; Cobblestones have a different feel than
sandaper.

Hope this helps.

-Steve

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------



##

Subject: DiskAnim.
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 91 12:52:44 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Edward Chadez)

My friends:

DiskAnim originally appeared on the disk enclosed with an issue of Antic's
Amiga Magazine, and is currently available as part of a commercial package
which adds animation features to DigiPaint III (via an AREXX port).

I am sorry to say that I don't remember that company's name, nor the name
of the software.  (I'll look it up at home this evening, I promise.)  But
I thought I'd go ahead and post 'cause I know a lot of you out there are
resourceful enough (and want DiskAnim enough) to start looking right now.

For those of you who are willing to purchase this commercial program, it
should only set you back ~$30.  It might be worth it, even if you don't
have DigiPaint III, just to get DiskAnim.

-Edward Chadez

--
+--//-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|\X/ [e-mail]/Edward Chadez                CARL Systems(303)861-5319|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

##

Subject: Re: Bad anim dithering
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1991 16:16:20 -0500
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

Actually, I think the problem is Imagine's difficulty in choosing an
appropriate palette for each frame.  In some frames the colors are closer
to the 12 bit value when HAM'ed then in others.  The result is what appears
to be changing colors and flickering dithering.  I thikn we can work out
a solution if we can figure out how to get the "Lock Palette?" requestor
back.

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])

##

Subject: Come Dither
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 91 16:57:52 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Alan Price)

Rick Tillery writes:

>I got an anim from a friend that consists of a stationary camera, light
>sources (don't know how many) and a rotating logo inside a container
>that is an inverted glass dome over a wooden base.  It is also stationary
>(the logo rotates above the base inside the dome).  The dithering pattern
>on the wooden base, especially at the highlight areas, changes as the
>anim progresses.  It doesn't change regularly, but it does so several
>times throughout the anim, and continuously in some sequences of frames.

>Does anyone have any suggestions? This was done with Imagine 1.1.

Steve Worley noted the probability of 'roughness' being used or possible
dithering problems. I have another observation that seems to fit what Rick
is describing:

Even in 1.0, I often found that a dithered, stationary object would be
dithered slightly differently in some frames of an animation. Actually, the
colors used in the dither change (the dither 'pattern' looks the same, but a
few of the color values will suddenly shift for a few frames). When there is
other action in the scene, these slight changes are often acceptable, but if
the animation is a repeating loop, it becomes noticeable quickly.

Ever since I switched from Turbo Silver to Imagine, I automatically used the
ILBM render mode instead of Impulse's RGBN, it only made sense in terms of
image compatablity. Same with using ANIM mode instead of Imagine's MOVIE mode.
I always play ANIM-type animations using 'Display', by Hash.(Lots of keyboard
control while anim is playing, including a nifty frame counter when you hit
RETURN) I also like to hit Amiga-M while Imagine is compiling the ANIM so I
can watch the images being displayed on the 'hidden' screens. You can often
see the palette change as a new frame 'unscrolls' over the old one.

(NOTE: I always render all frames, THEN make the anim WITHOUT deleting the
frames, THEN delete the frames if the anim is finished because I'm paranoid
about loosing frames or winding up with an anim that's too big for memory,
and because I have the disk space.)

HOWEVER. One time I overlooked changing the default setting of 'RGBN' mode to
'ILBM' and rendered all the frames as RGBNs.  WELL, after having rendered all
the frames as RGBNs, I selected 'MAKE' (in ANIM mode) and Imagine popped up
a requestor I had not seen since the days of Turbo Silver:

                    "Lock Palette?"

This may be the solution! As you may recall if you used TS, 'Lock Palette' was
an option when rendering animations so that hightlights and such would not
alter over the course of an animation due to 'exposure changes' (or palette
calculations differing as objects move into new lighting situations.) This
is available in Imagine, too, but ONLY if you render your frames as RGBNs.
This may be common knowledge, but I didn't see it anywhere in the manual.

I am curious enough to take a poll to see how many user's use RGBN and how many
use ILBM as a standard, but it would be silly to have a bunch of posts to the
list saying "ILBM!", "RGBN!", so I won't. But if anyone has experimented with
the two and has conclusive results, please write! (I know, I know, very soon
now, we will all be saying "24-BIT!" :)

AP.

##

Subject: Anim dither problems
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 91 13:46 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Scott Busse)

Rick, I can only suggest what to do to avoid having the dithering
change/flicker during an animation. Assuming the camera is stationary, render
everything in the scene that doesn't move, just once. Render the moving objects
as a separate animation, and composite them onto the pre-rendered background
using ADPro or DigiPaint 3 using an AREXX script. (I hope I'm not stating the
obvious...).  As for after the fact repairs to such an anim, you could use
Animation:Editor or Animation:Station to break out the offending frames into
IFFs, as well as a frame that is not at fault, and use DigiPaint3 in rub-thru
mode to replace the flickering area with the area from the good frame. Then
re-assemble using Animation Station, Animation:Editor (or AniMagic or whatever
tricks you have...). Hope this helps. If not try rephrasing the question and
I'll try again!
--
* Scott Busse email:           O    O   O_     _      ___ .....
* CIS 73040,2114              |||  /|\  /\   O/\_     /         O    )=|
* [e-mail]    l   | |   |\    / \   /\                _\
* [e-mail]                  Live Long and Animate... \

##

Subject: ViewPoint objects
Date: Wed,  7 Aug 91 09:07:20 CDT
From: mit-eddie!harvard!scubed!pro-party.cts.com!seanc (Sean Cunningham)

I have a catalog of objects from Viewpoint Animation Engineering.  Some are
nice, others are pretty simple.  ALL are expensive.  To give you an
example, their "cheap" vehicles are $500.  This category includes stuff
like: '83 Malibu, '84 Colt, '88 Formula, '76 Camaro, and dozens more.

In a more expensive category you'll find stuff like: '90 BMW-M5, '82 280ZX,
'82 911SC, and a few more.  These are $1000.

Their complete human skeleton is $5500, planes are $700, and bodies are
$600 as are their animals.

All of the models were attained through various 3D digitizing techniques,
and they are capable of (and willing to) digitize stuff to your order.
I've spoken on the phone with these guys and they seem very cooperative,
and didn't react any differently after I told them that I was interested in
objects for rendering on an Amiga.  They said they can custom digitize
anything from about the size of a postage stamp to more than a mile in
diameter (!).  But make no bones about it, they're a professional
establishment and their prices and resources show it.  They even said that
if you need a car that's not on the list, give'em a VIN number and they'll
find one and digitize it for you!

If anyone would like more info from them:

Viewpoint Animation Engineering
140 South Mountain Way Drive #1
Orem, Utah 84058
[phone]

Sean
                                        /\
 RealWorld: Sean Cunningham            /  \     "Doing our business is what
      INET: [e-mail]   VISION                Amigas are for."
     Voice: [phone]             \  /
                                 //     \/      "Hasta la vista, baby."
    KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/   GRAPHICS         the Terminator, CSM101

##

Subject: Re: Anim dither problems
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1991 21:23:01 -0500
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

I hope all that work won't be necessary.  I think we've hit upon the problem.
Evidently the changing palette from frame to frame is the problem.  Pixels
are rendered in a slightly different color because of HAM excentricities.
Thanks for the help.

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])


##

Subject: Modifying/By-passing Imagine.pic
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 91 21:39:31 MDT
From: [e-mail] (Don C. Whitaker)

Does anyone know of a way to replace Imagine.pic with another (hopefully
smaller) pic. I hate have to wait the 5 seconds it takes to display every
time I re-load Imagine....

Don Whitaker -- [e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: Come Dither
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1991 21:12:51 -0500
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

I believe you have hit on the solution.  HAM mode palette changes are the
culprit.  I didn't know what would allow the "Lock Palette?" requestor to
show up.  I'll let him know it's the RGBN/ILBM deal.  Thank you VERY much.

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])


##

Subject: Imagine.pic
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 91 23:00:45 MDT
From: [e-mail] (Chris Hurtt)

Does anyone know of a way to replace Imagine.pic with another (hopefully
smaller) pic. I hate have to wait the 5 seconds it takes to display every
time I re-load Imagine....

Don Whitaker -- [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

      When I saw Imagine it looked like it was just a simple overscanned
high-res 16-greyscale pic. Try making one in that format. Or better yet,
try loading the pic into Dpaint to see what the format is.

     Chris
     [e-mail]


##

Subject: IMAGINE.PIC removal
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 91 22:44:23 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Aaron Tucker)

This should definately be on the FAQ list whenever it comes out. Anyways,


In IMAGINE 1.0, to get rid of the pic, ask Rick Tillery. You will need to
know how to use NEWZAP though. Also, get 1.1. It is much better.

In IMAGINE 1.1, you can't get rid of it, yet, but you can make it smaller
and load in faster. What I did, was go into PIXMATE and drop all but 2
colors. DON'T DROP THE BITPLANES! You still need a 4 bitplane 16 color image,
you will just be using 2 colors onscreen instead of 16. Some people use
only 1 color. But with two colors you can see a shitty representation of
the picture and know when it is done loading. Up to you, really.

Have fun.

BTW, has anybody played with setting task priorities with IMAGINE when
rendering? How high is safe?

Juan Trevino
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: What is the current state of Imagine extras and sutff out there
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 91 09:34:57 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

Manjit Bedi writes:
> Was there anything in the way of HDTV at SIGGRAPH?

Sure was, but since it was pretty low on my priority list, I paid little
attention to it. Maybe someone else who went has something to report.
I will say that they dedicated an entire animation screening room segment
to HDTV. The clarity was awe inspiring.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: ROOMS
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 91 10:05:34 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Alan Price)

John Zollinger writes:

>Count me in.  I'm not sure how many rooms I will contribute, I'll try and
>hold it down to one. ;-)  I have a friend who will want to create one also.

Great! Get as many friends involved as you can, too!
Sorry about the very delayed reply, but I just got back from a trip and
it took a bit of time catching up.

>Some ideas about the "House".  How about as people plan their rooms, send/post
>the layout and sizes of their rooms so that you/we will have some idea of
>where we are at, and what we need.  (No sense in having 20 bathrooms) ;-)

Good idea for 'filling out' out the possibilities, but since I am not asking
people to state exact dimensions or contents of rooms in these preliminary
stages, it would be hard to be very exact. What I will do soon, is to post
a list of the 'kinds' of rooms being done. That should help some.

>Would it be possible to post the whole house and then assign people
>a range of frames to render?  I realize now that I think about it, that might
>get kinda hairy.

It would be hairy, indeed. Though I am planning to work out a method of
"time-sharing" the finished "house" with others who wish to help in the
rendering of the finished project. I have thought it would be neat to post
the entire finished "house" object(s) to Hubcap, but will first ask everyone
involved if they have any problem with their personal objects being made
public.

>Oh, and how about making available commonly used objects,
>like doors etc.  Or do we care if the doorknobs match? hehe...

As I mentioned in the big proposal (Fri.,July 19), I will make available to
anyone a prefab door in case you have doubts about getting the dimensions
exactly right since this is the only REALLY important scale, as it has to
match up with other peoples' doors. I will certainly be doing a bit of 'point
dragging' such as in the case of a doorknob being higher on one side than on
the other. However, full consideration will be given to maintaining the
integrity of the original objects. Anyone wanting other 'prefab' objects for
helping in terms of getting the scale right, just ask.

>I'm excited!  We could put the video up for Animation contests and split the
>proceeds... ;-)  Oh ya, count me in for one video.

>John Zollinger
>[e-mail]

Exactly! How about next year's SIGGRAPH film show? Plus a LOT more!
Anyone interested in creating rooms, send on note!

AP.


##

Subject: more on DiskAnim
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 91 08:16:10 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Edward Chadez)

The program I mentioned yesterday was DigiMate III.  I don't have the
company's name (yet!).

DigiMate III is a "add-on" product that adds some animation tools to
DigiPaint III.  DiskAnim was included with the program when I first looked
into it, although you should confirm this if you plan to purchase DigiMate.

DigiMate is listed in the Sept. AW on page 67 for $23.95 (Creative
Computers add).  I will attempt to find out (and post) the company's name.

(DiskAnim is a program which runs animations from your HardDisk rather than
memory.  On non-DMA HDs the ANIM pauses every few secs so the HD can read.)

Edward Chadez
 -Amiga3000-

--
+--//-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|\X/ [e-mail]/Edward Chadez                CARL Systems(303)861-5319|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

##

Subject: Imagine data object formats?
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 91 16:23:50 BST
From: jerry cullingford <[e-mail]>

Does anyone know where I can get hold of a spec for Imagine's object
format? I'd like to have a go at generating some objects algorithmically..

