IMAGINE archive: collected off of imagine@ATHENA.MIT.EDU ARCHIVE VII Jun. 6 '91 - Jul. 14 '91 If you have questions or problems with this file, email Marvin Landis at marvinl@amber.rc.arizona.edu note: each message seperated by a '##' &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Subject: Imagine:A Guided Tour tape Date: Thu, 6 Jun 91 23:38:22 CDT From: mit-eddie!harvard!scubed!pro-party.cts.com!seanc (Sean Cunningham) I certainly hope that Rick's tape is much better than this one. If any of you had been thinking about buying it, I'd think twice. It goes into VERY little detail with each of the different modules, unlike the Turbo Silver tape that came out a couple of years ago. And if it had at least contained a slew of images and animations the fact that the tutorial section stunk could be negligable...but it doesn't. The finished renderings are washed out, and it's very hard to tell the difference between the 12bit and 24bit renderings, except for sharpness. About the only thing that impressed me at all about the tape was the wireframe animations from Victor Osaka (I think). VERY detailed, very smooth. I'd really like to see some finished renderings from it. Disappointing. Sean /\ RealWorld: Sean Cunningham / \ "Doing our business is what INET: seanc@pro-party.cts.com VISION Amigas are for." Voice: (512) 992-2810 \ / // \/ "Holy #@*!" - any Psygnosis KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/ GRAPHICS game player ## Subject: NFF, TTDDD Date: Sat, 08 Jun 91 11:36:57 EDT From: spworley@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Juan, there does indeed exist an NFF->Imagine conversion program. There is also an OFF->Imagine, another popular format. I wrote conversion programs long ago when I wanted to start a library of Imagine objects. You'll find that I've already hunted on the net and nearly all of the NFF and OFF objects available have already been converted. The Imagine versions can be found on hubcap.clemson.edu in pub/amiga/incoming/IMAGINE/OBJECTS. There is well over 100 of them. If you REALLY want the code, I can e-mail it to you. It's quick and dirty, without much error checking or deference to the user. -Steve --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Worley spworley@athena.mit.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Subject: Re: NFF to IMAGINE Date: Sat, 8 Jun 91 14:18:01 -0500 From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr Is the Linotype Library of Adobe fonts a commercial product? I have about 70+ Adobe fonts I got from Compuserve, but I'm always looking for more. Rick Tillery (drtiller@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu) ## Subject: Looking for conversion program Date: Sat, 8 Jun 91 14:54:59 -0700 From: davids@ucscf.UCSC.EDU (Dave Schreiber) Does anyone know of a program to convert 12-bit Imagine-style pictures to HAM? In particular, the program must be able to lock the palette when making the conversions, so that if I want to convert a series of pictures into an animation, I'll be able to insure that they all use the same palette for the base colors. ASDG's Art Department comes to mind immediately; can anyone tell me if it, or the professional version, fits my requirements? I'm looking for a program to do this because Imagine doesn't support palette locking, like Turbo Silver did, which makes it hard to generate anim OPT 5 animations. They might support it in the future, but when I talked to a customer service person at Imagine, he seemed to be of the opinion that palette-locking should be handled by the animation player(?), and that since anim opt 5 didn't support it, it was therefore a problem with anim opt 5 and not with Imagine. He said they might consider adding palette-locking to Imagine in the future, but he didn't sound too enthusiastic about it. Currently, I'm using Turbo Silver V3, which does support palette-locking, and which can load Imagine RGBN files and save them as HAM, but it's inconvienient, to say the least. Thanks. -Dave Schreiber davids@ucscf.ucsc.edu ## Subject: Re: Looking for conversion program Date: Sun, 9 Jun 91 14:22:05 -0500 From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr Yes, the Art Department and Art Department Professional will allow you to lock the palette and read in those Imagine files for conversion to HAM. However, a better bet might be to get Superview 3.1 by David Grothe which handles multiple palette anims. If you are forced to use another anim player, then TAD or ADPro are a good answer. You can also do the same thing with the Digi-View 4.0 software if you have access to that. Rick Tillery (drtiller@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu) ## Subject: Planets Date: Sun, 09 Jun 91 20:31:06 EDT From: spworley@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Here's a very useful trick for making stellar objects like planets or especially the Moon: It would be very nice to be able to model these object in Imagine, especially for space scenes, or starry nights. It would be especially cool if, in the case of the Moon, the crescent shadow were properly modelled. It would also be nice to have an accurate, cratered surface. Well, you can easily make an object that has both qualities. There are a LOT of NASA pictures available, especially as GIFS, which convert to HAM or 24-bit Amiga pictures pretty easily. If you could map these pictures onto a sphere, shadows would fall on the objects realistically. The problem is wrapping the picture onto a sphere- the forshortened perspective near the rim of the picture really looks wrong if you try to do a normal sphere wrap. The trick lies in how you map the pictures onto the sphere. YOU DO NOT _WRAP_ WRAP THE IFF FILE ONTO THE SPHERE. Instead, you FLAT wrap it. These pictures are essentially parallel projection views of the surface; the coloring already has spherical rim foreshortening implicit in it. If you FLAT wrap, these contours will align with the sphere's contours nearly exactly. This means you can even rotate the sphere slightly, and the craters, banding, etc. will move properly. Of course, the angle of view at the rim of the planet will force the image to lose detail there, but for turning small angles (like up to 20 degrees) the illusion is excellent. Light falling on the sphere will also cause the proper crescent shape to appear. Voila! Instant planet model! When making the IFF file, it is important to make sure the image exactly fits onto the brush- it should extend all the way to the edge. That is, if the circle/oval image is 500 pixels wide and 322 high, the brush you wrap should also be 500 wide and 322 high. Then, when you wrap the brush onto the sphere, you size the brush to cover the ENTIRE sphere, and you know the positioning is accurate. See my tutorial on brush wrapping if you need help on how to place brushes. You don't have to worry about the black background at the four corners on the brush- they are mapped onto empty space, and don't show up. If you are looking for pictures of stellar objects, an EXCELLENT source are the GIFs on wuarchive.wustl.edu. They have pix of Jupiter, the Moon, the Earth, and some of Voyager's pix (I forget which ones). The Art Department Professional is ideally suited to converting the GIFs to IFF24's and cropping the image so they take up the full size. Just an idea that turned out well. I did a short anim of a Lunar eclipse (where the Earth passes between the Sun and Moon) and it looked beautiful! A Solar Eclipse (like the one this July) is considerably less interesting, since the Moon is invisible until it actually passes in front of the Sun. Try it out! Saturn is next; the rings should be fun! -Steve --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Worley spworley@athena.mit.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Subject: Re: Looking for conversion program Date: Sun, 9 Jun 91 11:15:41 EDT From: johnh@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (John J Humpal) > Does anyone know of a program to convert 12-bit Imagine-style pictures > to HAM? In particular, the program must be able to lock the palette when > making the conversions, so that if I want to convert a series of pictures > into an animation, I'll be able to insure that they all use the same > palette for the base colors. ASDG's Art Department comes to mind > immediately; can anyone tell me if it, or the professional version, fits > my requirements? ASDG's The Art Dept. and Art Dept. Pro can both do the job for you. But, as long as you're thinking of using TAD or ADPro, why don't you generate your images in 24-bit IFF or RGBN, then let TAD/ADPro bring them down to HAM? > > -Dave Schreiber > davids@ucscf.ucsc.edu > John J. Humpal -- johnh@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu -- short .sig, std. disclaimer ## Subject: Re: NFF to IMAGINE Date: Mon, 10 Jun 91 10:41:57 EDT From: Mark Thompson > I just bought the Fundamentals of Interactive Computer graphics by > Foley and Van Dam. I was wondering if any of you 3D programmers recommend > this book or another. Oh no, you got the old one. The book you bough WAS pretty much known as the graphics bible but it has grown grossly out of date. It has been replaced by: Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice (2nd Ed.), J.D. Foley, A. van Dam, S.K. Feiner, J.F. Hughes, Addison-Wesley 1990, ISBN 0-201-12110-7 which has nearly double the pages (and information) that the first one had. It is the new definative graphics bible. Other worthwhile texts include: Procedural Elements for Computer Graphics, David F. Rogers, McGraw Hill, ISBN 0-07-053534-5 Three Dimensional Computer Graphics, Alan Watt, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-15442-0 Graphics Gems, Andrew Glassner (ed.), Acedemic Press 1990, ISBN 0-12-286165-5 > Also, could someone explain SPHIGGS to me? What platform is > this written for? If it includes C source, has anyone ported it to the Amiga? I believe you mean SPHIGS which stands for Simple PHIGS (Programmer's Hierarchical Interactive Graphics System). PHIGS is a graphics standard like GKS and is not intended for any one platform. It is a large hulking beast that pretty much gets in the way of high speed/high performance 3D rendering. Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice (mentionned above) devotes an entire chapter to SPHIGS. I don't know what sort of application you are looking at, but PHIGS and SPHIGS are more geared toward CAD and are not at all well suited for 3D animation. |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | ` ' Mark Thompson CONCURRENT COMPUTER | | --==* RADIANT *==-- mark@westford.ccur.com Principal Graphics | | ' Image ` ...!uunet!masscomp!mark Hardware Architect | | Productions (508)392-2480 (603)424-1829 & General Nuisance | | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ## Subject: Re: Planets Date: Mon, 10 Jun 91 15:40:11 EDT From: Mark Thompson > It would be very nice to be able to model these object in Imagine, > especially for space scenes, or starry nights. It would be especially > cool if, in the case of the Moon, the crescent shadow were properly > modelled. The reason Imagine and many other renderers out there don't accurately model the lighting of planetary objects is because they are non-lambertian reflectors. Most all lighting algorithms use a lambert lighting model because it is typical of most surfaces. It is not true however of planetary surfaces like the moon and using a lambertian model results in the appearance of a giant ball of chalk (the crescent shadow is all wrong). For those who care, the 2.0 update to Lightwave includes options for non-lambertian lighting. |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | ` ' Mark Thompson CONCURRENT COMPUTER | | --==* RADIANT *==-- mark@westford.ccur.com Principal Graphics | | ' Image ` ...!uunet!masscomp!mark Hardware Architect | | Productions (508)392-2480 (603)424-1829 & General Nuisance | | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ## Subject: Re: Planets Date: Mon, 10 Jun 91 15:13:35 -0700 From: echadez@carl.org (Edward Chadez) On Jun 10, 3:40pm, Mark Thompson wrote: } Subject: Re: Planets } } > It would be very nice to be able to model these object in Imagine, } > especially for space scenes, or starry nights. It would be especially } > cool if, in the case of the Moon, the crescent shadow were properly } > modelled. } } The reason Imagine and many other renderers out there don't accurately } model the lighting of planetary objects is because they are non-lambertian } reflectors. Most all lighting algorithms use a lambert lighting model because } it is typical of most surfaces. It is not true however of planetary surfaces } like the moon and using a lambertian model results in the appearance of } a giant ball of chalk (the crescent shadow is all wrong). I *have* sucessfully created psuedo crescents by placing the lighting to the _rear_ of the object. However, won't do at all for a scene where there are objects in the "foreground" that need illumination. } For those who } care, the 2.0 update to Lightwave includes options for non-lambertian } lighting. Thanks for the tip, Mark. Too bad, tho', that there isn't a non-lambertian lighting method for Imagine (are you listening, Impulse?). } |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| } | ` ' Mark Thompson CONCURRENT COMPUTER | } | --==* RADIANT *==-- mark@westford.ccur.com Principal Graphics | } | ' Image ` ...!uunet!masscomp!mark Hardware Architect | } | Productions (508)392-2480 (603)424-1829 & General Nuisance | } | | } ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ } }-- End of excerpt from Mark Thompson Sincerely, Ed Chadez -- --//------------------------------------------------------------------------- \X/ echadez@carl.org/Edward Chadez CARL Systems(303)861-5319 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Subject: Does anyone know how... Date: Mon, 10 Jun 91 16:33:36 PDT From: Daryl T. Bartley To get the effect of a CD as an object? So that all the reflections and colors look right when it is moved around? I saw the CD's in Mark's Blender.av pic, and was wondering how they were done...did you just digitize a CD and use it as a flat object, or did you actually duplicate a CD as an object? Just curious... Daryl Bartley dmon@cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu P.S. No big hurry replying either, I am probably going to have to render these things on a friend's system if it is possible to do at all..:) ## Subject: Bump map depth Date: Mon, 10 Jun 91 19:46:30 EDT From: dak@graphics.rent.com (Dak Productions) I know this newsgroup is for imagine but here's a question for Lightwave which may be helpful to Imagine-ers as well. On a bump map mapped on the Z axis is there any control other than the grey scale to control the depth of the bumps? Velocity and Amplitute seem to have no effect. Any help would be apprecitated. DAK ## Subject: Re: Does anyone know how... Date: Tue, 11 Jun 91 09:30:19 EDT From: Mark Thompson Daryl T. Bartley writes: >To get the effect of a CD as an object? So that all the reflections and colors >look right when it is moved around? I saw the CD's in Mark's Blender.av pic, >and was wondering how they were done..did you just digitize a CD and use it as >a flat object, or did you actually duplicate a CD as an object? Kinda cool lookin aint it. Yes, it was digitized from a real CD and image mapped onto the surface of a disk object. I tried numerous effects to attempt to mimic the look but nothing came close to a mapped image. As for making it look right when it is moved around, this is pretty much impossible with current rendering software (that I know of) because nothing can duplicate real world optics. One possibility however would be a procedural color spectrum spread texture that would assign a color based on a 3D world location. As the suface is moved, it would pass through various points altering the color spectum displayed. I had asked Allen Hastings about adding such a texture to LightWave back when I did the Blender pic, but he has been pretty busy. If you could code your own textures in Imagine, you might be able to do it. |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | ` ' Mark Thompson CONCURRENT COMPUTER | | --==* RADIANT *==-- mark@westford.ccur.com Principal Graphics | | ' Image ` ...!uunet!masscomp!mark Hardware Architect | | Productions (508)392-2480 (603)424-1829 & General Nuisance | | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ## Subject: Re: Bump map depth Date: Tue, 11 Jun 91 09:52:23 EDT From: Mark Thompson dak@graphics.rent.com (Dak Productions) writes: > I know this newsgroup is for imagine but here's a question for Lightwave > which may be helpful to Imagine-ers as well. > On a bump map mapped on the Z axis is there any control other than the grey > scale to control the depth of the bumps? Velocity and Amplitute seem to have > no effect. Any help would be apprecitated. Velocity controls the rate at which the textural projection will move across (through) the surface in an animation. Amplitude does contol bump height but not for image mapped bumps, just the procedural ones like ripples. I have already put in a request for the ability to specify the actual bump height (using the image map as a modulator) and also allow an envelope to control that height. I believe Imagine already has a setting for bump height in addition to the image map. The 2.0 release of LightWave will provide the ability to morph surface attributes through an envelope (as well as load and save them) and should also address the bump height setting. Also, the new version includes cylindrical and spherical bump mapping (which was in the manual I believe but didn't make it into the 1.0 release). |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | ` ' Mark Thompson CONCURRENT COMPUTER | | --==* RADIANT *==-- mark@westford.ccur.com Principal Graphics | | ' Image ` ...!uunet!masscomp!mark Hardware Architect | | Productions (508)392-2480 (603)424-1829 & General Nuisance | | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ## Subject: Detail tutorial Date: Tue, 11 Jun 91 23:19:01 EDT From: spworley@ATHENA.MIT.EDU I really worked hard and finished the first Detail tutorial, describing the basic commands of the editor. I won't have much time to write for the next month or so (I'm moving to California!) but this introduction to the Detail Editor is definately enough to get things started. I am sending the 71K tutorial in 3 seperate mail messages in order to keep some mailers from choking on such a long e-mail message. Oh- my move will not affect the list at all- it will run without a hitch since I'll keep it on the same machine at MIT. My E-mail address will probably change soon, though. More about my move sometime soon... Enjoy the Detail tutorial! -Steve --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Worley spworley@athena.mit.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Subject: Intro Detail Tutorial (file 1 of 3) Date: Tue, 11 Jun 91 23:35:30 EDT From: spworley@ATHENA.MIT.EDU This file is a tutorial introduction to the Detail Editor. It describes the way Imagine stores objects, how Imagine interacts with you to show the objects you are building, how you can build and manipulate these objects, and make complex objects formed of many sub-objects. A later tutorial will describe the more advanced features of the Detail Editor which allows you to manipulate objects in much more complex ways, like cutting one object with another, making outlines and filling them with faces, defining objects by successive cross sections, and bending objects around tubes and spheres, and even using outlines as a lathe guide. A third tutorial will be a more general discussion of the approaches to object creation, discussing how to plan and actually build your objects as opposed to what each menu item in the Detail Editor does. The last two tutorials have not been written as of today (6/11/91) but will be forthcoming in the next month or so. My previous tutorials are on texture, brushmaps, the use of transparency and glass, the Forms Editor, and the Project Editor. ---------------------- This tutorial is more basic than most of my others. I realize that many people will be disappointed, but I feel it is necessary to give an introduction describing how objects are defined and how the standard controls in the all of the editors are used. New users will GREATLY appreciate a description of the goals of the Detail Editor and how objects are defined and used in Imagine before delving into a description of the suboptions of each menu item. For those of you who are looking for a more hard-core Detail tutorial, none to fear! It's my next project, and it will should blend into a nice, logical successor to this tutorial. Even those who scoff at this introduction might want to read it anyway; there are a lot of subtle points (especially about pick and select!) that are well worth learning about. This tutorial describes the Detail Editor in Imagine version 1.1. There are only minor differences (Taut and Fracture) from version 1.0. ----------- An Introduction to the Detail Editor Last Revised 6/11/91 By Steven Worley ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. What are Imagine objects? