This is the Imagine Mailing List (imagine@email.sp.paramax.com) Archive #42 covering messages from Sep. 09 to Oct. 1 period. If you have any questions or problems with this file, E-mail Nik Vukovljak at nvukovlj@extro.ucc.su.oz.au Special thanks goes to Marvin Landis for helping me getting the archive going again. Note: each message separated by '##'. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: Clouds??? Date: Thu, 09 Sep 93 14:17:09 +0200 From: "- Carsten Berggreen - Denmark -" Hi there, Does anybody have ANY suggenstions on how to make MOVING CLOUDS so that I could make a hunt between to airplanes....? Signed --------------------------------------------------------------------- - Address: Carsten Berggreen E-mail: x34@dec5102.aarhues.dk - - Hirsevaenget 16A - - 8464 Galten "It isn't the equipment alone, it - - Denmark is also what YOU can do with it!" - --------------------------------------------------------------------- - A true fan of Amiga, Coca-Cola, Imagine and good looking females! - --------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Subject: REPLY :: Priority :: Date: Thu, 09 Sep 93 10:29:02 EST From: Adam Benjamin Text item: 9/09/93 8:12AM (IA5Text Enclosure) In a previous life Carsten Berggreen wrote: >By the way, do you guys'n'girls (?) use a SCREEN-BLANKER while >tracing, or at least go to the workbench (in 4 colors) ?? I have noticed this (going to workbench) even on my 4000/40 since I run a lowres 8 color workbench it really helps speed up rendering. Anyone have any REAL numbers for this? Adam B. P.S. I suppose if you have an 800x600 256 color 'bench it would actually SLOW down the rendering to switch to it?? ## Subject: Re: REPLY :: Priority :: Date: Thu, 9 Sep 93 10:31:51 CDT From: Wayne Haufler > In a previous life Carsten Berggreen wrote: > >By the way, do you guys'n'girls (?) use a SCREEN-BLANKER while > >tracing, or at least go to the workbench (in 4 colors) ?? > > I have noticed this (going to workbench) even on my 4000/40 since I > run a lowres 8 color workbench it really helps speed up rendering. > > Anyone have any REAL numbers for this? > > Adam B. > > P.S. I suppose if you have an 800x600 256 color 'bench it would > actually SLOW down the rendering to switch to it?? > I don't know about rendering time improvements, but sometimes my fractal-based screen blanker (called FRACTBLANK?) hangs up my A3000 if I'm rendering. Or its some interaction between Imagine and the blanker. I try to turn it off while rendering, but its probably dumb to use a relatively cpu-intensive blanker while rendering, anyway. I'll have to use a simpler screen-blanker for rendering speed improvements, I suppose. __ \\ /\\ /\\ //_ Wayne A. Haufler [Christian/SW Engineer/XWindows/Amigan] \/--\// \//__ haufler@pat.mdc.com McDonnell Douglas-Houston // Hobby: "Computer Animations For Christian Endeavors" GodlyGraphics mailing list: GG-request@acs.harding.edu ## Subject: Re: priority Date: 9 Sep 93 12:18:00 EST From: "Ross Knepper" <95RKNEPPER@vax.mbhs.edu> >I don't know about rendering time improvements, but sometimes my >fractal-based screen blanker (called FRACTBLANK?) hangs up my A3000 >if I'm rendering. Or its some interaction between Imagine and >the blanker. I try to turn it off while rendering, but its probably >dumb to use a relatively cpu-intensive blanker while rendering, anyway. > \\ /\\ /\\ //_ Wayne A. Haufler [Christian/SW Engineer/XWindows/Amigan] FracBlank only uses the FPU when it is otherwise idle, so that while Imagine is rendering, it only displays a blank screen with intermittent fractals when Imagine is writing to disk. My question is, why does Imagine require access to ChipRAM ata all? All it needs to do is write to FastRAM and save that do disk, or so I thought... Updating the %done message is the only thing that requires access to Chip memory, I think. --Ross Knepper ## Subject: Re: REPLY :: Priority :: Date: Thu Sep 09, 1993 12:02:21 From: scotte@137.110.2.121 (Scott Ellis) Adam Benjamin said on Sep 09 : > > Text item: 9/09/93 8:12AM (IA5Text Enclosure) > > In a previous life Carsten Berggreen wrote: > >By the way, do you guys'n'girls (?) use a SCREEN-BLANKER while > >tracing, or at least go to the workbench (in 4 colors) ?? > > I have noticed this (going to workbench) even on my 4000/40 since I > run a lowres 8 color workbench it really helps speed up rendering. > Lores? Icky icky icky. > Anyone have any REAL numbers for this? > > Adam B. > > P.S. I suppose if you have an 800x600 256 color 'bench it would > actually SLOW down the rendering to switch to it?? Yes...on ECS systems at least, the horizontal overscan and color depth are what steal bandwidth, and cause slowdowns in applications. ECS systems are capable of running 2 bitplane (4 color) 640 pixel wide screens without any DMA problems. Since Imagine uses a 16 color screen, just refreshing the display steals CPU time and slows down renders. I'm not sure of the color/depth/bandwidth situation on AGA systems, but I presume it to be very similar. If you're viewing the Workbench screen on an AGA system then the screen in interleaved, and you get either a 2x or 4x bandwidth improvement...so that would seem to suggest that a 4 bitplane, 640 pixel wide screen would be "perfect", and anything larger or deeper would cause bandwidth contention, and slow down renderings. Personally, I almost always run Imagine at -1 priority ("TOOLPRI=-1" tooltype), so I can continue work on my system without any noticeable slowdown. I also use the screen blanker "spliner" which can either open a 1 bitplane screen, or turn off video dma alltogether. ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // Scott Ellis // IRC: ScottE // WARNING: This signature warps // // sellis@ucssun1.sdsu.edu // time and space in its vicinity // ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ## Subject: Re:: workbench speedup Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 08:35:05 +0200 From: "- Carsten Berggreen - Denmark -" Hi there (again), to answer some of the letters, which I read after I had written mine yesterday. (Ehh? Does anybody understand that sentence? &:-) ) If you use an "old " amiga with the old chipset (NOT AGA, that is) then you can be sure that Imagine will render very SLOOOOOOWLY, Why? I actually very simple, and therfore I'll try to explain: Because of the Amiga's "multi-tasking" bus structure, we have something called the DMA-BUS (Direct Memory access) which makes it possible for all the chips to access the same locations. That's why you can have Graphic, Samples, Programs in the same type of RAM, the so called CHIP-RAM. BUT it's made by using priority for the chips, so when you tell the graphic system to show 16 color HIRES/MEDRES(640) then it needs A LOT of the access time to your CHIPRAM (in order to show the screen) and the your processor has a SERIOUS PROBLEM, called ACCESS TIME. It simple has a lower priority than the graphic, and this you can't change! Instead you should try rendering with less colors on the screen, (This is NOT in your rendering settings, but the settings your workbench is setup with) Therefore, use a 2 or 4 colored workbench and go to it when you've started your projekt, ofcause you can't see when your finished, but hey! Go and click it in front and back again with the gadgets in the upper right corner of your workbench/imagine screen. Well, as Arnie use to say: "I'll be BACK!" Signed --------------------------------------------------------------------- - Address: Carsten Berggreen E-mail: x34@dec5102.aarhues.dk - - Hirsevaenget 16A - - 8464 Galten "It isn't the equipment alone, it - - Denmark is also what YOU can do with it!" - --------------------------------------------------------------------- - A true fan of Amiga, Coca-Cola, Imagine and good looking females! - --------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Subject: Re: Clouds??? Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 12:58:32 -0600 From: robin@robin.lausanne.sgi.com () On Sep 9, 2:17pm, "- Carsten Berggreen - Denmark -" wrote: > Subject: Clouds??? > Hi there, > > Does anybody have ANY suggenstions on how to make MOVING CLOUDS > > so that I could make a hunt between to airplanes....? > > Signed > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > - Address: Carsten Berggreen E-mail: x34@dec5102.aarhues.dk - > - Hirsevaenget 16A - > - 8464 Galten "It isn't the equipment alone, it - > - Denmark is also what YOU can do with it!" - > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > - A true fan of Amiga, Coca-Cola, Imagine and good looking females! - > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > >-- End of excerpt from "- Carsten Berggreen - Denmark -" You could try to use some spheres or ellipses with fog attribute (as you asked, it is only a suggestion). Or try a trick which is used in some real-time animation on a very famous RealityEngine (Silicon Graphics) demo : in order to render trees, as this graphics board does real-time brush-mapping, they use some planes with a tree picture mapped on it (with a color and a filter map). When you move, the plane rotate so that it is always perpendicular to you (easy to do in Imagine - use TRACK to CAMERA), so you see it always front view. Believe me, if you don't know the trick you don't see it ! You could try it with some clouds images (and you can make them partially transparent). What do you think of it ? Robin -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin Chytil, Staff Engineer Mediterranean Distribution Territory Silicon Graphics Vmail: 5-9389 Email: robin@lausanne.sgi.com Tel: +41 21 269737 Fax : +41 21 259184 \|/ @ @ ---------------------------------------------------oOO-(_)-OOo------- ## Subject: archicad to imagine Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 9:19:36 -0600 (MDT) From: LESK@CC.SNOW.EDU Hello all; Does anyone know how to get an object from archicad on the mac into imagine? archicad is a package for home design and a freind of mine uses it for his business, I would like to enhance his work with imagine and earn enough to accelerate my 1200, any Ideas or am I up in the night? and this simply cannot be done. Thanks Lesk ## Subject: 040 and Imagine Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 14:49:11 CDT From: dave@flip.sp.paramax.com (Dave Wickard) NOTE: This post was sent to the imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com address and is being forwarded to the list by me. Please be certain when replying to IML posts that your REPLY function is grabbing the correct address: imagine@email.sp.paramax.com If not, be certain to either change the address, or at least Cc: a copy there. Thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 12:05:23 -0400 From: Rob Borsari To: imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com Subject: 040 and Imagine I had the same speed problem on my a4000 (as anyone with an 040 will) but a friend sent me a new math library for the 040. It replaces the non floating point library with one that uses the 040 FPU correctly. then any non fpu program that calls that lib (as imagine and Propage do) will be at full speed on an 040 equiped machine. Its pretty small and I can mail copies to (a small number hopefully) anyone who asks. Note: you must use the int version of imagine for this to speed up your system. -R- jake@melmac.umd.edu Rob Borsari "Bourne to be Wild" ## Subject: re: Archicad to imagine Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 14:04:22 PDT From: kevink@ced.berkeley.edu (Kevin Kodama) lesk writes: Does anyone know how to get an object from archicad on the mac into imagine? archicad is a package for home design and a freind of mine uses it for his business, I would like to enhance his work with imagine Archicad can save in DXF format. Get Interchange+ from Syndesis, and you can convert DXF to Imagine, and be ready to go. Apparently, Archicad's DXF conversion is quite good from what i have seen, and is readily importable to other mac programs thru DXF. btw, Archicad is a very good architecture oriented package, although at a retail price of 4000 dollars (+ hardware copy protection :-) is probably a bit much for "home design" :-) kevin kevink@ced.berkeley.edu ## Subject: Re: priority (fwd) Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 17:52:54 +0000 From: "Rob (R.D.) Hounsell" Folks, > But if Imagine doesn't need to access chip memory, it won't matter whether > the display is one bitplane or eight. Display DMA runs independently of fast > RAM access. There is no overhead, because the screen's copper list is already > set up. So, does anyone have an answer? I was following the thread and thinking "yeah, that makes sense" until I saw this note fragment. I suppose if the above is true there would be no hit in processor bus access unless the "% finished" is updated, as someone else mentioned. If no one has any figures, I'll try to run some tests this weekend. Rob +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Rob Hounsell BNR WAN: HOUNSELL@NMERH53 | | Team Leader: UNIX INTERNET: HOUNSELL@BNR.CA | | Global Product Performance: PHONE: (613) 765-2904 | | Paradigm Club Design Team. Dept. PS27 ESN: 395-2904 | | Northern Telecom Public Switching | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ## Subject: RE: 040 and Imagine Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 14:15:34 CDT From: dave@flip.sp.paramax.com (Dave Wickard) NOTE: This post was sent to the imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com address and is being forwarded to the list by me. Please be certain when replying to IML posts that your REPLY function is grabbing the correct address: imagine@email.sp.paramax.com If not, be certain to either change the address, or at least Cc: a copy there. Thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1993 14:17:58 -0400 (EDT) From: JASON@HTC.MARTECH.FSU.EDU Subject: RE: 040 and Imagine To: imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com X-Vmsmail-To: SMTP%"imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com" please email me a uuencoded 040lib thank you ! jason sackett@scri.fsu.edu <- use this address! ## Subject: Re: