The Aminet Pages:

pix/trace

Ratings:
10 - An archive twice as good as a slap from a wet kipper!
9 - A truly amazing archive, but...
8 - An archive that's well worth having bar some imperfections
7 - A great download, but some hassles/questionmarks
6 - A good archive, but one that not everyone will like
5 - Well, it showed some potential, but that hasn't been exploited
4 - Not worth having, leave it alone
3 - The less said about this the better
2 - This should be deleted from the Aminet asap
1 - Completely useless, crap, stupid software that should never have been written.

Another month, another directory to explore! This time we take you by the hand and carefully guide you through the pitfalls of pix/trace. Here we'll find the results of many an Amiga users' rendering efforts, of many a sweaty Amiga and probably lots of overnight super-rendering sessions too. But has anything good actually come from all that? Let's go and find out!

In this directory we meet:

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-4000.jpg (86K)

The description for this picture says "picture of A4000 using Reflections" which would probably lead most of us to believe that it was a picture of an actual A4000, but it's not. All this is is the word "A4000" above a checked floor, which of course isn't even half as impressive. For me, an instant let down this one. Okay, so it isn't an actual A4000, but even then the quality isn't skyhigh either. I hate starting off with low marks, but this is just begging me, twisting my arm for one. Here you go: 3.

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68080-PPC.jpg

This, unsurprisingly, is a picture of a chip. A PPC chip, apparently. But it's not detailed at all. It sits on this motherboard, which is obviously just a floor with a picture of a motherboard mapped onto it. The chip and the board don't seem to fit eachother at all, the chip's just been plonked on. I'd expected more of this, really. Even I could knock this up in about all of half an hour. It seems this directory is having I really bad start, because this is inevitably going to be another bad mark. It deserves a 4, just.

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bathroom.jpg (75K)

I wouldn't mind having Maciej Gembara's bathroom myself. It's got a nice toilet, a roomy bathtub to soak those old bones in, a painting on the wall and a realistic mirror. In fact, all of those are highly realistically drawn, have good textures, and a nice colour scheme. Everything you'd expect there to be in a bathroom is there, and the overall polish in this picture is high. Here we finally have a good render, that well deserves the 8 I'm giving it.

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benettonformul.lha (182K)

This is a picture of a model of the Benetton Formula One car of a few years ago, sitting on a wooden base. Initially this is very impressive, with all the ads being on the car, etc. However, if you look at it for a bit you can't help but notice that the front of the car is a bit bulky, and the actual shape of the car is slightly questionable. This gripe apart, however, this is still a class bit of rendering. If only the artist had rendered the car on a racetrack or something in stead of on a wooden base, this would have scored even higher: 7.

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bkr.a5000.jpg (57k)

This is a render of an imaginary A5000. It's a futuristic desktop model, with two floppy drives, and two CD-Rom drives. It also features a nice LCD display, as in the CU Amiga impression of the A/Box. The picture itself is of a reasonable quality, but it's really the design of the thing we've got to look at here, and there it scores very highly. The case is very pleasing to the eye, and I certainly would like one to be sitting underneath my monitor right now, but alas it's not. Amiga International could pick up a thing or two from this design, as a medium-range desktop model this case would do well. Mark: 8

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bottleboat.jpg (132K)

Well, this pictures' author, Iain Inglis, must have felt his Amiga didn't have enough to do, because what we have here is reflections galore. In the positive sense. Basically, there's a boat in a bottle, floating above a checked floor, with two marbles, a diamond, and a sky. There's reflections in the bottle, on the two marbles and ofcourse the diamond. The result is quite spectacular, and probably pretty spectacular rendering times too. Looks like an overnight rendering job, does this one. Fortunately the effort has paid off: it would have been nice to see some more objects actually related to the boat in a bottle rather than those marbles and a diamond, though. Hence a thoroughly deserved 8.
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crater.lha (140K)

Funnily enough, this is a picture of a crater landscape, created in Scenery Animator. You have water, hills and trees. Nothing special, you might think, and that's exactly what it is. It's certainly not bad, but it ain't good either. Hence a 5.

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dawncity.jpg

This picture is pretty much what you'd expect from a "city at dawn" picture: there's a nice misty, moody street with some buildings and a doorway from which comes some light. However, there's lots of detail troughout this picture, which makes this a high quality render. It's just a shame there's nothing exciting going on and this picture for me leans slightly on the boring side: 7.

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eagle.jpg (117K)

No renders directory would be complete without some spacey pics, and here's one. The eagle in this case is a big mothership, from whose wings come two daughterships. There appears to be some incredible detail on those daughterships, unfortunately they're both far away from the camera and so the author hasn't done them justice at all. That for me is laziness, since camera and object positioning make a render what it is. Therefore a mere 6 for what should have scored a 7 or 8.
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enterprise-A.jpg (252K)

There's just no avoiding those Trekkie/Trekker renders, is there? Here we have what must be a typical one, of (ofcourse) the Enterprise. Fortunately, this Trekkie artist knows exactly what makes a render special. Here we have a nice, detailed Enterprise model, set in an absolutely fabulous space backdrop, with ofcourse that finishing touch, a lovely bit of lens flare. Good 8.

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metrodream.jpg (101K)

This is a render of a futuristic subway station, with ofcourse a metro, some benches to wait for your train on, etc. Sadly, words can't really convey the class in this render: author Francesco Gambino has obviously done this before. For example, the floor of the station is of the iron lattice type, which produces lots of lovely patterns; the lighting, shadows and reflections are absolutely superb too, producing a really good moody futuristic atmosphere in the picture. What can I say, apart from see it for yourself? The only thing I can say is that this is worth a wopping 9.
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myhouse.jpg

This render is ofcourse one of the author's house. However, the house is rather unspectacular, what was much more interesting was the vegetation in this render: there's some good realistic plants in the garden. It's a shame that's the only strong point in this picture: 6.
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sea2.jpg (200K)

This render is quite an interesting one: there's a reasonably realistic sea, with a dolfin and probably two sharks, but the good thing in this picture is the sky: it's absolutely gorgeous to look at, and the lens flare adds a finishing touch to a render of a very high quality overall: 8. Download!

subfight.jpg (57K)

In this render there's finally some action: two futuristic spacey subs chasing eachother along the seabed. That in itself is not all that special, but the strength of this picture lies in the detail throughout: there's little air bubbles rising from the subs, the sea bed has lots of nooks and crannies, and the lowered visibility that you'd expect at the bottom of the ocean that adds a lot of realism to the scene. Like a lot of the pics in this round up, though, it's good but not outstandingly so, which means another 8 I'm afraid. Download!

windol95.jpg

The windol in this picture is obviously another Windows 95 joke, in this render there's a bottle with the Windows logo, the stuff inside allegedly containing 95% alcohol. Must be what keeps Bill Gates going every day. The render overall is of high quality too though, with an ashtray and some cigarettes, and lots of wine glasses, one of which has toppled over and is spilling the windol all over the place. There's also a candle there to make for some nice reflective touches in the glasses, the bottle and the spilt liquid. Highly commendable even without the joke: 9. And so there we have a good end to another directory, which must have wished it'd never met The Lair, and which we leave behind turned inside out, upside down, and with a right headache, probably. Next month, we'll mercilessly tackle another one head on, so they'd better watch out. Drop us a line if there's a directory you'd like to see done over!
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