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- When a computer program wants to draw a 3D object, it must have some way of internally representing it. Some modelers store each object as a bunch of 2 dimensional polygons- a 3D object is a formed from a whole bunch of these polygons pasted together. A cube might be defined as six 2D squares arranged in a group. Since our final picture just has to LOOK like it is solid, defining the outer surface is usually all we need to do to make it seem as if the objects ARE solid. Any object can be defined as a bunch of flat polygons. Curved surfaces like a sphere can use a lot of polygons in order to approximate the surface closely; certain computer tricks (including a very important one called Phong shading) can smooth out the surface even more. Most of the 3D objects, or models, that you've ever seen in any 3D computer graphic were defined as polygons. Sometimes advanced programs define surfaces with a mathematical equation, or by a certain type of curve, and sometimes a computer model will have certain objects it "knows" how they should look (like a mathematically defined sphere or cone) but most use polygons for definition, Imagine included. All objects in Imagine are defined as a bunch of triangles. Nothing more. It is particularly easy for a computer to decide what a triangle would look like when viewed as a 3D image. Any more complex polygon (like a square or octagon) can be broken down into a bunch of triangles pretty easily. Having only one "shape" to deal with is actually a convenience for us, as we don't have to worry about questions of what type of polygons a certain object is made of, or how to convert one type of polygon into another. The computer likes dealing only with triangles because it can optimize it's renderer, the program that actually draws the pictures, to expect and deal with just one shape simple instead of 246 different ones. Although an object is made of only triangles (called FACES) it has points and edges which define where these faces go. If you think of a simple triangle, it has 3 defining points at the corners, three edges connecting these points, and one face which actually makes up the body of the triangle. Imagine can better deal with the objects by defining these sub-parts, and it allows us to manipulate the objects much more easily. Every object has a number of defined POINTS. Imagine understands an EDGE to be a line segment that connects any two of these points. A face is defined by naming the three edges that make it up. Instead of storing nine numbers for each triangle (the X,Y,Z location of each corner) it just names the edges, which in turn name the points. This reduces the size of a description of an object considerably. It also helps in editing objects, since if you move a point, each face that it is part of will adjust itself to the include the new location of the point. The other alternative would be to have each face manually manipulated individually, which is obviously a big pain. Think of a square. Imagine would store a square as two triangles that share one edge together. The square would actually contain FIVE edges (the four sides and the diagonal) and FOUR points (one at each of the corners.) It would have two faces, or triangles. A cube is stored as twelve faces, formed by eighteen edges, which are in turn defined by eight points. This definition of objects actually gives us some extra leeway in how we define our model. Imagine doesn't require your object to be connected at all; that is, your object could be two completely separate surfaces that never touch. You might want an object to be a flying logo. The letters don't actually touch and form one solid object; they are independent from each other. Imagine doesn't care; you can call any collection of points, edges, and faces an object. Imagine also gives you tools for splitting off part of an object (like a letter) or joining two parts together. Since this is a computer model and not a physical one, we can violate physics and have objects self-intersect. You might overlap two spheres half-way and join them together to form one object. You'll only see the outer surface when you render the new double-sphere object. There actually are two objects that Imagine does not define as a group of points, edges, and faces: a perfect sphere and an infinite plane. These are the only exceptions to the normal definition of objects in Imagine. Well, OK, there's another. An axis containing NO points can still be manipulated as an object. It certainly won't show up in a render, but sometimes it's nice to use a lone axis as an invisible object in certain cases. You can also use the axis as the start of a brand new object. There are certain "Editors" in Imagine that allow us to view and manipulate objects in different ways. Some editors let you place objects in scenes, or define how the objects change with time. The Detail Editor is where objects are usually created and modified. It allows low-level editing of objects; you can add points and faces by hand, move them, delete old ones and in general be as picky as you like in adjusting every point. Defining objects point-by-point is obviously not very suited to complex objects, sometimes with THOUSANDS of points. There are more powerful controls that let you modify your object in more global ways. You can add pre-made 'primitive' objects like a cylinder or a torus (doughnut shape.) These primitive objects have the points, edges, and faces that define it already defined. There are certain tools that let you draw an outline, say the profile of a chess pawn, which is converted to a three-dimensional `spun' object, as if it was chiseled out on a lathe. Other tools let you slice off parts of your object using knives that you can build yourself. In general, object creation is done with these powerful tools, and picky touch-ups are the only time you grab and move individual points. A sculptor does not glue sand grains together! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- II. Looking at Stuff in the Detail Editor ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Detail Editor is the program that lets you manipulate and modify objects in Imagine. Like the other editors (and any Amiga program, for that matter) Imagine gets input and directions from you by either moving the mouse and clicking it's buttons, or by typing on the keyboard. Most advanced options use pull-down menus to select the function you want to perform. An important trick, especially when you start using Imagine a lot, is keyboard-equivalents. This lets you select menu items via the keyboard, by pressing the right Amiga key along with another letter or number. All of the keyboard equivalents can be selected via pull-down menus, although not all menu items have keyboard equivalents. You'll find that learning the most used commands' keyboard equivalents can save a LOT of time. Its quick and easy to punch right-Amiga-o to zoom your view out; pulling the menu down repeatedly is a pain. A few other commands (especially moving, rotating, and scaling objects) use the keyboard to indicate what you want to do (move, rotate, or scale) while simultaneously using the mouse to control the extent of the transformation. You can get into it from any point in Imagine by selecting the menu item 'Detail Editor' from the Project pull-down menu. The screen should then split into four smaller windows with a thin status line at the bottom of the screen and another at the top. When you start up the Detail Editor, you'll see what is known as a "Quad-View." Are four windows labeled "top", "front", "right", and "perspective", which are different ways of viewing the object you are manipulating. It is difficult to manipulate 3D objects with a 2D mouse and a 2D screen, and the tri-view is a compromise that makes the best of these unfortunate 2D restrictions. The top, right, and front views show you the wire-frame skeleton of the object you're editing. A wire-frame is a view of your object with each edge shown as a line segment. Faces are NOT shown, so the object looks like it's built from pieces of wire that join at the outside edges of the object, hence the name wireframe. Wireframes have two advantages; they are much faster to draw than "solid" models, and since you can see _into_ the object, you can manipulate points and edges on the interior of the object that you wouldn't normally see. The top, right and front views are just that- a wireframe view of your object shown from the three orthogonal (right angle) directions. There is also a small axis at the bottom left corner of each view that shows the world's X,Y,Z coordinate system. In Imagine, the X,Y,Z is defined just like it is in mathematics- X is left to right, Y is in to out, and Z is down to up. Some 3D programs define Z to be in-and-out, so note Imagine's difference. There is an absolute "world" coordinate system defined by these axes. You can select "Coordinates" from the Display menu, which will continually display the coordinates of the mouse pointer in the world's X, Y, and Z system. The units that it measures in are arbitrary, but it is often convenient to call them "Imagine Units." Objects tend to be on the order of 10 to 100 Imagine Units in size, since this is a comfortable scale to deal with when we design scenes to be rendered. There is a grid shown in the three main windows. This grid is used to give you a sense of scale, and can be turned on or off in the Display menu. The spacing between the lines can be set by choosing "Grid Size", also from the Display window. The default is 20, which is a reasonable starting size. Some commands let you use the grid to snap objects to precise locations- these are the most common reasons you want to change the grid size. The fourth window (with no grid in it) is called the "perspective" window, which allows you to view your object from any direction. You can also change modes to view your object as a wireframe or as a "solid" model, where the faces become opaque so that you cannot see through your object. In this window, you CANNOT manipulate your objects- it is a view only. Each of the four windows can be quickly zoomed to take up the full screen very easily by merely clicking on the tall narrow box to the left of each view that contains the name of the window. The window will expand to take up the entire screen, allowing you to have a better view of whatever you're working on. To zoom back to the quad-view, just click on the name to the left again. To go immediately from a full screen display of one view to a full screen display of another, you just click the name of the new view to the right. Being able to see all four views at once is often an advantage, but so is seeing a larger, more detailed view. This method allows you to quickly and easily change how you look at your model. Just to get a sense of how this works, pull down the menu item 'Functions' and select 'Add primitive'. Click on the 'Torus' button and click on 'OK' to accept the default parameters. All this did was make a pre-defined object that we can look at when we manipulate the views. You should see an object in all four of the windows. This is the same object, just viewed from different directions. Remember the three main views (Top, Front, and Right) all show a WIREFRAME view from their respective directions, so the inside of the doughnut might look very complex. Perspective, the remaining view, also shows a wireframe view of the doughnut. You can change the view by manipulating the two white sliding boxes on the top and left of the window. The bottom white slider lets you view from different directions AROUND the object. If the slider is in the middle, you're looking at the front. If it's 3/4 of the way to the right, you're looking at the right hand side, and if it's all the way in either direction, you're looking at the back. The vertical slider on the right controls the ANGLE you're looking at the object from. Centered is a level perspective, all the way up gives you a straight-down view, and all the way down gives you a straight-up view. By combining these two sliders you can look at your object from any direction. You can change the perspective view by selecting 'wireframe' or 'solid' from the Display pull-down menu. Solid takes longer to show your object, but removes the points that are hidden, getting rid of the X-ray wireframe view. A final way of changing the perspective view is by selecting 'shaded' from the Mode pull-down menu and zooming the perspective view to the full screen. This shades the object in false black and white colors which sometimes lets you see the shape of the object more clearly. There are a few commands that let you change your absolute vantage of your object. You can zoom your view (on all windows) in and out by using 'zoom in' and 'zoom out' from the View menu. This lets you see more of your object at once, or just a certain portion. Each zoom in or out will double or halve the scale respectively. You can also select a numerical zoom by selecting 'set zoom' in the View menu, which allows more precise magnification levels by simply typing in a number. Zoom in and zoom out are often used, so knowing the keyboard equivalents of right-Amiga-i and right-Amiga-o can save a lot of time. To scroll the views around, you can click in one of the three main views, then use the arrow keys to move the view in whatever direction you like. You'll notice that if you change one view, the others will change as well- all of the views are linked so they show the same volume of space. You can also scroll the view by telling Imagine where you want the view centered. You select 'Re-center' from the View menu and click on where you want the new center of your view to be. Usually you click right in the middle of the object or area you're interested in. The keyboard equivalent of right-Amiga-. (period) is very convenient. The display that Imagine shows you is very important, as it is your interface in dealing with everything in the program. One important option is found in the Display menu; it is called "interlace". Interlace will change the screen resolution which the display uses. An interlaced screen is 400 pixels high, whereas a non-interlaced screen is only 200. Unfortunately, the interlaced display will flicker on many Amigas. An Amiga 3000 or a "flicker-fixer" equipped Amiga will be able to use interlaced mode without the flicker. The interlaced mode allows much more detail and more precise location of points, so it is by far the preferred mode to work in. Even if you do have a flickering display, it is probably worth the annoyance to have the extra resolution. A couple ways to reduce the flicker if you have it: you can muck with the monitor's contrast and brightness, or you can change the screen colors using the imagine.config file (see my Project tutorial). My favorite solution is wearing sunglasses- it works very well indeed, and you look cool while using your computer. -------- (Continued in next file...) ## Subject: Introductory Detail Tutorial (File 2 of 3) Date: Tue, 11 Jun 91 23:49:06 EDT From: spworley@ATHENA.MIT.EDU ------------------------------------------------------------------------- III. Moving Stuff in the Detail Editor ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Knowing how to move your views around is important, as when you're manipulating an object you'll find yourself changing your viewpoints around constantly. There is a whole new set of commands for moving the OBJECTS in the editor around. In order to manipulate an object, we either have to load an existing one or start one from scratch. Imagine comes with several simple pre-built objects called 'primitives' that are very convenient to use as starting points for creating your own objects. Talking about these primitives doesn't really belong at this point in the tutorial, but it would be nice to be able to have something to look at and manipulate as each of the viewing and manipulation commands are presented. To make a primitive object, select 'add' in the Edit menu, and 'primitive' in the sub-menu. There are six simple shapes that Imagine will automagically create for you. They are a sphere, a cylinder, a cone, a disk, a plane, and a torus. When you select one, Imagine will ask how many points the object should have. With primitives like a sphere, the more points that define it, the smoother its appearance is going to be when rendered. Remember that even curved surfaces are made from triangles, and the surface becomes better defined with each point added. However, an object with more points than are necessary can become a burden; drawing the object in the editor takes more time, and although the final rendered picture with be higher quality with extra points, it will also take longer. Thus, when you add new primitive objects, Imagine asks what level of detail you would like. For example, the sphere primitive asks how many circle sections and how many vertical sections will make it up. The default is a reasonable number of defining points. If you were looking for a higher quality sphere because you were going to zoom in very closely to it, you might use extra points. If the object is going to sit in the background and not be examined closely, you might select fewer points. Most of the time, the defaults serve as a nice compromise, but you are much more likely to simplify the object as opposed to increase the default level of detail. The plane primitive in particular lends itself to simplification- most of the time you can bear with defining the simplest plane possible (2 triangles) as opposed to the overburdened default of a grid of 200 triangles. Each primitive lets you define the numbers of points that define it; the parameters that you can vary are all pretty self-explanatory. For example, the cylinder lets you define how many points are to form the circle around the rim, and also how many sections the body of the tube should be defined as. Other options (available for some primitives) are simple flags that define whether to close the ends of the cylinder (to create a hollow tube versus a log) or to 'stagger points' in some models. Staggering points increases the smoothness of curves- you should almost always leave it on. Note that the disk and the plane are actually flat objects- the others all have depth. All objects also let you define their size; this is quite straightforward. When you have loaded an object or added a primitive, you'll notice that you can see each point and edge in the wireframe. In addition, you'll see an AXIS, usually near the center of the object. In Imagine, EVERY OBJECT HAS IT'S OWN INDEPENDENT AXIS. An object's axis helps Imagine determine which way an object is facing, how it is scaled, and even what it's position is. Imagine doesn't understand what the objects ARE; it doesn't realize that a complex object like an airplane should orient itself with wheels down instead of balanced sideways on a wingtip. The axis actually defines the object's position; if you ask Imagine to move an object, Imagine really just moves the axis, and the object's points, edges, and faces are dragged along with it. When you rotate an object, the rotation occurs around the object's axis, as opposed to the world's absolute reference system. Scalings, where you change the size of the object, also use the object axis as a basis. When you want to manipulate a certain object, you have to tell Imagine which one (or ones!) that you're interested in, since you might have a dozen different object loaded at once. The way of choosing an object so you can manipulate it is just by clicking on it's axis. The object will turn a pretty blue color (or sometimes purple- more later!) which indicates that the object is chosen- any manipulation commands will be done on this one object. The object is said to be "picked", and Imagine knows that you want to apply commands to this object as opposed to another. Once you've picked an object, the most common manipulations are to move it around, rotate it, or scale it. These basic commands are often used, so Impulse has made it pretty easy to do. When you have a selected an object, you type the letter 'm' for move. The object will disappear (!) and be replaced by a big yellow "bounding box" which encloses the volume where your object was. This bounding box represents the size, shape, position, and orientation of your object. Since the box is so simple to draw, Imagine can update it in realtime as you manipulate it, allowing you to position it quickly and easily. After selecting the object and pressing "m", Imagine knows you want to move the object. Putting the cursor in any of the three main views, pressing the left mouse button and then dragging the mouse will drag your object in the direction you move. You do not have to click on the yellow box; anywhere in the view is fine. You can keep moving the object as long as you like; you can let go of the mouse button, move the pointer to another position in any of the three views, and continue moving the object. You are also welcome to zoom in and out, make one view full-screen, or re-center your views at any time. When you are finally done moving your object, pressing the space bar will accept the change and your object will be displayed as a wireframe in it's new location. If you've made a mistake, you can press the ESC key instead of the space bar. This also exits the move mode, but the object's position is unchanged from where it was before you started to move it. This is obviously useful for fixing mistakes or changing your mind. Two other commands work much like move: rotate and scale. If you select your object and press "r", you will rotate your object, and you'll see the yellow bounding box spin as you drag the mouse with the button down. You can also change spin axes (to pitch or bank the object, as opposed to yawing it) by pressing "x", "y", or "z" to define which axis you want to rotate around. All rotation is done around the OBJECT'S axis. Scaling is done by selecting "s" and dragging the mouse. Again, scaling is done relative to the OBJECT's axis. If the axis is in the center of the object, the object will grow in all directions. If it is at the bottom, the object will grow up and out, but not down. Each of these three commands (move, scale, and rotate) can be called either when you've picked an object or during any other move, scale, or rotate command. For example, you might pick an object, press "m" to move the object, position it in a new place, press "r" to spin it, then "s" to scale it. You do not have to press the space bar after every change; only after you are finally satisfied with the new location, size, and orientation of your object do you want to press the space bar to accept the changes you've made. Aborting by using the ESC key will remove all of the changes (movements, rotations, and scalings) that you've made. These manipulation commands are easy to use, and they have other controls that make certain manipulations even easier. At the bottom of the screen, there is a status bar that will highlight which mode you're in. If you are moving, the "M" in the "M=Move" at the bottom of the screen will be highlighted, and the "R" and "S" highlight when you're rotating or scaling. The "x", "y", and "z" commands that allow you to change rotation axes also work in moving and scaling. They act in these two modes as toggles- when you start a move, you are free to move it in all three directions, X, Y, and Z. You might want to restrict a direction of motion, though, if for example you are moving a table along a floor and you didn't want to accidentally lift the table into the air as you moved it