Regarding Your Comments about 3D Obj Date: 14 Sep 93 13:25:36 EDT From: John Foust - Syndesis Corporation <76004.1763@compuserve.com> To: >internet: imagine@email.sp.paramax.com "David A. Rollins" writes: > Imagine software for IBM and Amiga. Following the initial release, > the same objects will be ported to Sun and SGI in WAVEFRONT format as > well as DXF for Macintosh. ... > Porting the object to other platforms is not as easy as using a > converter. The objects contain individual attributes as well as > maps that do not always translate across platforms, even for those > other platforms that may have some version of Impulse's Imagine. > > That's the main reason. It takes time to make the conversions, align > the maps, and conform to each computer platform's little idiosyncrasies. DXF isn't very good at retaining high-quality 3D information such as smooth shading. In fact, it confounds it. It stores no color or surface map info, for example. And unless you tailor your DXF data to the quirks of each particular program's DXF importing code, you're going to lose that precious extra information that you might be able to squeeze through the eye of the DXF needle. Or more likely, you miss the eye of the needle completely and *no* information comes through. To do what you claim, you'll need copies of each of the 3D programs that you intend to work with (AutoCAD $3K, 3D Studio $3K, Wavefront $30K, Electric Image $8K, Strata $2K, etc.) So you're saying you own or have easy access to above-average PCs, Macs, and SGIs equipped with this software? There are plenty of reasons why Viewpoint sells models for $500 each. (Believe it or not, many of their models have no colors and no maps.) In my experience, modeling companies have been forced to adopt uniform cross-platform pricing because of the existence of translators, both those built-in to each 3D program plus standalone converters. Secondly, they soon learn that they need skilled operators for each platform they intend to support. I think you should address these questions before you start work on your corporate scholarship fund. ## Subject: mode promotion Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 8:30:40 -0600 (MDT) From: LESK@CC.SNOW.EDU Hello Adam; I am using a vga monitor and have not noticed a slowdown aon my 1200 unless I set my colors up then I wait a lot. I found that most applications like imagine and vertex and several others I have tend to stay in low res. I did find a program on the net that forced mode promotion of imagine and it seems to work great on my vga monitor but when I use certain brushmaps and render them they do not display well. using viewtek I can display most everything gifs iffs, etc. but jpeg stuff doesnt work. I even found some data types so I could use gifs and jpegs for workbench screens the gifs are fine. anyway if you want this little mode promoter when I get home I will write down the info and mail you the name etc. I really like it. Good Luck Lesk ## Subject: textures vs. memory Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 18:11:17 -0600 From: Steve Koren I know that if you have several objects each of which use the same brushmap, Imagine will load the brushmap N times instead of simply loading it once and using it in all places (which can waste a lot of RAM). [1] Does anyone know if this also holds true for textures? I have an object which has about 300 sub-objects, and currently about 75% of those have textures. It takes a whole lot of memory to render this. I know that I can probably trim down the number of textures quite a bit if I make several axis using the desired textures (with "apply to children" set) and then make my objects sub-objects of those. However, that has two negative effects: it prevents me from using another, more logical object grouping, and it requires a lot of work to modify the way it is set up now. So I would rather not do it if it isn't going to buy me anything. I half suspect that Imagine only loads textures once, no matter how many times they are used, but I don't really know. - steve [1] One could make this same argument about the stage editor. If you use an object more than once, there is no need to load it multiple times. Imagine could keep one copy in RAM, along with the size/location/alignment vectors for the copies, and just use pointers to the original data. In some cases, that would save a *lot* of RAM, I think. There might be problems here with cycle objects, but not for "normal" ones where the internal data is always the same and no effects are used to change the object's actual shape. ## Subject: Re: textures vs. memory Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1993 11:23:01 -0600 From: robin@robin.lausanne.sgi.com () On Sep 15, 6:11pm, Steve Koren wrote: > Subject: textures vs. memory > > I know that if you have several objects each of which use the same > brushmap, Imagine will load the brushmap N times instead of simply > loading it once and using it in all places (which can waste a lot of > RAM). [1] > > Does anyone know if this also holds true for textures? I have an object > which has about 300 sub-objects, and currently about 75% of those have > textures. It takes a whole lot of memory to render this. I know that I > can probably trim down the number of textures quite a bit if I make > several axis using the desired textures (with "apply to children" set) > and then make my objects sub-objects of those. However, that has two > negative effects: it prevents me from using another, more logical object > grouping, and it requires a lot of work to modify the way it is set up > now. So I would rather not do it if it isn't going to buy me anything. I did it. I had an object with more than 500 subobjects, all with the bump texture. In fact they were all rock blocks, assembled to be a kind of arena. As the rendering time was too long (about 70 hours per image on an A3000 with '040 accelerator, and ate too much memory (about 22 MB), I applied the bump texture to the parent axis, with Apply-to-children setting, and removed the texture on every object (took about 1 hour to do it). I DIDN'T NOTICED ANY DIFFERENCE, same time and same memory needs. So, I would advice you to not do it. If you have problems with the amount of memory it takes, and you are using brush maps, try to reduce their size. > >-- End of excerpt from Steve Koren Robin -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin Chytil, Staff Engineer Mediterranean Distribution Territory Silicon Graphics Vmail: 5-9389 Email: robin@lausanne.sgi.com Tel: +41 21 269737 Fax : +41 21 259184 \|/ @ @ ---------------------------------------------------oOO-(_)-OOo------- ## Subject: DPS PAR drive info Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 13:04:11 CDT From: drrogers@camelot.b24a.ingr.com (Dale R Rogers) Re: DPS PAR certified drives To interested parties, I just got off the phone with DPS about the drives that are certified with PAR. I ordered my PAR yesterday and now need to find a drive. The woman I spoke to said that ONLY the 3600A is certified to work with the PAR. I asked her about the discontined status of the 3600A and whether the ST-3655A replaces it now. She restated that ONLY the 3600A is certfied to work with the board. I asked her if it will be "a while" before another drive is certified. She said "yes". I did not press her to quantify "a while". I work in the software development arena and know full well what "a while" means. It's time to find a ST-3600A. David Watters, I got your response from last post, but I never got the information regarding the current price of the ST-3600A drive. Excuse me for posting a private message to the list. My private messages are either not getting to you, or your responses are not making it back to me. Please send me the drive price and contact information. Thanks, Dale _____________________________^_____________________________ dale r. rogers Building Design & Management MailStop: LR24A4 drrogers@b24a.b24a.ingr.com Tel: (205) 730-8294 . ## Subject: Re: Seagate ST-3600A HD? Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 17:00:22 EDT From: Mark Thompson > Yes, the 3600A has been discontinued. > However, it has been superceeded by the ST3655A. Same exact specs, except > for 1 less physical platter (thus a little faster). DPS is currently working on qualifying a newer bigger drive. %~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~% % ` ' 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: Imagine the next Generation Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 21:52:02 PDT From: ua197@freenet.victoria.bc.ca (Christopher Stewart) >Anyway, right now Essence I and II are only available for Imagine, so >that means that Imagine is the only system even worth considering, >imperfect although it may be :-) If the Apex folks port EI/II to R3D, >and R3D was cheap enough, I'd probably move. (Or alternately, a >standalone version of LW with EI/II). Impulse ought to be _awfully_ >nice to Apex though, because I suspect the only reason many people are >still using Imagine is because of Essence. > I'm one ;-). If it wasn't for Essence, I would have purchased Real3D awhile ago. As it is, my bank account is aiming for higher goals, Lightwave 3.0. Only a thousand or so to go 'til I have WORKING booleans . Don't get me wrong, I love Imagine but it hasen't kept up with the times. I'd miss the cycle editor though, sniff.... Perhaps Imagine 3.0 will change my mind and I'll get my dream deck instead, here's hoping.... Christopher ps. I've started an animation sig on the local freenet system. It's not really running up to snuff yet but comments would be appreciated. Anyone with telnet can join ;-). Address is in the sig (ua197). -- ....and if there be some harder, better way Dretch@cup.portal.com to salvation than to follow that which we cs833@cleveland.freenet.edu believe to be good, then are we all damned. ua197@freenet.victoria.bc.ca Lord Dunsany, "Dom Rodriguez" (1922). ## Subject: Re: T3DLIB, R39 Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 15:49:11 GMT From: glewis@pcocd2.intel.com (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~) [ For those of you on the IML, I thought this had enough useful information in it, possibly, to warrant posting to the IML. Forgive me, please, if you feel I was wrong. -- Glenn ] >>>>> "Theophil" == Theophil writes: Hi, Theophil! Theophil> Hallo Glenn I have get the T3Dlib from wustle, it seems ok. Theophil> I want to register with 25$ for your whole packages. I need Theophil> them like spheric... bump... very,very. Question : for Theophil> understanding your tools. With "spheric.." i can computing Theophil> for example a car-modell in a sphere with equal number of Theophil> points and with good morphing without crossing of faces and Theophil> edges - can i translate this sphere further to a plane ? I have not tried a morph, personally, after conforming an object to a sphere... But I don't see why this could not be done... And conforming to a plane should be equally easy... Here is what I would do: mbb < car.iob (note minimum bounding box... calculate center of car, X,Y,Z) spherize 100 100 100 < car.iob > sphere_car.ttddd readwrite -tddd < sphere_car.ttddd > sphere_car.iob copy sphere_car.ttddd sphere_plane.ttddd edit sphere_plane.ttddd (Then, pop up an editor, and perform a global search-and-replace make all the "Z=..." values so that they are "Z=0" or whatever value you want.) readwrite -tddd < sphere_plane.ttddd > sphere_plane.iob In fact, Theophil, if you would prefer, maybe you would like to send me a car object and I will perform the steps and send you the results so that you can test out my theory before you register? Or maybe I should try it on something here, like maybe a rook chesspiece or something, and send it to you? Theophil> Can you tell the way for paying the registering - it ias the Theophil> first time for me to send money to america - i don't know. Um, maybe an international money order or go to a bank and they can send a US check? I'm not exactly sure, but I know I have troubles converting other currency into US dollars here, so if it is possibly on your end, that would help tremendously. Theophil> It would be very nice , if you can send me your package per Theophil> e-mail in the next two tays. Paying is shure. No problem. In fact, I prefer e-mail if at all possible. Let me know if you would like me to perform the experiment first before you register. Theophil> I,m working on an honorable Insitut in Germany - you can Theophil> believe. Theophil> I'm happy to hear from you - Thanks Theophil> teo@iitb.fhg.de Theophil> my address: Fraunhofer-Institut IITB - Abt.IV Theophil> Fraunhoferstrasse 1 Karlsruhe (westgermany) Theophil> iitb means Institut for Informations an Dates Thanks, Theophil! I look forward to hearing your reply. -- Glenn ## Subject: SGI renderers and HD anim players Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1993 12:03:02 -0400 (EDT) From: "Mr. Scott Krehbiel; ACS (PC)" Hi all I know this info has been posted many times before, but I'm wondering what would be a good anim player for an A500 with a hard drive and 4.5 Megs ram - no accellerator. I'd like to take a look at that windmill anim, but it'd be a bit too long at 5.? megs. Also, I'm hoping to explore using PD renderers on all the SGIs here at school, and I was wondering about converting between Imagine, Wavefront, and something PD like Rayshade, or Raydance, or Radiance, or DKBtrace, or whatever. If any of you have experience in doing cross-platform rendering, especially using scripting for motion control and using PD renderers, please mail me. Also, is it possible to convert Imagine objects into ascii files?? I'm not a programmer yet, so I'm hoping there is a tool that will allow me to convert objects without writing a C program to do it. (Kinda like the ISL - but for objects) Thanks for any help Scott Krehbiel P.S. just wait till I finish this really cool X-Wing model I'm making - I'm measuring a styrene model with a micrometer, and putting in all the detail I can. Pretty soon, I hope to demonstrate that the Enterprise 1701D would be absolutely NO