--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+     |
| Jerry Cullingford  #include <std.disclaimer>     [phone] |   ,-|--
| [e-mail] (was [e-mail]) or [e-mail]      x3203 |   \_|__
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+ \___/

##

Subject: Re: more on DiskAnim
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 91 10:13:16 PDT
From: "Jim Lange" <[e-mail]>

In-Reply-To: WRPYR:[e-mail]'s message of 08-08-91 08:16

The Director v.2 has the ability to play anims directly from disk (as well as
load one anim while playing another), but I have not experimented with this
feature.  For absolute control over anim playback plus integration with other
special effects, The Director can't be beat.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Lange                [e-mail]
Oracle Corporation            {uunet,apple,hplabs}!oracle!jlange
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: DiskAnim and DigiMate III
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 91 11:56:29 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Edward Chadez)

On Aug 8, 12:56pm, BRANHAM,JOSEPH FRANKLIN wrote:
} Subject: Re:  more on DiskAnim

When I posted that DiskAnim is probably still in DigiMate III,
Mr. Branham wrote bac and said...

}
} I checked and it is still in the package.

So for those of you who were looking for it...now you know.

}
} Frank Branham
}
}
}-- End of excerpt from BRANHAM,JOSEPH FRANKLIN


-Edward Chadez

--
+--//-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|\X/ [e-mail]/Edward Chadez                CARL Systems(303)861-5319|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

##

Subject: AREXX and Imagine 2.0
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 91 16:30:23 EDT
From: [e-mail]

At SIGGRAPH Rick Rodriguez told me about many of the plans for Imagine
2.0; most of them I can't say anything about, since Impulse doesn't
want to be yelled at if it comes out with a missing "promised"
feature. I will just say that their priorities are pretty good; they
aren't wasting their time with stupid fluff additions, but
concentrating on revamping the parts of Imagine that are hardest to
use. Rick and I talked for a good while about how the manuals should
be done; they _should_ be a few orders of magnitude better than the
current 1.0 manuals.

This means that -NOW- is the time to start thinking about what you'd
like to see in 2.0. I'm sure they want to release it by Christmas for
all the extra sales, so assume for the next three or four months they
(Zack, anyway) are implementing new features. Mike Halvorson is really
the person who needs to be convinced of what to include; he's the
deciding force behind what additions get priority. Mike is currently
against adding AREXX, as he thinks the time could be better spent on
other modifications.

Now my two cents; I agree with him. Implementing full AREXX control
would be absolutly WONDERFUL, but would still take time for Zack (or
Steve Gillmor?)  to implement and install. The question is whether
this addition of AREXX would be more useful than some other feature
that would take a similar amount of time to implement.

What I think is the best option BY FAR is to implement AREXX in just
the Project Editor. Most of the tasks you want to automate will
involve converting pictures, assembling anims, etc. Just a few
commands are needed:

Open Project
Open Subproject
Pick Frame(s)
Generate Frames
Delete Frames

Now, to implement this, it would take maybe an hour of programming
(I've done this with my own programs using Thomas Riokiki's interface
code). To implement every Imagine command in every Editor, it would
take days just to make to describe the format of each command.

What could you do with Project Editor AREXX commands? Lots. You could
set up a script to automatically generate a frame, process it in ADPro
(which has a beautiful AREXX interface), and re-save them. You could
make a script to automatically generate a frame, convert it into DCTV
display format, and concatinate the pictures into a DCTV anim. You could
use a just-generated frame as a brushmap on an object in the next frame
of the anim, for some pretty funky effects.

With TTDDDlib, Glenn Lewis and I are working on VERY complex object
control which basically animates objects by generating a sequence of
objects that are "played" one per frame. Effects like complex morphs,
melting an object into a puddle, and making an F16 quiver like Jell-O
are the type of manipulations we are woking on. Currently these are
rendered in Imagine by having an object in the Action editor with 200
seperate one-frame actor descriptions. This takes about half an hour
of mindless typing just to set up manually! With AREXX control of
frame generation, a frame could be rendered, then the object renamed
so that the next object in the animation sequence could be used for
the next frame.

Although Glenn Lewis advocated a full AREXX interface, I'm sure that
he would agree that the Project Editor commands are by far the most
important.

In short, the a full AREXX interface would be great, but severely
underused.  AREXX control of the Project Editor would provide 95% of
the usefulness at 5% of the programming effort. I urge Impulse (Well,
Mike Halvorson!)  to have just these few AREXX commands included.

-Steve

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: Re: Why does SCANLINE take more RAM than TRACE?
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 91 16:37:33 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

Sean Cunningham writes:
> Why would scanline take more memory to
> render than raytrace, when I'm dealing with the same object under the same
> staging file?

I have a question for those of you who have seen this problem manifest
itself. Does disabling antialiasing in scanline mode dramatically reduce
the hords of memory used? While there is no *good* reason for this huge
consumption of memory, I can think of a couple bad reasons.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Re: AREXX and Imagine 2.0
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 91 18:16:58 EDT
From: [e-mail] (John J Humpal)

Steve Worley writes:
> Mike Halvorson is really
> the person who needs to be convinced of what to include; he's the
> deciding force behind what additions get priority. Mike is currently
> against adding AREXX, as he thinks the time could be better spent on
> other modifications.
>
> Now my two cents; I agree with him. Implementing full AREXX control
> would be absolutly WONDERFUL, but would still take time for Zack (or
> Steve Gillmor?)  to implement and install. The question is whether
> this addition of AREXX would be more useful than some other feature
> that would take a similar amount of time to implement.

    Actually, the Arexx interface wouldn't be all that hard to
implement, as long as it doesn't get too fancy.

>
> What I think is the best option BY FAR is to implement AREXX in just
> the Project Editor. Most of the tasks you want to automate will
> involve converting pictures, assembling anims, etc. Just a few
> commands are needed:
>
> [ Project editor commands deleted]
>

    I still think that the Stage editor, or at least the Action screen
is a prime candidate for an Arexx interface.  The tedium of loading several
objects interactively, moving them ditto, and waiting... and waiting... and
waiting... and well, you've been there ;-)... after every save or move from
Action, or redraw is something I just dread.

> To implement every Imagine command in every Editor, it would
> take days just to make to describe the format of each command.

    I agree.  Arexx would probably not be a suitable method for object
generation.  Crafting an Arexx macro to generate a complex object would
probably take longer than hand modeling it.

> With TTDDDlib, Glenn Lewis and I are working on VERY complex object
> control which basically animates objects by generating a sequence of
> objects that are "played" one per frame. Effects like complex morphs,
> melting an object into a puddle, and making an F16 quiver like Jell-O
> are the type of manipulations we are woking on. Currently these are
> rendered in Imagine by having an object in the Action editor with 200
> seperate one-frame actor descriptions. This takes about half an hour
> of mindless typing just to set up manually! With AREXX control of
> frame generation, a frame could be rendered, then the object renamed
> so that the next object in the animation sequence could be used for
> the next frame.

    Glenn's TTDDD is a far more elegant *and* flexible object generator
than Arexx could be.   (BTW, Glenn:  Thanks for TTDDD!  I'm going to
register with you ASAP.).

> In short, the a full AREXX interface would be great, but severely
> underused.  AREXX control of the Project Editor would provide 95% of
> the usefulness at 5% of the programming effort. I urge Impulse (Well,
> Mike Halvorson!)  to have just these few AREXX commands included.

    I suspect that *all* Arexx interfaces are underused :-)  but that's
not really a reason to omit them.  After all, "most" Amiga owners probably
don't really use multi-tasking, but without it an Amiga wouldn't be much
better than a Mac!

-John


John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer



##

Subject: Re: AREXX and Imagine2.0
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 91 18:12:13 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Alan Price)

I agree on the idea of implementing ARexx in the Project editor.
External programs such as TTDDD could handle automated generation of objects
much more efficiently than ARexx control of the detail editor, etc.

But how about control over the Action editor in the Stage editor? An ARexx
script could set up complicated morphs (multiple morphs) or position or
alignment "time-line" channels. The example Steve gives on multiple object
'morphing' could be handled in this way. Scripts could be written to generate
complex motion paths through key-framing as opposed to the tedium of manually
moving around path objects or all that typing in the position and align
channels.

Another upgrade I would like to see:

Variable smoothing control. Presently, it's either on or off. It even seems
to smooth 90 degree angles when it's on. How about a gadget placed in the
object attributes requestor that allows you to set the degree of smoothing?
Or, if too difficult to implement for individual objects, then at least a
setting in the globals requestor that allows you to set the degree for all
objects with "phong" selected. In software such as Wavefront, you can set
the threshold anywhere from 0 to 90 degrees. (e.g. - set at 60, two faces
meeting at a 45 degree angle would be smoothed, two meeting at 65 would be
a defined edge.)

Bring back FUZZY!

AP.


##

Subject: Wishlist for Imagine 2.0 :-)
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 91 0:49:42 MET DST
From: Henrik Harmsen <[e-mail]>

Ok, here are my 2 cents worth.

I personally would LOVE to be able to make soft sweeping objects without
the zillions of small, hard to convince, triangles. As I mostly like to do
still images this is something i really miss. I am ofcourse talking about
splinebased modelling, where surfaces of your liking could be created
with bezier spline patch surfaces or whatever they are called. Like in
Animation:JourneyMan. I know this is probably quite hard to program since
the splinepatches would have to be implemented in the editors and in the
rendering engine, which I suppose is highly streamlined to cope with
triangles only. But since there already is a specialcase of the perfect sphere,
maybe this could be done anyway...
Wishes, only wishes... :-)

  Henrik

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Email: [e-mail]    "It's better to burn out, than to fade away..."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: Wavebrush
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 91 20:42:08 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Steve Worley)

Oops, the brushmap I uploaded was compressed using lharc with UNIX
flags... a generic Amiga version is now uploaded. If you tried downloading
it and got a corrupt file, try again now. Sorry!

-Steve

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                       [e-mail]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: A Question About the ColorBurst and Software
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 91 11:26:04 JST
From: [e-mail] (Manjit Bedi)

Rick, forgive me if this previously travelled ground.  I was just wondering
how easy is it to say take a software packages like Deluxe Paint and Imagine
and allow them to display things on the ColorBurst?  I recall, from my
dark days of using IBM stuff in previous jobs and at school,  that for
many MS-DOS software programs you would just get a device driver to make
use of whatever flavor of graphics board you had.  But in the
Amiga world I am really unsure of the ease in which these things can
be achieved.



Manjit Bedi ( [e-mail])

Aspiring renaissance man - software programmer/ amateur actor/ social misfit?

##

Subject: Re: A Question About the ColorBurst and Software
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1991 23:32:55 -0500
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

The software included will display standard IFF files (not HAM or EHB), and
24 bit images as generated by Imagine when using the ILBM switch.  Therefore,
once saved, you can view either DPaint or Imagine images immediately.  I'm
working on making the software faster loading and giving it support for HAM
and EHB.  I'm also writing a GIF viewer.

If I didn't answer your question, please ask again until it gets through
my thick skull.

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])


##

Subject: film recorders
Date:  8 Aug 91 21:49 -0700
From: Andrew Niemann <[e-mail]>

>Subject: Film Recorders
>From [e-mail]  Mon Jul 15 11:28:34
>1991
>I am currently in the market to purchase a film recorder
>to jack into the amiga to record images from imagine and
>lightwave...... One of the 4000 line ones like the
>polaroid....I would be real interested in hearing anyones
>experiences with the different ones that are on the
>market..... I will be mainly be using it with a 16 mm back
>but the option for a 35 mm back would be great....
>  Thanx Christopher

I'd be interested in what software you are going to use to
put these images on the film recorder. Adpro ? Does it feed
the image to the film recorder piecemeal or does it have to
load the whole image into memory first?  To do a format
conversion Adpro loads the whole image into memory first,
which means that even with 10megs I don't have enough memory
to convert anything higher than a 1500x1000 image (which
doesn't look so great when blown up as a slide on the
screen). Instead I'm using Rasterlink (which converts the
file piece by piece in 1meg of memory) to convert to Targa
for recording onto film by a local graphics business.
However it seems to put weird color glitches in the file
every now and then (a major piss off).

And which version of Polaroid film recorder are you thinking
of using? I've seen output from the Polaroid Palette Plus,
and it's horrible. They were demonstrating a new Polaroid
recorder here (hooked to a Mac) that had 24bit color and
4000 resolution, but it cost $8500. I didn't get a chance to
have a good close look at the output. Seemed nice.