left and right. Pressing the "x", "y", and "z" keys will toggle the allowable directions on and off, so pressing "z" will anchor the table's height, and pressing "z" again will allow you to lift it up if you change your mind. This also works in the scaling mode; if you want to make an object narrower without changing its height, you might toggle "z" and scale the object down. With the "z" toggle off, the object will maintain it's Z height, but will shrink in the X and Y directions. At any time, the display at the bottom of the screen shows the letters "X-Y-Z" and highlights the directions that are "active" or changeable. A related shortcut is using the capital letters "X", "Y", and "Z", which set the toggles to allow movement and scaling in one direction only. If you wanted to lift a table straight up, you just type "Z" and the table will be free to move up and down, but not in the X or Y directions. This method of setting the toggles overrides whatever position they were set in before, but you can use the individual toggles afterwards to set whatever freedoms you like. Imagine gives you even more flexibility if you want to use it. Whenever you move, rotate, and scale an object, it is based on a certain coordinate system. The default is to use the standard coordinate system- the set of axes that is fixed in place and shown at the bottom left of the three main views. This is called the "world" coordinate system. However, each object has it's own "local" coordinate system, defined by it's own axis. Imagine allows you to use a local coordinate system instead of the world system if you like. For example, if you have an object in the shape of a plane, the local coordinate system probably has the Y axis (going front to back) in line with the main fuselage of the plane. Using "r" to rotate the plane, you can easily position it so that it is angled up like it is climbing into the sky. If you then wanted to move it in a straight line along it's "flight path", the direction it's pointing, you could select move, and try to judge by eye the new position in the direction in front of the plane. If, instead, you select local mode (by using "l") and restrict motion along the Y direction by typing "Y", the plane will move smoothly along the line it's pointed along. In the world coordinate system, it's moving in both the Y and Z directions, but in it's local coordinate system, it's moving only in it's Y direction. To switch between coordinate systems, you just type "l" and "w" whenever you want to change. The current coordinate system has L or W highlighted at the bottom display just like the X-Y-Z indicators. Many times the local and world coordinate systems will be the same, so one is equivalent to the other. One final option when you're manipulating objects allows you to manipulate the axis of the object independently. If you want to move, scale, or rotate an object's axis [without simultaneously affecting the object!] you can use "M", "R", and "S", the capital letter versions of the object manipulation commands, to affect only the axis. There are some occasions you might want to do this for fancy tricks, but most of the time, you just want to move the axis around just so that it lies near the center of your object. The standard commands to move, rotate, and scale objects have been streamlined for ease of use since they are performed so often. Sometimes, however, they are somewhat lacking, especially when you need precise control over how your object is to be manipulated. For the precise control of object manipulation, Imagine has a special command called "Transform" which allows you to numerically control your object as opposed to judging by eye. The transform command works much like the standard interactive commands in that you first select your object (by clicking on it's axis) and then telling Imagine what to do to it. To enter the transform command, you click on the object (it becomes blue or purple) and pull down the menu item "transform" from the Object menu. A small requester will appear. You have six options you can choose from: translate, rotate, scale, position, alignment, and size. You also enter X, Y, and Z arguments. Translate takes the X, Y and Z arguments and moves (translates) the object that distance. Rotate will rotate the object around the axis you specify by an amount (in degrees) you specify in X, Y and Z. Performing more than one rotation at once is legal, but it is easy to make mistakes in final orientation. If you rotate around more than one axis at once, the Z rotation is performed, then the X rotation, then the Y rotation. Scale will scale your object by a certain factor. To double the size, just enter 2 in each of the X, Y, and Z boxes. A negative number is completely legal, and if one or three of the scalings is negative, you'll actually get a scaled mirror image of your original object. Position is like Translate in that it moves your object. Instead of moving a certain distance, however, it moves to absolute world coordinates. Alignment is also absolute; it will rotate your object in whatever way necessary to align in the direction you specify, regardless of the original orientation. Setting X, Y, Z all to zero will make the object line up exactly with the world axes. Size is again absolute. It uses the axis size as a benchmark, and will scale the object (and it's axis) to an absolute size. The "default" size that all axes start out at is 32 Imagine Units, so entering an XYZ size of 32 32 32 will bring most objects back to their virgin sizes. To use any of these sub-commands, just click on the box next to it's name and type in the appropriate X, Y, and Z arguments in the boxes to the right. Selecting "OK" will perform the manipulations, "cancel" will abort without affecting your object. You have the option to use world or local coordinates, just as in the interactive commands; just click on either box to decide. The default is the world system. You can also manipulate only the axis (like the capital letter commands in interactive manipulation) by selecting "transform axis only." Most manipulations use the interactive controls, and the transformation requester is used only for accurate, measured changes. One problem that you may run into after an interactive or a transformed manipulation is a "dirty" screen. Imagine erases the old object from before your move or scale or rotate, and draws it in the new position. However, to save time, it will not redraw any other wireframe object that was in view. This means that the areas were the old object intersected any other object in the view will be blank; part of the other object will be erased. If you want to check to see if this is the case, you can select "Redraw" from the Display menu, which will redraw all of the objects, eliminating the problem. One case where this is almost necessary is when you have multiple copies of an object at the same place. If you move one copy, the other isn't redrawn. Since it was in the exact same location as the old, erased, object, it looks like it has disappeared! This is easy to fix with redraw. It is another oft-used command, so knowing the keyboard equivalent of right-Amiga-r is handy. A problem you'll run into when manipulating complex objects is the sheer time it takes to redraw the wireframe model (in three views). Imagine has a way to speed the display of these objects- it shows the bounding box of the object (like the one shown in interactive manipulation) instead of the wireframe. You LOOSE the detailed view of your object, but you can still see the position, size, and orientation. To make an object "quickdraw" in this mode, you can use three commands in the Functions menu. "Quickdraw all" will make all of the objects display in quickdraw mode. "Quickdraw none" will make all objects display the normal wireframe. "Quickdraw pick" will make your picked (blue or purple highlighted) object display in quickdraw mode. These quickdraw boxes are very handy, and since they can be toggled at any time in the Detail Editor, it makes sense to use them when screen updates start to get too slow. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- IV. Harvesting and Sorting with Pick ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Since you can have many objects loaded at once, there has to be a way for you to tell Imagine what object or objects you want to deal with. You've done this already, by clicking on an object's axis, and watching it turn color. This shows that the picked object is ready to be manipulated on. What if we want to manipulate more than one object at a time? A standard way to "multi-pick" things (like icons in AmigaDos, or objects in Imagine) is to use the shift key. By holding the shift key as you click on objects, Imagine knows you want ALL of them picked, not just the latest one. In fact, if you press the shift key, the display line at the top of the screen will change to show how many objects are picked. Commands will affect all of the picked objects, not just one. In the case of moving, scaling, and rotating more than one object, the FIRST picked object's axis defines the basis of all the manipulations, as well as the local coordinate system for manipulating all of the objects. There are easier way to pick many objects than by repeatedly clicking on each object's axis. Imagine allows you to change how objects are picked by the "Pick Method" submenu in the Modes menu. The default is "click", which means that when you click directly on an object's axis, it will become picked. Other methods of picking can be chosen from the pick method submenu. If you use "drag box", instead of clicking on the object axes, you should press and hold the mouse button while dragging the mouse. A large box will follow your mouse, and when you release the button, an object within the box will become picked. If you press and hold the shift key when you release the mouse button, ALL of the objects within the box will become picked. Lasso is similar, but more versatile. You press and hold the button while drawing a large circle or oval or squiggly shape. When you release the button, an object within the region you've drawn will become picked. Again, you can hold the shift key to pick ALL of the objects within. A final option in the pick method submenu is called "Lock". Lock isn't a method of picking; it really has more to do with when moving picked objects. Lock is a flag; you can toggle it on and off by selecting it from its submenu. When Lock is on, any moved object will snap to the nearest grid location when released. This is automatic and is easier than using the one-time "Snap to Grid" (described later, I promise!) again and again when you're trying to get precise placement. Two other utility commands can be found in the Pick/Select menu. "Pick all" will pick ALL of the objects in your workspace. "Unpick Last" will allow you to remove the last object you picked from your set of picked objects. This is handy when you pick one too many objects and you want to unpick the last one you chose. It is easy to pick objects or sets of objects using the different pick methods. There is actually another powerful way to change what object or objects are picked; it is called "select." There is a very, very important difference between a "picked" object and a "selected" object; you've been using pick to highlight objects and manipulate them. Select is sort of a pick-wanna-be. One problem that can occur is when two object axes are directly on top of each other. If you click on the common axis location, one of the objects will become picked. (The first one that was created or loaded into the Editor). If you click again, the same object will remain picked and the second object will just sit there. If you hold the shift key and click on the common axis again, the second object WILL be picked, but now BOTH objects are picked. If you want to pick just the second object and not the first, you can either MOVE one object just to uncover the other axis, or you can use select. There is a solution when picking (or unpicking) objects becomes awkward (or impossible!). SELECT allows you to control what objects are picked by allowing you to add and remove objects from your set of picked objects one at a time. Think of buying lunch at a cafeteria, and you pick which food you want to eat. One way of "picking" food to add to your tray is by having the lunch worker point to each of the cafeteria's food bins, and saying "No, the next one, the next one, the next one- yes! That one!" as the worker points to the foods in turn. As the worker selects item after item, you can choose to PICK the item he's pointing to at any time. The analogy extends; What if your arms are full of cafeteria food and you want to put some back? Your arms are busy holding all the food; you can't easily grab an item and put it down. You can, however, ask a friend to "unpick" the item for you. If your friend has trouble with big words (like the names of food), he can just point at each food in your arms in turn until he points to the granola yogurt you want to put down. You then say "Yes, yes! Get rid of that!" This is exactly what select allows you to do. Your arms are full with picked objects. You can't just click on an object to "unpick" it because Imagine thinks you're just making sure you have it picked. You also might have problems indicating the right object to pick, as in the case of two objects on top of one another. The major difference between the the cafeteria and Imagine is that your mentally challenged friend is also the cafeteria worker, and will point to both types of objects for you. Select works by allowing you to highlight different objects in a controlled way. A "selected" object might be picked or not; A normal object is white, a selected object is orange, a picked object is blue, and a picked AND selected object is purple. Only one object is ever be selected at once, which is helpful in reducing confusion. The commands for selecting objects are completely different from those of PICKing objects; the whole point of select is that sometimes the methods used to pick objects are awkward, and select gives you an alternative way to pick them. The easiest and most common method of selecting an object is by using two commands, "Select next" and "Select previous", both found in the Pick/Select menu. Using "Select next" repeatedly will cycle through all of the objects in the order that they were created or loaded. This command does NOT care whether the object is picked or not; it will select all objects one at a time. "Select next" is often a command you want to repeat, so knowing the keyboard shortcut of right-amiga-n is almost necessary. By repeatedly using select next, ANY object can be selected because Select next will eventually reach it. "Select previous", right-amiga-p, will select objects in the opposite order, in case you overshoot with select next. One convenience is that when an object becomes selected, your view will jump to center the object on the screen, always allowing you to see what you just selected. When an object is selected, there are certain commands that will cause it to become picked or un-picked. The most common command is called "pick select", which can be found in the Pick/Select menu. When you use this menu option, the selected object will become picked. If the selected object is picked and you want to un-pick it, you can use "unpick select" from the pick/select menu to unpick it. "Select next" is kinda klunky, especially if you know exactly what object you want to select. One quick command that is sometimes useful is "Home", which selects the very first object you created or loaded into the Editor. Two other useful commands to quickly select specific objects are "Find by Name" and "Find requester", both found in the Functions menu. "Find by Name" allows you to type in an object's name (assigned in the Attributes requester, more later) and your view will shift to center on the object you named. In addition, the object becomes selected, allowing you to pick-select or unpick-select it. The "Find by Requester" does the same thing except it displays the names of all of the currently loaded objects, and you just click on the name you want to select. This requester is also useful because it tells you the size (# of points, edges, and faces) of each object, which is an excellent judge of object complexity. It's also fun to say "Cool! My tomato has 1,821 points!" ---------- Continued in the next file... ## Subject: Introductory Detail Tutorial (File 3 of 3) Date: Wed, 12 Jun 91 00:17:42 EDT From: spworley@ATHENA.MIT.EDU ------------------------------------------------------------------------- V. Hierarchies and Complex objects ------------------------------------------------------------------------- With complex models, sometimes you don't want to make one huge, mungo object to represent the entire model. You might want to make a forest object that has 20 trees in it, and it seems silly to carve the whole thing out of one block. Or, you might be building an object that is logically a bunch of separate parts, like a clock with a face, a pendulum, two hands, and a frame. Another important ability you might want is to be able to give different parts of a complex object different attributes, or colors. Imagine lets you color and define the look of your objects in different ways, and you can even tell it to make different parts of the same object look different. But when you're building something like a window, the glass panes are considerably different than the wood frames; it is easier to define each as a separate object then somehow group them together. There is a function that lets you do exactly this- group objects together. When you have a model that you want to make (and keep!) in separate sections, Imagine allows you to establish a group of objects which will stay together. It allows you to treat the group as an entire ensemble (if you want to move everything, or apply a command to the whole set), or you can pick out one particular object and deal with it independently. Grouping is very easy to do. If you want to group two objects together, you click on one object, then press the shift key and click on the other. Remember that this is just the method of picking more than one object at once. When you have multi-picked the objects, you select "group" from the Object menu. A purple line will appear joining the axes of the objects. The first object that was selected becomes the "parent" of the group. If you group more than two objects, the purple "group" lines all run from each "child" object to the parent object. This lets you see which axis to click on to pick the entire group. Sometimes it is nice to assign a lone axis as the parent of a group, especially when no part of a group really doesn't lend itself to being a parent. Splitting a group back into it's component parts is also easy; just pick the group by clicking on the parent. The entire group will become picked, and selecting "Ungroup" from the Object menu will split the group. The purple joining lines will disappear, and each child will be independent again. Once a group is made, it can be treated almost identically to an ungrouped object. You can pick it (by clicking on the parent) and the entire group will become highlighted. You can then move, scale, or rotate the entire group as a whole. If you click on a CHILD object, the child will be picked, but not the group. You can then move, scale, or rotate it independently of the group, assign it individual attributes, or perform a command on it independently of the rest of the group. Even when you move the child object around, it will STAY grouped; you must use "ungroup" to ungroup objects. There are modes where you can pick parents separate from their children; this is described in the next section. In addition, you can make groups of groups. Or groups of groups of groups. This is done exactly the same as before; you can pick one group, multi-pick a second, and group them. Having these multi-layer groups is sometimes very useful. One excellent example would be in modeling a human figure. You might make a finger group that contains all of the knuckles, a hand group including a palm, four finger groups, and a thumb group, an arm group consisting of a hand group, a wrist, a forearm, and an elbow, and a body group consisting of a head group, a torso, two leg groups, and two arm groups. This kind of nested grouping is called a "hierarchy", where the body is the great-granddaddy of a knuckle. One great advantage is obvious when you want to move an arm. You pick the arm, and rotate it around the shoulder. All of the arm's children follow it, so the arm moves as a whole. You do NOT have to move 15 knuckles, a palm, a wrist, a forearm, and so on. If you want to adjust a finger, you can manipulate it and the knuckles will move together, but the arm will be unaffected. If you move the main parent body group, everything follows along as if the body were just one solid object, as opposed to dozens of parts. Hierarchies are obviously suited for complex models. Groups are useful when you have sub-parts of an object you want to keep together. Sometimes grouping simple objects is still useful even if there is no hierarchy to follow, since the individual objects are free to move apart from the parent, and can easily be assigned different attributes. For example, if you're designing a human face, you might cause the eyeballs in the head to be an additional grouped object as opposed to just molded into the main face. Later, if you wanted to change the eye (make it a different color, or replace it with a different type of eye (chrome eyeballs! Cool!)) you can easily select the eye and change or replace it. This advantage compounds the other advantages of grouping; you can later animate the eyes looking in different directions, and you can easily change the attributes or texture of the eye while leaving the face undisturbed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- VII. Pick, Add, Drag. Pick, Add, Drag. Geez, how boring! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are some useful commands that act on picked objects other than just moving, rotating, and scaling. Two of the most obvious are "Load" and "Save". Load will load a new object in from disk- it will give you a file requester which you can choose the filename from. The most common place to put objects are in your "objects" subdirectory in your project directory.See the Project Editor tutorial for the complete Imagine file structure. Am important suggestion; use descriptive names and extensions. I talked about this a lot in my Project tutorial, but it's worth repeating. "Obj1" is going to mean nothing to you an hour from now. "tablecloth.iob" tells you that this is an Imagine object of a tablecloth- a useful description. Some suggested file extensions: .iob Imagine Object. Loads into the Detail Editor .iout Imagine Object which is a faceless outline .ifm Imagine Form. Loads into the Form or Detail Editor .iff Amiga picture or brush (standard) .ham Amiga picture or brush in Hold-And-Modify format .iff24 24-bit Amiga picture of brush. Highest quality. .spth Imagine spline path .lpth Imagine line path Save will take the picked object or group and save it onto disk. Note that GROUPS will save as one big group, as long as you have the whole group picked by clicking on the parent. You can give the saved object or group any name you want, and you'll probably want use an extension of ".iob". If you pick a child of a group and save it, you save ONLY that object (and its children), and NOT the entire group it belongs to. Another command you can apply to picked objects is "Snap to Grid" from the Functions menu. It operates on all picked objects, moving each of them so that their axis lies on top of the nearest grid intersection. This is very useful in trying to line up objects or for precise positioning. This is much like a one-time "Lock". There are a few other utility object commands. "Cut", "Copy", and "Paste" are found in the Object menu. "Cut" will remove your object from the Imagine world and store it in memory. When you select "Paste", the object will be re-inserted into the world at the same place it was prior to the cut. In fact, the object is STILL retained in memory, so you can move the restored object around and use "Paste" again to get a second copy to manipulate. You can repeat "Paste" as many times as you like to get copies of objects. "Copy" is like cut, except the object is not removed from the world after being copied to memory. You can use "Paste" to add multiple copies to the world. Since the pasted objects are all put in the same location, often you'll have to move one copy to get to the next. Judicious use of "Redraw" can help in showing exactly what copies are still floating around. An incredibly useful command for making complex objects is called "Join", which can be found in the Functions menu. If you pick two or more objects, join will assemble them into one single object. The new conglomerate object will have use the axis of the first object that was picked, and will contain all of the points, edges, and faces of all of the joined objects. Joined objects are difficult to unjoin later, so only use it when you WANT a solid object. Join is used constantly- you might build a car with the body sides, and "join" on a side mirror, then join the roof on, then join the floor. Remember the advantages of groups though; you probably DON'T want to join the tires to the car; if you group them you can rotate them later, as well as define the chrome hubcap separately from the car's paint and the rubber tire. "Merge" is also found in the Functions menu. It is more of a utility command. It will remove any duplicate faces, edges or points in your object. Especially after you JOIN objects, you might have a lot of points lying on top of one another. Merge removes these extra, unneeded points, speeding rendering and even display in the editors. Merge also helps Phong shading; more about Phong shading in the soon to come Attribute Tutorial. Delete is pretty obvious command. It can also be found in the Functions menu. When you use delete, every picked object will be removed from the world. This command is used a lot to get rid of cruft and deadwood, so knowing the keyboard shortcut of right-amiga-d is useful. As with all of the editors, Imagine has one level of "Undo", which can be selected from the Project menu. When using dangerous commands like Delete, being able to recover from the command is important. Undo will work with almost any command. You can also undo an undo, reinstating a command you decided you wanted anyway. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- VIII. Spraypaint and Picture Frames ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The low-level commands to create and manipulate objects are sufficient to create any model you can think of. An additional level of control you have is the ability to define the surface color and attributes of your object. A flat plane might be made of two triangles, but depending on how you set the attributes of the plane, it might render as a pane of glass, a reflective mirror, a wood tabletop, a piece of graph paper, or a picture of your grandmother. Defining the surface characteristics of objects gives them their character. Luckily, Imagine gives you excellent control of these attributes. Every object has a set of attributes that can be modified. In a group, every object can have different attributes from the parent; when you select a group, you only modify the parent's attributes. To change any attributes, just pick an object and select "Attributes" from the Object menu. A requester will appear, and you can select different properties to change. In addition, you can place brush maps and textures on the object, as well as add or change the object's name. Choosing and setting attributes is immensely important to make your objects look good. Setting textures and especially brushmaps give you near-infinite control on what your object's surface looks like. I have written full tutorials on both the use of texture and brushmaps, and plan to write one on setting attributes. The choices in the attributes requester are so important that they deserve a tutorial unto themselves. I haven't written the attribute tutorial as of today (6/11/91), but look for it by the end of July. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- IX. A Mode for Every Season ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The basic commands to pick, move, and view the world and everything in it are very important, as they are used constantly. The actual work you perform in building objects depends on the user changing the view and manipulating the objects almost without thought. No matter how good we are at manipulating objects and changing the view, using these commands will never BUILD an object for us. To do this, Imagine has different MODES that it performs different actions in. Some modes allow us to manipulate objects and groups, as we have been doing already. Other modes let us pick and manipulate not objects, but the POINTS of an object, or the edges, or the faces. Still other modes let us drag points around in different ways. Some let us add NEW points, edges, and faces. (Aha! So that's how we can build our own objects!) These modes are easy to change; you can just pull down the Mode menu and select which mode you would like to be in. The current mode is always displayed in the status line at the top of the screen; this is often handy when you get confused about what you're doing. The keyboard equivalents for changing the current mode all use right-Amiga and a digit; this makes the keypad become a "mode selector" if you don't want to use the pull-down menus and have stuff it takes to remember which digit is which mode. Personally, I don't have the stuff, so I bear with the pulldown menu rather than strain my poor brain. The default mode is "Pick Groups", which means that whenever you click on a group, it will be picked. (Simple!) If you want to pick individual objects, EVEN IF THEY ARE THE PARENT OF A GROUP, there is a mode called "Pick Objects." Just select it from the mode menu, and now when you click on any object (in a group or not, child or parent) it will be selected. You cal obviously multi-select it using the shift key. When you are dealing with ungrouped objects, "Pick groups" and "Pick objects" work identically. Different modes let you deal with the different parts of an object. Up until this time, we've always dealt with entire objects at a time. We could rotate, scale, and move them, add them, group them, and delete them, though we could not affect their basic structure. The remaining modes all work on PARTS of objects, not objects themselves. One important note is that to even enter these other modes, you must have selected at least one object (or group) for the new modes to act apon. You'll also find that I consistently lied to you in most of the previous sections. I always referred to picking objects as opposed to picking anything else. ALL of the pick and select commands except Find work equally well in picking faces, edges, or points as opposed to just objects or groups. Most other commands like Delete will work on the parts of an object as well. One new mode is "Pick points." If you pick an object or group and enter the pick points" mode, the object will turn white (the object is NOT picked anymore!) and it's points will all become visible (they will show up as small squares.) Now you are in a different mode; you are no longer picking and selecting OBJECTS, you are dealing exclusively with points. You can then click on the points which will turn orange as you pick them. You can use the shift key to multi-pick, or the lasso and drag box to grab many points at once. You can also select points, and use all of the selection tools to help you get any subset of points you want. Selected points are green, picked points are orange, and picked and selected points are yellow. When you're picking points, edges, or faces, Imagine will work ONLY with the points, edges, or faces in the object that was picked before you chose the "pick points (or edges or faces)" mode. This prevents you from confusing one object's points with another's. When you scroll around your view or redraw the screen, the other objects won't even be updated, so don't get scared if they seem to disappear. When you re-enter pick objects or pick groups mode, all of the objects will re-appear. Just because you can pick something doesn't mean you can perform every command on them. In the case of points, you can delete your picked points, or use the transformation requester to translate them; interactive dragging is actually another mode of it's own, though. When you delete a point, you delete any edges and faces that that point help form. You cannot do things to selected points that make no sense (like grouping them, or saving them to a file)- that's just weird. You can perform some other commands that aren't applicable to objects as a whole, however. For example, a very useful command is called "split." It takes the selected points, removes them from the original object, and gives them their own axis. In effect, the original object is split into two parts defined by the points you picked. Any connecting faces or edges are deleted (two objects do NOT share!). This might be very useful when you have a logo and want to pull one letter out of the object to do something special with it. One command that is unique to pick points mode is "taut", which is found in the Functions menu. If you select three or more points and select "taut", the middle points will jump to the line segment defined by the first and last points. This command might be useful to line up a bunch of points in a straight line quickly. Taut does NOT work with anything other than picked points. Picked points can be manipulated with the Transform command. The picked points can be translated, scaled, rotated, and positioned INDEPENDENTLY of the rest of the object. Rotations and scalings all use the object's axis as a reference point. Absolute positioning will move the FIRST point you pick to the location you choose, and the rest of the picked points will be translated an equal amount. Interactive dragging is accomplished using the "drag points" mode. Picking edges is similar to picking points, except to specify an edge you just click on the two points that make it up, or lasso or drag box the entire edge. Just like points, you can't perform every command on them. You can delete them and split them. You CANNOT translate edges or use taut on them. Deleted edges will delete any face they belong to, but the points in the edges will NOT be removed. A new command you cannot perform on points but can use on faces is called "fracture." This command is in the Functions pull down menu, and is often very useful. The fracture command will take and break each edge into two edges, with an additional point added to the midpoint of each selected edge. This command is very useful when you need to increase the detail level at a certain area of an object; the extra edges that appear allow you to manipulate them to add finer details and structures. Select Faces is again pretty straightforward. You must click on ALL THREE of the points that make up the face to select it. Fracture works very well on faces; it splits each face (one triangle) into four triangles defined by the midpoints of the face. The new faces can then be manipulated for higher object definition. Deleting faces removes the faces, but not the edges or points that it was made up of. Picked faces allow you to characterize an object's appearance in local areas. The attribute requester normally allows you to give the object overall color, reflection, and transparency values. You can actually set these for every single face, if you like. You can pick one or more faces, select "attributes" from the Object menu, and use the sliders to set the color, transparency, and filter values for the face or faces. You will NOT see any change in the appearance of your object when you do this, but when you render, the faces you selected will all override the default object color with the attributes you selected. A danger is that face attributes are somewhat fragile. If you join or merge objects or start deleting or adding points to it, all face coloring is often lost. To keep this from happening, color individual faces LAST, just before saving your object. A final note about face coloring; don't depend on it for coloring your objects in complex ways. Using grouped objects or brush maps is much more robust and allows better control. Coloring individual faces is useful mostly for quick and dirty attribute definition or for making small details that aren't worth the bother of a brushmap or extra object. Both "pick edges" and "pick faces" will allow you to split off the selected parts of the object to create two new objects by using "split", just as split works with selected points. Three additional modes are "add points", "add edges", and "add faces". Add points will add an additional point to your object in the location you click on. Add edges lets you click on TWO points and will add a new edge joining them. Add faces mode will let you add a new face to an object by clicking on the THREE points that make it up. "Add lines" mode is a convenient combination of "add points" and "add edges". As you click, a new point is added in the location you point to, and further clicks will add additional points along with an edge joining the latest point to the one that was immediately preceding it. Thus, a few clicks around the border of a rough circle will make a set of points with the edges following the outline of that circle. Carefully clicking on the location of an existing point will cause the new line to connect to to that point, so making closed shapes is easier. "Drag points" mode allows you to interactively drag individual points in your object around. If you select this mode, you can click on any point and drag it to a new location interactively. Any edges or faces that this point is connected to will follow the point to its new location. Dragging multiple points is also easy- just use the shift key, multi-pick the points by clicking on each in turn, and when you want to start dragging them, just release the shift key. AN IMPORTANT TECHNIQUE: What if you want to select a point or points in one view, and drag them in an orthogonal direction? For example, you have a plane defined by a horizontal 10 by 10 grid, and you want to select a bunch of points from the middle and pull them up. If you click on the points from the top view, you can easily select any of the points you're interested in, but you can only drag them left and right, forward and back. You want to be able to drag them UP. Here's the method for doing this: it is invaluable, so remember it. Whether you want to move one point or a hundred, press the shift key to multi-pick the points. Click on the points you want to move in ANY view, keeping the shift key depressed. To move all of these points, KEEP THE SHIFT KEY DEPRESSED and move the mouse to the view where you want to move the points in. Press and hold the left button, then RELEASE the shift key. The picked points will move with your mouse for as long as you keep the button held down. Releasing the button will anchor the points. In the example with the 10 by 10 horizontal grid, you would press shift, click on the points you want in the top view, move to the front (or right) view, release the shift key, move the points up, and release the mouse button. That's it! Magnetism, a more complex way of dragging points will be covered in the "advanced" Detail tutorial. One problem with manipulating points, edges, and faces is picking the RIGHT point. When the object is complex, the wireframe displays can get very cluttered. There is a convenient way of simplifying a view to get points out of your view- it is a mode called "hide points". In hide points mode, any points you select (with click, drag box, or lasso) will disappear from view- they will go away. They still exist, they just aren't displayed and can't be picked or manipulated. You can "hide" whatever points that get in the way of your work area, then change modes, and manipulate the non-hidden parts of your object. Selecting "pick objects" or "pick groups" will make the hidden points re-appear. For example, if you're working on a helicopter model and you want to work on the rotor alone, you might select "hide points" mode, and use the lasso to indicate the main helicopter body. The rotor is left alone, and after changing into drag points or select faces mode, it is easy to indicate what portion of the rotor you want to deal with without accidentally modifying the helicopter body. Selecting "pick objects" mode makes the entire helicopter, with the rotor changes, reappear. In theory, you can create any object by adding an axis, then adding points, edges and faces. In practice, these are very low level commands; you generally use the more powerful commands like "mold" and "slice" found in the Object editor. The low level select and add modes are built to give you the low level control that you sometimes need; however, they are more for defining basic outlines that are then used in the more powerful Object commands, or for touching up small details on nearly complete objects. The next Detail tutorial will talk about these commands. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- X. More to come ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This tutorial describes the important fundamentals of using the Detail Editor. Remember that most object creation mostly uses the advanced functions like "mold" and "slice". My next tutorial will deal with these powerful tools; however, the basics that are described in this tutorial are very useful and knowing how to move your view and manipulate objects is virtually essential. I also plan to write a general tutorial (with examples!) describing object creation; knowing all the menu commands doesn't give you a sense of the strategies to follow or steps to take to create a specific model. Another important discussion in the followup Detail Tutorial will describe different classes of objects: lone axes, line paths, outlines, flat objects, and "normal" objects. Expect the second tutorial around the middle to end of July, 1991. Whew! Another tutorial whipped out! Actually, this one only covers 2/3 of an Editor, but including everything would really stretch the limits of a coherent text file. (This one is only 71K!) I am very glad to have gotten a lot of positive response from my last tutorial on the Forms Editor; I hope this one (which covers a much more complex Editor) is equally well received. If you have any questions, you are welcome to write me or send e-mail to the Internet Imagine Mailing list, imagine@athena.mit.edu. Any suggestions or "I want to see this in a tutorial" questions sent to me personally will be gladly accepted. -Steve ------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Worley spworley@athena.mit.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Worley 290 Massachusetts Ave. (this address soon to change, but mail sent Cambridge MA 02139 here will eventually make it to me anyway...) ---------------------------------------------- This file and the text therein is Copyright 1991 by Steven P. Worley. All rights reserved. This file may be distributed freely in computer or paper form as long as 1) It is unchanged and unedited 2) is distributed in its entirely 3) gives proper credit to the author, Steven Worley. ## Subject: It is just me or ... Date: Wed, 12 Jun 91 00:27:41 mdt From: Steven Lee Webb Is it Just me... Or is it IMPOSSIBLE to move a grouped object part in an animation? When you go into the Action editor and load an object that is the father of some grouped child objects, the object that you get to manipulate is the WHOLE object, and not it's children! I've tried making two different versions of the object in the detail editor, and morphing between the two children's axis. Doesn't work. I also tried to pick the children's axis in the stage editor, and move them frame-by-frame, but no good, Imagine won't allow you to pick children in the stage editor. 