MATCH for a Star Destroyer. ## Subject: Re: SGI renderers and HD anim players Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 19:43:28 GMT From: glewis@pcocd2.intel.com (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~) >>>>> "Dan" == Daniel Jr Murrell writes: >> Also, is it possible to convert Imagine objects into ascii files?? >> I'm not a programmer yet, so I'm hoping there is a tool that will >> allow me to convert objects without writing a C program to do it. >> (Kinda like the ISL - but for objects) Dan> Look for Glenn Lewis's T3D package. It should be what you need, Dan> although there is no direct Wavefront converter (yet?) It Dan> shouldn't be too hard to write, but he's probably too busy with Dan> Essence. :) Actually, I am just now adding tddd2r3d (Real3D), because a few people have asked for it. I haven't looked at the Wavefront format, but I'll at least take a look at it before releasing R40 of T3DLIB. While I'm here, please don't anybody spread R38... it is busted. Get R39 (there is one known bug in MBB... doesn't calculate center or size correctly, but gives the MBB correctly so you can easily figure it out. Stupidity on my part... I've fixed MBB for R40). -- Glenn ## Subject: Re: SGI renderers and HD anim players Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 16:05:23 EDT From: charles lee >Good anim player for A500, etc... Well, try getting the MainActor1.15 demo. It allows playback (save disabled) at very good speeds. But, since you want to look at the Windmill anim, try either RTAP (Sebastiano Vigna) or BigAnim, which can be found on Aminet. BigAnim is more recent of the direct-from-hard-drive players, so try that.... >Cross platform rendering... Ok... We have Rayshade 4.0.6 compiled for our SGI's and here are your options: 1) Try Glenn Lewis's T3D libraries/converters. They can read Imagine 2.0 binary objects and output to: .dxf, .nff, .pov .ray, .mif, .off, .ps and .vort formats... I've only used the .ray for rayshade (and the .ps for a cute triview in Postscript format.) This package will obviously convert Imagine objects to ASCII too... Personally, I used it to import atomic coordinates for rendering in Imagine.. :) 2) I think Vertex (the latest demo is also on Aminet) allows for direct saving in Rayshade format. Some other formats too, if I remember.... Personally, I'd go with T3D lib... If you convert HUGE objects, I suggest pumping up the stack size to.. oh 50000 bytes and up. I remember loading up a very large protein that required a stack of 100000 or my machine would crash and burn. :) Have fun! o---------------------------o--------------------------o----------------o | Charles Lee |A3KT-VT4000-PP&S28Mhz68040| FocuS GraphicS | | IRC: waif GEnie: C.LEE4 |38MB RAM-USRDUAL-Syquest88|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | Fortress /\ M | G /\ |QLPS52-ST3283-JX100-NEC3FG| Call for rates | | Brandeis University |<>| 617-891-1367 | o---------------------------o--------------------------o----------------o ## Subject: PC animation HD player Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1993 17:56:42 +0600 (CST) From: Robert Lewis OK, I don't have an Amiga (I was a dummy, I wasn't breast-fed long enough or something, whatever). I have the Imagine for PC and want to run animation from my 1 GB hardrive through a NTSC convertor/encoder to a tape drive. Besides asking Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy for an Amiga 4000, what can I try to do this? Does anyone know of anyone working on this? rlewisjr@feenix.metronet.com ## Subject: T3Dlib Date: 17 Sep 93 20:39:00 EST From: "Ross Knepper" <95RKNEPPER@vax.mbhs.edu> This T3Dlib... Can I use it to make my own objects and import them into Imagine, such as a 3D graph or something? Where can I find it? Thanks! --Ross Knepper ## Subject: Re: T3Dlib Date: Sat, 18 Sep 93 05:43:33 GMT From: glewis@pcocd2.intel.com (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~) >>>>> On 17 Sep 93 20:39:00 EST, "Ross Knepper" <95RKNEPPER@vax.mbhs.edu> said: Ross> This T3Dlib... Can I use it to make my own objects and import them into Ross> Imagine, such as a 3D graph or something? Ross> Where can I find it? Ross> Thanks! Yes you can. I believe it should be on ftp.wustl.edu, but haven't checked in a long while... you must get R39, though. Don't settle for less. :-) One word of caution is probably in order... although the T3DLIB package comes with a number of useful utilities for manipulating objects and converting them to/from ASCII text for easy manual or algorithmic manipulation, if you want to delve into making objects or scenes from scratch, you may want to have some programming experience in any language (preferably C) that can read/write ASCII files. If you wish to link directly with the t3d.lib SAS/C library, then of course, you need SAS/C or you can remake the library with whatever compiler on whatever machine. But you can still do interesting things without being a programmer, and I've even included documentation on the utilities in the last release. :-) Oh, and I've heard of a lot of people copying "t3d.lib" to "LIBS:t3d.library"... there is no need... it is for linking only... it is not a dynamic shared library. :-) One more thing... there are several really nice companion programs available that compliment T3DLIB quite nicely, even if they don't interface directly to it. But the following will give you a nice arsenal of utilities for your creative endeavors. All are either PD or Shareware... (please forgive me, authors, if I forget to mention all) But check out Vertex, ISL, ICoons, IgenSurf, hmmm... I know there are more... those are on the top of my mind right now. Enough babbling. Enjoy. -- Glenn ## Subject: RE: Imagine the next Generation Date: Sat, 18 Sep 93 19:36:27 PDT From: ua197@freenet.victoria.bc.ca (Christopher Stewart) > > >> >> ps. I've started an animation sig on the local freenet system. It's not >> really running up to snuff yet but comments would be appreciated. Anyone >> with telnet can join ;-). Address is in the sig (ua197). >> > > Hey! Where is it? I was thinking about adding one on freenet too... >but I don't have the time. > > mbc@po.CWRU.Edu Just telnet to freenet.victoria.bc.ca and login as "guest". You won't have write privvies until you send a letter to the organization (just like CWRU's freenet) but at least it's free. I'll be posting as many faq's and related material as I can get my hands on (which, admittedly, isn't much yet). My goal is to start an animation society here (a pretty small city on an island in the north pacific), something along the lines of a small resourse group. No files yet but I'm negotiating with an internet connected facility for a little room. Christopher ps. If anyone has any faq's, animation tips, lists of refrences etc that might be useful (this SIG is non-system specific and supports traditional animation as well), PLEASE, PLEASE (enough begging) let me know where I can find them or mail me a copy. Tanks a bundle. -- ....and if there be some harder, better way Dretch@cup.portal.com to salvation than to follow that which we cs833@cleveland.freenet.edu believe to be good, then are we all damned. ua197@freenet.victoria.bc.ca Lord Dunsany, "Dom Rodriguez" (1922). ## Subject: SIlver Texture & Morphin Date: Sat, 18 Sep 93 21:40:00 PDT From: Jeff.Saffold@lookout.com (Jeff Saffold) So, has anyone come up with a good value(s) for good looking silver? I have been trying to do this, but have had no luck so far.:( Also, wanting to make a cool anim like Terminator 2, I took cycleman, Joined him, and made a flat plane that had the same # of points, faces, and edges, and attempted to morph them together.. Unfortunately, the result look like a mess.. ANy suggestions?? One last thing, I keep hearing mention of "Imagine Units", what exactly is that? After reading a bit in the Imagine manual, I decided to give that part up. ANd I have Steve Worley's Understanding Imagine 2 manual, but alas, I haven't read it completely.. So, could someone please enlighten me?? ... We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it. ___ X MsgView V1.13 [R029] X -- ******************************************************************************* * Cuerna Verde BBS FidoNet Gateway Data/Fax: 1-719-545-8572 * * Pueblo, Colorado USA FidoNet: 1:307/18 * ******************************************************************************* ## Subject: Imagine3 release date? Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 02:51:00 -0400 From: rosario.salfi@canrem.com (Rosario Salfi) Well, I know for a fact that it has passed the Beta testing stage (a friend was doing some beta testing for Mike Halvorson). This was about a month ago, so the release time is unknown. HOWEVER, Mike has stated plain and clearly that Imagine 3.0 will NOT support Essence textures. They are/have expanded their own texture library to make up for this, but I can't see them beating Steve Worley's work...which causes me distress to say the least. ## Subject: Essence Idea Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 03:38:00 -0400 From: rosario.salfi@canrem.com (Rosario Salfi) MESSAGE PASSED ALONG FOR PAUL THOMPSON: Hi Steve! Got an idea for an essence texture...actually, a variant on the Burnish texture. It would be nice (and true to form) if there was a radial variation. More and more I'm noticing circular metal (mostly stainless steel) items and the burnish is circular. Any chance this can make it into some update or a future release? Putting together some neat attribute files for you. Send 'em to you soon! Paul END OF MESSAGE ## Subject: object file format Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 13:17:59 METDST From: arijan@ninurta.fer.uni-lj.si (Arijan Siska) Hi! I would like to write an ImagineObject to MyOwnObjectFormat convertor, so I need to know the file format of Imagine object files. Can you help me? (for both PC and Amiga versions if possible please) Arijan ## Subject: Imagine3 release date? Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 07:39:17 -0600 From: Steve Koren > HOWEVER, Mike has stated plain and clearly that Imagine 3.0 will NOT > support Essence textures. They are/have expanded their own texture That would be a bad move on their part - I really can't see them matching all of Essence I and II with their own textures. And even if they do, there are lots of old projects which I would no longer be able to render unless I changed all the textures to new ones. Perhaps Essence owners should all write to Impulse and say, "Hey, look, if you won't expend a little effort to work with Apex on this stuff, then it means we simply won't upgrade to 3.0 until there is a version of Essence that works. This takes money out of your pocketbook, so you might want to re-think your position a little." If we do that, perhaps it'll have an effect on 4.0. Really, "upgrading" to a version of Imagine without Essence, no matter what nifty features they add, is going to be a big step backwards. I'm not sure if Impulse realizes this, but that _is_ enough to stop me from upgrading. Of course, it remains to be seen whether the above is true. Maybe we'll luck out and the Essence textures will continue to work. The last Impulse newsletter did mention changes to their texture/brushmap stuff (such as the ability to load more than 4 of each without having to mess with grouped axis), but I suppose it is an open question whether these changes will break old textures. - steve ## Subject: Essence & Imagine 3.0 Date: Mon Sep 20 12:12:23 1993 From: Siderean@debug.cuc.ab.ca If indead Essence I and II textures do not function with Imagine 3.0, I am sure that it is because of the increased flexibility and functionality that the 3.0 texture format brings. Impulse has stated that when "things are set in stone" that they will share all file formats with anyone who asks for them. I would assume that Apex is included in that "curious" group, and I'm sure that those of us with some programing talent will wish to explore this option as well. Some sacrifice is almost always neccessary if advances are to be made (look at KS 1.3 to 2.04) Cheers ## Subject: Re: Imagine3 release date? Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 16:01:21 GMT From: glewis@pcocd2.intel.com (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~) >>>>> "David" == David A Rollins writes: David> Hello Rosario Salfi, >> HOWEVER, Mike has stated plain and clearly that Imagine 3.0 will >> NOT support Essence textures. They are/have expanded their own >> texture library to make up for this, but I can't see them beating >> Steve Worley's work...which causes me distress to say the least. David> I am sure that the geniuses at Apex will simply port Essence to David> the new version. David> Any comments from the guys at Apex? Well, Steve and Charles are the geniuses (:-), but I can tell you for a fact that we have not yet received any information about the 3.0 textures either. So I guess we all will just have to wait and see what gets delivered. -- Glenn ## Subject: Re: SIlver Texture & Morphin Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 07:33:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug Kelly On Sat, 18 Sep 1993, Jeff Saffold wrote: > > Also, wanting to make a cool anim like Terminator 2, I took cycleman, > Joined him, and made a flat plane that had the same # of points, > faces, and edges, and attempted to morph them together.. > Unfortunately, the result look like a mess.. ANy suggestions?? > You need to make several intermediate objects. Straight morphing from a flat floor plane to a standing Cycleman figure means that the tip of the left little finger, for instance, will follow a straight-line path from some point on the floor to the final position. What you want is some amorphous blob, where the main body extrudes up out of the center of the floor, THEN extrudes the arms and head. Making these intermdiate objects is tedious, but the only way I know to get good-looking organic morphs. The easiest way I've found for making them is to push the Cycleman parts around using the Magnetism function, with a radius of about 1/10 the height of the figure. Push the hand back into the forearm, the forearm back into the upper arm, the arm back into the shoulder, etc., until you finally push the entire compressed torso down through the ankles (which should be flattened out into the floor plane by then). > One last thing, I keep hearing mention of "Imagine Units", what > exactly is that? After reading a bit in the Imagine manual, I decided > to give that part up. ANd I have Steve Worley's Understanding Imagine > 2 manual, but alas, I haven't read it completely.. So, could someone > please enlighten me?? > Arbitrary units. I usually make objects at the scale 1 Imagine unit=1 centimeter, just for convenience, but the scale you use will depend on what size object/scene you're doing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Doug Kelly Information Specialist First Consulting Group dakelly@class.org (310)595-5291x125 P.O.Box 5161, Los Alamitos,CA 90721-5161 "The difference between genius and stupidity: genius has its limits." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ## Subject: Re: SIlver Texture & Morphin Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 12:22:24 -0700 From: stevez@rhythm.com (Steve Ziolkowski) Yeah. For that terminator 2 effect, take your human figure, put the axis at it's feet, save it, and then scale him in z so it's flat. When you morph this, all the points correspond properly. The problem is, it's a linear morph so it won't look quite natural. steveZ ## Subject: Re: object file format Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 15:54:00 GMT From: glewis@pcocd2.intel.com (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~) >>>>> "Arijan" == Arijan Siska writes: Arijan> Hi! I would like to write an ImagineObject to Arijan> MyOwnObjectFormat convertor, so I need to know the file format Arijan> of Imagine object files. Can you help me? (for both PC and Arijan> Amiga versions if possible please) Sure. Check out T3DLIB (formerly known as TTDDDLIB), and make sure you get revision R39. Actually, people have told me that they can't find it on any FTP site, so if you can't either, send me e-mail and I'll e-mail you the source and the Amiga executables. A number of converters already exist, and a document is included that describes the TDDD format, and the library itself (T3D.LIB) allows your programs to simply link into it (using SAS/C, or you can rebuild the library on any platform/compiler combination), and automatically you have all of the conversion capabilities included in the package available to your own C code... Simply load in an Imagine object, and then you can traverse the structures to write out your own. This is how I rather easily add new converters every now and then to the package. T3DLIB is shareware, by the way, authored by myself. -- Glenn Lewis ## Subject: Re: SIlver Texture & Morphin Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 15:38:02 GMT From: glewis@pcocd2.intel.com (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~) >>>>> "Jeff" == Jeff Saffold writes: Jeff> Also, wanting to make a cool anim like Terminator 2, I took Jeff> cycleman, Joined him, and made a flat plane that had the same # Jeff> of points, faces, and edges, and attempted to morph them Jeff> together.. Unfortunately, the result look like a mess.. ANy Jeff> suggestions?? What you need to do is have two objects with the exact same topology... all points correspond to each other, in the same grouped hierarchy. All edges correspond to each other, and all faces correspond to each other. The only way I know to achieve this is to copy the original object to another, and modify the second object to make the final version. If I'm not mistaken, there are some programs out there that will help you with this, such as Morphus (I hear), and T3DLIB (I wrote). I haven't tried this with a cycle object, but flattened a rook and also made a sphere out of the rook, and the new objects looked fine, but I actually haven't tried morphing them. (I recently posted about this.) There should be no problem, though, because only the location of the points changed from the original. -- Glenn ## Subject: Re: Imagine3 release date? Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 16:51:18 -0500 (EST) From: sacke@ecn.purdue.edu (Jeff Hanna) Before we all fly off the handle and begin to boycott Impulse, we should take a look at what 3.0 has to offer. Does the new texture system offer a _significant_ technological increase over the existing one? What I mean is, did Impulse change their texture format for the sake of improving the entire texture system, or did they do it just to make it so Essence doesn't work? If the change was to make an improvement in the overall functionality of the texture system, then I will go ahead and upgrade, and prey that Steve and Co. will re-work Essence I and II to execute under the new system. If the new system has no improvement over the old system, and the change was some self-motivated B.S, then I will stick with 2.0 and consider getting Real3D and/or LightRave-Lightwave3D. Jeff Hanna ## Subject: Re: Where to find T3DLIB Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 22:19:18 GMT From: glewis@pcocd2.intel.com (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~) Since several people have been asking lately where it is, and Charles found it for me (thanks, Charles!), I thought I would share this info with the IML: -- Glenn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Glenn: T3DLIB R39 may be found in the boing directory tree on ftp.wustl.edu, parallel the aminet tree, under video/utils. The full path is something like systems/amiga/boing/video/utils. Aminet is systems/amiga/aminet. ./video/utils: -rw-rw-r-- 1 tucker arc_amiga 13728 Feb 15 1993 T3DLIB_R39.readme -rw-rw-r-- 1 tucker arc_amiga 360692 Feb 15 1993 T3DLIB_Exe_R39.lha -rw-rw-r-- 1 tucker arc_amiga 98335 Feb 15 1993 T3DLIB_Src_R39.lha ## Subject: Re: SIlver Texture & Morphin Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 12:30:19 CDT From: Wayne Haufler > >>>>> "Jeff" == Jeff Saffold writes: > > Jeff> Also, wanting to make a cool anim like Terminator 2, I took > Jeff> cycleman, Joined him, and made a flat plane that had the same # > Jeff> of points, faces, and edges, and attempted to morph them > Jeff> together.. Unfortunately, the result look like a mess.. ANy > Jeff> suggestions?? > Maybe this idea is way too simplistic to work well, or it might not result in the desired affect but ... how about morphing the cycleman object's Z scale, so that his height (only) shrinks down to nearly nothing? If his axis is at ground level, he should shrink properly, but not smoothly spread out into a plane. Then again, I haven't actually seen the movie (T2) myself, sorry to say. __ \\ /\\ /\\ //_ Wayne A. Haufler [Christian/SW Engineer/XWindows/Amigan] \/--\// \//__ haufler@pat.mdc.com McDonnell Douglas-Houston // Hobby: "Computer Animations For Christian Endeavors" GodlyGraphics mailing list: GG-request@acs.harding.edu ## Subject: Re: Essence & Imagine 3.0 Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 19:58:52 GMT From: glewis@pcocd2.intel.com (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~) >>>>> "> Siderean" == Siderean writes: >> If indead Essence I and II textures do not function with >> Imagine 3.0, I am sure that it is because of the increased >> flexibility and functionality that the 3.0 texture format >> brings. Impulse has stated that when "things are set in >> stone" that they will share all file formats with anyone >> who asks for them. I would assume that Apex is included >> in that "curious" group, and I'm sure that those of us >> with some programing talent will wish to explore this >> option as well. Some sacrifice is almost always >> neccessary if advances are to be made (look at KS 1.3 to >> 2.04) OK, I have heard this argument a couple of times now on the IML, and have remained silent in the past. But I'm afraid that I must speak out, or I will go insane. :-) As a programmer (and one who knows the internal structure of Imagine textures), I feel that there is no reason to not support the previous textures. To those who don't know (and this is key information to my argument...), Impulse had the foresight to embed a revision number in the textures so that Imagine can first check the revision number to make sure that they are the textures revision that it expects to find. This is how we simultaneously support three different renderer with Essence I&II... if the renderer says that it is Turbo Silver, we move things around a big and say "Sure, we can support you, Turbo Silver." Same for Imagine 0.9-1.1. Same for Imagine 2.0. Now, back to the "as a programmer" part, there is no reason why the renderer can't do the same thing... First, attempt to check if the texture supports the new-whizbang-maybe-better-3.0-version of textures. If not, then check if the texture supports Imagine 2.0 version of the textures (EssenceI&II, for example). If the texture returns "Yes", then go ahead and use it as a 2.0 texture. The only reason not to do this is that it might be a bit more work, and it may increase the renderer's exacutable size by a few hundred bytes. But this is nothing compared to... what, 680K? OK, I've said my peace. If I were writing the renderer, I would support previous texture versions. But since I'm not, well, you get the picture. -- Glenn ## Subject: Re: Essence Idea Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 0:23:03 CDT From: kirchh@cc.umanitoba.ca Rosario Salfi writes: > Hi Steve! Got an idea for an essence texture...actually, a variant on > the Burnish texture. It would be nice (and true to form) if there was a > radial variation. More and more I'm noticing circular metal (mostly > stainless steel) items and the burnish is circular... If you mean what I think you mean, this is just a trick of the light. I noticed this again when I was sitting at a bar with a stainless steel top a couple of days ago -- circular burnish patterns, except they moved to follow my head. Closer inspection revealed that the scratches in the steel were random, and the "circles" were simply appearing around the reflections of the overhead lights. Since this is a light effect, couldn't this be reproduced with Imagine and Essence somehow (I'm just guessing, since I haven't used Essence)? -- Evan Kirchhoff, kirchh@ccu.umanitoba.ca ## Subject: How to model semisphere Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1993 09:06:00 -0400 From: roy.park@canrem.com (Roy Park) Hello... I was wondering how I could create a smooth surfaced, FILLED semi-sphere WITHOUT losing the SHARP circular edge. I was trying turning the phong on and off and all that, but I can't figure it out!! When I turn the phong on, it looks very rounded and smooth but I'd lose the SHARP cross-section edge. Any solution to this?? ---- Roy Park // roy.park@canrem.com A3000@25 \X/ 1st yr UofW Comp.Eng. APO/SparX ## Subject: Re: object file format Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 14:49:59 GMT From: glewis@pcocd2.intel.com (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~) >>>>> "Mike" == m stortz1 writes: Mike> Sure, that's great for Amiga users. How about a PC version of Mike> T3DLIB, or failing that, the originally requested file format Mike> info? Us PC guys just want to have fun... What about a PC Mike> version of Essence? Are we waiting for 3.0? Whups... my apologies... I was highly confident that my modified version of the original "TDDD.doc" was in one of those archives, and I just looked, wondering what you were complaining about, and it isn't there. Since it is large-ish, whoever would like it, just send me e-mail. As for your other comments, sir, I already stated I am currently laboring on the PC version of Essence (pain in the proverbial butt), and after I finish that, I will whip out DJGPP and compile T3DLIB (which any one else could do in the mean-time). -- Glenn ## Subject: Re: How to model semisphere Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 17:46:42 +0200 From: wilmart@cnam.cnam.fr Hello roy, To solve your problem use the functions MAKE SHARP on the circular edge of your semi-sphere. Don't forget to create your object with phong on. bye. ## Subject: Circular Metal Burnish Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1993 15:30:52 +0000 From: "Rob (R.D.) Hounsell" Forwarded message: > > Rosario Salfi writes: > > Hi Steve! Got an idea for an essence texture...actually, a variant on > > the Burnish texture. It would be nice (and true to form) if there was a > > radial variation. More and more I'm noticing circular metal (mostly > > stainless steel) items and the burnish is circular... > > If you mean what I think you mean, this is just a trick of the light. > I noticed this again when I was sitting at a bar with a stainless > steel top a couple of days ago -- circular burnish patterns, except . . . There IS a type of metal finish that is made of circles (typically all the same diameter, althought the diameter depends on the scale of the object) that are polished or ground (burnished?) into the surface. The circles overlap to some extent to ensure that all the surface is covered. I remember a tip from one of my home shop books saying that a pencil clamped in a drill press chuck (eraser end down) could be used to make this effect on small objects very nicely. Can't remember what the finish is called, though. I believe the idea is that it doesn't show fingerprints, etc., although it is attractive in itself. Rob -- +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Rob Hounsell BNR WAN: HOUNSELL@NMERH53 | | Team Leader: UNIX INTERNET: HOUNSELL@BNR.CA | | Global Product Performance: PHONE: (613) 765-2904 | | Paradigm Club Design Team. Dept. PS27 ESN: 395-2904 | | Northern Telecom Public Switching | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ## Subject: Re: How to model semisphere Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 10:11:23 -0700 From: stevez@rhythm.com (Steve Ziolkowski) make sharp. problem solved. go into pick edges, select all edges that lie on the circular edge, then hit make sharp. steveZ ## Subject: Re: How to model semisphere Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1970 18:08:50 -0600 From: robin@robin.lausanne.sgi.com () On Sep 25, 9:06am, Roy Park wrote: > Subject: How to model semisphere > Hello... I was wondering how I could create a smooth surfaced, FILLED > semi-sphere WITHOUT losing the SHARP circular edge. > > I was trying turning the phong on and off and all that, but I can't > figure it out!! When I turn the phong on, it looks very rounded and smooth > but I'd lose the SHARP cross-section edge. > > Any solution to this?? > > ---- > Roy Park // roy.park@canrem.com > A3000@25 \X/ 1st yr UofW Comp.Eng. > > APO/SparX > > >-- End of excerpt from Roy Park I have 2 solutions to that problem : 1) I use that solution with Imagine 1, has it had not the feature included with 2.0 (see below). All you have to do is to make half a sphere (open) and group it with a disk, that clodse the hemisphere. 