I've been getting my film output from a Laser Data film
recorder, also 4000 resolution. It's quite nice but on large
fields of smooth color it will often have visible horizontal
streaking (reminds me of dot matrix printers). (as an aside,
on one image that went smoothly from dark blue at the top to
darker blue at the bottom you could see banding from Imagine
even though it was in 24bit color! You had to look pretty
hard but it was definately there. Maybe 24bit is not quite
enough?)

If you're doing 16mm animation maybe you don't need that
high a resolution? On slides 2400x1600 seems to be just
barely acceptable (4000 is definately sharper when compared
side by side). But if the image is moving around then would
you be able to get away with a lot less?  Curious.

andy



##

Subject: AREXX
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 91 10:12:28 EDT
From: cbmtor![e-mail] (Caleb J. Howard (Product Support))

Well, for myself I can say that if Impulse does not add an AREXX port to
their excellent package, Then Imagine will sadly become the product that
I use until a more appropriate Amiga ray-tracer comes along.  (By
'appropriate'  I mean one that uses the resources and capabilities of the
Amiga).  The machine is capable of many things that aren't available on
conusumer level computers generally yet.  Software that doesn't make use
of these features demeans itself.
There, that's my vote for an AREXX port.
(a multiprocessing network version would be an easy and useful addition, too)
-caleb


##

Subject: imagine wish list
Date:  8 Aug 91 22:18 -0700
From: Andrew Niemann <[e-mail]>

Want:
-sliders and color sample patch for ALL requesters that can use them
-textures by % rather than ablolute rather than by absolute size, and then be able to save them
-Soft lighting effect as in overcast day or using a softbox, soft shadows
-shadows that get softer the further away they are from the object, as in
 real life
-soft lighting edges with conical lights. definable
-variable depth of field, both in intensity and in location. neat to be
 able to draw out the area one wants sharp and area to be soft
-full fog effect (in scanline also) , shows up light beams, variable
 thickness and coarseness
-shadows in scanline mode a la Lightwave
-live perspective window -all editing functions available
-no redraw on multiple hits of arrow key when moving about in editing
 windows until last key hit. ie you can move over three hits of the arrow key
 and not have to wait for three damn redraws that you know you didn't want
-patina texture -parts sticking out would get a different color. effect of
 faded jean seams or rubbed carvings, tools, etc. anything that gets handled

I'd rather have these over arexx, although arexxing the project menu would
be nice.

forgot
-able to scale, rotate etc points with the mouse. (all in the perspective
 window as well)

andy


##

Subject: Let me clarify about my question re: ColorBurst
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 91 15:50:13 JST
From: [e-mail] (Manjit Bedi)

Hi again Rick!

You must have been up late went you got my posting since I am 15 hours
ahead of PST ( compared to where you are).  It is pretty funky get
replies the same day I send them from around the world.

What I am wondering about more precisely is:

    You are using Deluxe Paint or whatever and you actually painting on a
    24 - bit Color Burst screen or something to that effect.  Or when
    you are generating an image in Imagine, Imagine displays it on the
    ColorBurst for you.  I am wondering how seamless an environment you
    establish so to speak without having to do a lot of CLI stuff but
    that AREXX is for : -).  I really should learn to use it.

Manjit Bedi ( [e-mail])

Aspiring renaissance man - software programmer/ amateur actor/ social misfit?

##

Subject: Re: Let me clarify about my question re: ColorBurst
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1991 07:22:30 -0500
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

What you are asking is essentially impossible until a standard 24 bit
library is established that a program like DPaint or Imagine could use
to address any 24 bit board.  Until then, you'll have to use the CLI.
Even with AREXX, you won't be able to view a half-finished image as it's
being rendered or paint on the 24 screen with DPaint.  Sorry, no board,
even the most expensive ones, won't do this anytime soon.

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])


##

Subject: VHS anims
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 91 11:28 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Duane Fields)

We should somehow assemble a "Best-of" VHS tape full of Imagine anims done by
our various members.  Both 24-bit DCTV and Ham.  It would be quite cool I should
think!

Duane


##

Subject: 24 bit libraries
Date: Fri, 09 Aug 91 13:25:59 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Rick Tillery writes:

>What you are asking is essentially impossible until a standard 24 bit
>library is established that a program like DPaint or Imagine could use
>to address any 24 bit board.  Until then, you'll have to use the CLI.
>Even with AREXX, you won't be able to view a half-finished image as it's
>being rendered or paint on the 24 screen with DPaint.  Sorry, no board,
>even the most expensive ones, won't do this anytime soon.

Yes, I agree. This is one area where the Mac wins hands down! They
have supported device independent graphics for a long time, starting
when they developed the Mac II and were scared that there would be
major problems if there were always two software versions (one for the
Mac I's, one for the Mac IIs.) As a senendipitous beneifit, incorporation
of 24 bit cards, multiple monitors, full page monitors, etc, has become
very easy.

Giving the Amiga a device independent graphics standard will be very
painful; 24 bit cards are already in use, standard graphic calls go
though thr custom chips instead of the CPU, and the Amiga doesn't have
a divergent product line (The Amiga II!) that would FORCE such a
development.

The best we can hope for is proably as Rick was saying; a 24-bit
library so at least when a program knows it wants to output 24 bit, it
doesn't have to know the brand name of the card. An 8 bit library (For
the Gfx card, the Digital Micronics board, and the A2410) would also
be useful. Incorporating 24 bit, 8 bit, standard Amiga graphics (DCTV?
HAM-E!?) into one big library might be possible, but probably too
difficult for anyone even to attempt. Too bad.

-Steve

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------



##

Subject: Re: 24 bit libraries
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1991 13:53:56 -0500
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

If C= paid me, I'd give the device independent library a try :-)

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])

##

Subject: Imagine & AREXX
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 91 10:00 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Scott Busse)

Steve, I agree that the Project Editor is a good place for AREXX, but must add
Stage and Action Editors to the list. This is where the real meat of animation
is assembled, and in a world where I'm using alot of different packages to put
together the final product, I need external control of this phase. I need to be
be able to bring in objects that are pre-animated or pre-positioned in some
other package and place them in a particular place and time via some pipeline
from the outside.  Complex motion of the "flocking" type done typically on
Symbolics machines could be implemented (like Stella and Stanley, the bird and
fish things in the "Breaking the Ice" animation), or real world dynamics for
motion paths and kinematics ( watch me drop this dump-truck on that "Sky-Dome"
roof...).  These are things that are not likely to be implemented by Impulse
for a long time, so why not just do the AREXX and leave the optional goodies to
each individual. With the advent of an AREXX compiler (there are a few things
happening now), a market for AREXX effects could develop, to everyone's
benefit. While we're at it, I think the AREXX port for the Detail Editor is
very important as well. It would open the possibility to do more detailed
morphing like Animation:Journeyman.
I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT OF AREXX, AND IT IS GOOD! :) :) :) ...sorry, I'm prone to
the soapbox stance :)
So, from my point of view:
1> AREXX port, all the way.
2> Soft edge shadows. (Hey, this is the nineties!)
3> Support hierarchical object manipulation *in the Action Editor*.
4> 68040 optimized code.
5> Distributed image processing for networked Amigas (3D Pro does it)
6> Multiple velocity changes on a single path.
7> Don't forget AREXX access to the F/X port. (Let's use that thing!)
8> Motion Blurrrrr.
That's all that comes to mind right now. Of course they can't do all that by
Christmas, unless they hire a bunch of programmers...
  And of course the standard appreciation for how wonderful Imagine already is,
applies, as always...:)
--
* Scott Busse email:           O    O   O_     _      ___ .....
* CIS 73040,2114              |||  /|\  /\   O/\_     /         O    )=|
* [e-mail]    l   | |   |\    / \   /\                _\
* [e-mail]                  Live Long and Animate... \

##

Subject: Faster Loading Imagine.pic
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 91 13:38:38 MDT
From: [e-mail] (Steven Lee Webb)

                                  Hello.

  I made a picture that loads 50-70% faster than the old Imagine picture.
         It's on Hubcap in the MISC directory.  Hope you like it!


                             -- Steven Webb --

Only  ///|Steven Lee Webb  +---------------------------------------+  /\__Luxo|
Amiga/// |CSU - Comp. Sci. |  11-XAV a edisni deppart ma I !pleH   |  \\ /\ Jr|
 \\\///  |Amiga 500-5M Ram |     [e-mail]     |  /|/\ _  |
  \XX/   |50M Hard Drive   +---------------------------------------+ // \ (_) |

##

Subject: Pixel aspect ratio for CB
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 91 15:28:06 MEZ
From: [e-mail] (Thorsten Ebers)

HI,
has anybody of you good values for screen sizes and pixel aspect ratios for
the Colorburst ?

Thorsten


##

Subject: Re: imagine wish list
Date: Fri,  9 Aug 91 22:48:48 CDT
From: mit-eddie!harvard!scubed!pro-party.cts.com!seanc (Sean Cunningham)


I'd like to add:

- spline based modelling.  I 'spose NURBS or Beziers would be okay, but
  would rather they liscence Hash's spline technology.  Bot for greater
  control and ease of use (so I've read and been told) and for portability
  between the two packages.

- channel based/graph motion control for all objects, using splines of
  course :)

- free-form path drawing IN THE STAGE EDITOR.

- REAL brush mapping (ie: brushes that stick to the surface, ala JMan).

- displacement mapping

- soft shadows

- CompuGraphic or Adobe Postscript font importation

...I could probubly think of a couple of others, but this is all that comes
to mind now.  You could probubly add variable motion blur and of course,
ARexx.

Sean
                                        /\
 RealWorld: Sean Cunningham            /  \     "Doing our business is what
      INET: [e-mail]   VISION                Amigas are for."
     Voice: [phone]             \  /
                                 //     \/      "Hasta la vista, baby."
    KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/   GRAPHICS         the Terminator, CSM101

##

Subject: Problems with Imagine and '040 (?)
Date: Fri,  9 Aug 91 23:04:06 CDT
From: mit-eddie!harvard!scubed!pro-party.cts.com!seanc (Sean Cunningham)

I was just informed by one of my customers that they have their Fusion40
with 32M of RAM installed and running.  Everything seems to be enhanced
almost beyond belief (they were running an A2500/30 prior to purchasing the
board) EXCEPT for Imagine.

Screens open ultra-fast, and requesters pop up before you get your finger
off the key (button).  BUT, they report that renderings (scanline) are
taking as long as and even *LONGER* to render than when they were running
on the 25mHz '030.  Anyone else experienced with using Imagine on an
'040???

I couldn't believe this when I heard it.  At first I thought that maybe his
software was reinstalled and he was running the standard version of Imagine
and not the FP version.  But no software was changed (they just had to wait
for new ROMs for their A2091a card...you need rev6.6 or later).  Anyone
know what gives?

I have not been able to see the problem first hand (was busy today and will
be going out of town for a few days soon) so I don't know exactly how
they're running (software comes with the board for setting your caches and
doing FastROM loads like CPU and SetCPU).

I only skimmed through the article, but the most recent Byte has an article
on programming the '040 and it cites several possible reasons for this.
One is that the '040 doesn't implement the full instruction set of the FPU
as in the '882 (or was it the MMU...don't recall at this time, but it
wasn't the whole thing so calls outside what it supports had to be dealt
with using some kind of conversion tables or something (you can tell I'm
not a hardware person, eh?)).  Also, current software designed for use with
the '020/'030 are only expecting READ cacheing, while the '040 supports
WRITE caching as well...I'll have to read it more thuroughly this weekend.

Any help at all in figuring out what's going on would be appreciated.