8( Anyone? -- Only ///|Steven Lee Webb +---------------------------------------+ /\__Luxo| Amiga/// |CSU - Comp. Sci. | 11-XAV a edisni deppart ma I !pleH | \\ /\ Jr| \\\/// |Amiga 500-5M Ram | webbs@handel.cs.colostate.edu | /|/\ _ | \XX/ |50M Hard Drive +---------------------------------------+ // \ (_) | ## Subject: Re: Looking for conversion program Date: Wed, 12 Jun 91 13:28:01 -0700 From: davids@ucscf.UCSC.EDU (Dave Schreiber) Thanks. Unfortunatly, Superview doesn't work under Kickstart 2.0. Moreover, when Imagine converts 12bit->HAM without a locked palette, I've found that it doesn't generate the background consistantly (individual pixels that are part of the dithering tend to vary in color and intensity), which slows down the animation and makes the animation file larger. -Dave Schreiber ## Subject: Grouped object in Stage Date: Wed, 12 Jun 91 19:17:21 EDT From: spworley@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Steven Lee Webb asks if it is possible to move children objects in groups independently in the Stage Editor. The answer is no- you cannot move the group's children independantly. If you could, you would be forced to make a new entry in the Action Editor for each child. Coordinating movement with the parent would become very tricky, too. This would make the Action Editor become unbearably confusing and large if you had objects of even moderate complexity. There are two easy solutions. If you need to move part of a group, you can just save it as it's own object in the Detail Editor. Then you can load both parts of the previously grouped object into the Stage Editor, and control the two parts independantly since they are now completely seperate. The second solution is to use Morph, which DOES work.. though you said you were unsuccessful. You might look at the "Transition frame count" in the actor line to make sure you specified a transition time. -Steve --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Worley spworley@athena.mit.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Subject: Scanned images -> Imagine Date: Fri, 14 Jun 91 17:58:11 -0400 From: bandy@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (Bandy Mike) How do I go about converting a scanned PC TIFF or GIF file to one that could be manipulated via Imagine? Preferably using PD utilities that I can pick off of the net - I have DPAINT III, if that helps. Thanks. Mike Bandy ## Subject: DCTV & you & me Date: Fri, 14 Jun 91 15:54 PDT From: ivan i Has anyone had any experience with using DCTV & Imagine? I've seen the demo and it certainly looks nice, but I've heard some negative things about how it stacks up against other 24 bit display hardware, i.e. there's actually less than full 24 bit capability. I'm also curious as to how good it's output to tape looks, as I haven't seen any examples. Thanks a bunch. ## Subject: Re: Scanned images -> Imagine Date: Sat, 15 Jun 91 09:53:08 -0400 From: Udo K Schuermann bandy@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (Bandy Mike): > How do I go about converting a scanned PC TIFF or GIF file to > one that could be manipulated via Imagine? Preferably using PD > utilities that I can pick off of the net - I have DPAINT III, if > that helps. PD: The set of PBM programs (tifftoppm, giftoppm, ppmtoilbm) will do the trick. The pbm programs should be available on ab20.larc.nasa.gov [128.155.23.64] as pbmplus.lzh or pbm.lzh -- get the /FILES.Z and grep that to find out where on ab20 the files are located. The PBM programs are command-line driven, and, given a shell that allows pipes, can be strung together to "automatically" scale, convert, and otherwise alter the images on the fly. If you hate the CLI, stay away from these programs. They are quite capable, though, and the price is right. The PBM utilities do not handle XHBright mode, and the archive does not have 24 bit IFF capability. Commercial: TAD (The Art Department) and ADPRO (sp?) are, by what I have seen and heard, VERY nice and powerful software of similar and greater power as the PBM programs. TAD is definitely a whole lot easier to use! I'm not too choosy myself, and my needs to convert stuff are pretty limited, which is why I haven't bought TAD yet. With any sort of image conversion software, RAM requirements are high. Don't expect to be able to do much if you have only 1 Meg. I'd say 2 or 3 Megs of contiguous RAM ought to get you somewhere, but more than that is needed for large images. The PBM programs are in an lharc'ed file that is about 950K big. It won't fit on a floppy. All the programs use about 1.6M disk space (not including sparse documentation). I hope this is useful to anybody else out there, which is why I posted to the group. Cheers! ._. Udo Schuermann "Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter ( ) walrus@wam.umd.edu with the promise of the brave new world unfurled Seeking virtual memory beneath the clear blue sky?" -- Pink Floyd ## Subject: Re: Scanned images -> Imagine Date: Sat, 15 Jun 91 11:03:38 EDT From: johnh@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (John J Humpal) I have used both the PPM and ASDG programs. Believe me, TAD and ADPro are a dream to use, especially compared to PPM. PPM is, nonetheless, an excellent package if you have the time to learn it. Regarding the size of the PPM package: its true the whole thing won't fit on a floppy, but there are probably several modules one would never use, so those can be jettisoned. I recommend TAD or ADPro because of the dithering routines and ease of control. John J. Humpal -- johnh@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu -- short .sig, std. disclaimer ## Subject: Old question revisited... Date: Sun, 16 Jun 91 01:47:08 -0500 From: doctorj@ecn.purdue.edu (Jeffrey W Davis) I just upgraded from the beta version of Imagine to the 1.x version. My question (problem) is about the 'show' imagine on the Project screen. I didn't have any problem with pre 1.0, but cannot seem to get rid of the picture once it 'shows' it! I have successfully gotten it to work a couple times with this version, but what gives? This will surely drive me nuts in a hurry! Please send any 'potentially' helpful suggestions or hints! Later, Jeff IN: doctorj@en.ecn.purdue.edu ## Subject: My Move Date: Sun, 16 Jun 91 12:37:22 EDT From: spworley@ATHENA.MIT.EDU I'll be moving to Palo Alto, California (from Cambridge MA) next week. I'll be leaving June 20, and return to the net on July 1. There will be NO changes to the list- things SHOULD go without a hitch. Even with my graduation from MIT, I'll be able to keep the mailing list based there. Just in case something bad happens, I am putting a text file with the membership list on hubcap.clemson.edu. It contains 110 names (the current members) which is way down from the peak of 210 because of all of the students who asked to be removed from the list during the summer. If the list has to be re-formed, the names on hubcap will be enough to restart it. If the list explodes and starts sending a meg of trash to every member every day, an e-mail message to carla@athena.mit.edu (The MIT Athena account God) explaining the problem will enable her to nuke the list until it can be repaired/replaced. I'd like Ed Chadez (echadez@carl.org) to be the one to make the judgement call as to whether a Bad Thing has happened. This is a drastic "pulling the plug" fix, but will work in an emergency. Again, there is almost no chance of a bad thing happening; I'm just being ultr-careful. After I get to California, expect the next tutorial on Detail! Thanks for all the positive responses I've gotten so far on the Detail intro. -Steve --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Worley spworley@athena.mit.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Subject: Old question revisited... Date: Sun, 16 Jun 91 12:26:45 -0500 From: doctorj@ecn.purdue.edu (Jeffrey W Davis) I just upgraded from the beta version of Imagine to the 1.x version. My question (problem) is about the 'show' image on the Project screen. I didn't have any problem with the pre-1.0, but cannot seem to get rid of the picture once it 'shows' it in this version. I have successfully gotten this to work a couple of times with this version, but what gives? When it doesn't work I end up having to give the Amy the 'ole 3 finger salute; promptly followed by a 1 finger salute (of course it doesn't understand that hand gesture). PLEASE send any helpful information you may have. This will surely drive me mad if I do not resolve it soon. Later, Jeff IN: doctorj@en.ecn.purdue.edu ## Subject: Another weird request... Date: Sun, 16 Jun 91 13:05:41 PDT From: Daryl T. Bartley I just saw 'Flight of the Navigator' again last night, and all that GREAT computer animation set me wondering if it would be possible (Maybe with the Forms editor?) to recreate, or closely approximate the ship from that movie, and maybe get it to morph too. Am I just dreaming? Also, since it WAS originally computer generated, maybe someone knows where it could be had, and (HA HA HA HA HA) converted? (continue hysterics) Well, anyway, just wondering. Oh, also, thanks for the info Mark. It would be really neat to have that as a texture. I'll look into it. Or also, would it be possible to maybe map 3 or 4 different brushes with varying colors onto a disc, and move them around? Or, maybe 2color brushes, both transparent, and the surface of the disc mirrored? Just some more weird thoughts. I really shouldn't watch TV at 3 am... Daryl Bartley dmon@cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu -- This is only a test. Had this been a real .sig, the previous message would have been followed by witty quotes or neat character graphics. ## Subject: Re: DCTV & you & me Date: Mon, 17 Jun 91 13:34:01 EDT From: rosner@handel.asd.contel.com (John Rosner) I use DCTV & Imagine. DCTV does great composite output to TV, that is to a composite monitor which is the same as TV. I've encoded to VHS tape and played it back on a real TV and it looks great, whereas the A520 (?) encoder that I have also used did not look good at all. I don't use super-VHS yet and I don't know if there would be a noticeable degradation with the higher quality signal, probably, but it works great with VHS. DCTV is supposed to be coming out with an RGB adapter, until then don't compare it with RGB. DCTV accepts Imagine 24 bit files, full overscan with no problem. Animation took me a while to realize not to use overscan. Right now I just generate 640 x 400 files to put together in DPaint as anims. ## Subject: Imagine 2.0 ?? Hmm... Date: Mon, 17 Jun 91 19:46:45 MET DST From: d9hh@dtek.chalmers.se A swedish dealer says he is selling Imagine 2.0.. Even if he hasn't got it for delivery yet... Sooo... tell me, is he right or very wrong? - Henrik >> Insert your favourite flashy .sig here << :) Internet: d9hh@dtek.chalmers.se ## Subject: DCTV Date: Mon, 17 Jun 91 14:19:31 EDT From: jake@melmac.umd.edu (Rob Borsari) I render for DCTV in 736x482 24bit RGB8. I use diskmaster to convert the rgb8s and have had no problems with this screen size. I also use 3 bitplanes instead of 4 for speed. The output of the DCTV matches the effective resolution of VHS nicely. Im not sure how much improvement there will be if the RGB converter just converts an NTSC signal to RGBA. if it somehow uses the data before it becomes Never Twice the Same Color then it shopuuld be awesome. -R- jake@melmac.umd.edu Rob Borsari "Bourne to be Wild" ## Subject: Re: DCTV & you & me Date: Mon, 17 Jun 91 19:57:00 EDT From: bobl@graphics.rent.com (Bob Lindabury - SysAdm) rutgers!handel.asd.contel.com!rosner (John Rosner) writes: > DCTV accepts Imagine 24 bit files, full overscan with no problem. > Animation took me a while to realize not to use overscan. Right now I > just generate 640 x 400 files to put together in DPaint as anims. Huh? If you are going to video tape for viewing on a regular TV, you had best use full overscan unless you like all your animations with big borders around them. -- Bob The Graphics BBS 908/469-0049 "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!" ============================================================================ InterNet: bobl@graphics.rent.com | 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: Re: DCTV & animation Date: Tue, 18 Jun 91 16:31:37 EDT From: rosner@handel.asd.contel.com (John Rosner) >I render for DCTV in 736x482 24bit RGB8. I use diskmaster to convert >the rgb8s and have had no problems with this screen size. I also use 3 >bitplanes instead of 4 for speed. Stills at this resolution are no problem. Playing an anim creates garbage but then I'm using DPaint III for assembling them. Has anyone used DPaint III to assemble 24 bit full overscan images from Imagine and played it on DCTV? What do you mean you use diskmaster? Isn't that a file managing utility? ## Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1991 14:57:55 +0200 Subject: Animation. From: Marek Rzewuski I have problems with creating animation using Imagine 1.1. Imagine three boxes. The first one is biggest en the last one is smallest. Imagine standing on top of the first (the biggest) box, looking towards the third box. *********** * * * 1 * ******* * * * 2 * ***** * * * * * 3 * *********** ******* ***** I want to make an animation where I jump from the first box, to the second, from the second to the third, turn 180 degrees, look upwards, jump up the the second box again, jump up to the first box and finaly turn 180 degrees and look at the third box again. I think that the accelation should be very important here, but I don't know where to start. Could anyone give me some hints? In advance thank you. marekr@ifi.uio.no (Marek Rzewuski) ## Subject: DCTV Date: Wed, 19 Jun 91 12:40:58 EDT From: jake@melmac.umd.edu (Rob Borsari) Part of my last message got cut off. I use diskmaster as a front end for IFFTODCTV. I then use buildanim to create the anim and view to show it. View also has "movie" sound support. (anyone want to sell a used copy of animation station?) I have never tried to use dpaint to assemble the anim. I havent had anyproblems using buildanim (PD). I tried makeanim but it would crash the computer every time I tried to play the result. Has anyone tried to use "Video enhancers or stabilizers" with dctv? does it help? -R- jake@melmac.umd.edu Rob Borsari "Bourne to Be wild" ## Subject: Shininess? Date: Wed, 19 Jun 91 20:46:50 -0500 From: mattf@picard.cs.wisc.edu (Matt Feifarek) I wanted to find out what the difference between Hardness and SHininess was, so I made a grid of spheres with appropriate hardness and shininess values. To my surprise, shininess had no effect. The hardness varied the Hot Spot, but shininess did nothing. I put the pic on hubcap in the IMAGINE/PICTURES directory. Let me know if anybody figures this out. Thanks, MJF ## Subject: Imagine the Toaster Date: Fri, 21 Jun 91 12:31:19 EDT From: alan@picasso.umbc.edu (Alan Price) Hello. My questions always tend to get a bit long-winded, but I will try to keep it concise. This question is aimed at Imagine users who also own a Video Toaster. Situation: I render two images, pic.0001 and pic.0002, in the same project and the same rendering subproject with Imagine (736x480, 24-bit ilbm) and then load the Toaster, load Toaster-paint, attempt to load pic.0001 as RGB file and the computer crashes after a quick light-show. SO I dig up the PD program 'Convert' (written for Black-Belt, HAM-E) which converts many different image files to 'vanilla' 24bit iff. I convert pic.0001 and then attempt to load that into Toaster-paint. Worked perfect. I then proceed to use convert on pic.0002, it starts reading the Imagine 24-bit file as a ham file ("converting HAM to RGB....")! Break! This did'nt work. After a few more tries and double-checks I went ahead and tried loading pic.0002 into Toaster-paint. It worked! Why? Well if pic.0002 loaded okay, then pic.0001 should too, right? Wrong. I went back and tried loading the unadulterated Imagine pic.0001 and crashed again. Pic.0001 only loaded if converted with 'convert'. Pic.0002 would not be read correctly by convert, but would load into Toaster paint without it. Both pic.0001 and pic.0002 should be identical in all respects. What gives? This has happened more than a few times. Has anyone had similar experience? P.S. - the last time the toaster crashed on this (last night), it seems it blew my battery-backed clock away!! The system can't find it anymore. Pardon my ignorance, but where is it located in a A2500? I want to check the battery and maybe wiggle it some. Any suggestions? I hate the idea of taking the computer out of commision just for a @$*#!! clock. AP. ## Subject: Best way to view Imagine stills... Date: Fri, 21 Jun 91 12:30:22 -0500 From: doctorj@ecn.purdue.edu (Jeffrey W Davis) I don't know if anyone else is doing this, but I have found the best way to view Imagine still pictures on a stock Amiga is through DigiView. Render the picture in 768 x 480 and store it as 24 bit ILBM. Select the Dynamic-HAM option in Digiview and then load the frame. The stills I have done this way really look great; especially with respect to glass and light reflections. Just a neat observation for those who may not have thought about it. Later, Jeff IN: doctorj@en.ecn.purdue.edu ## Subject: Shininess Date: Thu, 20 Jun 91 17:02:49 EDT From: johnh@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (John J Humpal) Matt Feifarek writes: > I wanted to find out what the difference between Hardness and SHininess was, > so I made a grid of spheres with appropriate hardness and shininess values. > To my surprise, shininess had no effect. The hardness varied the Hot Spot, > but shininess did nothing. I've seen Louis Markoya's Surface Master and he did the same thing. But in Markoya's images, shininess definitely had a subtle effect. John J. Humpal -- johnh@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu -- short .sig, std. disclaimer ## Subject: Where is Colorburst?!?!? (Grrr) Date: Mon, 24 Jun 91 12:52 EST From: Hi, Sorry to take up bandwidth but I am very upset... Colorburst still has not gotten FCC approval because it needs more shielding!!!! What is taking so long!@?!?!!? Why don't they just slap some metal on it or something... another thing is HAM-E + now looks like a better buy because with with the RGB encoder for HAM-E + I can get a higher res than DCTV in RGB (can't stand NTSC!!!!). Not only that but HAM-E+ is still cheaper than DCTV!!!! And there are FREE UPGRADES!!!! Another thing is could somebody help me out... I am wondering how can I print the graphics output from a basic program to printer or could I have the image saved to IFF and then print it in DPaint? Is there a Fish Disk that will help me... I am working on Lester Ford's Circles on a non-Euclidean Hyperbolic plane. (By the way, does anyone have a Vista File format of Mandelbroits Apelenoinous Gasket???) Thank You Very Much J.Norell Guttman njg2@po.cwru.edu PS> Sorry to post non-Imagine material but I am here at Summer School and Fordham does not have internet (USENET ) access... the only way I can keep in contact is have the email forwarded from CWRU to here. ## Subject: Colorburst Date: Tue, 25 Jun 91 13:36:46 -0700 From: tucker@cs.unr.edu (Aaron Tucker) Well, I can't tell you where Colorburst is at...that would take too long. I can tell you where it is not...the US. There are very few Colorbursts (less than 100) in the US. MAST has been shipping to every country except the US for two months now. MAST has FCC Class A approval. MAST will ramp up production of the NTSC units when they receive Class B approval for general use. Until then, NTSC units are scarce, sacred, and look damn good when you do see one. :-) This is not speculation or rumor. This is directly from a MAST employee. Me. If you have any direct Colorburst questions (other than when it is shipping in the US), call me (Juan Trevino) at (702) 359-0444. I will be happy to answer any technical or not so technical questions. BTW, if enough of us complain, maybe we can get Impulse to support Colorburst directly with IMAGINE. Every other ray-tracing package will. I think IMAGINE is great, but I think Impulse needs to seperate thier hardware from thier software in terms of marketing. This last paragraph is an opinion of Juan Trevino, not MAST. Add the usual disclaimer. Juan Trevino tucker@tahoe.unr.edu ## Subject: Colors Date: Wed, 26 Jun 91 13:00:01 -0600 From: webbs@mozart.cs.colostate.edu (Steven Lee Webb) This is a small list that I use for getting colors right. Perhaps someone else would find it handy. -- webbs@mozart.cs.colostate.edu COLOR R G B -------------------------------------- alice blue 240 248 255 aliceblue 240 248 255 antique white 250 235 215 antiquewhite 250 235 215 antiquewhite1 255 239 219 antiquewhite2 238 223 204 antiquewhite3 205 192 176 antiquewhite4 139 131 120 aquamarine 127 255 212 aquamarine1 127 255 212 aquamarine2 118 238 198 aquamarine3 102 205 170 aquamarine4 69 139 116 azure 240 255 255 azure1 240 255 255 azure2 224 238 238 azure3 193 205 205 azure4 131 139 139 beige 245 245 220 bisque 255 228 196 bisque1 255 228 196 bisque2 238 213 183 bisque3 205 183 158 bisque4 139 125 107 black 0 0 0 blanched almond 255 235 205 blanchedalmond 255 235 205 blue 0 0 255 blue violet 138 43 226 blue1 0 0 255 blue2 0 0 238 blue3 0 0 205 blue4 0 0 139 blueviolet 138 43 226 brown 165 42 42 brown1 255 64 64 brown2 238 59 59 brown3 205 51 51 brown4 139 35 35 burlywood 222 184 135 burlywood1 255 211 155 burlywood2 238 197 145 burlywood3 205 170 125 burlywood4 139 115 85 cadet blue 95 158 160 cadetblue 95 158 160 cadetblue1 152 245 255 cadetblue2 142 229 238 cadetblue3 122 197 205 cadetblue4 83 134 139 chartreuse 127 255 0 chartreuse1 127 255 0 chartreuse2 118 238 0 chartreuse3 102 205 0 chartreuse4 69 139 0 chocolate 210 105 30 chocolate1 255 127 36 chocolate2 238 118 33 chocolate3 205 102 29 chocolate4 139 69 19 coral 255 127 80 coral1 255 114 86 coral2 238 106 80 coral3 205 91 69 coral4 139 62 47 cornflower blue 100 149 237 cornflowerblue 100 149 237 cornsilk 255 248 220 cornsilk1 255 248 220 cornsilk2 238 232 205 cornsilk3 205 200 177 cornsilk4 139 136 120 cyan 0 255 255 cyan1 0 255 255 cyan2 0 238 238 cyan3 0 205 205 cyan4 0 139 139 dark goldenrod 184 134 11 dark green 0 100 0 dark khaki 189 183 107 dark olive green 85 107 47 dark orange 255 140 0 dark orchid 153 50 204 dark salmon 233 150 122 dark sea green 143 188 143 dark slate blue 72 61 139 dark slate gray 47 79 79 dark turquoise 0 206 209 dark violet 148 0 211 darkgoldenrod 184 134 11 darkgoldenrod1 255 185 15 darkgoldenrod2 238 173 14 darkgoldenrod3 205 149 12 darkgoldenrod4 139 101 8 darkgreen 0 100 0 darkkhaki 189 183 107 darkolivegreen 85 107 47 darkolivegreen1 202 255 112 darkolivegreen2 188 238 104 darkolivegreen3 162 205 90 darkolivegreen4 110 139 61 darkorange 255 140 0 darkorange1 255 127 0 darkorange2 238 118 0 darkorange3 205 102 0 darkorange4 139 69 0 darkorchid 153 50 204 darkorchid1 191 62 255 darkorchid2 178 58 238 darkorchid3 