2) There is an easier way now in I2.0 : make the hemisphere smooth, then go in Edge mode, select all the flat part of the hemisphere and use Make Sharp Edges function. That's it ! Robin -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin Chytil, Staff Engineer Mediterranean Distribution Territory Silicon Graphics Vmail: 5-9389 Email: robin@lausanne.sgi.com Tel: +41 21 269737 Fax : +41 21 259184 \|/ @ @ ---------------------------------------------------oOO-(_)-OOo------- ## Subject: Re: How to model semisphere Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 12:25:28 -0400 From: mbc@po.CWRU.Edu (Michael B. Comet) > >Hello... I was wondering how I could create a smooth surfaced, FILLED >semi-sphere WITHOUT losing the SHARP circular edge. > >I was trying turning the phong on and off and all that, but I can't >figure it out!! When I turn the phong on, it looks very rounded and smooth >but I'd lose the SHARP cross-section edge. > >Any solution to this?? Assuming Imagine 2.0 or greater for the edges you wish to "Make Sharp" just pick them and do a functions, make sharp command. Leave phong shading on. -- /* * Michael B. Comet, mbc@po.CWRU.Edu, CWRU Software Engineer/Graphics Artist * "And on the 7th day G-d Ray Traced..." */ ## Subject: Re: How to model semisphere Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 10:06:12 PDT From: ua197@freenet.victoria.bc.ca (Christopher Stewart) > >Hello... I was wondering how I could create a smooth surfaced, FILLED >semi-sphere WITHOUT losing the SHARP circular edge. > >I was trying turning the phong on and off and all that, but I can't >figure it out!! When I turn the phong on, it looks very rounded and smooth >but I'd lose the SHARP cross-section edge. > >Any solution to this?? > In the details editor, under the functions menu is the make selector. Two of these are "make sharp" and "make soft". Apply the former to the circular edge and perhaps the entire face of the semi-sphere. Problem with applying it to the edge is that you'll see the outline of the polygons. Perhaps just sharpening the base first might be the route to follow. Good luck, -- ....and if there be some harder, better way Dretch@cup.portal.com to salvation than to follow that which we cs833@cleveland.freenet.edu believe to be good, then are we all damned. ua197@freenet.victoria.bc.ca Lord Dunsany, "Dom Rodriguez" (1922). ## Subject: How to model semisphere Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 02:11:00 -0400 From: rosario.salfi@canrem.com (Rosario Salfi) The solution, if I understand you correctly, is a simple one... provided you have Imagine 2.0 (or better 8^) First, turn phong shading on. Then select PICK EDGES. Using the DRAG BOX, select the "disk" of points that makes up the cut portion of the semi-sphere (make sure to hold the shift key down for multi-select). Then, when all the edges on the disk have been selected, choose MAKE SHARP from the FUNCTIONS menu. Then save and render as usual. This will turn phong shading off for those edges, causing them to be sharp. I've used the same idea several times, especially on the front faces of extruded fonts. Hope it helps you! ## Subject: RE: No pressure to release 3.0? Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 09:18:57 CDT From: dave@flip.sp.paramax.com (Dave Wickard) NOTE: This post was sent to the imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com address and is being forwarded to the list by me. Please be certain when replying to IML posts that your REPLY function is grabbing the correct address: imagine@email.sp.paramax.com If not, be certain to either change the address, or at least Cc: a copy there. Thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com Subject: No pressure to release 3.0? From: marino@mindvox.phantom.com (Paul Marino) Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 23:01:38 EDT Organization: [MindVox] / Phantom Access Technologies / (+1 800-MindVox) A while back someone (forgive me; I don't remember who) posted a message stating that Impulse did not feel pressure to release 3.0. While I can understand the concept of keeping pressure at bay so one can really concentrate on one's work, I find that having a "no pressure" attitude towards their release a bit disheartening. I, as a supporter of their products, feel that they should realize & confront this situation. This is for their benefit as well as our own. Pressure is what keeps the products such as Imagine on its toes and consistently upgrading in light of their competitors. If Impulse continually feels that "pressure" isn't something that they need to address, then I predict Impulse will not have as many of their customers coming back for an upgrade that had been promised for months. Plenty of us will have moved onto a similar product that meets our needs and gives in to our "pressure". - Paul Marino ## Subject: Re: Essence I & II Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 15:53:46 GMT From: glewis@pcocd2.intel.com (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~) Lesk> Does anyone know if essence is different than essence I? Yes, I am familiar with these products... Essence I and Essence II are definitely different. Completely. Lesk> I bought essence some time ago but didn't realize there were 2 Lesk> or more... Yes, just two for now... Lesk> I tried to get in contact via email but no response. Hmmm, that is very odd. The President and CEO of Apex Software Publishing is Steven P. Worley, and his e-mail address is: spworley@netcom.com. Or you can mail to me, and I will pass the messages along to him if I can not directly answer them. Lesk> Is essence II an upgrade from essence I? It is a completely new package. All new textures, everything. Pretty awesome, too, I might add, but I am very biased. :-) Lesk> Thanks, Lesk Lesk> P.S. is there an oolite in II? Ummm, you lost me there. An "oolite"? Sorry, I dunno. -- Glenn ## Subject: Re: Essence I & II Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 10:08:20 PDT From: "Charles Congdon" Lesk: Essence II is completely different from Essence I. It contains over 40 brand-new textures, over a third of which use never-published algorithms to produce an organic "randomly-tiled" surface. Believe me, you've never seen algorithmic textures like these before. Essence I and II presently work with Imagine 2.0 and below. Support for Imagine 3.0 and other renderers is in the works, upgrade policy to be determined :). If you are an Essence user and have sent in your registration card, you should be on the Apex Newsletter mailing list, which will announce such information when available. Cheers, Charles (Standard Disclaimer) ## Subject: Picture Tracing Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 20:25:03 +0200 (MET DST) From: delpsn@cs.umu.se I've got serious trouble in tracing logotypes (1bp IFFs). I need best possible quality and often, the tracing procedure can take up to an hour before I get the desired result. This is caused by the #$@! damn bug in Imagine's tracing algorithms and the fact that PixPro/Pixel3d is real hard to use. My IFFs are often quite large. Anybody having tips and hints? *How can I get rid of Intersecting bugs (very strange behaviour!) *How can I trace with good result with PixPRO (requires LOTS of fiddling?!) *Can I convert ProDraw Clips? I think these are well known problems among Imagine users and probably, they're FAQs? Well, every single help I can get is appreciated!! /Per Swantesson ## Subject: Re: Essence I & II Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 13:10:59 -0600 From: Steve Koren > Lesk> P.S. is there an oolite in II? GL> Ummm, you lost me there. An "oolite"? Sorry, I dunno. I was curious too. According to Webster: oolite n. 1. a small, oval, calcareous grain occurring esp. in dolomites and limestone. 2. Rock, usu. limestone, composed mainly of oolites. You can probably make it using some combination of the Essence textures. Might have to play around a little to get it to look right though. - steve ## Subject: Re: Essence I & II Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 19:59:10 GMT From: glewis@pcocd2.intel.com (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~) >>>>> "Steve" == Steve Koren writes: Lesk> P.S. is there an oolite in II? GL> Ummm, you lost me there. An "oolite"? Sorry, I dunno. Steve> I was curious too. According to Webster: Steve> oolite n. 1. a small, oval, calcareous grain occurring esp. in Steve> dolomites and limestone. 2. Rock, usu. limestone, composed Steve> mainly of oolites. Fascinating! Thanks, Steve, for the lookup. :-) I know that Steve Worley has included a slew of gnarly-looking (sorry, best way I know to describe them :-) rocks and flagstones in Essence II. Please take a look at the sample JPEGs on Aminet, I believe, for Essence II... you will see a nice selection, and I have no doubt you can make the textures look like any kind of *-ites you want, with a bit of experimentation. (Last I checked, I saw the Essence II JPEG samples on ftp.wustl.edu in /pub/mirrors/amiga.physik.unizh.ch/gfx/... somewhere, but the site is down now so I can't check.) -- Glenn ## Subject: Re: Picture Tracing Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 17:12:00 -0400 From: j#d#.moore@canrem.com (J. Moore) D> *Can I convert ProDraw Clips? D> I think these are well known problems among Imagine users and probably, D> they're FAQs? D> Well, every single help I can get is appreciated!! This is only helpful if you know someone with either Aladdin 4D (or Draw 4D Pro): they import EPS files (from ProDraw, ProVector, and Art Expressions) and these could be saved and converted with PixelPro (or saved as geo files (VideoScape ASCII files -- Lightwave imports them; I don't know about Imagine). I don't suppose it's exactly what you're looking for, but it would work and do a very good job -- a lot quicker than what you've described. * Q-Blue v0.7 [NR] * ## Subject: imagine info Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 16:27:56 -0700 (PDT) From: Adam Heath Clark i'm interested in buying imagine, but i've never seen it (none of the stores i talked to had it up and running on a computer) and impulse says that if i buy it and don't like it, tough. i was wondering whether anybody had any screen shots, in-depth reviews, or anything else that might help me. thanks adam rubble@leland.stanford.edu ## Subject: Pegger Press Release Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 18:19:51 PDT From: Chris_Lynn_Minshall@cup.portal.com Press Release For Immediate Release For More Information Contact: Chris Minshall Heifner Communications, Inc. 4451 I-70 Drive NW Columbia, MO 65202 (800) 445-6164 (voice) (314) 445-6163 (voice) (314) 445-0757 (fax) PEGGER, Automated JPEG Image Compression Software (Columbia, MO -- September 10, 1993) Heifner Communications is now shipping a new software utility for the Amiga line of personal computers and Video Toaster workstations. PEGGER is a fully integrated JPEG utility based on the compression algorithm from the Joint Photographers Experts Group. PEGGER allows programs that don't support JPEG images to work automatically with them. Everything from 3D animation systems to graphic and multi-media programs greatly benefit from the enormous savings in hard drive space PEGGERS JPEG compression provides. PEGGERs Snoop capability automates the JPEG processing for programs that don't support JPEG, such as Electronic Arts Deluxe Paint AGA, the NewTek Video Toaster, so they can load or save JPEG files. Literally any program on the Amiga that supports the loading and saving of images in the IFF 24 bit, DCTV, HAM8, or Newtek Framestore formats will now be able to transparently load and save JPEG format images using PEGGER. PEGGER runs seamlessly in the background, compressing and decompressing files as needed. Your 100 MB 24 bit or HAM8 library can be compressed to under 10 MB and your applications won't even know it. A 50 MB hard drive can now hold more than 1000 frames of high resolution 24 bit files instead of just 60 or 70 frames. PEGGER does it's job in just seconds; we have optimized the JPEG code for the Amiga. The JPEG compress, decompress, and selection of files to process run completely independent of each other. This allows both compression and decompression of files at the same time, with the ability to adjust the priority of each. A cue list of files awaiting processing is maintained so that you can select additional files to process while PEGGER is busy in the background processing your previous selections. In addition to selecting individual files to process, entire directories of files can be set up to be batch processed. You can have PEGGER execute an ARexx script prior to and after JPEG processing of a file. This allows the integration of PEGGERs powerful batch processing capabilities with other applications which support ARexx. For example, using an ARexx script to load a frame buffer and activate a single frame recorder after JPEG decompression of an image. The JPEG processing is performed on a small portion of the file at a time, so PEGGER doesn't need megabytes of RAM to hold the entire image before processing can begin. A 2000 by 3000 pixel 24 bit image takes almost 30 MB of system RAM to JPEG compress or decompress