Sean
                                        /\
 RealWorld: Sean Cunningham            /  \     "Doing our business is what
      INET: [e-mail]   VISION                Amigas are for."
     Voice: [phone]             \  /
                                 //     \/      "Hasta la vista, baby."
    KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/   GRAPHICS         the Terminator, CSM101

##

Subject: $2X10^-2
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 91 12:24:55 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Rob Borsari)

Sorry if I sent this before, my host glitched and I don't know if this got out.
 (its a macII, what can I say B-) ((in defense it is running beta AUX))
The most usefull feature I can think of that hasn't been mentioned would be
the ability to import an IFF to trace for the outline of one or more of the
FORMS editor views.  Ex. Import a retouched scan of the three sides (top side
front) of a lotus esprit.  use slice to add wheel wells and windows and there
you go.  It would sure cut down on the time it takes to create the rough shape
of complex objects.  (puting myself out of a job B^)
    Another I can think of that has been mentioned is ability to address
 children of grouped objects in the stage editor.  I make big models that have
 lots of moving parts that I would like to group so they move with the parent
 but can have rotations and movement (tracking radars) assigned in the stage
 editor.  (maybe a telescope type action for grouped objects to give access to
 the children when needed ((see amigavision)))
    Quickmove in the stage editor.  A quickmove all but pick option.
Window change gadgets that interupt the screen refresh.  Default stage that
includes a light source for test renders (just load object and go) Or
even a test option from detail editor that moves the camera so the object fits
in the view and renders it to specs in the config file.  Ability to see iff's
in when applying as brushes. (may be redundant, after all what is multi tasking
for ;)  Tracking for non camera objects. (see radars above) .
    Ok, Here it comes.  Major Additions --
Particle Systems (beg grovel), Colision detection, Fog effects, motion blur,
 EVERYBODY .. and a partrige in a pear tree.  Next song, A Grazing Mace.

 Well thats my $2X10^-2     -R-

[e-mail]   Rob Borsari     "Bourne to be wild"

##

Subject: TTDDD as a standard
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 91 16:36:44 EST
From: [e-mail] (Tirso Alonso)

I think you may be interested in this,

>ewsgroups: comp.graphics
>ubject: 3D interchange format
>essage-ID: <[e-mail]>
>rom: [e-mail] (Geometry project)
>ate: 10 Aug 91 23:27:56 GMT
>rganization: University of Auckland, New Zealand.
>eywords: 3D interchange format
>ummary: 3D interchange format
>ines: 31


                 Proposed format (standard)
                   for the interchange of
                     3D computer models

Aim
To create a text file format for describing the geometry
of three dimensional computer models. The format should
have the following characteristics
- easy to interpret
  (minimise difficulties for importing software)
- contain a rich set of primitives
  (minimise geometry decomosition by exporting software)
- supply a mathematical description of the primitives
  (unambiguous description of the geometric primitives)
- contain source code for describing the complex primitives
  (make decomosition easy and uniform for importers)
- be freely available, distribution cost only

Timetable
10 August      Call for submissions
               This note
10 September   Release initial specifications for comment
               Subject to interest
1 November     Specification revision complete
               Description of format available

All submissions and suggestions should be made via email to
    [e-mail] (130.216.1.5)

Please include your postal as well as email address.

##

Subject: Lights
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 91 17:14 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Duane Fields)

I am having problems mastering a VERY basic aspect of Imagine, lights.
How does one know where to put lights? How many are needed?  Example,
to create a simple Floor with bluesky and some object sitting in the middle,
nothing fancy, just a good even lighting like being outside on a nice day.

Duane

##

Subject: RE: Lights
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 91 21:26:02 MDT
From: [e-mail] (Don C. Whitaker)

>How does one knoe where to put the lights?

Here's a good basic lighting set-up that I use for a lot of test
renderings...,

I use 2 lights. I position the first behind and a little to the right of
the camera. Just accept the defaults that Imagine offers (i.e. Spherical,
255 for the RGB intensities). For the second light, I usually cut the
intensities to about 120 or 160. Then I position it about 90 degrees from
the first light (behind and a little farther to the left of the camera).
The second light fills in the lighting without washing out the shading..

Hope this helps...

Don Whitaker  --  [e-mail]


##

Subject: Re: Ideas for Imagine 2.0
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 91 11:15:32 BST
From: jerry cullingford <[e-mail]>

> This means that -NOW- is the time to start thinking about what you'd
> like to see in 2.0.

  One of the easiest (and useful, at least for PAL users) changes that
  I'd like to see, would be to make the various editors able to adapt
  to PAL aspect ratios. At the moment, Imagine will use the full PAL
  screen - but the objects in the editors are all squashed vertically,
  because it still uses NTSC aspect ratios. This makes judging shapes and
  distances difficult. It would be nice if Imagine could figure out what
  sort of display it's running on, and adjust itself accordingly - or at
  least have a config file option to adjust it.
--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+     |
| Jerry Cullingford  #include <std.disclaimer>     [phone] |   ,-|--
| [e-mail] (was [e-mail]) or [e-mail]      x3203 |   \_|__
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+ \___/

##

Subject: Macs claim Terminator 2 Graphics...
Date:    Mon, 12 Aug 91 08:45 PDT
From: "Ivan I."                            <[e-mail]>

I got this off of Info-Amiga & thought it might be of general interest.
Ditto what Eric says at the end -- I don't know any more than this.
- Ivan
-------------------------TEXT-OF-FORWARDED-MAIL--------------------------------

To:           "IVAN P. IVANICK" <[e-mail]>
From:   LYNX::KTC0440CSCI  "It is in your nature to destroy yourselves"  9-AUG-1
991 10:11:16.65
To:     RIKER
CC:
Subj:   T2 graphics

From:   IN%"[e-mail]"  "Macintosh News and Information"  9-AUG-1991 1
To:     'Kerry Cianos' <[e-mail]>
Subj:   The Mac and T2

     I found this interesting posting on the newsnet down at UNC.  It was
on the rec.arts.movies list but I thought that it was just as appropriate
for this one.  I am sorely tempted to deposit it on an Amiga list just to
rile them up (all the more so because an Amiga user came out and said the
posting was hogwash before checking his facts) but I think I'll resist the
temptation.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

[e-mail]: T2 computer grahics done on Macintosh!          6 Aug 91 15:29
Please excuse the sensationalist title to this post, but I can't resist after
reading earlier postings which doubted the Mac's ability to create graphics
worthy of Cameron's masterpiece--T2.
The following is from AppleLink, describing how Macs were use to create the
awesome Doomsday scene.
--------------
Electric Image, Inc. was recently hired by ForeWard Productions to produce four
computer graphic elements of Terminator II.  These elements consisted of the
city of Los Angeles blowing to bits as a huge nuclear shock wave moves towards
the viewer.

In order to create this shot, we first had to create Los Angeles.  We modeled
the buildings in Super 3D and positioned them in ElectricImage using the
rotoscoping feature.  This feature allows the user to display an image in the
background of the camera window.  The outlines of the models are displayed over
the background image from the camera's point of view.  As the models are
positioned, rotated and scaled in the top, front and side windows, their
outlines are draw in over the background image in the camera window.  This
allowed us to exactly match the actual matt painting used in the scene.

The completed model of Los Angeles was saved out as a separate file.  This file
was then processed with a custom program I wrote which can simulate explosions
by breaking up large polygons into smaller fragments.  Random rotation and
gravity was applied to each of these fragments and the whole model was written
out every frame as a separate group.  The total size of this model file was
over 200 MB.  ElectricImage then rendered this model one group per frame. The
camera location was the same one used to create the original Los Angeles model.
144 frames were generated for each of the four passes (glow sphere, hold out
matt, shaded fragments, ring shockwave).  Each pass was rendered Phong shaded
at a resolution of 2048 x 898. The rendering took btween 10 and 18 minutes
per frame. The entire job was finished in two days on three Macintosh IIfx
computers.

The animations were converted to PICT files and were output on a Matrix QCR
film camera.  The shots were composited with before and after matt paintings by
traditional optical techniques.

I think you will find the final shot quite impressive.  So far as I know, this
is the first time that work of this nature has been performed entirely on a
Macintosh. I found the work to be both challenging and rewarding and hope to
do more motion picture production work in the future.
Terminator II is a great film. I strongly urge you to see it.

Mark Granger
Electric Image
--------------------------
The above was taken from AppleLink. I have no futher information on it.
I don't know how to contact Mark Granger. This information is offered at face
value only. Don't e-mail me for further details cause I don't have any.
I hope this doesn't lead to rumors about all of T2's comp. graphics being done
on a Mac, because they weren't.


--Eric

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

      I'd just like to thank both Mark Granger who originally posted it to
Applelink and Eric who posted it to the newsnet where I found it.

Ian

##

Subject: Re: Problems with Imagine and '040 (?)
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1991 15:06:11 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

[e-mail] (Sean Cunningham) writes:


>I was just informed by one of my customers that they have their Fusion40
>with 32M of RAM installed and running.  Everything seems to be enhanced
>almost beyond belief (they were running an A2500/30 prior to purchasing the
>board) EXCEPT for Imagine.
>
>Screens open ultra-fast, and requesters pop up before you get your finger
>off the key (button).  BUT, they report that renderings (scanline) are
>taking as long as and even *LONGER* to render than when they were running
>on the 25mHz '030.  Anyone else experienced with using Imagine on an
>'040???

 >[stuff deleted]

>Any help at all in figuring out what's going on would be appreciated.
>
>Sean
>                                        /\
> RealWorld: Sean Cunningham            /  \     "Doing our business is what
>      INET: [e-mail]   VISION                Amigas are for."
>     Voice: [phone]             \  /
>                                 //     \/      "Hasta la vista, baby."
 >    KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/   GRAPHICS         the Terminator, CSM101

Sean, how about the render time comparisons in trace mode (using Imagine).
I always experienced a 3-4.5 fold increase using the RCS40 in trace. I must
admit, I don't remember offhand comparing the 040 to other accellerators
in scanline, however I do remember it being extreamly fast in scanline too.
Also, the board should show it's best performance the more complicated the
scene is.

--stephen

--
Stephen Menzies
Email: [e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: Macs claim Terminator 2 Graphics...
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 91 14:00:46 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> Electric Image, Inc. was recently hired by ForeWard Productions to produce
> four computer graphic elements of Terminator II. These elements consisted
> of the city of Los Angeles blowing to bits as a huge nuclear shock wave
> moves towards the viewer.

Electric Image was showing the sequence at Siggraph. It should be noted
that the bulk of this scene was done with models, miniatures, and compositing
effects. The computer generated portion was rather small. It did look good
though.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Portal
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 91 16:51:29 EDT
From: [e-mail]

I just joined the nationwide BBS "Portal". It's sorta taken over since
PeopleLink flushed itself. Anyway, it turns out they have a nice
selection of PD Amiga stuff that isn't found at FTP sites, including
a demo version of Caligari. Kinda fun to play around with.

Anyway, the best part of the system is the on-line confrences. You
"chat" with other users real-time, which is very handy. There are also
a lot of big names that show up at these confrences regularly: Steve
Gilmor, Brad Schenck, Harv Laser, Steve Tibbets, Perry Kivkjdhkjhfkdoj ( :-) )
Lou Markoya, and others. Forgive the name mangling.

Anyway, it's a nice place to talk about Amiga graphics. I'm trying not to
plug for Portal; I just found that it was a convenient way to get to know
other people interested in graphics. Their file uploads tend to be different
than the FTP most of us use. I'm in the process of uploading most of the
Hubcap stuff.

Anyway, it's something like $14 a month for unlimited connect time and
downloading. I'll be logged in there pretty regularly each evening
from now on, so if ya want to stop by and have a real time chat, you
can find me.
----------

For those of you who want a 24-bit Ocean Sunset, OK. I'll upload one when I
rerender it. For those who are looking for the completed anim, don't hold
your breath....

-Steve

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------



##

Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1991 16:25:32 -0500
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

Pardon me, but who uploaded Balloons.lzh?  It's FANTASTIC!!!  I viewed it
on my ColorBurst and it is a fabulous 24 bit image!!!  If there is room
for more 24 bit images on hubcap, I'll put some there too.  Anyone
interested?  I just got one done on Real 3D ($499 is REAL steep, but it
looks like a decent renderer).

For my input into Imagine 2.0, I want a whole new re-write of the stage
editor to resemble Caligari Pro --- see the demo on ab20.larc.nasa.gov!

OK, maybe not, but I can suggest can't I?

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])


##

Subject: Re: Portal
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 91 08:18:14 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Alan MacAnespie)

[e-mail] (Steve Worley) writes:

>I just joined the nationwide BBS "Portal". It's sorta taken over since
>PeopleLink flushed itself. Anyway, it turns out they have a nice

I remember Harv Laser on c.s.a.misc back in oh... December(?) stating that
Mike Halvorson and others from Impulse were on Plink frequently.  Didn't
they say something about their own support area?  Did they all move to
Portal?

Hey Steve, since Portal is supposed to have a Usenet link, why not include
IMPULSE on Portal as another Imagine mailing list subscriber?  As many
times as you and others have forwarded "policy" notes to/from Impulse, why
not eliminate the hops?  If they don't want to send, that their right, but
Impulse would benefit from the feedback from this group (IMHO).