154 50 205 darkorchid4 104 34 139 darksalmon 233 150 122 darkseagreen 143 188 143 darkseagreen1 193 255 193 darkseagreen2 180 238 180 darkseagreen3 155 205 155 darkseagreen4 105 139 105 darkslateblue 72 61 139 darkslategray 47 79 79 darkslategray1 151 255 255 darkslategray2 141 238 238 darkslategray3 121 205 205 darkslategray4 82 139 139 darkturquoise 0 206 209 darkviolet 148 0 211 deep pink 255 20 147 deep sky blue 0 191 255 deeppink 255 20 147 deeppink1 255 20 147 deeppink2 238 18 137 deeppink3 205 16 118 deeppink4 139 10 80 deepskyblue 0 191 255 deepskyblue1 0 191 255 deepskyblue2 0 178 238 deepskyblue3 0 154 205 deepskyblue4 0 104 139 dodger blue 30 144 255 dodgerblue 30 144 255 dodgerblue1 30 144 255 dodgerblue2 28 134 238 dodgerblue3 24 116 205 dodgerblue4 16 78 139 firebrick 178 34 34 firebrick1 255 48 48 firebrick2 238 44 44 firebrick3 205 38 38 firebrick4 139 26 26 floral white 255 250 240 floralwhite 255 250 240 forest green 34 139 34 forestgreen 34 139 34 gainsboro 220 220 220 ghost white 248 248 255 ghostwhite 248 248 255 gold 255 215 0 gold1 255 215 0 gold2 238 201 0 gold3 205 173 0 gold4 139 117 0 goldenrod 218 165 32 goldenrod1 255 193 37 goldenrod2 238 180 34 goldenrod3 205 155 29 goldenrod4 139 105 20 green 0 255 0 green yellow 173 255 47 green1 0 255 0 green2 0 238 0 green3 0 205 0 green4 0 139 0 greenyellow 173 255 47 honeydew 240 255 240 honeydew1 240 255 240 honeydew2 224 238 224 honeydew3 193 205 193 honeydew4 131 139 131 hot pink 255 105 180 hotpink 255 105 180 hotpink1 255 110 180 hotpink2 238 106 167 hotpink3 205 96 144 hotpink4 139 58 98 indian red 205 92 92 indianred 205 92 92 indianred1 255 106 106 indianred2 238 99 99 indianred3 205 85 85 indianred4 139 58 58 ivory 255 255 240 ivory1 255 255 240 ivory2 238 238 224 ivory3 205 205 193 ivory4 139 139 131 khaki 240 230 140 khaki1 255 246 143 khaki2 238 230 133 khaki3 205 198 115 khaki4 139 134 78 lavender 230 230 250 lavender blush 255 240 245 lavenderblush 255 240 245 lavenderblush1 255 240 245 lavenderblush2 238 224 229 lavenderblush3 205 193 197 lavenderblush4 139 131 134 lawn green 124 252 0 lawngreen 124 252 0 lemon chiffon 255 250 205 lemonchiffon 255 250 205 lemonchiffon1 255 250 205 lemonchiffon2 238 233 191 lemonchiffon3 205 201 165 lemonchiffon4 139 137 112 light blue 173 216 230 light coral 240 128 128 light cyan 224 255 255 light goldenrod 238 221 130 light goldenrod yellow 250 250 210 light gray 211 211 211 light pink 255 182 193 light salmon 255 160 122 light sea green 32 178 170 light sky blue 135 206 250 light slate blue 132 112 255 light slate gray 119 136 153 light steel blue 176 196 222 light yellow 255 255 224 lightblue 173 216 230 lightblue1 191 239 255 lightblue2 178 223 238 lightblue3 154 192 205 lightblue4 104 131 139 lightcoral 240 128 128 lightcyan 224 255 255 lightcyan1 224 255 255 lightcyan2 209 238 238 lightcyan3 180 205 205 lightcyan4 122 139 139 lightgoldenrod 238 221 130 lightgoldenrod1 255 236 139 lightgoldenrod2 238 220 130 lightgoldenrod3 205 190 112 lightgoldenrod4 139 129 76 lightpink 255 182 193 lightpink1 255 174 185 lightpink2 238 162 173 lightpink3 205 140 149 lightpink4 139 95 101 lightsalmon 255 160 122 lightsalmon1 255 160 122 lightsalmon2 238 149 114 lightsalmon3 205 129 98 lightsalmon4 139 87 66 lightseagreen 32 178 170 lightskyblue 135 206 250 lightskyblue1 176 226 255 lightskyblue2 164 211 238 lightskyblue3 141 182 205 lightskyblue4 96 123 139 lightslateblue 132 112 255 lightslategray 119 136 153 lightsteelblue 176 196 222 lightsteelblue1 202 225 255 lightsteelblue2 188 210 238 lightsteelblue3 162 181 205 lightsteelblue4 110 123 139 lightyellow 255 255 224 lightyellow1 255 255 224 lightyellow2 238 238 209 lightyellow3 205 205 180 lightyellow4 139 139 122 lime green 50 205 50 limegreen 50 205 50 linen 250 240 230 magenta 255 0 255 magenta1 255 0 255 magenta2 238 0 238 magenta3 205 0 205 magenta4 139 0 139 maroon 176 48 96 maroon1 255 52 179 maroon2 238 48 167 maroon3 205 41 144 maroon4 139 28 98 medium aquamarine 102 205 170 medium blue 0 0 205 medium orchid 186 85 211 medium purple 147 112 219 medium sea green 60 179 113 medium slate blue 123 104 238 medium spring green 0 250 154 medium turquoise 72 209 204 medium violet red 199 21 133 mediumaquamarine 102 205 170 mediumblue 0 0 205 mediumorchid 186 85 211 mediumorchid1 224 102 255 mediumorchid2 209 95 238 mediumorchid3 180 82 205 mediumorchid4 122 55 139 mediumpurple 147 112 219 mediumpurple1 171 130 255 mediumpurple2 159 121 238 mediumpurple3 137 104 205 mediumpurple4 93 71 139 mediumseagreen 60 179 113 mediumslateblue 123 104 238 mediumspringgreen 0 250 154 mediumturquoise 72 209 204 mediumvioletred 199 21 133 midnight blue 25 25 112 midnightblue 25 25 112 mint cream 245 255 250 mintcream 245 255 250 misty rose 255 228 225 mistyrose 255 228 225 mistyrose1 255 228 225 mistyrose2 238 213 210 mistyrose3 205 183 181 mistyrose4 139 125 123 moccasin 255 228 181 navajo white 255 222 173 navajowhite 255 222 173 navajowhite1 255 222 173 navajowhite2 238 207 161 navajowhite3 205 179 139 navajowhite4 139 121 94 navy 0 0 128 navy blue 0 0 128 navyblue 0 0 128 old lace 253 245 230 oldlace 253 245 230 olive drab 107 142 35 olivedrab 107 142 35 olivedrab1 192 255 62 olivedrab2 179 238 58 olivedrab3 154 205 50 olivedrab4 105 139 34 orange 255 165 0 orange red 255 69 0 orange1 255 165 0 orange2 238 154 0 orange3 205 133 0 orange4 139 90 0 orangered 255 69 0 orangered1 255 69 0 orangered2 238 64 0 orangered3 205 55 0 orangered4 139 37 0 orchid 218 112 214 orchid1 255 131 250 orchid2 238 122 233 orchid3 205 105 201 orchid4 139 71 137 pale goldenrod 238 232 170 pale green 152 251 152 pale turquoise 175 238 238 pale violet red 219 112 147 palegoldenrod 238 232 170 palegreen 152 251 152 palegreen1 154 255 154 palegreen2 144 238 144 palegreen3 124 205 124 palegreen4 84 139 84 paleturquoise 175 238 238 paleturquoise1 187 255 255 paleturquoise2 174 238 238 paleturquoise3 150 205 205 paleturquoise4 102 139 139 palevioletred 219 112 147 palevioletred1 255 130 171 palevioletred2 238 121 159 palevioletred3 205 104 137 palevioletred4 139 71 93 papaya whip 255 239 213 papayawhip 255 239 213 peach puff 255 218 185 peachpuff 255 218 185 peachpuff1 255 218 185 peachpuff2 238 203 173 peachpuff3 205 175 149 peachpuff4 139 119 101 peru 205 133 63 pink 255 192 203 pink1 255 181 197 pink2 238 169 184 pink3 205 145 158 pink4 139 99 108 plum 221 160 221 plum1 255 187 255 plum2 238 174 238 plum3 205 150 205 plum4 139 102 139 powder blue 176 224 230 powderblue 176 224 230 purple 160 32 240 purple1 155 48 255 purple2 145 44 238 purple3 125 38 205 purple4 85 26 139 red 255 0 0 red1 255 0 0 red2 238 0 0 red3 205 0 0 red4 139 0 0 rosy brown 188 143 143 rosybrown 188 143 143 rosybrown1 255 193 193 rosybrown2 238 180 180 rosybrown3 205 155 155 rosybrown4 139 105 105 royal blue 65 105 225 royalblue 65 105 225 royalblue1 72 118 255 royalblue2 67 110 238 royalblue3 58 95 205 royalblue4 39 64 139 saddle brown 139 69 19 saddlebrown 139 69 19 salmon 250 128 114 salmon1 255 140 105 salmon2 238 130 98 salmon3 205 112 84 salmon4 139 76 57 sandy brown 244 164 96 sandybrown 244 164 96 sea green 46 139 87 seagreen 46 139 87 seagreen1 84 255 159 seagreen2 78 238 148 seagreen3 67 205 128 seagreen4 46 139 87 seashell 255 245 238 seashell1 255 245 238 seashell2 238 229 222 seashell3 205 197 191 seashell4 139 134 130 sienna 160 82 45 sienna1 255 130 71 sienna2 238 121 66 sienna3 205 104 57 sienna4 139 71 38 sky blue 135 206 235 skyblue 135 206 235 skyblue1 135 206 255 skyblue2 126 192 238 skyblue3 108 166 205 skyblue4 74 112 139 slate blue 106 90 205 slate gray 112 128 144 slateblue 106 90 205 slateblue1 131 111 255 slateblue2 122 103 238 slateblue3 105 89 205 slateblue4 71 60 139 slategray 112 128 144 slategray1 198 226 255 slategray2 185 211 238 slategray3 159 182 205 slategray4 108 123 139 snow 255 250 250 snow1 255 250 250 snow2 238 233 233 snow3 205 201 201 snow4 139 137 137 spring green 0 255 127 springgreen 0 255 127 springgreen1 0 255 127 springgreen2 0 238 118 springgreen3 0 205 102 springgreen4 0 139 69 steel blue 70 130 180 steelblue 70 130 180 steelblue1 99 184 255 steelblue2 92 172 238 steelblue3 79 148 205 steelblue4 54 100 139 tan 210 180 140 tan1 255 165 79 tan2 238 154 73 tan3 205 133 63 tan4 139 90 43 thistle 216 191 216 thistle1 255 225 255 thistle2 238 210 238 thistle3 205 181 205 thistle4 139 123 139 tomato 255 99 71 tomato1 255 99 71 tomato2 238 92 66 tomato3 205 79 57 tomato4 139 54 38 turquoise 64 224 208 turquoise1 0 245 255 turquoise2 0 229 238 turquoise3 0 197 205 turquoise4 0 134 139 violet 238 130 238 violet red 208 32 144 violetred 208 32 144 violetred1 255 62 150 violetred2 238 58 140 violetred3 205 50 120 violetred4 139 34 82 wheat 245 222 179 wheat1 255 231 186 wheat2 238 216 174 wheat3 205 186 150 wheat4 139 126 102 white 255 255 255 white smoke 245 245 245 whitesmoke 245 245 245 yellow 255 255 0 yellow green 154 205 50 yellow1 255 255 0 yellow2 238 238 0 yellow3 205 205 0 yellow4 139 139 0 yellowgreen 154 205 50 ## Subject: lots-o-colors-wit-goofy-names Date: Wed, 26 Jun 91 16:11:24 EDT From: Mark Thompson > This is a small list that I use for getting colors right. > Perhaps someone else would find it handy. > -- webbs@mozart.cs.colostate.edu ...[butt-loads of color definitions deleted]... Boy oh boy, doesn't that look ridiculously similar to /usr/lib/X11/rgb/rgb.txt on an X11 system?! :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | ` ' Mark Thompson CONCURRENT COMPUTER | | --==* RADIANT *==-- mark@westford.ccur.com Principal Graphics | | ' Image ` ...!uunet!masscomp!mark Hardware Architect | | Productions (508)392-2480 (603)424-1829 & General Nuisance | | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ## Subject: Imagine upgrades! Date: Wed, 26 Jun 91 18:50:19 -0600 From: webbs@mozart.cs.colostate.edu (Steven Lee Webb) Predicted outcome of future releases of Imagine. VERSION 1.0 - buggier than Main in June; eats data. VERSION 1.1 - eats data only occasionally; upgrade is free, to avoid litigation by disgruntled users of Version 1.0. VERSION 2.0 - the version originally planned as the first release, except for a couple of data-eating bugs that just don't seem to go away; no free upgrades or the company would go bankrupt. VERSION 3.0 - the version in the works when the company goes bankrupt. -- NOTE -- This is just a joke, please don't make this the beginning of a bad rumor! ## Subject: Flight of the Navigator... Date: Sat, 29 Jun 91 1:47:44 PDT From: Daryl T. Bartley Yes, I am at it again...Well, supposing it IS possible to build a navigator- like ship in Imagine (or Lightwave, or whatever), would it also be possible to do the same kind of effect? Perhaps by digitizing in the scenery, either mapping the series of pics onto the object, or using them as global brushmaps in order to get the reflection of the 'real world' onto the object, and THEN rendering the object, with its reflections, on a genlock blakc background, then overlaying it onto the video that it is reflecting? (whew)...Just curious as if it COULD be done, this is nothing I could ever do myself... Yet another one of those ideas I get from watching TV at 1:30 am...:) Also, is everyone out of town for the 4th of July, or is it just that no one is posting to the list? Thanks in advance for info/howtos... Daryl Bartley dmon@cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu -- This is a test, only a test. Had this been a real .sig, the previous message would have been followed by witty quotes and nifty character graphics. ## Subject: Re: Flight of the Navigator... Date: Sat, 29 Jun 91 11:15:18 EDT From: johnh@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (John J Humpal) Daryl Bartley writes: > would it also be possible to do thesame kind of effect? Perhaps by > digitizing in the scenery, either mapping the series of pics onto the > object, or using them as global brushmaps in order to get the reflection > of the 'real world' onto the object, and THEN rendering... What about using VistaPro to generate a landscape for the ship to fly around in? > Also, is everyone out of town for the 4th of July, or is it just that no one > is posting to the list? I'm not! This is home for me. > Daryl Bartley > dmon@cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu John J. Humpal -- johnh@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu -- short .sig, std. disclaimer ## Subject: Virtual memory Date: Sat, 29 Jun 91 18:08 MET From: "Arthur van Rooijen, PTT RESEARCH, The Netherlands" Hello fellow Imaginaries, Since a couple of weeks I am the happy onwer of a EVOLUTION SCSI-II controller with a 320 MB harddisk. One of the features of this controller is that it can use a part of the disk as virtual memory. When you have a MMU (I have a A2630 board) then you can use this feature. I have have reserved 30 MB of the disk as virtual memory. The problem is that I don't have a real application that uses enough memory to efficiently test this virtual memory feature. So I'm looking for a big Imagine project that uses at least 8 MBytes of memory. I hope that somebody has such a project available for me. If so can you please send it to me. When there is enough interest in the outcome of my test I shall post it to the net. -- Arthur van Rooijen PTT Research Neher Laboratories, Phone : +31 70 3325092 2260 AK Leidschendam, Telefax: +31 70 3326477 P.O. box 421, Telex : 31236 prnl nl The Netherlands. +---------------------------------- Domain : ap_vrooijen@pttrnl.nl | As the people here grow colder EARN/BITnet : ROOIJEN@HLSDNL5.BITNET | I turn to my computer PSS (DATAnet1): +204 02117035801::ROOIJEN | And spend my evenings with it SURFNET-2 : +204 129110052::ROOIJEN | Like a friend "Kate Bush" ## Subject: Re: Virtual memory Date: Sun, 30 Jun 91 10:19:22 EDT From: johnh@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (John J Humpal) It shouldn't be terribly hard to generate an Imagine project that eats up the megabytes. How about a 50 frame anim with a few 24-bit brush wraps? That should do it I'd think. Especially if the anim involves a lot of camera movement. John J. Humpal -- johnh@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu -- short .sig, std. disclaimer ## Subject: animbrush + cycle bug? Date: Sun, 30 Jun 91 13:46:07 EST From: martin@dexter.pub.uu.oz.au (Martin Gardiner) Well I just started an animation that needed the uses of the animated brush on an object that was produced through the cycle editor, but it does not seem to work. It seems that the function was not updated with the rest of imagine when it when to 1.1V. Well I have used the animated brush before and it worked. Can anybody confirm that this function, animated brushes for texture maps on cycle objects does, or does not work. Note to Programs : addition 1: To save on disk space, and work, with the animated texture map function please make it so as if the image file is not there, use the last version of the image that can be found. eg. If you can't find image.0005, look for image.0004 .... till image.0001 before finding error (you may wish to report rendering issues to render-out text file). addition 2: Cut and Paste in the action editor, not just single bits, but single and colomn C+P, would improve the Animators flexablity. I would also be great if the action (staging information) were a text editable file. addition 3: Spline, editable, in-betweening (check-out Electric Image Apple software, Light-wave etc..) could be the thing that makes me stay with or leave imagine. addition 4: A way to compact action information in a single line when you have finished editing it for the moment (you still need to see the line for colour, but they don't need to be more than one pixel), a compated, de-compated function, along with a way to move actors around, so as when to actors interact, you can see when things are happening. It would also be nice when you return to the action editor, that you start where you left it. addition 5: The surport of AREXX, please, please, please. I have written Sony video disks recorder software, and have a colourburst. I used AREXX, and ADPro to record my 'A Martin Gardiner Production' down to video disk, but would love to have just used imagine (without the 80M storage of images for Lo-res, non- interlace, would record it in high lace if I had the 300M I needed) wich would allow me to get away with less storage. I would go on, but I don't know that the right people will get to read this. Note: good luck with the rendering bugs, and keep the action editor in some form. Its the thing I like the most about imagine. If the programmers of Imagine send me mail, I will reply. But I will be away for the next four weeks, at the World of Commodore, here in OZ. So if any of them are there, they can look me up. I'll be at the GVP stand most of the time. I am regarded as one of OZ best commercial Amiga programmers, working in graphics, sound, process control, and comms. I also hope to win the OZ animation competition with my first imagine production. Martin Gardiner ## Subject: In Search of Gary Date: Mon, 1 Jul 91 12:03:18 CDT From: Wayne Haufler 283-4160 Hello, Is there a Gary Dominquez (spelling?) out there in Imagin(ation) land? Does anybody know him or how to get in touch with him? Or is there a way to get a list of subscribers to the Imagine Mailing List? I will later post this to the comp.sys.amiga.graphics newsgroup. I saw Gary's "Burning Desire" animation (using Turbo Silver) on the Amiga World's Animation Video Vol. II. He also used the title "The Electric Pallet". I was impressed, and would like to ask Gary how he did certain things. I also think we may have some common motivations. My address is "haufler@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov". Thank You Wayne =============================================================================== ____ Wayne A. Haufler (haufler@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov) \\ /\\ /\\ // McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Company - Houston Div. \\ /--\\ // \\ //--[Christian/Lutheran/SW Engineer/Amigan/Tenor/Violist/Single \// \// \//___ "Exploring the Use of Computer Graphics and Animations" // "To Serve and Support Christian Endeavors" // !!CAUTION: SIGNATURE UNDER CONSTRUCTION!! =============================================================================== ## Subject: Re: In Search of Gary Date: Mon, 1 Jul 91 13:14:57 -0500 From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr Gary is a proud member of OACES (Oklahoma Amiga Computer EnthusiastS) here in central Oklahoma. He does not have net access, but I have been a go between for him (I uploaded several megs of his stuff to ab20 a while back) and can continue to do so if you desire. I can ask him if I can give you his phone number if you'd rather talk to him personally (or if you'r rich, you can grab a plane to OKC tomorrow night - Tuesday July 2, 1991 - and meet him in person at Oklahoma City Community College between 6 and 10pm for our users group meeting). I'm glad someone finally mentioned his animation from the tape, I was beginning to wonder if anyone had seen it. May I ask a question that he was wondering about (he probably already has the tape and the answer, but I haven't seen him since last Thursday): was the sound synchronized with the animation? He used an older version of Animation Station to put the thing together, and when he got the upgrade, the sound was out of sync. He was wondering if Amiga World had the correct version so the sound came out right. Rick Tillery (drtiller@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu) ## Subject: Re: Virtual memory Date: Mon, 1 Jul 91 15:11:31 -0600 From: webbs@mozart.cs.colostate.edu (Steven Lee Webb) >It shouldn't be terribly hard to generate an Imagine project that eats up the >megabytes. How about a 50 frame anim with a few 24-bit brush wraps? That >should do it I'd think. Especially if the anim involves a lot of camera >movement. >John J. Humpal -- johnh@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu -- short .sig, std. disclaimer Want to eat up memory? Didn't I hear something about a Virtual memory of 30Megs or so? Try and render a faceted sphere with dimensions of 100,000 X 100,000 or something preposterous like that! Or do some fractal renderings! (You could use TTDDD or something like that) -- Only ///|Steven Lee Webb +---------------------------------------+ /\__Luxo| Amiga/// |CSU - Comp. Sci. | 11-XAV a edisni deppart ma I !pleH | \\ /\ Jr| \\\/// |Amiga 500-5M Ram | webbs@handel.cs.colostate.edu | /|/\ _ | \XX/ |50M Hard Drive +---------------------------------------+ // \ (_) | ## Subject: Re: In Search of Gary Date: Mon, 1 Jul 91 17:22:21 CDT From: Wayne Haufler 283-4160 Hello, Rick, thank you for your willingness to be a go-between Gary and I (and your unexpectedly quick reply B^) ). I will try to limit the number of messages so as not to bother you too much. So, with that in mind, this message may be rather long in trying to anticipate Gary's questions and interests. If these discussions get involved, I may like to call Gary. (No, I am not quite rich enough to "grab a plane" ; just a middle-class 'inginur' ;) ). But if he would like to call me, my home phone is 713-996-9926. BTW, I am a proud member of the Houston Club Amiga. Gary's "Burning Desire" animation was very well done! There is a marvelous richness about it. Character animation using inanimate objects is similar in concept to the famous "Luxo Jr" animation. But how much emotion can be shown by a rigid candle? The emotional messages were fairly effectively conveyed through candle contortions, dream sequences, and sound. There is a simple, elegant story with several messages, many of which I have yet to fully grasp. (I am not a Liberal Arts type, after all, but how was that for a review? ;^) First, an answer to your question: Q: > was the sound synchronized with the animation? A: I did not notice that the sound was out-of-sync, and I think I would have noticed that. I will view it again, tonight. Second, questions for Gary (Dominquez, right?): 1. How did you bend the candle using Turbo Silver, before the availability of "Magnetism" and "Conform to Sphere/Cylinder" features of Imagine? (or am I remembering features wrong?) Do you have Imagine, now? 2. How did you model the flickering candle flame? Did you make 2 or 3 different objects and then manually change the object used in somewhat randomly selected frames? 