with current Amiga programs. With PEGGER, less than 1 MB of system RAM is needed. Designed to run in the background, and when idle, uses few system resources. Even if your computer were to crash while PEGGER was processing files, when restarted, PEGGER will continue processing the files where it was interrupted. Features: ARexx support. Support for NewTek Framestore, 24 bit IFF, DCTV, and HAM8 images. PEGGER can process images up to 32000 pixels wide using less than 4 MB of system RAM. AmigaDOS 2.0 & 3.0 compatible. Follows all AmigaDOS programming guidelines. Adjustable priority for JPEG compression and decompression. Pegger is designed to multi task in the background using minimal system resources so a 3D rendering or graphics program can also run at the same time. Snoop feature allows PEGGER to compress the output of your 3D rendering or graphics program into a JPEG file automatically. JPEG code has been optimized for speed. PEGGER can be used with the appropriate ARexx script to single frame record images directly from JPEGed sequential files. PEGGER is a low cost alternative to a new expensive large capacity hard drive for animation or color graphic workstations. NOW SHIPPING! Retail Price: $99.95 Dealers and Distributors : Contact Heifner Communications Inc. Deluxe Paint IV AGA is a trademark of Electronic Arts Video Toaster and Framestore are trademarks of NewTek, Inc. Amiga is a trademark of Commodore Business Machines, Inc. ## Subject: Animated brushmap question Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 21:44:54 -0400 From: Jason B Koszarsky I have a simple sphere object with an anim brush applied to it. the max sequence is 32, the files have 4 digit numbered appendages. Everything seems ok but when I try to quickrender frames in the stage editor i get a 'can't open mypic.0016.0001' error message. It seems to append this '.0001' to whatever frame i try to quickrender from stage. But if I go to Project and generate the frame, it works just fine. No complaints about not finding the brush. Jason K. ## Subject: Pics uploaded to wustl Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 19:05:51 PDT From: Scott Lundholm Hello to all on the IML, I have just uploaded two pics to wuarchive.wustl.edu (my first to the net) They are in /systems/amgia/boing/incoming/imagine/ (if I remember right), and are named dolphins.lha and wetbar.lha. Please enjoy, and send me comments and critiques. Thanks. Scott Lundholm *----------------------------------------------------------------------------* | Amiga 500/030 at 38Mhz w/68882 at | Email (UNIX)-scottl@hpsadmq.sad.hp.com | | 50Mhz, 8Meg of 32-bit RAM, Bodega | Memeber | | Bay w/105 & 450 Meg Hard Drives, | Redwood Empire Amiga Users Group | | HP PaintJet, 16" HP Programmable | Imagine 2.0 rendering enthusiast and | | Multisynch w/Flicker Free Video. | graphics fanatic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! | *----------------------------------------------------------------------------* ## Subject: Re: Picture Tracing Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 22:12:05 -0500 (CDT) From: Daniel Jr Murrell > *Can I convert ProDraw Clips? What, John hasn't replied yet? :) I'm not sure, but I think that Interchange can convert Pro Draw files. I think I read that somewhere. Danimal dm2@ra.msstate.edu ## Subject: - Imagine 3.0 (FPU/INT) - Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 12:10:52 +0200 From: "- Carsten Berggreen - Denmark -" Hi there, About a week ago, I asked about if the essence textures was running, without FPU, and the messages from you was(very shortly) "NO WAY! IT DON'T!!!!" I was crying VERY LOUD... since I have an "old" amiga 500 without anything but 2 floppy drives and some 2.5 meg ram.... not alot I know, but that shouldn't be able to stop ME.... Now, after I've understood what I've lost (and have stopped crying &:-( ), then I had this "nightmare" question: "DOES THE 'NEW' IMAGINE 3.0 ALSO NEED A FPU???????" (ofcause the old Imagine's supported both Integer AND Floating, but what now?) Please Impulse, I know I might be stupid NOT to own a FPU, but you know, I'm trying to save some money to buy a bigger computer first (fx. A4000-T!!!) and it would really make me very sorry to see if you've decided NOT to support the "Integer people"(read: no money left for fun) like me, anymore... Okay, I believe that's it for today... Signed --------------------------------------------------------------------- - Address: Carsten Berggreen E-mail: x34@dec5102.aarhues.dk - - Hirsevaenget 16A - - 8464 Galten "It isn't the equipment alone, it - - Denmark is also what YOU can do with it!" - --------------------------------------------------------------------- - A true fan of Amiga, Coca-Cola, Imagine and good looking females! - --------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Subject: Re: No pressure to release 3.0? Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 10:34:22 -0500 From: tes@ftp.jsc.nasa.gov (Tom Smith) marino@mindvox.phantom.com (Paul Marino) writes: >If Impulse continually feels that "pressure" isn't something that they >need to address, then I predict Impulse will not have as many of their >customers coming back for an upgrade that had been promised for months. > >Plenty of us will have moved onto a similar product that meets our needs >and gives in to our "pressure". > I've kind of given up on Impulse. Until I see a product from them I really don't consider them in the game anymore. Tom Smith >- Paul Marino ## Subject: Pdraw + bitmaps Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 10:04:14 EST From: db119s7449@sycom.mi.org (Doug Brooks) >I've got serious trouble in tracing logotypes (1bp IFFs). >I need best possible quality and often, the tracing procedure can take up >to an hour > *How can I trace with good result with PixPRO (requires LOTS of >fiddling?!) > *Can I convert ProDraw Clips? I've never got any good results from imagine's bit map trace or from pixel. The way I reccommend is to use Vertex 2.0. There is a manual bitmap tracer with multiple levels of Zoom as well as a EPS import (with autofill). I convert Prodraw clips on a regular basis and the results are outstanding. Print your prodraw clip as a postscript eps page without bitmaps and it will come right into vertex. Another neat way of tracing logos is to use Morph plus. Load your bitmap, and trace it with morph plus as if you were going to morph something. Save the vertices and quit. Then load the file into your text editor and you'll find that there are two sets of x-y coordinates per each point (ie start and end). Delete the second set and add a 0 for a z value on each line (this can be done with a small Rexx script or macro). Then load as a geo file in any program that supports it. You'll then have to flip the object upside sown and add the lines connecting the vertices but the Brightness/Contrast and Zoom features of morph+ are far better than anyone elses. hope this helps -- |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| | Doug Brooks | 100% Virtual | | Doug Brooks Animation | Kinetic Dissonant | | db119s7449@sycom.mi.org | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ## Subject: Re: Picture Tracing (fwd) Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 21:17:16 +0200 From: Hannes Heckner Forwarded message: > From @mail.uunet.ca:j#d#.moore@canrem.com Wed Sep 22 23:37:49 1993 > To: imagine@shell.portal.com > Subject: Re: Picture Tracing > From: j#d#.moore@canrem.com (J. Moore) > Message-Id: <60.661.5854.0C184469@canrem.com> > In-Reply-To: <9309221825.AA18246@fourier.cs.umu.se> > Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 23:12:00 +0100 > Organization: CRS Online (Toronto, Ontario) > > D> *Can I convert ProDraw Clips? > D> I think these are well known problems among Imagine users and probably, > D> they're FAQs? > D> Well, every single help I can get is appreciated!! > > This is only helpful if you know someone with either Aladdin 4D (or Draw > 4D Pro): they import EPS files (from ProDraw, ProVector, and Art > Expressions) and these could be saved and converted with PixelPro (or > saved as geo files (VideoScape ASCII files -- Lightwave imports them; I > don't know about Imagine). I don't suppose it's exactly what you're > looking for, but it would work and do a very good job -- a lot quicker > than what you've described. > > * Q-Blue v0.7 [NR] * > This is not exactly true. Vertex 2.0 allows import of EPS files to convert them into Imagine objects. Perhaps thats the way to go. Hannes ## Subject: Re: - Imagine 3.0 (FPU/IN Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 15:27:00 -0400 From: roy.park@canrem.com (Roy Park) > Hi there, > > About a week ago, I asked about if the essence textures was running, without > FPU, and the messages from you was(very shortly) "NO WAY! IT DON'T!!!!" > > I was crying VERY LOUD... since I have an "old" amiga 500 without anything > but 2 floppy drives and some 2.5 meg ram.... not alot I know, but that > shouldn't be able to stop ME.... > > Now, after I've understood what I've lost (and have stopped crying &:-( ), > then I had this "nightmare" question: > > "DOES THE 'NEW' IMAGINE 3.0 ALSO NEED A FPU???????" > (ofcause the old Imagine's supported both Integer AND Floating, but what > now?) > > Please Impulse, I know I might be stupid NOT to own a FPU, but you know, > I'm trying to save some money to buy a bigger computer first (fx. A4000-T!!!) > and it would really make me very sorry to see if you've decided NOT to > support the "Integer people"(read: no money left for fun) like me, anymore... > > Okay, I believe that's it for today... Strange... if you have enough money to buy Imagine package, you should be able to afford an FPU accesory for your A500.... and I wouldn't want to use Integer version of Imagine anyway... :) > -!------------------------------------------------------------------- > - Address: Carsten Berggreen E-mail: x34@dec5102.aarhues.dk - ---- Roy Park // roy.park@canrem.com A3000@25 \X/ 1st yr UofW Comp.Eng. APO/SparX ## Subject: Re: imagine info Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 15:29:00 -0400 From: roy.park@canrem.com (Roy Park) > i'm interested in buying imagine, but i've never seen it (none of the stores > i talked to had it up and running on a computer) and impulse says that if > i buy it and don't like it, tough. > > i was wondering whether anybody had any screen shots, in-depth reviews, or > anything else that might help me. Imagine 2.0 is very good for doing amatuer 3D animations/modelling. Once you get familiarized with its interface, you will enjoy using it... It's a lot nicer to use on faster Amiga... for shorter render time. > thanks > adam > rubble@leland.stanford.edu ---- Roy Park // roy.park@canrem.com A3000@25 \X/ 1st yr UofW Comp.Eng. APO/SparX ## Subject: Re: imagine info Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 20:25:00 -0400 From: roy.park@canrem.com (Roy Park) > Why do you limit it to amatuer 3D animations/modelling? In my opinion, professional 3D animation/modelling software should have gravity and particle animation feature, better light/cameral handling (lens flare, etc)... that's what I meant. > ____________________________^____________________________ > dale r. rogers > > Intergraph Corporation > Building Design & Management MailStop: LR24A4 > drrogers@b24a.b24a.ingr.com Tel: (205) 730-8294 ---- Roy Park // roy.park@canrem.com A3000@25 \X/ 1st yr UofW Comp.Eng. APO/SparX ## Subject: IML policy Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 12:04:15 +0200 (MET DST) From: delpsn@cs.umu.se Hi! I'm new here on IML and I have a question... * Is it taboo (correct spelling?) to discuss and compare Imagine to other tracing software i.e Real3d here? Regards, Per Swantesson Sweden ## Subject: Re: imagine info Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 14:10:02 CDT From: setzer@comm.mot.com (Thomas Setzer) > > > i'm interested in buying imagine, but i've never seen it (none of the stores > > i talked to had it up and running on a computer) and impulse says that if > > i buy it and don't like it, tough. > > > > i was wondering whether anybody had any screen shots, in-depth reviews, or > > anything else that might help me. > > Imagine 2.0 is very good for doing amatuer 3D animations/modelling. Once you > get familiarized with its interface, you will enjoy using it... It's a lot > nicer to use on faster Amiga... for shorter render time. Webster defines professional as follows: adj. 1. of or having to do with a profession. 