On the ongoing Imagine 2.0 wishlist:

1. AREXX for the Project screen first, Stage Editor next, Detail Editor
   last.
     Never under-estimate the power of somebody to do something nifty
     and useful in AREXX.  Impulse will never be able to compose all the
     features for everyone, but given AREXX, everyone can compose their own.

2. Have slider controls for all values in Detail and Stage Editors.

     I don't know how many times I want to tweak a value only to find that
     I have to type in the whole number.  This doesn't mean that I don't
     want the value indicators as well, I want both!  :-)


________________________________________________________________________
Alan MacAnespie,              || * Standard Disclaimers Apply Upstairs.*
Texas Instruments             ||  Is a person who writes many different
[e-mail]  ||  applications a Renaissance Computist?

How many bits would a BlitBlit blit if a BlitBlit could blit bits?

##

Subject: Brush Mapping
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 91 16:09:11 GMT
From: Mariano Sanchez <[e-mail]>

Hello for all, this is my first posting to this list. As a new user of
Imagine I'm trying to do brush mapping with results that look terrible. I've
read hundreds of messages of this list and I found them fantastic, but after
all I still have my problem, here it is:
I'm trying to do a FLAT X FLAT Z color map in a plane, as you said in some
messages I edited the axis to make the possitive parts of the Z and X axes
as large as the plane and moved it to the lower left corner. After it i went
to the stage editor, place the camera in front of the plane, add a ligth and
went to project editor for rendering. The results were a total surprise, the
plane looked pretty with this mix of white triangles and triangles colored
with the image of the brush.

I'll try to make a draw
                           _______
                           |\    | White face
                           | \   |
                           |  \  |
                           |   \ |
             Brush colored |    \|
               face        -------
repeated for all the squares that makes the plane.


If anyone could give me a soulution... Thanks a lot.

Mariano Sanchez.
--
[e-mail]


##

Subject: Sun's rastor image
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 91 16:14:17 EDT
From: [e-mail] (John Rosner - Oakwood 470 Ext 7584 )

I have a Sun IPC on my desk at work and I've seen some machines around
with a rastor image background.  My intention is to render some project
related subjects from Imagine at home and then convert them to GIF,
send them to work and use them.

My question is what is Sun's rastor format?  All the docs say is rastor
and either 1 or 8 bit planes.  Are there utilities to convert a GIF to
Sun's format?

Thanks,

John Rosner

##

Subject: Re:  Sun's rastor image
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 91 13:42:43 MST
From: [e-mail] (Marvin Landis)

>I have a Sun IPC on my desk at work and I've seen some machines around
>with a rastor image background.  My intention is to render some project
>related subjects from Imagine at home and then convert them to GIF,
>send them to work and use them.
>
>My question is what is Sun's rastor format?  All the docs say is rastor
>and either 1 or 8 bit planes.  Are there utilities to convert a GIF to
>Sun's format?

The best conversion programs around are part of the pbmplus package from
Jef Poskanzer.  There are programs in it to allow conversions from gif to
sun format.  If you need to do all kinds of file conversions, get this
package, and compile it on your Sun (no Amiga version that I know of).  It
can be found in the /contrib directory of export.lcs.mit.edu (18.30.0.238).

However another solution is to get a program called xv running on your
Sun.  It too can be found on export.lcs.mit.edu (xv.pl3.tar.Z).  It will
allow you to display gif files (no need to convert to Sun format) on the root
window of your Sun, and also do various types of image processing (resize,
crop, gamma correction, etc) on the image.  The only problem with this solution
is you need to be running X11 or Open Windows on your Sun.

Everyone here at work likes to see my Imagine images, and since I don't have
an Amiga here, showing the images on my Sun or our Silicon Graphics machine
is the only solution I have.  Both these programs offer different ways of
doing just that.

Hope this helps,

Marvin Landis
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: Sun's rastor image
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 91 16:47:36 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> My question is what is Sun's rastor format?  All the docs say is rastor
> and either 1 or 8 bit planes.  Are there utilities to convert a GIF to
> Sun's format?

Yes, both the pbmplus tools and fuzzy bitmap tools convert GIFs to and from
Sun rasterfile format. The format itself is quite simple. Here is an include
file that describes the format:

/* rast.h - header file for Sun raster files
**
** The format of a Sun raster file is as follows.  First, a struct
** rasterfile.  Note the 32-bit magic number at the beginning; this
** identifies the file type and lets you figure out whether you need
** to do little-endian / big-endian byte-swapping or not.  (The PBMPLUS
** implementation does not do byte-swapping; instead, it reads all
** multi-byte values a byte at a time.)
**
** After the struct is an optional colormap.  If ras_maptype is RMT_NONE,
** no map is present; if it's RMT_EQUAL_RGB then the map consists of
** three unsigned-char arrays ras_maplength long, one each for r g and b.
** I don't know what RMT_RAW means.  Black and white bitmaps are stored
** as ras_maptype == RMT_NONE and ras_depth == 1, with the bits stored
** eight to a byte MSB first.
**
** Finally comes the image data.  If ras_type is RT_OLD or RT_STANDARD,
** the data is just plain old uncompressed bytes, padded out to a multiple
** of 16 bits in each row.  If ras_type is RT_BYTE_ENCODED, a run-length
** compression scheme is used: an escape-byte of 128 indicates a run;
** the next byte is a count, and the one after that is the byte to be
** replicated.  The one exception to this is if the count is 1; then
** there is no third byte in the packet, it means to put a single 128
** in the data stream.
*/

struct rasterfile {
    long ras_magic;
#define RAS_MAGIC       0x59a66a95
    long ras_width;
    long ras_height;
    long ras_depth;
    long ras_length;
    long ras_type;
#define RT_OLD          0       /* Raw pixrect image in 68000 byte order */
#define RT_STANDARD     1       /* Raw pixrect image in 68000 byte order */
#define RT_BYTE_ENCODED 2       /* Run-length compression of bytes */
#define RT_FORMAT_RGB   3       /* XRGB or RGB instead of XBGR or BGR */
#define RT_FORMAT_TIFF  4       /* tiff <-> standard rasterfile */
#define RT_FORMAT_IFF   5       /* iff (TAAC format) <-> standard rasterfile */
#define RT_EXPERIMENTAL 0xffff  /* Reserved for testing */
    long ras_maptype;
#define RMT_NONE        0
#define RMT_EQUAL_RGB   1
#define RMT_RAW         2
    long ras_maplength;
    };

|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: SUN Rasters
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 91 17:23:25 EDT
From: [e-mail]

John Rosner asks:

>My question is what is Sun's rastor format?  All the docs say is rastor
>and either 1 or 8 bit planes.  Are there utilities to convert a GIF to
>Sun's format?

The Sun rasterfile standard is documented on page 73 of the Sun
PixRect Reference Manual.  It's too long for me to type it in, but
there are built in library functions for reading and writing them
(like pr_dump_image() ) if you want to roll your own.

Perry K. of ASDG mentioned to me a few months ago that ADPro will soon
have a Sun Rasterfile module for reading and writing. Odds are it will
show up in the 2.0 release in a few months.

I don't know of any GIF converters for the Sun, but I'm SURE they
exist. Try poking through Sun FTP sites or ask on comp.sys.sun.

Hope this helps.

-Steve

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: Re: Sun's rastor image
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 91 17:41:05 -0400
From: Udo K Schuermann <[e-mail]>

[e-mail] (Marvin Landis) writes:
> The best conversion programs around are part of the pbmplus package from
> Jef Poskanzer.
> ... (no Amiga version that I know of).

For those without TAD or TadPro (like me), pbmplus is indeed a very
nice package.  An Amiga version exists (I use it) and should be
available via anonymous ftp from ab20.larc.nasa.gov [128.155.23.64]
(grep the /FILES.Z for 'pbm').  Source can be found on pc.usl.edu
[130.70.40.3] (last I checked, a while ago).

 ._.  Udo Schuermann       "Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter
 ( )  [e-mail]    with the promise of the brave new world unfurled
 Seeking virtual memory     beneath the clear blue sky?" -- Pink Floyd

##

Subject: Input on ideas for Imagine 2.0
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 91 15:49:09 -0700
From: A message from ********************************* Death to Chia Pets --CH <[e-mail]>

I wanted to start up some talk about how how Imagine could be improved. Here
were some of the ideas I thought up of on the top of mi head::

1) Faster trace/scanline modes. Emphasis on speeding up the trace mode.

2) I would love to have acceleration/decceleration on all movements in the
action editor. Accelerate/dec on alignment,position,zoom,size,morphing to
another object whether it be on a path or by morphing.
 Imagine only has acc/dec on a path; it's too limiting when you want to
create natural movement of the camera and/or objects.

3) Rid that color "solid" renedering for something better. I would love to
see a "outline" rendering that only renders the outline of each object. These
sort of rendering would be cool to import to Deluxe Paint and just "fill" in
the outlines.(I can tell I didn't word this too well.....)

4) Add goraud shading as an option for objects.

5) Support for DCTV. (Yeah,right......)

6) AREXX support.

7)Support for faster modeling objects. As well as the "sphere" object, how
about "half-sphere" object and "oval" objects. Even "half-oval" objects.
Having an array of "curved" objects would render faster and be more effiecient
that having to create a globe using a million polygons...

8) With "curved" objects like the "sphere", it would be great if it could
stretched, morphed, "exploded", "f/x'ed", like any other object created
with triangles.

9) Better stage editor.  This suggestion is sort of vague, but Imagine's
stage editor cannot compare with Lightwave's scene editor...yet. One
suggestion is to find a better way to create a path...maybe create a seperate
path editor...

10) Better use of" perspective" window.....I would suggest a mode in which
the perspective window can show the object being created spinning around
slowly so the creator can get a good look at all parts of the object being
created....(Yeah, right)

11) How about being able to "scale" certain parts of an object, as opposed
to being able to "scale" only the entire object.  That would be great if
you wanted to expand only the center part of a sphere, for example, so
instead of a globe, it would look like a globe with a tube around it.
(Trying to descibe these suggestions in pure text form is rather difficult..
It's eaiser with a more graphic display.....)

12) How about a fog filter for the camera, or/and motion blur?

13)Objects created with splines would be radical....

14) The forms editor could use vast improvements if it is to be used
as a better form of animating in 3-d.

15) Oh yeah....quicker display time in the perspective window when using
the "solid" or "shaded" mode.

    As you can see, some of these suggestions are not thoroughly
thought-out and some contradict each other.  I just wrote off the top
of mi head as I starting using the Imagine.  Other suggestions or
questions about what the #$%^ I'm talking about are welcome.

[I'm tired......]
A message from ********************************* "Death to Chia Pets"--CH
C H I A   H U N T E R                  |)________________________________
aka  David Cotelessa      (((((((((((((||-------------------------------/
Address: [e-mail]   |)r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r

##

Subject: HAMvs. DCTV animation sizes for REAL
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 91 09:17:00 -0400
From: [e-mail] (BRANHAM,JOSEPH FRANKLIN)

Bad typo on the 1st message-sorry about that.

The 30 frame animation I did this weekend used pro-textures for a background
and was rendered to both HAM NOLACE OVERSCAN and 352x240 3-bit DCTV. I figured
that these would be more or less equivalent graphics modes. The HAM animation
was assembled directly from Imagine, and because I didn't notice this little
CLI program on my DCTV disk for conversion from IFF, the DCTV animation was
assembled using GrabAnim (from Lights Camera Action) directly from the DCTV
digitize program.

File size for the  HAM animation was 580k
The DCTV animation was 370k

Reasonably impressive difference I thought, of course GrabAnim might have
duplicated a frame or two, makeing the difference even better.

Moo.
Frank Branham

##

Subject: Re: Sun's rastor image
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 91 14:32:41 -0400
From: Udo K Schuermann <[e-mail]>

Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]> writes:
> I used to have that (until my HD crash), but it didn't have support for
> IFF 24 files.  Do you know of a version that does?

Two special iff24<->ppm programs exist and should be available on ab20.
grep ab20's /FILES.Z for anything with ppm, iff, ilbm, or 24 in it.

 ._.  Udo Schuermann       "Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter
 ( )  [e-mail]    with the promise of the brave new world unfurled
 Seeking virtual memory     beneath the clear blue sky?" -- Pink Floyd

##

Subject: Re: Sun's rastor image
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 91 18:32:00 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

Rick Tillery ([e-mail]) writes:
> Hi Mark,
> I was wondering if you had any other great 24 bit pics like the one I have
> that you already did (like the Blender one that MAST includes with the
> ColorBurst).  I haven't had too much time to play much, but I've gotten a
> few new ones that look nice (one done with Real 3D).  I'll be losing net
> access in the next couple of weeks, and I'd really like to get any others
> you have (and return the favor with a few of these) before I go.  Any
> chance of arranging that?