3. How did you make the 'Dream Sequences'? Did you make small (portion of screen) animations and then merged that into a still from the main anim with DPaint? 4. What 'stuff' (objects?) of yours did you have uploaded to ab20? Or is that obvious once I look in ab20? 5. Was there some allegorical point you were making by having the candle use the Bible as a stool? What is the story behind this story? Just curious. It might have been funny to have the 'candle' think of a 'light bulb' to indicate an idea before showing the idea, or memory. 6. Was the active candle intended to be male or female, or does it matter? (I suppose I am missing some of the messages since I am not in a romantic relationship at the moment :/ .) 7. But my main question is that, with the use of The Holy Bible as an object and with your credits thanking The Lord, I was wondering whether you have been, or are interested in, (as, presumably, a Christian) using the Amiga graphics and animations for the Lord's work? And if you have been doing that in whatever way, would you write to me about your endeavors? If you have not been, I don't mean to pressure you, but consider the possibilies B^). ------> You see, I have been casting about for fellow Christian Amigians who are willing to share their ideas and experiences in applying the Amiga in Christian ways, and who MAY be interested in later collaborating on some graphics and/or animation projects, not necessarily limited to Imagine. I have several ideas and unfinished projects to describe and share. 8. As a more specific question, would you like me to send you copies of correspondence I have had with two other Christian Amigans? These messages describe much of their and my endeavors in "Exploring the Use of Computer Graphics and Animations To Serve and Support Christian Endeavors". (I was tempted to include them in this message, but I may be getting ahead of myself, presuming too much.) BTW, my Amiga 2000 has been in the shop for several weeks now (hard disk controller problem), but I hope to have it by this weekend. I also have ordered an A3000! I know these are a lot of questions. No need to rush an answer. Or, answer whatever, piecemeal. Thank you in advance for corresponding with me. And thank you again, Rick :^). Wayne P.S. Enough questions already, Wayne. Time to send! =============================================================================== ____ Wayne A. Haufler (haufler@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov) \\ /\\ /\\ // McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Company - Houston Div. \\ /--\\ // \\ //--[Christian/Lutheran/SW Engineer/Amigan/Tenor/Violist/Single \// \// \//___ "Exploring the Use of Computer Graphics and Animations" // "To Serve and Support Christian Endeavors" // =============================================================================== ## Subject: Hey Kids! Date: Mon, 01 Jul 91 20:25:55 EDT From: spworley@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Hi, guys! I have started my job, and I now have net access again. Fun and exciting! I found a nice duplex in Menlo Park (next door to Palo Alto) and I plan to be at the FAUG meeting next Tuesday (FAUG is the local Amiga Users group). A bunch of new people were added to the list. Look out for my canned introduction. My conclusion to the Detail Editor Is an outline on honest-to-God PAPER. I was computerless for over a week, and even though I brought an A500 with me so I could kill time (a weeks worth) at my hotel, the TV set had a security cable on it so I couldn't hoook up the Amiga. I'll write it eventually. Thanks, by the way, for all the positive responses I've gotten on it. For those of you who are looking for the old, old tutorials (On glass, the Project editor, brush mapping, and textures) they can be found in the Imagine List archives stuck with all of the archived messages. If anyone wants to pull them out and put copies into the tutorials directory, I'd br grateful. Oh, the archive is on the FTP site hubcap.clemson.edu. Anyway, just wanted to say hi to everyone. When my 3000 arrives, hopefully I'll be able to set it up and get working pretty soon. Right now all of my possessions are on a semi in Wyoming... -Steve --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Worley spworley@athena.mit.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------------- PS- same old mail address! I can telnet from work, and it keeps things easier. PPS- Thanks to Ed Chadez for being the Emergency Moderator. PPPS- Anything in particular you'd like to see in tutorials? I'm open. my next tutorials will be on 1) Advanced Detail commands 2) Applied Object Creation 3) Attributes. If you have questions ore suggestions, I can incorporate them into the text. ## Subject: ReQuestions Date: Tue, 2 Jul 91 12:04:48 EDT From: caleb@cbmtor.commodore.com (Caleb J. Howard (Product Support)) Hello persons, I have been using Imagine for a while now, and have made great strides in understanding its functionality thanks mostly to the various tutorials posted here. I still have one or two questions though. Firstly, I have heard this question before, but not an answer. - How do i make a ground map repeat in both dimensions. That is, I specify a brush to repeat on a ground object, but only get a stripe of my brush, not a full covering. I have seen an ftp reference, but alas have no ftp connectivity. perhaps some kind soul could answer this one for me. Secondly, I'm having a devil of a time getting lighting to work for me. I have a scene with a character sitting at a desk. a lamp at the desk is on, and seems to illuminate as it should. the problem is that the other lights in the room seem to have little effect on the gloom surrounding the lamp. I have cranked the ambient light way up, but this seems only to wash the scene out. Can some illuminated ;-) person perhaps shed a little light ;-) and write a lighting tutorial? thank yous in advance -caleb ## Subject: Lighting Date: Tue, 02 Jul 91 13:56:14 EDT From: spworley@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Caleb, I'm not sure whats up with the 1D infinite brush map. Hmm, I've never seen it NOT do 2D. 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 lamp-like warm feeling as opposed to a sun or searchlight. Since the light decreases to just about nothing after a certain range (a few hundred units? I can't remember), if the lights are too far away and set for decreasing intensity they just won't do too much. You could make them closer, or turn them into a sun-like source. Another idea would to pop up the ambient light if you have it turned off. I usually use something like 10 10 10 ambient. Higher values illuminate everything, but everything looks kinda faded and unnatural. No ambient light makes evil black shadows, sorta like the NASA photos of moonwalks. Good luck! On another note, there were long (seperate) reviews on DCTV and Colorburst in the latest Camcorder magazine, July 1991. (Excellent mag!) The Colorburst photos had me drooling. So did the DCTV, for that matter. There were also reviews for an Amiga genlock (I forget which) and Broadcast Titler 2.0. A VERY heavily-Amiga-oriented mag, if you're interested in video production. Back to work. I gotta memorize all 3736289 of my new co-workers names. -Steve --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Worley spworley@athena.mit.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Subject: Re: Exiting a Still Display Date: Wed, 3 Jul 91 09:54:11 -0700 From: echadez@carl.org (Edward Chadez) To exit from 'show' while viewing an image, press the escape key. Make sure you DO NOT press any mouse buttons. Why? 'cause the escape key is monitored by the 'window port' on the main screen. Pressing the mouse buttons will actiavte the viewing screen. Silly..I know. But that's what Impulse has told us. If you happen to press a mouse button, you can always suffel the screens around. Edward Chadez -Amiga3000- -- +--//-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ |\X/ echadez@carl.org/Edward Chadez CARL Systems(303)861-5319| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ## Subject: Tutorial priority Date: Wed, 03 Jul 91 19:59:42 EDT From: spworley@ATHENA.MIT.EDU I've gotten a lot of positive response for my tutorials so far, which always makes me feel good enough to start writing more. I asked for questions that you might want answered in future tutorials, and the two main replies I got in personal e-mail were for a Stage Editor overview and for a description of lighting. This makes me think that perhaps people would like to see certain topics covered in a different order than I assumed. Here's my mental "tutorial plan": Completed tutorials: The Art of Glass Project Editor Forms Editor Detail Editor (Intro) Brush Maps Textures My mental schedule of the order that I would write future tutorials in: 1) Detail Editor (Advanced Features) 2) Object Design 3) Attributes Additional tutorials that are kinda obvious: Cycle Editor Stage Editor (Split like Detail?) Lighting (Maybe a "cinematographer" look at layout design) Animation (USING the Stage tools to make non-lame motion) Sneaky tricks (bending the rules, especially with TTDDD) Project design (overview of making an anim from concept to rendering) Accessories (using other programs and hardware to support and complement Imagine) Intro (to newcomers- VERY important, but perhaps the hardest to write...) Anyway, my question is whether I should re-prioritize the order of these tutorials? I could see why people might want a Stage tutorial before a Cycle tutorial, since the Stage is really necessary to get anything done and Cycle is powerful, but not necessary for beginners. Since it takes WEEKS to write for a full-blown tutorial, spending my time on the most "useful" tutorial is most logical. What I'd really like is for people to send me personal e-mail with a ranking of the "criticality" of each tutorial, as well as suggestions for additional tutorials or questions you'd like answered in them. Remember that each tutorial takes a while for my slow fingers to type out... that 70K Detail intro was easily 30 hours of work! Thanks again for the positive responses, everyone. -Steve PS- hope to meet some of you this Tuesday at the FAUG meeting! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Worley spworley@athena.mit.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Subject: Terminator 2... Date: Fri, 5 Jul 91 2:22:51 PDT From: Daryl T. Bartley Yes, it's me again...just saw T2:judgement day, and the INCREDIBLE (pant gasp) graphics...got me to wondering just how closely something like that (note the 'something LIKE that', I don't mean replication!) could be approximated using Imagine or Lightwave, and how a large amount of morphing could be done like that. Also, any more ideas on getting mirrored objects into the 'real' world? Just some more crazed thoughts...happy 4th o' july, also (I can see all the animations made with Explode now...;) )... P.S. Thanks to John J Humpal for the response and help, sorry for the mixup with sending the reply... Daryl Bartley dmon@cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu ray-tracing psychopath at large ## Subject: glitches in large imagine pics Date: 7 Jul 91 23:13 -0700 From: Andrew Niemann Anyone else having this problem ? and maybe a solution ? : I've gotten to like doing slides from imagine renderings. I render at 2400x1600 or larger, convert to Targa format using Rasterlink (the ONLY program that will tackle such a large file that I know of), and then take these to a local graphics house that has a 4000x4000 film recorder. unfortunately the images often have color glitches across a largthem. Sort of like psuedo color. Imagine 1.1 and an upgrade to Rasterlink seemed to solve the problem. Except now it is back, not as often but on certain images it just won't go away despite rerendering or other fooling around. thanks, andy ## Subject: Re: Terminator 2... Date: Mon, 08 Jul 91 11:10:44 EDT From: Mark Thompson Forgot to mention that you could certainly render your object over a plain background and composite it into the video thus removing the step of digitizing the normal camera view. This puts more of the burden on external equipment which you may or may not own. |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | ` ' Mark Thompson CONCURRENT COMPUTER | | --==* RADIANT *==-- mark@westford.ccur.com Principal Graphics | | ' Image ` ...!uunet!masscomp!mark Hardware Architect | | Productions (508)392-2480 (603)424-1829 & General Nuisance | | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ## Subject: Re: Terminator 2... Date: Mon, 08 Jul 91 10:54:29 EDT From: Mark Thompson > Yes, it's me again...just saw T2:judgement day, and the INCREDIBLE > graphics...got me to wondering just how closely something like that (note the > 'something LIKE that', I don't mean replication!) could be approximated using > Imagine or Lightwave, and how a large amount of morphing could be done like > that. Also, any more ideas on getting mirrored objects into the 'real' world? I haven't seen T2:judgement day but I have seen the previews of the cops head stretching out to an elongated chrome blob. It is actually not that difficult to duplicate this effect if you have a video disc recorder. Ignoring the morphing part for the moment, here are the steps.... First, videotape the scene from the perspective of the chrome object with the camera pointed toward where the real camera will be when that actual scene is shot. This step is actually optional and is only necessary if accurate reflections are critical to the scene (ussually not the case). Then shoot the scene from the normal camera perspective. Unless you are able to bring your video disc recorder on location, you will have to transfer your "footage" to video disc. Once on the disc, you must frame by frame digitize both the normal camera view and the view from the chrome blob's perspective. These frames must match up fairly closely in terms of scene timing. The digitized normal view becomes the animated background image while the other digitzed view is the animated reflection map on the object's surface. I have done tests of this in LightWave and the results are outstanding. The morphing adds a little extra complexity. It is not a simple morph but a combination of morphing and cross dissolves starting with a real actor and dissolving into a computer model. LightWave's object dissolve envelopes make this fairly easy. |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | ` ' Mark Thompson CONCURRENT COMPUTER | | --==* RADIANT *==-- mark@westford.ccur.com Principal Graphics | | ' Image ` ...!uunet!masscomp!mark Hardware Architect | | Productions (508)392-2480 (603)424-1829 & General Nuisance | | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ## Subject: re: Terminator II Date: Mon, 8 Jul 91 09:47:24 -0600 From: webbs@mozart.cs.colostate.edu (Steven Lee Webb) > Yes, it's me again...just saw T2:judgement day, and the INCREDIBLE > graphics...got me to wondering just how closely something like that (note the > 'something LIKE that', I don't mean replication!) could be approximated using > Imagine or Lightwave, and how a large amount of morphing could be done like > that. Also, any more ideas on getting mirrored objects into the 'real' world? Hey, dude! I just saw Terminator II this Friday, it was AWESOME! (I especially liked the part where "RoboCop" rose out of the checkerboard floor. It seemed to hold a bit of nastalgia for those of us other renderers. (re, the checkerboard floor and all.) Anyway... I watched the credits, and guess who was behind all those great morphs? Yep, you guessed it, LucasFilms' Industrial Light & Magic. Of corse, a lot of the effects were the same as the water monster on ABYSE. Most of the morphs were done on a Silicon Graphics machine, and I've asked impulse this question before, and they said that since the Amiga doesn't support the MASSIVE geometry calculations needed to perform an any-pointed object to another any-pointed object, only these simple "point-moving morphs" will be possible. (kinda a drag, huh?) Oh well.. About the 'renddering in a real environment' question, I'd have to say, that in order to get true reflection, you'd have to take 6 (yes, count 'em, SIX) brushmaps, and map them on to each side of a cube, and put your object in the center of the cube. Remember, you'd have to take a still of the ceiling, the floor, and all of the walls. That's about all I can think of. - Steven Webb -- Only ///|Steven Lee Webb +---------------------------------------+ /\__Luxo| Amiga/// |CSU - Comp. Sci. | 11-XAV a edisni deppart ma I !pleH | \\ /\ Jr| \\\/// |Amiga 500-5M Ram | webbs@handel.cs.colostate.edu | /|/\ _ | \XX/ |50M Hard Drive +---------------------------------------+ // \ (_) | ## Subject: Re: Terminator II Date: Mon, 08 Jul 91 16:04:15 EDT From: Mark Thompson Steven Webb writes: > I just saw Terminator II this Friday, it was AWESOME! (I especially > Most of the morphs were done on a Silicon Graphics machine, and I've >asked impulse this question before, and they said that since the Amiga doesn't >support the MASSIVE geometry calculations needed to perform an any-pointed >object to another any-pointed object, only these simple "point-moving morphs" >will be possible. However, most of the morphing you see on TV and in the movies use cross fades rather than highly complex morphs. Here is a blurb from the article I wrote for the August Amazing Computing. It is intended for LightWave users but can be applied to your renderer of choice. "Another limitation of morph is that the target object must essentially be the source object with only the vertex locations altered. In other words, the target must be derived from the source with no points added or deleted. Here once again, Object Dissolve can help out. In this case, two morphs occur simultaneously on top of one another while Object Dissolve smoothly fades out one morph while fading in the other. Two objects must be created in addition to the source and target. For object #1, you must manipulate the source to fit the approximate shape and size of the target object without adding or deleting points. Object #2 is merely the reverse operation to make the target look like the source. The two simultaneous morphs performed are source -> object #1 and object #2 -> target. Then dissolving the source out and object #2 in will complete the illusion. Similar techniques have been used recently for TV ads such as the mini van metamorphosis commercial for Chrysler." > About the 'renddering in a real environment' question, I'd have to say, >that in order to get true reflection, you'd have to take 6 (yes, count 'em, >SIX) brushmaps, and map them on to each side of a cube, and put your object in >the center of the cube. True but a single view with a wide angle lense should be sufficient especially when you consider how much the image will be distorted when reflection mapped to the 'blobby' surface. |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | ` ' Mark Thompson CONCURRENT COMPUTER | | --==* RADIANT *==-- mark@westford.ccur.com Principal Graphics | | ' Image ` ...!uunet!masscomp!mark Hardware Architect | | Productions (508)392-2480 (603)424-1829 & General Nuisance | | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ## Subject: Re: Terminator II Date: Mon, 08 Jul 91 17:44:57 EDT From: Mark Thompson Daryl accidentally sent this to me instead of the list and asked if I would forward it. ------- Forwarded Message From: Daryl T. Bartley Subject: Re: Terminator II Wow! Thanks for the info...yes, I think that is actually how they did it for T2, is take 6 views, and map them around the blob. Hmm...as far as the morphing goes, some of it looked FAR too smooth to just be video morphing. I am sure that is how they got from the chrome 'cop' to the real actor (Most of the time, I saw one scene where it could have been ALL comp)...but some of the morphs were just incredible. (The FLOOR!) Oh, also, if they did in fact use the video morphing for all of it, there is one scene where it stands up out of an elevator, in the 'humanoid' form (looks like a chrome manikin), and starts running, morphing into first the chrome cop, and then the color comes in over the chrome. Now, if they used video morphing, how did they do it while making the thing run as well? Just some puzzlements. But, however they did it, it was truly amazing. It was just so fluid! Oh, and also thanks for the help with putting the object into the real world- type-stuff. Should work fine, if I can get access to the equipment to do it with. :) Daryl Bartley dmon@cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu watch out for those tile floors! ------- End of Forwarded Message Just a quick comment. The cross dissolves I mentioned are done along with standard morphing to give the appearance of a far more complicated morph and many of these combination morph/dissolves may be done just to achieve a single complex morph. Great stuff, I'll definately have to see the movie. %~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~% % ` ' Mark Thompson CONCURRENT COMPUTER % % --==* RADIANT *==-- mark@westford.ccur.com Principal Graphics % % ' Image ` ...!uunet!masscomp!mark Hardware Architect % % Productions (508)392-2480 (603)424-1829 & General Nuisance % % % ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ## Subject: Re: Terminator II Date: Mon, 8 Jul 91 15:31:17 PDT From: Daryl T. Bartley Oh, okay, multiple transitions for one morph...gads, it must have been a night mare from the viewpoint of the people doing it, but it was worth it! Thanks for clearing that up. ILM far surpassed the old bastion of computer anim ation, (their own) the ever-oggled-at water creature from the abyss. Oh, also, one more quick question: Has anyone been uploading stuff to hubcap lately? New objects, pictures, anything? Just seems to have slowed down around there recently. Daryl Bartley dmon@cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu Still .sigless? Get with it! ## Subject: The Imagine Companion Date: Tue, 09 Jul 91 16:43 PDT From: ivan i i recently received The Imagine Companion, which is the manual we all should have gotten with Imagine in the first place, from Dave Dubermann of Motion Blur Publishing. Has this been discussed before on the list? if so, i won't waste everyone's time with it, but if not, let me know and i'll post a review once i get through the lion's share of it. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ ivan ivanick esrlpdi@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU Making The World Safe For Degeneracy Since 1965 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ## Subject: World Size Date: Tue, 9 Jul 91 19:53:30 EDT From: jake@melmac.umd.edu (Rob Borsari) I have been playing with scanline so long that I have forgoten how to set the world size. Please remind me. (blushing) -R- ## Subject: Questions About Playing Speed Date: Tue, 09 Jul 91 15:40 PDT From: ivan i i'm new to computer animations & have only been playing around with them since April when i got my 2000, but i do have a fair background in ink & paint animations behind me; so i was a little surprised to find a fundamental limitation in terms of how many frames per second i can get with a decent sized animation. i haven't clocked it, but it looks like maybe 12 or 15 fps to me. i understand the speed limitations, but this seems to be a serious hindrance in terms of putting the work out on tape, since i don't have access to a single frame recorder. what, if anything, are people doing to get the final output up to speed? is it something basic that i'm unaware of or is there hard/software to take care of this? are people just living with these limitations? what's the best speed that can be achieved on the Amiga itself for fully raytraced animations without outputting it to tape? ONE ANSWER: for those of you who are interested & rich, my brother (who does 2D stuff with both traditional cel animation & is working with the Mac's Director software) is looking at buying a recordable videodisc player from SONY for about $20K, i believe, which relieves this particular problem but isn't feasible just now for me. i'm not sure of all the specs, but he said it can record up to 22 minutes per side, write-once. maybe in a few years it will be down to only $15K. incidentally, i've got a 68030 running, without a coprocessor (although it's coming soon) and 3 MB of RAM. while i'm slowly cracking the internal mysteries of the Amiga (my brain has been IBM-DOSsotted for too many years) i haven't been able to figure out what's the best way to increase my speeds for playing the animations. thanks a bunch for any help. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ ivan ivanick ESRLPDI@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU Making The World Safe For Degeneracy for Over 26 Years ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ## Subject: fps Date: Tue, 9 Jul 91 21:10:31 PDT From: tucker@cs.unr.edu (Aaron Tucker) In DeluxePaint III, you have a choice of using compressed or uncompressed animations. Compressed animations are animations that calculate the difference between frames and only update that section. This can obviously get slow with large changes. You can load in a compressed anim from IMAGINE into DeluxePaint III as long as it conforms to the bitplane depth specification of 1 to 5 in the correct resolution. I am not sure if any of the HAM anim packages such as Spectracolor and ????(I forgot) will allow uncompressed frames to be displayed. You can set the anim to be generated to conform to the needs of DeluxePaint III or you can convert them to that format with ADPro. Whichever way you go, it will still not look as good as HAM. The more memory the better. If you have an 030, congrats. Only buy 32bit memory (RAM for you accelerator board...there is no physical difference in RAM). If you have a lot of 16-bit RAM, sell it, as it only slows you down. Juan tucker@mammoth.cs.unr.edu ## Subject: Memetic Poly-Alloy Date: Fri, 5 Jul 91 20:53:38 CDT From: mit-eddie!harvard!scubed!pro-party.cts.com!seanc (Sean Cunningham) The memetic poly-alloy technique is VERY possible with the current batch of software, such as Imagine. My partner and I are working on it and the results have been very pleasing. After I saw T2 for the "first" time I decided to get right on it. Before I went for the second time I had a completed animation that I showed to the person I was going with to see it for the second time (note: they had not seen the movie yet, so they had only glimpsed the effect from the commercials). "Neat," they said. Well, I've had better comments, but I figured I'd wait until the same thing happened in the movie. As soon as the second termitator started to "gel" that same person leaned over and said, "sh@*, that looks just like what you just did!" That's pretty convincing. The key is to use a good image for an environment map, and try as hard as possible not to have sharp edges on your surfaces. Sean /\ RealWorld: Sean Cunningham / \ "Doing our business is what INET: seanc@pro-party.cts.com VISION Amigas are for." Voice: (512) 992-2810 \ / // \/ "Holy #@*!" - any Psygnosis KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/ GRAPHICS game player ## Subject: NewImConEd avail on ab20 Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1991 15:27:47 GMT From: menzies@cam.org (Stephen Menzies) A new version of Sheldon Arnst's Imagine1.1 config file editor is now available in the incoming/amiga directory on ab20.larc.nasa.gov (128.155.23.64). You will find it listed as newimconed.lzh This new version includeds a *very* friendly Function Key Editor with print out capabilities. Any questions or reports may be directed to me (e-mail) and I'll pass it on to Sheldon. --stephen -- Stephen Menzies Email: menzies@CAM.ORG ## Subject: Re: Questions About Playing Speed Date: Wed, 10 Jul 91 11:59:17 EDT From: Mark Thompson > i haven't clocked it, but it looks like > maybe 12 or 15 fps to me. i understand the speed limitations, but this > seems to be a serious hindrance in terms of putting the work out on > tape, since i don't have access to a single frame recorder. what's > the best speed that can be achieved on the Amiga itself for fully > raytraced animations without outputting it to tape? Actually no matter what your playback speed is, it can still be videotaped. It just means that your video will be a little jerky. Single frame recording is only necessary if you absolutely must have 30 fps and you are exceeding the bandwidth capabilities of the Amiga. It is certainly feasible to play HAM animation from Imagine at 30 fps but it requires that the frame to frame deltas be kept to a reasonable level. Changing the lighting or moving the camera are two almost sure ways to make your frame deltas unmanageable. > looking at buying a recordable videodisc player > from SONY for about $20K, i believe, which relieves this particular > problem but isn't feasible just now for me. i'm not sure of all the > specs, but he said it can record up to 22 minutes per side, write-once. > maybe in a few years it will be down to only $15K. This unit has two separate components and if you look around, they can be had for as low as $7K each bringing the price down to $14k today. |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | ` ' Mark Thompson CONCURRENT COMPUTER | | --==* RADIANT *==-- mark@westford.ccur.com Principal Graphics | | ' Image ` ...!uunet!masscomp!mark Hardware Architect | | Productions (508)392-2480 (603)424-1829 & General Nuisance | | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ## Subject: Re: Questions About Playing Speed Date: Wed, 10 Jul 91 18:50:01 EDT From: bobl@graphics.rent.com (Bob Lindabury - SysAdm) Mark Thompson writes: > Actually no matter what your playback speed is, it can still be videotaped. > It just means that your video will be a little jerky. Single frame recording > is only necessary if you absolutely must have 30 fps and you are exceeding > the bandwidth capabilities of the Amiga. It is certainly feasible to play > HAM animation from Imagine at 30 fps but it requires that the frame to frame > deltas be kept to a reasonable level. Changing the lighting or moving the > camera are two almost sure ways to make your frame deltas unmanageable. Heh. The things that make frame deltas unmanageable are just the items most animators use to create more realistic and dynamic 3d animations. Let's face it, if you want realism and playback speed, you need some type of single frame device. I guess DCTV is the next best thing however. You *must* have an 030 accelerator and a good animation playback program for anything reasonably close to 30 fps. > > looking at buying a recordable videodisc player Aren't we all?! > > from SONY for about $20K, i believe, which relieves this particular > > problem but isn't feasible just now for me. i'm not sure of all the > > specs, but he said it can record up to 22 minutes per side, write-once. > > maybe in a few years it will be down to only $15K. > > This unit has two separate components and if you look around, they can > be had for as low as $7K each bringing the price down to $14k today. Or for a total of 8K if you can find a used one. -- Bob The Graphics BBS 908/469-0049 "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!" ============================================================================ InterNet: bobl@graphics.rent.com | 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: Single frame recorders.. Date: 10 Jul 91 23:15 -0500 From: "Jeff A. Bell" Thought that someone on the Imagine mailing list might know something about the following.. I'm seriously considering purchasing a single frame VTR within the next year or so. What sort of price range am I looking at? I believe that I saw a post from Mark Thompson in rec.video about a JVC model that was to list for ~$2200. Has JVC released this model? Seems too good to be true, as prices for other single frame VTR's tend to be much higher than this. What's the catch? Would it really hold up to the strain of single framing? On a related note, if I'm willing to put up with a fair amount of hassle, would it be possible to get by WITHOUT an animation controller? I'm not sure it would even be worth my while, since I believe Imagine does not support controllers in any way, shape or form (please correct me if I'm wrong..) Any information on the above two items (and information on ANY somewhat reasonably priced single frame VTR), would be greatly appreciated.. Babblebabble. Sorry :) Jeff -- uubell@ccu.umanitoba.ca ## Subject: Anims and Ianims Date: Wed, 10 Jul 91 23:13 CDT From: n350bq@tamuts.tamu.edu (Duane Fields) I have trouble making stand alone Ianims. Some help would be appreciated! Also, is there a way to set a default speed for .anim files so you don't have to force the timing using showanim? (Besides aliasing or a script) Thanks much! Duane Fields ## Subject: Re: Questions About Playing Speed Date: Wed, 10 Jul 91 23:22:13 CDT From: mit-eddie!harvard!scubed!pro-party.cts.com!seanc (Sean Cunningham) Actually, an '030 would only enhance playback speed of compressed animations, such as ANIMs and PFX animations. 30fps is attainable on an unaccelerated A500 with the proper software, and alot of memory. Page flipping yields the best results of all "realtime" animation techniques and can provide 30fps in interlaced resolutions, or 60fps in non-interlaced resolutions. The trick is all frames to be displayed must be in memory, and the current (displayed) frame must be in ChipMem. The Director provides the necessary tools to shuffle frames in and out of ChipMem from FastMem. With the low cost of RAM these days, and the various inexpensive RAM cards on the market, page flipping is still cheaper than single framing to a VTR. Sean /\ RealWorld: Sean Cunningham / \ "Doing our business is what INET: seanc@pro-party.cts.com VISION Amigas are for." Voice: (512) 992-2810 \ / // \/ "Holy #@*!" - any Psygnosis KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/ GRAPHICS game player ## Subject: Re: Memetic Poly-Alloy Date: Wed, 10 Jul 91 23:13:57 CDT From: mit-eddie!harvard!scubed!pro-party.cts.com!seanc (Sean Cunningham) So far all test renderings have been above 2.5M. I've been working at 736x482 using PageFlipper/Plus FX to compile frames and DCTV for display. I'm not going to release any stills and/or animations until I do some more experimentation. My partner and I are planning a fairly large project that will make heavy use of this technique and will combine graphics with video. If all goes well, it should be near completion by the end of the summer, but we'll release some "teaser" frames and short anims to the public domain. One thing though, as someone pointed out earlier, Impulse needs to work on their MORPH. It stinks. I don't buy Mr. Halvorson's excuse regarding morphing between anything...long render times didn't scare people back when all that was available was Sculpt 3D and the A1000, and with the '040s now available, or soon to be, it should stop us now. If time was a concern, I don't think we'd be raytracing at all. Sean /\ RealWorld: Sean Cunningham / \ "Doing our business is what INET: seanc@pro-party.cts.com VISION Amigas are for." Voice: (512) 992-2810 \ / // \/ "Holy #@*!" - any Psygnosis KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/ GRAPHICS game player ## Subject: Re: Single frame recorders.. Date: Thu, 11 Jul 91 10:56:07 EDT From: Mark Thompson > I'm seriously considering purchasing a single frame VTR within the next > year or so. What sort of price range am I looking at? I believe that > I saw a post from Mark Thompson in rec.video about a JVC model that was > to list for ~$2200. Has JVC released this model? Seems too good to be > true, as prices for other single frame VTR's tend to be much higher than > this. What's the catch? Would it really hold up to the strain of single > framing? The catch is that the quality will most likely not be up to par with more expensive units. I have not yet seen the JVC BR-S605U in action, but my rep tells me that it is available. Some time when I get the chance I plan to check it out. In the mean time, I pretty much rely on recordable video discs. If anyone else has seen this baby do animation, I would love to hear about it. As far as what to purchase goes, If you don't plan to buy for another year yet, I would just hold off on any decisions now because things are likely to change radically between now and then. The JVC unit is probably only the first of a new breed of animation capable products for the prosumer video market. > On a related note, if I'm willing to put up with a fair amount of hassle, > would it be possible to get by WITHOUT an animation controller? Only if you don't mind HASSLE written in 25 foot letters because it is a major ordeal. Your best bet for avoiding the expense of an animation controller is either buying a video recorder that does not need one (like the BR-S605U or recordable video disc units) or build an interface to the VCR controller input and write your own code (can be tricky). Of course, if you only do about 4 seconds of animation a year, you might not mind doing it manually :-) |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | ` ' Mark Thompson CONCURRENT COMPUTER | | --==* RADIANT *==-- mark@westford.ccur.com Principal Graphics | | ' Image ` ...!uunet!masscomp!mark Hardware Architect | | Productions (508)392-2480 (603)424-1829 & General Nuisance | | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ## Subject: Re: Avoiding intro picture? Date: Thu, 11 Jul 91 14:16:40 -0500 From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr Well, I was able to figure out a hack for 1.0, but when 1.1 came out, they had foiled my technique. If you want the old one, I'll give it to you, but it's totally useless for 1.1. Sorry. Rick Tillery (drtiller@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu) ## Subject: opening screen Date: Thu, 11 Jul 91 14:37:47 PDT From: tucker@cs.unr.edu (Aaron Tucker) In IMAGINE 1.0, you can use Rick's shortcut which works great. If you have 1.1, (get it if you don't).....you can't use Rick's trick. What you can do, however, is use a program like Rasterlink, PixMate, or ADPro to convert it to a 1 or 2 bitplane image. This reduces file size and speeds things up considerably. Have fun. Juan tucker@mammoth.cs.unr.edu ## Subject: brush color mapping problems Date: Thu, 11 Jul 91 15:02:02 MDT From: ridout@bink.plk.af.mil (Brian Ridout) Hi all, I have just started on this list again so please forgive me if this quistion has been over done. I am trying to render a scene of a room. The walls, floor and throw rugs are planes, or disks with a iff brush for the pattern. When I do the test traces using scanline it works fine. but, when I use trace the walls are invisible. I have tried several ways of placinf the axis of the brush on the object but I can't seem to get it to work. Does any one have the difinative procedures for brush mapping? Any help would be apreciated. Thanks Brian Ridout ## Subject: anim, Ianim, and wb2.0 Date: Thu, 11 Jul 91 23:54 MST From: "Vax Headroom (Dave E Martin)" a. Is playIanim freely distributable? b. what are the (dis)advantages of anim vs. ianm? Ianm seems to use much more diskspace than anim, does ianm use compression? c. Where can I get an anim player that works properly on the A3000 with wb2.0? The only one I've found so far that works right is the one in amigavision. TiA Dave ## Subject: Re: Memetic Poly-Alloy Date: Thu, 11 Jul 91 21:45:23 CDT From: mit-eddie!harvard!scubed!pro-party.cts.com!seanc (Sean Cunningham) OOPS...my last message SHOULD have said that it SHOULDN'T stop us now. Sorry. Sean /\ RealWorld: Sean Cunningham / \ "Doing our business is what INET: seanc@pro-party.cts.com VISION Amigas are for." Voice: (512) 992-2810 \ / // \/ "Hasta lavista, baby." KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/ GRAPHICS the Terminator, CSM101 ## Subject: Re: anim, Ianim, and wb2.0 Date: Fri, 12 Jul 91 11:47:46 -0500 From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr SuperView 3.1 is a good anim player. You might notice a bit of a glitch showing Imagine anims though. This is the only source that has the glitch with SV, and David is working dilligently to fix it. I uploaded SV3.1 to ab20 a while back. Give it a try (I use it under 2.0 daily). Rick Tillery (drtiller@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu) ## Subject: Avoiding the intro pic in 1.1 Date: Fri, 12 Jul 91 17:24 CDT From: n350bq@tamuts.tamu.edu (Duane Fields) No problem, just load "Imagin.pic" into Deluxe Paint (or whatever), and clear the screen. Now save over. What you have is a blank picture with the same pallette as before! Loading time is next to nothing! Duane ## Subject: Re: anim, Ianim, and wb2.0 Date: Fri, 12 Jul 91 11:53:51 CDT From: mit-eddie!harvard!scubed!pro-party.cts.com!seanc (Sean Cunningham) ShowAnim works, and has always worked...I don't know what the latest release is, but I've been using the one that comes with VS2.0 for over a year now (quick and dirty). CryoTools' VIEW also works, and lets you alter your screen settings while the animation is playing. If you're using DCTV, this one is probubly the best to use for straight ANIM files. Hash's DISPLAY, which I believe is PD, is by far the most complex and nicest of the anim players I've ever seen. Tons of commands for playback...and it's also fully compatible with WB/KS v2.03. So far, MOVIE is the only player that I've had problems with, but it's more for Sculpt's format. Sean /\ RealWorld: Sean Cunningham / \ "Doing our business is what INET: seanc@pro-party.cts.com VISION Amigas are for." Voice: (512) 992-2810 \ / // \/ "Hasta lavista, baby." KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/ GRAPHICS the Terminator, CSM101 ## Subject: mirrors Date: Sat, 13 Jul 91 20:11:55 EET DST From: Juha Kallioinen Hi imaginets and imaginetters :) I have a problem with creating mirrors; I can't make them reflective ... Does anyone have good attributes for a mirror on the wall.. Thanks. s37804r@puukko.hut.fi Juha Kallioinen ## Subject: Re: Avoiding the intro pic in 1.1 Date: Sat, 13 Jul 91 12:53:29 -0500 From: Donald Richard Tillery Jr I've tried that and it doesn't seem to work right for me. I didn't try TOO hard though...maybe later. Rick Tillery (drtiller@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu) ## Subject: Film Recorders Date: Sat, 13 Jul 91 11:14:49 PDT From: Christopher Seguine 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 ## Subject: Getting rid of the 1.1 intro screen Date: Sat, 13 Jul 91 14:15:45 PDT From: tucker@cs.unr.edu (Aaron Tucker) Well, you can't really get rid of it. What you want to do is reduce the amount of data in the picture, but retain the same number of bitplanes. I might have posted earlier to reduce the number of bitplanes to 2, but what I meant was reduce the number of colors to 2. You can go into DeluxePaint and clear the screen, or change it to two colors. What I did was go into PixMate and turned off bitplanes 1, 2, and 3. I left #4 so it would save it as a 4 bitplane image, but with only 2 colors. This gives an even worse image of the letters imagine, but it loads much faster and gives you a sort of time guage as to when it is done instead of just a clear screen. Juan Trevino tucker@mammoth.cs.unr.edu ## Subject: Ship Date: Sun, 14 Jul 91 02:20:23 EDT From: jake@melmac.umd.edu (Rob Borsari) I will post a pic of my Cruser to hubcap. I tried on sat night but hubcap was very slow and seemed to have problems accepting my put. I think a partial file may have been left. I wll try to delete it and get the full one up as soon as possible. Sorry to anyone who got the bad file. -R- jake@melmac.umd.edu Rob Borsari : ## Subject: Re: mirrors Date: Sun, 14 Jul 91 15:18:46 EDT From: spworley@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Juha Kallioinen asks how to make mirrors. The trick with mirrors (or especially chrome-like objects) is not setting the attributes of the mirror correctly, but making sure that the environment is set up so something will be reflected into the camera. If a mirror is TOO reflective, the mirror can actually become invisible! This is because the mirror's own flat glass/metal flat coloring is overwhelmed by all the reflected light. You see a PERFECT reflected image, so the object itself isn't shown. This is especially true with flat mirrors. Some attributes that give a nice mirror polish: Color: RGB= 150 150 170 Reflect RGB= 200 200 210 (a bit of a blue tint) Transparency 0 0 0 Specular 255 255 255 Hardness 255 Rough=0 shiny=0 Again, the important part is that you should make sure the mirror is reflecting something into the camera. A scene with just a camera, a mirror, and a ground in it is awfully boring..... :-) -Steve --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Worley spworley@athena.mit.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------------