2. practicing some sport, or involved in some occupation, for pay; n. one who makes his living by a sport or occupation often taken part in by amateurs. Key word is *pay*. Hmm, I happen to know of atleast one *professional* who uses Imagine. I understand your point, it isn't up to snuff with some high end stuff but.... The person I speak of happens to be working for a very famous producer whos name I won't say at this point. If he gives me the OK, I'll tell you what he's doing. Its pretty cool stuff. Wish I was part of it:( Tom Setzer setzer@ssd.comm.mot.com "And of course, I'm a genius, so people are naturally drawn to my fiery intellect. Their admiration overwhelms their envy!" - Calvin ## Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 13:29:17 CDT From: dave@flip.sp.paramax.com (Dave Wickard) NOTE: This post was sent to the imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com address and is being forwarded to the list by me. Please be certain when replying to IML posts that your REPLY function is grabbing the correct address: imagine@email.sp.paramax.com If not, be certain to either change the address, or at least Cc: a copy there. Thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kiernan Holland Subject: Re: your mail To: imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 22:52:02 -0600 (MDT) In-Reply-To: from "imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com" at Sep 19, 93 06:38:16 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2390 To simulate a silver metalic surface you need a completely different rendering program altogether.. It is in the way the metlaic surface reflects light. I talked to my father (physicist for more than 30 years) about this one time and he said that the properties of the reflection of light change even when you raise the temperature of the object (eventually bending the reflection way out of purportion, or something to that effect). I think one of the effects is the only color that is reflected is the color of the metalic surface or at least tinted to that color. I think an easy way to simulate silver would be to look at your environment or possibly to create a fish-eye rendering of the environment from the point-of-view of the object looking at the observer. take that image into Art Department Professional or some such program and convert it to a grey-scale image, convert it back to color, tint it light-bluish or darken it, then map that on to the object and re-render the scene with the object and the texture map. ??? tried that??? Some artists even use a image that has nothing but a sky and a ground, with the sky going from white on the horizon to grey at the top, and the same for the ground (from bottom to top, white to black gradient, white to grey gradient). That can be easily made in a paint program. Then you just map that to whatever object, works better on smaller objects because it tricks the eye into thinking the image resembles the surrounding area.. It is called environment mapping, and undoubtely it is what was done in T2 with the liqui-metal terminator. In fact, if you look at individual frames (get the video on your vcr, and try to freeze frames... my magnavox VCR will do it) where the t2000 (the liqui-metalic terminator) takes over that helicopter (at the end of the movie). Try to increment frames and freeze and you'll see that the reflection on the t2000 of the pilot (who is currently in his seat) is not dimensionally correct.. It fools your eye, I suspect for the same reason any motion picture does (in general): your brain makes up all that information that is missing and imprecise. Besides, environment mapping is the only way they could have done it, otherwise they'd have to make a rendering of the whole scene (the helicopter, pilot, outside environment, and the t2000, with all the movement data). ## Subject: yeah, Why do you limit to amatuer 3D? Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 13:14:26 CDT From: dave@flip.sp.paramax.com (Dave Wickard) NOTE: This post was sent to the imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com address and is being forwarded to the list by me. Please be certain when replying to IML posts that your REPLY function is grabbing the correct address: imagine@email.sp.paramax.com If not, be certain to either change the address, or at least Cc: a copy there. Thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 17:58:09 -0700 From: stevez@rhythm.com (Steve Ziolkowski) To: imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com Subject: yeah, Why do you limit it to amatuer 3D? Roy Park writes: >>Imagine 2.0 is very good for doing amatuer 3D animations So I had to say that even though I work on SGIs at work, I still use imagine 2.0 at home, and in fact got my job here based almost exclusively on my amiga/Imagine animations. Despite it's bugs and the obvious limitations, I have been able to blend live/cgi with it, hand-drawn/cgi, and produce very professional looking pieces with just Imagine, a video camera, Dpaint and DCTV. Just my two cents. steveZ ## Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 14:03:08 CDT From: dave@flip.sp.paramax.com (Dave Wickard) NOTE: This post was sent to the imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com address and is being forwarded to the list by me. Please be certain when replying to IML posts that your REPLY function is grabbing the correct address: imagine@email.sp.paramax.com If not, be certain to either change the address, or at least Cc: a copy there. Thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kiernan Holland Subject: Re: your mail To: imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 16:03:14 -0600 (MDT) In-Reply-To: from "imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com" at Sep 23, 93 11:18:04 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 750 Hello guys, I was wondering if there is any particular place (and directory) where general Amiga animations are uploaded to..? I have this super-cool animation that I made in deluxe paint 3 (you may be wondering what is so super about DP3), it uses the "Move" tool in a way that some might have not thought about before.. It is kinda neat what kind of things you can do with old programs. ;-) Kiernan (I would guess wuarchive, but things just seem to get lost there... unless there is some directory that has remained constant through all the changes that wuarchive has gone through. I'll put my animation up and you can see what I mean by super. It is a way to make swirling universes without having to make super complex objects. ) ## Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 14:09:40 CDT From: dave@flip.sp.paramax.com (Dave Wickard) NOTE: This post was sent to the imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com address and is being forwarded to the list by me. Please be certain when replying to IML posts that your REPLY function is grabbing the correct address: imagine@email.sp.paramax.com If not, be certain to either change the address, or at least Cc: a copy there. Thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kiernan Holland Subject: Re: your mail To: imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 15:48:09 -0600 (MDT) In-Reply-To: from "imagine-relay@email.sp.paramax.com" at Sep 20, 93 05:17:33 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 3580 >Does the new texture system offer a _significant_ technological increase >over the existing one? What I mean is, did Impulse change their texture >format for the sake of improving the entire texture system, or did they do >it just to make it so Essence doesn't work? You don't cut off the folks that make your software more useful. If you do, it is like cutting your limbs off one by one. Knowing how Impulse runs things they might accidently amputate things, but I'd see it as a seriously bad business decision to make a new piece of software just to cut some other developer off from making supporting software. From what they said in thier newsletter it looks like it is much better than it is now, but my questions is "is it better working, less fixed, more dynamic, modularized, robust". It seems like, from what I remember it saying, that they did do this (made things more dynamic as well as adding more features). For instance, they said that the attributes panel would be split up into different parts for textures, surface definition, etc. If the individual parts are seperate modularized entities then it is a good design. Easier to test, easier to modify, it is the way most software design is done these days. They said that 3.0 would allow (almost) infinite textures, objects, frames per animation. Why? They were probably using fixed data structures before... It probably had something to do with the operating system too. I don't know, but it makes you wonder what kinda of tricks they were having to perform with previous versions of Imagine. They probably converted everything from C to C++, that would be an easy explanation since that is what a lot of developers and prgrammers are changing to right now (including me, and C++ is a big jump in terms of thinking... it reminds me a little of pascal, which sucks [beavis voice], but it is more operation/data oriented than function oriented as in C, it also lets you write simpler looking code than the complex stuff you see in C [though, C++ is C compatible, there is nothing stopping you from writing screwy code, C++ jut tempts you to use its facilities]). >If the new system has no improvement over the old system, and the change >was some self-motivated B.S, then I will stick with 2.0 and consider >getting Real3D and/or LightRave-Lightwave3D. I saw the newsletter.. They promised, I guess if they didn't, we could take it to the supreme court.. I don't know, maybe? They are probably taking money via mail, so they can make a huge pile of money to fund these changes that they talked about. Either that or they are in debt for all the firecracker's that they made, and owe some money. They probably made a deal with the MOB. 3. They are probably buying themselves a vacation to hawaii to surf all winter long. 4. "" "" a few thousand armatures to prepare for the sequel to Jurasic Park. 5. "" "" sending a BIG check to Bill Clinton to help bring the country out of debt (right...) 6. Lending money to Micahel Jackson to pay his attorney(s)'s fee(s). 7. Buying a highrise building in South Africa. 8. Help La Posada add about 20 more menu items to thier menu (very very local, to me, humor). 9. Secretly they are buying up Commodore stock to eventual takeover. 10. They are doing nothing with the money but making it into tiny paper airplanes and burning it for heat. 12. Hiring a staff of operators to answer calls and tell thier customers that "Imagine 3.0" is not ready yet. 11. Or, they are, honest to god, working on Imagine 3.0. ## Subject: ATTENTION ALL PEGGER USERS!!!!! Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 19:08:12 PDT From: Chris_Lynn_Minshall@cup.portal.com ATTENTION PEGGER USERS!!!! We have discovered a bug in the program which could potentially destroy ANIM files created with the new Video Toaster 4000 or HAM8 animations in any of the various IFF ANIM formats. Do not attempt to compress Toaster ANIM files in your framestore directory. If you are doing a batch compression of a framestore directory which contains ANIM files, remove those files from the framestore directory to a temporary location. Alternately, edit the batch compress file list and remove the ANIM files from the list before beginning the compression process. The same process applies to HAM8 format IFF ANIM files. We apologize for this inconvenience but the bug has been found and is fixed. You can call the technical support hotline at 314-446-7017 and request an update disk. Also, for registered users, the update will be available on the Pegger Support BBS (314-474-0297). Dealers will be getting notification on Monday or Tuesday. Again, we apologize for this inconvenience and hope to get this update to everyone as quickly as possible. Thank You. Chris Minshall Technical Support Engineer Heifner Communications Inc. ## Subject: LightRave Date: Sun, 26 Sep 93 00:19:44 +0200 From: hermelin@math.tau.ac.il Hello All, and peace too. I was at WOCA Pasadena, and got me a little white piece of ingenuity, T H E L I G H T R A V E C A R D It allows LightWave to be run without the toaster, and also allows images to be rendered directly to Amiga modes as well as various graphic cards, like the OpalVision and Retina. What can I say, the combination of LightRave and LightWave 3.0 (got the toaster software upgrade) is some piece of pie. Bones, shadow mapping and lens flare come as my favorite new options. It's really something to look for in Imagine 3.0. The program doesn't render to PAL resolutions, though, and I couldn't find a way to specify a custom resolution. Sure, I can render to High Resolution and batch-scale the files down, but a custom resolution would be a far better solution. Mark? Allen? Anyone? (If it's a RTFM case, just mention the page number) To anyone who wants to widen his horizons and get a state-of-the-art package, I heartily recommend LightRave. If you own a toaster, great. If, on the other hand, you live in that deserted, miserable part of the world that uses a strange video system called PAL, LightRave is for you. Also, here is a small tip for making open fire, a torch for example: 1. Build an object to base the fire on - cone, cylinder, plane, whatever. 2. Color the object an orange-yellow hue. R221, G189, B000 worked for me. Phong should be enabled. 3. Add the linear texture. My object is 200 units tall, so the Transition Z Width is set to 150. Filter is 255 for R, G and B. Place the texture axes on the bottom of the object, with the Z axis pointing up. 4. From Essence I, add the misc/fractalfilter texture. The axes are oriented at its' default. Here are my parameters: 50.00000 Initial Scale 0.900000 Filter 1 End 5.000000 # of Scales 150.0000 Filter 1 Red 0.400000 Scale Ratio 150.0000 Filter 1 Green 0.400000 Amplitude Ratio 150.0000 Filter 1 Blue 0.400000 Time Ratio 255.0000 Filter 2 Red 0.000000 Time 255.0000 Filter 2 Green 0.100000 Base->1 Trans 255.0000 Filter 2 Blue 0.500000 1->2 Trans 0.000000 Fade 0..1 5. Save the object (Fire.1 could be a good name), and modify the following: In the fractalfilter texture, change the Time parameter to 1, and edit the axes so they are 10 times the length of the object higher. This setting is good for a 200 frame animation, so the fire goes one object height up every 20 frames. Save the object with a different name, maybe Fire.2. 6. In the Stage Editor, load the first fire and determine place, size and orientation. Go to the Action Editor and morph from Fire.1 to Fire.2 over the entire length of the animation. 