Hi Rick,

I have been mostly concentrating on modeling and animation and haven't
had much time for any hi-perf stills. But I do have a test image from
one of the most compute intensive per frame animations I have done.
Its 24bits and is now on hubcap.clemson.edu in IMAGINE/PICTURES as:
toy.room.lzh
Here is the README file that accompanies it:

Toy.room is a test still from an animation I did for Concurrent Computer
using LightWave. In the animation the fan runs, the mobile of planes
blows in the wind, the ball spins, the train runs across the floor,
the spilled milk spreads across the floor, and the rattan basket bursts
open while 50 colored lego building blocks fly out into the air and slowly
settle down to form the logo "GA5000" (a soon to be released high speed
graphics product that I worked on). With full shadowing, the 768x480 images
took 2.3 hours per frame. It has not been single framed to video tape but
instead is being played back in full 24bit color in real time on the GA5000
and in 8bit color at close to 80 frames per second.

This image is copyright 1991 Mark Thompson and may not be redistributed
without my permission.

I showed a DCTV version of the animation (in two segments) at Siggraph.
In 3 bitplane mode it consumes 17M of RAM.
%~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
%      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  %
% --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   %
%      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   %
%     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   %
%                                                                          %
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Modelling, in more ways than one..
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 91 18:37:26 EDT
From: [e-mail]

A few people have asked how to make complex models like planes, cars,
spaces stations, etc. from scratch. I actually wanted to write a
tutorial on this, but it looks like I'll be busy with other things.

Anyway, I'll give the basic gist. First, there is NO such thing as a
complex model!  The fanciest space station is just an assembly of a
lot of SIMPLE parts. The more subparts, the more detail. The most
detailed models I can think of, Mike Halvorson's robot, Glenn Lewis'
steam engine, and my space station, all share one feature: they are a
group (or heirarchy) with around 50 member objects! All of these models
are avalable on hubcap; go take a look at them. You'll notice that the
individual sub-objects are very simple in their own right.

Mike Halvorson wrote once (I think in the Winter 1991 Impulse bulletin)
that the way to build a model was to work on each piece at a time. Don't
build an F16 straight, build it a piece at a time. A fuselage can come
out of the Form editor, a wing can be extruded (and the other wing
made from a mirror image copy), a jet exhaust can be spun. It is also
much easier to give each of these sub-parts their own attributes and
brushmaps, as opposed to working with a single object with many points
that have to be hidden with "hide points". Another advantage is you
can whip together a crude model, then selectively replace the parts with
higher quality subsections later.

One method for making models is very straightforward- go to your local
hobby store and buy a plastic model kit of a cool plane. It's great!
The parts are all scaled to the proper dimentions, they come in
logical and convienient sub-parts, you have a physical model to
MEASURE if you need to know exact sizes, and being able to hold the
part in your hands and flip it over can give you an excellent image in
your mind of how the shape looks in 3D. Making models from memory is
certainly easy, but images tend to look weird and distorted, because
proportions are slightly off, positions may vary, etc. Remember my
dolphins?

If you really want to learn how to model (grin), go ahead and BUY A KIT.
They only cost about $10.00, and you can give it to your kids or a neighbor
when you're done. (Or build it yourself!).  Also, remember the kits
come with COLOR DECALS that you can digitize and apply as brushmaps! Even
without a digitizer you can use them as reference and recreate them in
a paint program.


It is lucky that a lot of the 3D models people want to play with
(planes, cars, spaceships) are also the most popular plastic models.
Get yourself a very fine ruler; I have one that has 50th's of an inch.
You don't have to measure every single part every which way- it just
helps if you're trying to create a very good copy. Another trick is
that you can digitize the parts (in 2D) along their cross sections.
You don't use these in actually building your 3D version, but you can
leave the outlines (from converting from an IFF) around as a reference.
Here you have to be careful of scale.  And of course, some objects
(like a flat, simple airplane wing) might be easily digitized then
just extruded and faced.

Those of you with USENET access might be interested in joining
the group alt.models. It has a lot of posts that don't apply, but there
are good discussions like "XXX has just released a new model of the
F-19. It's very accurate, and I got it for $11.00".

You are free to build objects any way you want, but if you want really
professional results without much hassle, you can try the plastic model
approach. Most models are of vehicles, though you can find some of
the human body, of engines, and a few other weird objects. And for
$10, you're not risking too much!

Anyway, thought I might stimulate a few of you guys to start learning
the Detail Editor. It's not so hard! And I find it just as much fun as
making scenes and anims!

-Steve

PS: some people have mailed me about my promised tutorials. I've been
busy working on a lot of other projects, and haven't had much time
to work on them. But I will promise I'll start writing soon!


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: Re: Modelling, in more ways than one..
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 91 21:53:37 MDT
From: [e-mail] (Chris Hurtt)

        Interesting, this is similar to the techinque I am using to try to
make a Millenium Falcom object. I'm using my Kenner toy model and
measuring the pieces. I need to invest in a better ruler though & also a
fine protractor. I am may buy one of the Star Wars RPG rule books if it
contains a fair amount of scaled cross sections of various ships, robots,
etc.
      Chris


##

Subject: Re: Human Head
Date: Sat, 17 Aug 1991 01:40 MDT
From: [e-mail]

About the Human Head on hubcap...oops.  I downloaded that obj. from portal
and then rearchived it and uploaded it to hubcap.  I thought I included the
readme with it, but it seems I didn't, and I no longer have the readme
myself. *sigh*  If some kind soul also downloaded that file from portal and
could upload the readme part of it I would appreciate it, I would rather not
download it again, but if nobody does I will re-get it.  Sorry for the screw
up...  Anyway, I seem to recall that the readme said that the object was
distributed at siggraph if that is any help. :-\

Thanks,

John Z.

##

Subject: Goodbye
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1991 14:10:33 -0500
From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr <[e-mail]>

Sorry to post this to all, but I'm losing net access TODAY, so you won't
be seeing much of me for a while (maybe if I can get back on through
Portal in October).  So, you can take me off the mailing list to avoid
bounced mail.

And to the rest of you....keep on rendering and if you want to talk
to me (for some unGodly reason :-) feel free to give me a ring at (405)
364-2372 almost any time (up until the end of September).

Later all.

Rick Tillery ([e-mail])


##

Subject: My day with Bob (or a new pic on Hubcap)
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 11:20:05 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

Well the much talked about hurricane Bob did very little to my nearly
coastal New England town. It did get me a day off work and although
the power did go out, I had time enough to create a new pic for your
viewing pleasure. It is a very good demonstration of simulated water
in a swimming pool using LightWave. I plan on doing more work on it
including adding more visual complexity to the scene but even in its
current state it looked good enough to post (even a crappy HAM version).
It is on hubcap.clemson.edu in an all new directory called:
/pub/amiga/incoming/GRAPHICS/Pics/rendered/LightWave and the file is
pool.lzh. Hope ya like it. By the way, the water looks spectacular when
animated.
%~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
%      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  %
% --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   %
%      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   %
%     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   %
%                                                                          %
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Pool image on hubcap
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 10:14:34 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

Since there was such a positive response to the pool image, I have updated
it with a couple beach chairs, a picket fence, a beach ball, and shadows.
It has been re-uploaded to hubcap.clemson.edu in the file:
/pub/amiga/incoming/GRAPHICS/Pics/rendered/LightWave/pool.lzh
The only thing I don't like about it is that shadows cast on a bump
mapped surface don't conform to the bumps (since the bumps aren't really
there). There are some papers that address this problem, but I would like
to come up with a solution that is within the realm of LightWave or
Imagine to fix. Anybody have some ideas they'd like to kick around?
%~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
%      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  %
% --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   %
%      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   %
%     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   %
%                                                                          %
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Shadows and bump maps
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 13:33:23 -0400
From: [e-mail] (BRANHAM,JOSEPH FRANKLIN)

The only way on earth I can think of doing shadows on a bump map is to first
create a filter map with the shadows in place on the surface and apply that
to the final object.

Of course, this means placing the camera right above the pool, rendering
the image with shadows and somehow lining up the shadows on the filter map
for the water with where they should be.

And this idea assumes that bump maps affect filter maps.

And even then, it'd be a pain if you ever had moving objects.
But you could animate the water.


Moo.
Frank Branham

##

Subject: Re:  Shadows and bump maps
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 16:40:09 -0400
From: Udo K Schuermann <[e-mail]>

Another method, which would be difficult (if not impossible) to apply
to non-flat objects, but would work well on flat objects such as
water, would involve using the bump map iff/ilbm to create the actual
surface as a wire-mesh.  Using Glenn's TTDDD package it would be a
snap to create the Imagine object.
    Scaling in the Z dimension could make for mountains or soft
hills ... Hmmm, maybe I can find some time to work on that ... Anyone
else want to take the bait?

 ._.  Udo Schuermann       "Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter
 ( )  [e-mail]    with the promise of the brave new world unfurled
 Seeking virtual memory     beneath the clear blue sky?" -- Pink Floyd

##

Subject: Pool Pic Bump Map
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 17:38:32 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Marc Thompson writes:

>The only thing I don't like about it is that shadows cast on a bump
>mapped surface don't conform to the bumps (since the bumps aren't really
>there). There are some papers that address this problem, but I would like
>to come up with a solution that is within the realm of LightWave or
>Imagine to fix. Anybody have some ideas they'd like to kick around?

There are a couple of solutions, though I don't know how successful
they'll be. The most logical is probably to try to soften the shadow
edge as much as you can, so that it's not a ruler straight line that
doesn't follow the apparent contours. (Lightwave has soft shadows,
yes?) If the built in soft shadows aren't blurry enough, try replacing
each light with a cluster of three light sources of 1/3 the intensity.
That will soften the shadows and also give you control over the amount
of shadow-edge blurring just by moving the lights closer or further
apart. This technique can be used in Imagine as well.

So Mark, there isn't any way to change the renderer: the shadows are
going to be projected on a flat plane. Unless you replace your water with
a real height surface (ugh!) you have to live with the broken shadow edge.
The best you can do is hide it by blurring the edge (as described above)
or manipulating the scene and camera to minimize it's appearance.

Good Luck!

-Steve

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------



##

Subject: Re: Lighting
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 16:26:19 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Caleb J. Howard (Product Support))

> Lighting is kinda tricky. You say that a desk light works, but other
> "ambient" lights aren't strong enough. My guess is that you have these
> lights set to "Decrease Intensity with Distance", which gives them a

I checked this, and no, that checkbox is off on the other light.
What I have is a desk lamp model of a tensor ring flourescent lamp with
a torus object being a 'bright' and luminescent object with 255 for all
light levels and non deminishing shadow casting features set.  Apart from
this, I have a second generic light source at a different angle and closer
to the camera, also non-deminishing, but non-shadow-casting, and light levels
set all to 255.  The only other light I have is in the world action area.
I've tried levels from 0-255 in increments of ten, and it goes from dark
to washed out with nothing acceptable in between.  The odd thing is that
before I added the desk lamp object, it was fine with just one source and
150 for the world action light settings.  I added the lamp (and a wall to
place behind the lamp) and the light went dark.  Frustrating to say the
least.

I have been using Imagine for quite awhile, and TS before it, and this problem
has not previously manifested.  Perhaps it has to do with an all-steel scene?

On another note, I've used DCTV, Firecracker, and Colourburst (briefly).
All else being equal, The Firecracker had the picture that I preferred.
Unfortunately, that's an expensive picture in comparison to the other two.

Anyhow, cheers!  Thanks for the advice... I'll keep trying with my lights.
-caleb


##

Subject: Bob? No problem.
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 18:06:15 EDT
From: [e-mail]

The MIT server is back and working just fine as of early Tuesday morning.

I added over 20 people this week (and removed 5) as school starts up
again and students change accounts. Remember that we lost almost 40
members when school let up before; I expect we'll get even more than
that back.  Current list membership is 156, and we've had 1227
postings as of this morning. There have been 73 posts in the past 14
days, so we have an average of abouy 6 posts per day.

Since a lot of people will be added to the list in the next few weeks,
please bear with the bounces you might get when posting... eventually
the bad addresses will weed themselves out. We are also getting a lot
of members from Portal; I'd like to especially welcome Louis Markoya
and Brad Schenck to the list.

I'm posting the obligitory "welcome to the list" message, so you might want
to kill it if you've read it already.

Keep on rendering!

-Steve

"If you're not always running out of memory, you're not trying hard
enough."
    -BWS-

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: Re: Shadows and bump maps
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 16:31:53 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

Frank Branham writes:
> The only way on earth I can think of doing shadows on a bump map is to first
> create a filter map with the shadows in place on the surface and apply that
> to the final object.

This is exactly what I had planned on trying this evening but didn't
realize it until I reread your message and remembered that Imagine refers
to transparency maps as filter maps.

> And this idea assumes that bump maps affect filter maps.

I don't think they do, but I will check.

> And even then, it'd be a pain if you ever had moving objects.
> But you could animate the water.

Yeah, I'll worry about that later.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Moving Star Fields
Date:    Wed, 21 Aug 91 21:41 PDT
From: "Ivan I."                            <[e-mail]>

I'm posting this for a sysop without bitnet access who posted this on his board
and I'm kind of curious about it as well although I haven't had the time to giv
e it a try:

Anyone figure out a way to create a moving star field?  I've played with two
large globes with a IFF of a star pattern on each, but it doesn't seem to work.
I want to create a moving star field that I can fly around in.  Any ideas?

I presume that he means the somewhat inaccurate effect from Star Trek of stars
zipping past the ship on the bridge screen, but perhaps it's something less
drastic.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Ivan I
esrlpdi@uclamvs

##

Subject: re: Moving Starfields
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 23:26:11 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Aaron Tucker)

    One way to make a moving starfield in an animation (assuming this is an
ANIM OP 5 format) is to load the anim into DPAINT. Then, using Kara's
Starfields, you can use a stencil to place them behind your image. Of course,
you will have to have enough RAM to load the anim in as an ANIMBRUSH. This
should theoretically work, although I haven't tried it. BTW, when you render,
you should use the Genlock Background option in the Action/Global menu.

    Another way, maybe easier, would be to load up the KARA Starfield Anim
into DPAINT, then save them out as separate frames. Then use the feature of
IMAGINE to Flat X Flat Z wrap them onto a plane using all the frames in an
animation. Get my drift?

    Anybody else think of any other solutions?


Juan Trevino
[e-mail]


##

Subject: Re: Moving Star Fields
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 11:31:32 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

>Anyone figure out a way to create a moving star field?  I've played with two
>large globes with a IFF of a star pattern on each, but it doesn't seem to work
>I want to create a moving star field that I can fly around in.  Any ideas?

The method I use is to create a 3D volume of stars. This 'universe' is MANY
times larger (100x to 1000x) than the 'ship' that is flying through it.
The stars are a combination of single point polygons (particles in LightWave)
and crude spheres (20 or less polygons). To make the creation task less
tedious, I'll create a couple small star volumes and randomly replicate
them (with various amounts of scaling and rotation) all over the universe.
The only tricky part is making sure you don't fly into anything in your
animation :-) If the ship will be merely flying straight, The starfield
can be greatly constrained to reduce polygon count. In both cases, a "distant
stars picture" can be mapped to a surface at the universe limits to emulate
bodies your ship will never reach. This allows your star volume to be less
dense while still yielding a visually interesting "galactic view". The only
thing I am not sure about is how well this will work in Imagine since its
render times seem to be heavily tied to object/world size.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Brush map axis placemrnt
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 12:26:23 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Mariano Sanchez writes:

>Hello for all, this is my first posting to this list. As a new user of
>Imagine I'm trying to do brush mapping with results that look terrible. I've
>read hundreds of messages of this list and I found them fantastic, but after
>all I still have my problem, here it is:
>I'm trying to do a FLAT X FLAT Z color map in a plane, as you said in some
>messages I edited the axis to make the possitive parts of the Z and X axes
>as large as the plane and moved it to the lower left corner. After it i went
>to the stage editor, place the camera in front of the plane, add a ligth and
>went to project editor for rendering. The results were a total surprise, the
>plane looked pretty with this mix of white triangles and triangles colored
>with the image of the brush.

The problem you're hitting is called a "digital bounce". Remember that
flat brush maps have DEPTH, as defined by the Y axis. This depth tells
Imagine where to apply the brush in the Y direction, so that you could
apply a map to one side of object but not the other.  What's happening
is that the volume that the brush map is applied to (defined by the
brush map XYZ axes) ends RIGHT on your flat plane, so Imagine is
confused whether to map the brush onto the plane or not.

The solution is to move the brush map axis OFF of the plane in the Y
direction. If you're plane is shown in the Front view, the Top view
should show an edge on perspective of your plane. Here's a cheesy
diagram showing how the brush map axis should be placed. NOTE THE Y
AXIS PASSES THROUGH THE Y POSITION OF THE PLANE.

             ^ Y     CORRECT
             |
             |-----------   <- plane you are mappping
             |
             +-----------> X
          Brush map axis




             ^ Y     INCORRECT
             |
             +-----------  <- plane you are mappping
                ^
            Brush map axis (right on top of plane)

The brush map axis should NOT lie ON the plane.


Also notice the X size is a tad larger than the plane, so that the picture will
cover the whole thing.

Hope this helps.

-Steve

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: Semi-Tractor Object
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 11:38:12 -0700
From: [e-mail] ( James McInnis)

I've put my Semi-Tractor object on hubcap. Its in the Imagine/OBJECTS directory
and is called Semi-Tractor.lzh. There is also a picture in PICTURES called
Semi-Pix.lzh. I've got a trailer that needs some work and may be forthcoming
at some point.

Jim


##

Subject: Imagine / LightWave
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 09:08:49 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Brian Bishop)



  Since I am getting that itch for a new computer toy again, I thought I might
save up my pennies (and dollars) toward a video toaster, since I have heard a
lot of neat things about LightWave. After reading the article in Amazing, I
was surprised to learn that it is NOT a raytracer, causing you to go through
some interesting gyrations to get relatively 'simple' raytracing effects
(making a first shot picture of a scene to reflect-map to a 'mirrored' sphere).
  Other aspects of LightWave do look interesting (Nifty fog/smoke effects
fractal noise, etc.)

  Could someone using both please outline the advantages og LightWave? Would it
justify the purchase of a toaster ?? (Or should I save up for a Firecracker
instead - FC + monitor = toaster) How's the animation capabilities of the
video toaster? Would a combo of Imagine for modelling and LightWave for
rendering be ideal? How much faster is LightWave???


  Mr. Curious

---

          Brian Bishop, Software Engineer, Zyga Corporation

  ([e-mail])   "This one is for the eyes of the other dogs to come."



##

Subject: The Wish List
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 13:41:59 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Edward Chadez)

We've been talking about features we'd like to see in future editions if
Imagine.

Mark Thompson, Lightwave user, highlights some features of Lightwave that
can easily be considered features that __I__ would like to see in Imagine.
Here's his quote:

On Aug 23,  3:36pm, Mark Thompson wrote:
} Subject: Re: Imagine / LightWave

[stuff deleted]

}
} I do not use Imagine but I have played with it.  A list of LightWave
} advantages would include: great user interface, fast rendering time,
} excellent surfaces/textures with animation, single frame animation support,
} object fade, image compositing, glows, spline keyframe interpolation, a
} fairly good manual (sorry, hitting below the belt :-), particle system
} support, polygons instead of triangles, soft lighting (definable penumbra),
} fog, and background/foreground images to name a few.

Mark goes on to mention some of Lightwave's eleborate animation features,
including magnet and twisting, and spline and a whole bunch of stuff that
would easily fit into Imagine's F/X department.

}
} %~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
} %      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  %
} % --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   %
} %      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   %
} %     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   %
} %                                                                          %
}  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
}
}-- End of excerpt from Mark Thompson

TurboSilver had a fog/smoke/haze feature, and Impulse chose not to carry
that over to Imagine.  Support for X-Specs also didn't make the big leap.

I would really like to see Impulse take those features Mark mentions above
about Lightwave, and add them to future editions.


-Edward Chadez

--
+--//-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|\X/ [e-mail]/Edward Chadez                CARL Systems(303)861-5319|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

##

Subject: Re: Imagine / LightWave
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 15:36:53 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

[e-mail] (Brian Bishop) writes:
> Since I am getting that itch for a new computer toy again, I thought I might
> save up my pennies (and dollars) toward a video toaster, since I have heard a
> lot of neat things about LightWave.

I got my Toaster just for LightWave, but everything else that comes with it
is a GREAT bonus :-)

> After reading the article in Amazing, I was surprised to learn that it is
> NOT a raytracer, causing you to go through some interesting gyrations to
> get relatively 'simple' raytracing effects (making a first shot picture of
> a scene to reflect-map to a mirrored sphere).

Well I wrote that article, I hope you enjoyed it. The key thing to remember
is that in most realistic scenes, there are VERY few instances where highly
accurate reflection is needed. In most instances, simple reflection
mapping will suffice (as opposed to the elaborate method used on the sphere
in the article). I should also mention however that the forthcoming release
of LightWave is planned to include selectable raytraced refraction and
reflection.

> Other aspects of LightWave do look interesting (Nifty fog/smoke effects
> fractal noise, etc.)

Special effects is one of LightWave's greatest strengths.

> Could someone using both please outline the advantages of LightWave?

I do not use Imagine but I have played with it.  A list of LightWave
advantages would include: great user interface, fast rendering time,
excellent surfaces/textures with animation, single frame animation support,
object fade, image compositing, glows, spline keyframe interpolation, a
fairly good manual (sorry, hitting below the belt :-), particle system
support, polygons instead of triangles, soft lighting (definable penumbra),
fog, and background/foreground images to name a few.

> Would it justify the purchase of a toaster ?? (Or should I save up for
> a Firecracker instead - FC + monitor = toaster)

Depends on what you want to do. If you are doing animation for video, I feel
the Toaster is a much better choice. If you just want to display pretty
pictures as best you possibly can, then the Firecracker is probably for you.
I know people who have and use both.

> How's the animation capabilities of the video toaster? Would a combo of
> Imagine for modelling and LightWave for rendering be ideal? How much
> faster is LightWave???

Animation in LightWave is both good and bad. It has one of the most elegant
interfaces for setting up your animation, it is so intuitive and interactive.
It is considered by many to be the best part of LightWave. However, it
currently is only well suited to more mechanical animation (translations,
rotations, and scaling) using spline or linear interpolation between key
frames. However more fluid/organic manipulations (twisting, bending, and
other contortions) must be done through morphing. There are plans to change
all that, but that is not in the immediate future. The 1.0 version of the
modeler is definitely lacking. However, the soon to be released 2.0 is
greatly improved adding twist, tapers, bend, magnet, cross sections,
subdivide, better object statistics, perspective view point/surface
selection, moving solid perspective, and many other features. But since
you already have Imagine, it does make a nice companion modeler. Each
has its strengths and weaknesses. What I have really come to depend on in
the LightWave modeler is the multiple layers. They allow you to build up
complex objects in separate pieces simultaneously while providing a view
of the piece you are currently working on and/or any of the other layers.

As for rendering speed, no real benchmarks exist. It would be unfair to
compare LightWave's normal render to Imagine's raytrace time, LightWave
is MANY times faster. A more reasonable comparison would be LightWave to
Imagine scanline mode. Some rudimentary tests seem to indicate that
LightWave is anywhere from 1x to 2x faster than Imagine scanline. However,
LightWave 1.0 with all shadowing enabled and full antialiasing can come
close to Imagine trace times. If you would like to run a couple benchmarks,
I'd be willing to participate.

As for which package is better, there is no answer. Both are good in there
own respect and which is best is heavily based on individual preferences.
For me, LightWave is the easiest and fastest to use and accomplishes most of
the effects I need. If you have seen some of my pictures, you realize that
even without raytracing, spectacular realism is possible. If you haven't,
contact NewTek and ask for a copy of their demo tape. And I think many will
agree that adding a Toaster and LightWave to an Imagine animators tool box
greatly enhances their capabilities.

Well thats my slant on the topic, hope it helps.
%~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
%      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  %
% --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   %
%      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   %
%     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   %
%                                                                          %
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Brushmaps and plastic model decals
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 17:39:49 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Continued my model quest; I found a GREAT local hobby store. Bought a
DC-10 and a ST:TNG model... maybe I'll actually have time to
model them in Imagine soon. The best toys I found at the hobby shop were
in a bin of old decals; you can buy them seperately from the models. I
found NASA logos, F16 markings, USAF & USA logos, lots of stock-car style
commercial logos, a couple of the stencil-like fonts you see as the
tail numbers of aircraft, and lotsa other fun toys.

I spent about an hour digitizing some of them, and they look great!
One problem is the decals are clear film with opaque markings, mounted
on white paper. It's easy to digitize the black, red, and blue colors,
but some of the decals are white and the image is absolutely invisible
against the white paper background. I'm going to have to cut these
decals out and apply them to a piece of black plastic or something to
digitize them. This is annoying because it's a lot of messy work and
the decals are obviously used up- I hope to give most of the unused
(but digitized!) decals away to some other modeller (plastic or
computer) when I'm through.

One problem is the size of the decals. Some are VERY detailed with
features easily smaller than 1/100 of an inch. I'm using Digiview and
a Panasonic 1410 B/W camera to digitize them. I had to crank the focus
adjustment screw ALL of the way in to get it to focus on the small
details, and even them I couldn't move the camera much closer than 5"
to the decal. An Epson flatbed scanner might excel at this, though, if
the glossy media doesn't throw it off. Harv, want to experiment?

Anyway, just wanted to tell everyone about this new source of fun
detailling.  I'm sure I don't have to say how much a well placed
detail can enhance a model, and these model decals are perfectly
designed for, well, detailling models.

For those interested, the store is "The Hobby Store" in the San
Antonio Mall in Mountain View, CA.  Shelves and shelves and shelves of
models.

-Steve

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------



##

Subject: Re: Imagine / LightWave
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 07:57:59 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Bob Lindabury - SysAdm)

Mark Thompson <rutgers!westford.ccur.com!mark> writes:

> selection, moving solid perspective, and many other features. But since
> you already have Imagine, it does make a nice companion modeler. Each
> has its strengths and weaknesses. What I have really come to depend on in
> the LightWave modeler is the multiple layers. They allow you to build up
> complex objects in separate pieces simultaneously while providing a view
> of the piece you are currently working on and/or any of the other layers.

Am I mistaken of isn't the Imagine Detail editor (modeller) just a
triangle modeller?  Doesn't it create a wee bit too many polygons
when modelling for Lightwave?  I know in the Modeler 3D that you have
a choice of triangles or polygons but I haven't seen such a selector
in Imagine's Detail editor.  Is this feature somewhere?

When I model for a local production company in Imagine for Lightwave,
they complain that the objects are made up of too many points and
triangles.  Is there an easy way to point-reduce these objects in
Modeler 3D?  I just want to make them as efficient as possible for
Lightwave rendering.

-- Bob

 The Graphics BBS  908/469-0049  "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!"
 ============================================================================
  InterNet: [e-mail]                | Raven Enterprises
      UUCP: ...rutgers!bobsbox!graphics!bobl      | 25 Raven Avenue
    BitNet: bobl%graphics.rent.com@pucc           | Piscataway, NJ 08854
    Home #: 908/560-7353                          | 908/271-8878

##

Subject: More model info
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 15:51:27 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Brian Reynolds passed this info to me:

--------
    Micro-Scale (they may be calling themselves Super Scale now, I
think) makes decal sets for aircraft (military, and civilian
airliners), ships (military), and military ground vehicles.  You can
find decals for race cars advertised in the specialty model car
magazines (e.g., Scale Auto Enthusiast).  Several model magazines
(e.g., Fine Scale Modeler) also publish 3 view plans (sometimes
including cross sections).  I just ordered a set of plans for the
"2001: A Space Odyessy" space craft from a science fiction specialty
shop (Star Tech).  They also have a lot of Star Trek and (some) Star
Wars plans.  Overall plastic models are pretty good source of data.  I
just wish I had a 3D volume scanner to read the data in.  :)

Brian Reynolds "... a drone from sector 7G."
Fusion Systems Group
[e-mail] -or- ...!uupsi!fsg!reynolds
------

I finished a quick version of a 767 from the model I bought, and the decals
turned out great!  I still have to do small details like windows and landing
gear, but the big "Delta" logo on the side gives the image a REAL touch of
class.

Thanks fo the info, Brian. Plastic models and decals are even a richer source
of toys than I expected.

-Steve

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------





##

Subject: Imagine's Wish List
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 11:35:49 -0700
From: A message from ************************** Looking for Mokkori-Chan's --MH <[e-mail]>

Let's face it; We wnat Imagine to work like Lightwave. But Imagine has
some features that I prefer over Lightwave. But anyways, here's
a more defined list of what I would like.

1)Using polygons instead of triangles (a la Lightwave).
2) Supoort for Gouraud Shading.
3)ARexx Interface
4)Splines would be great.
5) Motion Blur. (maybe as F/X feature)
6) Suport more than one F/X on an object.
7)A Fractal Cloud Texture.
8) Is there a way to implement a one-point polygon? (a la Lightwave)
9)De/Acceleration on morphing and tweening.
10) a "outline" rendering mode that would only render the "outlines" of the
moving objects.
11) Filters for the camera(like fog)
12) Better Star Field Density.
13) Let the GLOBALS use TEXTURES.

    Having a 3000, I have to wait for Lightwave and the Toaster.(sigh)
But after using Lightwave a little, I felt a bit more comfortable with
Imagine. I would, however, want to see the later version of Lightwave (like
2.0) and try it out.

But does anyone think that Imagine 2.0 (when it comes out) will be comparable
to the Lightwave? "Curiouser and Curiouser......."
A message from **************************"Looking for Mokkori-Chan's"--MH
M O K K O R I   H U N T E R            |)________________________________
aka  David Cotelessa      (((((((((((((||-------------------------------/
Address: [e-mail]   |)r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r

##

Subject: General Comments
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 91 02:21:49 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Linda J. LeVan)

This is my first upload  of mail so I hope it gets there. Anyway as a new
subscriber, and relatively new imagine user, I have some observations:
1) the use of the Director program from Right answers group can be invaluable
for constructing animations from frames saved in ILBM (vs. 8svx) format.
I have rendered the same 45 frame HAM animation in Imagine in both formats
for frames and animations and it seems that the ILBM and .ANIM formats have
decided advantages in load speed, compression, and portability that are
amplified considerably by the Directors .anim manipulation abilities.
The impulse proprietary formats were "explained" by product suppport guys
to be faster to uncompress, which is not too suprising since the impulse
anim files were larger than the pictures they were supposedly compressing.
This makes no sense. They also took dozens of time longer to load. Unless
I'm missing something, the standard formats are vastly superior and the
Director can handle the pingponging and looping that Impulse claims are
deficient in the standard iff formats. I believe there are Public Domain
.anim creators that can do likewise.

20
2)  I keep seeing the phrase "hitting below the belt" in reference to
Imagine documentation.  This mailing list is already a lifesaver, but even
the most minimal additions to the manuals regarding operation (or even just
the logic behind it), would be appreciated. If the manual is inadequate,
why not say so? The product support (in my experience) is either great or
insulting depending on which (of two?) people pick up the phone. One guy
is extremely helpful, and the other just (presumably a programmer rather
than PR guy) just tells you to figure it out for yourself. In some cases
this is probably justified, but a well-placed word can sometimes save days
of experimentation.

3) In view of point #2, I would like to FTP some of the previous doc summaries
from this mailing list, but am a little unclear about the procedure. How about
a (re?)post summarizing how to search and receive older postings, or more
summaries to BIX etc. besides the "FormsTutorial" and "compendium" (1 file)
that I got from the late Plink board, which is how I found out about this
mailing list. Thank You very much.



##

Subject: Help me....
Date: 25 Aug 91 19:03:00 EST
From: "SYSTEM MANAGER" <[e-mail]>

Greetings!

Folks I am having trouble understanding why my letter A object does not
extrude correctly.  At least it does not seem correct to me.  I uploaded
my A outline with the faces to hubcap in the MISC area.  If anyone could
take the time to download it and tell me why when I look at the letter from
the bottom does the middle part not extrude?

Thanks!

-mark=

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark D. Manes                       //           CIS  :  74030,744
System Manager/Programmer          //            Email:  [e-mail]
Norfolk State University       \\\// Amiga       Phone:  [phone]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"AmigaDOS 2.0 is the future of the Amiga -- be a part of it!"



##

Subject: Re: Imagine / LightWave
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 91 22:02:21 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Jason Andreas)

rutgers!graphics.rent.com!bobl (Bob Lindabury - SysAdm) writes:

> Mark Thompson <rutgers!westford.ccur.com!mark> writes:
>
> > selection, moving solid perspective, and many other features. But since
> > you already have Imagine, it does make a nice companion modeler. Each
> > has its strengths and weaknesses. What I have really come to depend on in
> > the LightWave modeler is the multiple layers. They allow you to build up
> > complex objects in separate pieces simultaneously while providing a view
> > of the piece you are currently working on and/or any of the other layers.
>
> Am I mistaken of isn't the Imagine Detail editor (modeller) just a
> triangle modeller?  Doesn't it create a wee bit too many polygons
> when modelling for Lightwave?  I know in the Modeler 3D that you have
> a choice of triangles or polygons but I haven't seen such a selector
> in Imagine's Detail editor.  Is this feature somewhere?
>
> When I model for a local production company in Imagine for Lightwave,
> they complain that the objects are made up of too many points and
> triangles.  Is there an easy way to point-reduce these objects in
> Modeler 3D?  I just want to make them as efficient as possible for
> Lightwave rendering.
>
> -- Bob
>
>  The Graphics BBS  908/469-0049  "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!"
>  ============================================================================
>   InterNet: [e-mail]                | Raven Enterprises
>       UUCP: ...rutgers!bobsbox!graphics!bobl      | 25 Raven Avenue
>     BitNet: bobl%graphics.rent.com@pucc           | Piscataway, NJ 08854
>     Home #: 908/560-7353                          | 908/271-8878

With I believe the turbo silver interchange disk, comes a point reduce
tool.


##

Subject: Imagine Wish List
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 11:34:54 EET DST
From: Juha Kallioinen <[e-mail]>

I just thought of a thing, which I would like to see in a future Imagine..
And that is the ability to cancel rendering and then later continue it
from where you earlier cancelled.

I have now rendered an Image for about 35 hours, and it still is only 75%
complete{, and I would have liked to do something else with my machine at
that time, too.

Well, the long rendering time could be caused by my "turbo-boosted" A500
with a 68010 in it :) .

If the image turns out to be any good, I'll upload it to hubcap, it is a
room with large mirrors, I first wanted to add it to the Room Project, but
after fiddling with details for a while, I got mixed up with the scale,
so this one will not be included in the roomproject.

Bye
  -Juha
--
o------------------------o-----o-------------------------------------------o
| [e-mail] /   __ |  Those who can't write, write manuals.    |
| Juha Kallioinen      / __/// |                                           |
o---------------------o  \\X/  o-------------------------------------------o

##

Subject: Re: Imagine's Wish List
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 09:32:15 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

David Cotelessa writes:
> Let's face it; We wnat Imagine to work like Lightwave. But Imagine has
> some features that I prefer over Lightwave.

I definately agree. I certainly wouldn't mind having boolean operations
in LightWave as well as something akin to the Forms editor.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Re: General Comments
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 09:55:52 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

Linda J. LeVan writes:
> 2)  I keep seeing the phrase "hitting below the belt" in reference to
> Imagine documentation.  This mailing list is already a lifesaver, but even
> the most minimal additions to the manuals regarding operation (or even just
> the logic behind it), would be appreciated. If the manual is inadequate,
> why not say so?

Well, Impulse is more than aware of that fact. In fact we all had a chuckle
or two giving Rick Rodriguez (the author of the manual) a hard time about
it at Siggraph. One of the big reason's the manual is the way it is, is
because Rick was never givin a stable product to document (the program
changed rapidly). Also, Rick said that Imagine was basically rushed out
the door before it was really ready (the 0.9 release) so that LightWave
wouldn't beat them to market (not to mention all the people that were
begging for a program regardless of how finnished it was). Rick has since
done a video that I am told is much more informative than the manual.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: MirrorRoom
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 18:32:54 EET DST
From: Juha Kallioinen <[e-mail]>

I just put my newest rendering at hubcap. It's in directory
/pub/amiga/incoming/IMAGINE/PICTURES/

the packet is MirrorRoom.lzh , and the image is of a room with mirrored
windows. Size is 320x512xHAM . Rendered in trace mode with Imagine.

Comments, please .

--
o------------------------o-----o-------------------------------------------o
| [e-mail] /   __ |  Those who can't write, write manuals.    |
| Juha Kallioinen      / __/// |                                           |
o---------------------o  \\X/  o-------------------------------------------o
o---------------------o  \\X/  o-------------------------------------------o