7. Render, have 200 cups of coffee, and view. Enjoy. Nir Hermoni Author of "THIS LONG MESSAGE" hermelin@math.tau.ac.il ## Subject: FEATHERS. any advice. Date: Sun, 26 Sep 93 9:55:41 EDT From: Steve J. Lombardi Howdy. I need to make hummingbird feathers. I haven't sat down at the machine to experiment yet, but figured I'd ask first to see if anyone has done this. My first thought was to try to elongate essence-II's reptile skin and soften the edges somehow. Any suggestions or accounts of previous experience are appreciated. Thanks. | Hey Beavis. Essence-II's Crumpled texture steve lombardi | really KICKS ASS. Mhhh huh. Yea. And those space stlombo@acm.rpi.edu | textures don't suck either. Huh. ## Subject: Re: FEATHERS. any advice. Date: Sun, 26 Sep 93 14:05:17 MDT From: pringleg@cuugnet.cuug.ab.ca (Greg Pringle) >Howdy. I need to make hummingbird feathers. I haven't sat down >at the machine to experiment yet, but figured I'd ask first to Well, I'm not sure if this helps, but if you're planning on doing an animation, this isn't the best way to do it.. I made something similar with a bumble-bee hovering around a flower. After several tries, the best result was to make a brushmap by smudging around a lot of grey colors, and tapering off the bottom to nothing. I then mapped the colors onto the wing as a filter map, and had the bee's wings move RADICALLY.. like three different angles and positions, a new one each frame. The result is a nice blurry-transparent look. This might look not too bad as a still, too I guess.. Greg Pringle ## Subject: A4000 and Sony monitors Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 00:17:14 +1000 (EST) From: Nikola Vukovljak I have been trying to work out which monitor wouls suit my A4000 the best. I have thought of NEC 3D, but it may not be the best. I'm using a friend's right now, and I'm getting 1-1.5 cm black borders on each side and that's with VGA driver (+ DBLPAL mode). If I dn't have the VGA driver active, then my active area is even smaller (not just black borders, but even some screen are on the left side). I am using the latest monitor drivers. So, I've been wondering about the Sony monitors. I know that there are some old models that work, but what about new ones ? I've seen the ad for Sony GVM 1311Q monitor in CGW and the ad mentions both Multiscan and PAL/NTSC/SECAM modes. Does this mean, that this monitor will support all the AGA modes ? It even has speakers! Has anyone used this monitor (especiall with AGA machines) ? Can you comment on it ? What kind of price are we talking here ? Any info appreciated. Thanks. Nik. nvukovlj@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU P.S. E-mailing responses would probably be better... ## Subject: imagine pics u/l'ed to aminet Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 08:10:21 -0600 From: Steve Koren I've uploaded the following to ftp.wustl.edu. They are in pub/aminet/new, but should appear in pub/aminet/pix/trace. MightyMo_1.lha MightyMo_1.readme MightyMo_3.lha MightyMo_3.readme MightyMo_4.lha MightyMo_4.readme MightyMo_5.lha MightyMo_5.readme MightyMo_6.lha MightyMo_6.readme (There is no 2, just 1,3,4,5&6). All are pictures of the USS Missouri rendered with Imagine & Essence I and II. (Also, I didn't send a message to the imagine list at the time, but you might also want to look for Twisted_City.lha which I uploaded about 2-3 weeks ago. Its rather cool, IMHO :-) ) - steve ## Subject: Just the FAX, ma'am Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 10:29:12 CDT From: setzer@comm.mot.com (Thomas Setzer) Here are the questions I sent to Mike. I got his fax back today. It is a one page hand written letter which I will take a brief moment to type in. -----Begin Include---- Mike, As you suggested, here is my list of questions, via FAX. I compiled these from questions that went unanswered on the Imagine mailing list and a few of my own. Hope you can find time to answer a few.... Why doesn't fog over fog work? Is this fixed in 3.0? What is the format for textures for Imagine 2.0? 3.0? What is the format for effects for Imagine 2.0? 3.0? Why does making objects big speed up rendering? Why does Imagine slow **way** down when you zoom up real close on an object(rendering)? Any suggestions on how to get a good star field(that you can see through transparent objects and doesn't flicker)? What causes problems with slice? How can I avoid this problem(besides "don't use slice")? Will 3.0 support in some way cycle objects? If not, will there be a conversion to the new format? Will you be rejoining us on the list soon? Its gotten quiet since you left. What other platforms will you be porting to? Well, thats enough for now. I know your busy, and I don't want to distract you from your efforts to get 3.0 out the door. Can't wait to see it! Tom Setzer Motorola, Inc. ----End Include---- Mikes reply: Tom, 1 Bug for Fog Fixed in 3.0 2 Texture & Effect data to be rel. in Oct. 3 Better Oct volume handler 4 Small oct vol 5 nope 6 slice is tuff we need to do better. 7 cycle will work the same 8 yes soon on list 9 sgi, amiga, pc maybe sun End Mikes reply. Gee, thanks Mike, for that wonderful insight. BTW, I thought cycle was gone?!?! Tom Setzer setzer@ssd.comm.mot.com "And of course, I'm a genius, so people are naturally drawn to my fiery intellect. Their admiration overwhelms their envy!" - Calvin ps How much does real3d cost? Lightwave/lightrave price? ## Subject: Two bugs? Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 10:29:08 MDT From: bscott@nyx.cs.du.edu (Ben Scott) I'm reworking an animation in Imagine that gave me a lot of trouble the first time through due to the Imagine bug that creates a halo around partially transparent objects when there's an environment or reflection map. I'm working around the bug by using an Essence texture, more on that later. Anyhow, the troublesome object is a logo extruded to a length of 1000 units, so that it can come out of the distance with a 'trail' behind it; I then fade out the trail with a linear texture. At first I was gonna mail the list with a question abou;cyulindrical lights, because I was trying to use one to illiuminate the whole length of the logo and it wasn't working. I eventually found out that no amount of light (not even making the object bright!) would work - but that leaving the front edges soft made everything normal. In other words, setting some edges sharp and others soft made the soft edges completely unresponsive to light! What's the deal with that? Secondly, I'm using the Essence Varyrelbright (I think) to make the object look a bit more like gold without using a reflect map. I'm not morphing this texture at all. However, I seem to get shifting patterns at irregular intervals... especially when morphing OTHER textures (I also use a bandsm to create a glint passing across the object - have y'all guessed yet that this is a flying logo? But they pay the bills...). I'm quite certain that the settings on the vary----- logo aren't cahnging. Is this a known bug in Essence? I've run into it before but it wasn't critical enough to investigate at the time. Come to think of it, the behavior was exactly the same - the varyrelbright texture got all shifty when the Bandsm texture was moved across the face of the logo... Also, the linear fade still doesn't seem to be working properly - I'm still investigating the exact problem, but if anyone has any advice about making an object fade out along its length, I'd appreciate some pointers. . <<<>>> -- .---------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Ben Scott, video animation dilettante and consultant at The Raster Image. | | bscott@nyx.cs.du.edu, 24 hours a day!/\-----------------------------------| |---------------------------------------.\ Powered by the mighty Amiga 4000 | | "The penalty for murder is the same `-----------------------------------| | here as anywhere else." "Plea bargain and a suspended sentence?" - MST3k | `---------------------------------------------------------------------------' ## Subject: US Cybernetics Transputer Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 00:26:32 +1000 (EST) From: Nikola Vukovljak I'm sure that some of you are aware of this product. According to the WOC report #7 on csa.announce, TVPaint, VistaPro, Pegger, Real 3D, Cinemorph and Image FX are being ported to run on these boards. I believe that now would be the time to possibly write a letter to Impulse and ask them to release Imagine 3 version for this transputer board. Apparentely the company provides the software developer with all the tools to do it in a relatively short time (4-8 weeks). So what do you think guys ? Now, if Impulse had an E-mail address, we could compile a list of people that would consider bying this version and mail it to them .... We don't need no screamer! Just pass me that Transputer! :-) Nik. nvukovlj@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU ## Subject: IML archives Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 22:01:08 +1000 (EST) From: Nikola Vukovljak The mailing list archives had reached number 40 before the archiving was stopped due to our archiver unfortunately lost a job. The archives 1-36 are available on the wuarchive.wust.edu but the archives 37-40 were lost from the /incoming/imagine area when their HD crashed. If anyone has downloaded these archives from there before they were lost, could they please re-upload them to wuarchive ? I'd like to be able to download them, and this will also give me some idea how much time has passed since the last archive. Thanks. Nik. nvukovlj@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU ## Subject: Two bugs? Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 03:09:00 -0400 From: rosario.salfi@canrem.com (Rosario Salfi) Well, I don't know if this will help or not, but sometimes it's this simple. Change the order in which the textures are applied. ## Subject: Starfields Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 03:07:00 -0400 From: rosario.salfi@canrem.com (Rosario Salfi) Sorry to jump into this thread like that, but I noticed you wanted a decent starfield that shows through transparent objects. I know of a way, but you need Essence I. Here's how you do it...it's simple. 1. Create a sphere. Doesn't have to be an incredible number of faces, just enough to do the trick. Make this sphere HUGE...I usually use about 10000 to 50000 units. Yes, I'm serious! 2. Apply to this sphere the texture Polkadots (in the MISC directory of Essence I). You'll have to experiment with the size a little...and add a second texture if you don't have enough stars. 3. Render! Really, it works nicely. You actually get a variety of shades of the original star colour you chose in the Polkadots texture, due to the antialiasing. It doesn't slow down rendering (much) and it gives you the effect you're looking for. Just remember to increase the world size if you're Ray Tracing. Have fun! ## Subject: Re: IML archives Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 08:17:14 -0700 (MST) From: marvinl@amber.rc.arizona.edu (Marvin Landis) > The mailing list archives had reached number 40 before the archiving was > stopped due to our archiver unfortunately lost a job. > The archives 1-36 are available on the wuarchive.wust.edu but the archives > 37-40 were lost from the /incoming/imagine area when their HD crashed. > If anyone has downloaded these archives from there before they were lost, > could they please re-upload them to wuarchive ? I'd like to be able to > download them, and this will also give me some idea how much time has > passed since the last archive. OK. arc37.Z through arc41.Z are now re-uploaded to wuarchive.wustl.edu in the /systems/amiga/boing/incoming/imagine directory. arc41.Z covers messages sent through about June 24 of this year. I had put these up on wuarchive before I gave up the archivist position, then Dave Ingebretson (sp?) took over, then lost his job and internet access before anymore archives could be collected. Of course as Nik mentioned, an accidental erasure at wuarchive deleted the incoming directory. But they are back, so I hope they can be of use. (Anybody else doing the archiving these days?) Marvin Landis marvinl@amber.rc.arizona.edu ## Subject: Re: Starfields Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 10:36:22 MDT From: ridout@plk.af.mil (Brian Ridout) From: rosario.salfi@canrem.com (Rosario Salfi) 1. Create a sphere. Doesn't have to be an incredible number of faces, just enough to do the trick. Make this sphere HUGE...I usually use about 10000 to 50000 units. Yes, I'm serious! 2. Apply to this sphere the texture Polkadots (in the MISC directory of Essence I). You'll have to experiment with the size a little...and add a second texture if you don't have enough stars. 3. Render! Really, it works nicely. You actually get a variety of shades of the original star colour you chose in the Polkadots texture, due to the antialiasing. It doesn't slow down rendering (much) and it gives you the effect you're looking for. Just remember to increase the world size if you're Ray Tracing. I always set my world size to 0. Have fun! This makes beautiful still pictures. However, I have not been able to make the star field pan very well. The stars flicker too much. Brian ## Subject: Joe's Diner project !!!!! Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 19:06:04 +0100 From: Hannes Heckner I contributed one object to the project and therefore I want to ask for status of the project. Any news about it ?? Thanks a lot Hannes ## Subject: Re: LightRave Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 17:26:42 EDT From: Mark Thompson > LightWave 3.0 doesn't render to PAL resolutions, though, and I couldn't find > a way to specify a custom resolution. Sure, I can render to High Resolution > and batch-scale the files down, but a custom resolution would be a far > better solution. Mark? Allen? Anyone? Set your camera resolution to be greater than your desired res and then use limited region render to get the desired size within that camera res you have selected. All RGB file saving works with limited region render so you can save animation frames of any res up to 3008 x 1920. %~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~% % ` ' 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: Joe's Diner project !!!!! Date: 28 Sep 1993 22:37:21 GMT From: > I contributed one object to the project and therefore I want to > ask for status of the project. > Any news about it ?? > > Thanks a lot > Hannes > I haven't contributed one item to the project, so I don't want to ask about it! Actually I probably won't have time either...so if it is still on and anyone wants to model the outside of the diner plus the neon sign, be my guest. ## Subject: Re: Starfields Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 22:06:57 -0500 (CDT) From: kalb0003@gold.tc.umn.edu On Tue, 28 Sep 1993, Rosario Salfi wrote: > Sorry to jump into this thread like that, but I noticed you wanted a > decent starfield that shows through transparent objects. I know of a > way, but you need Essence I. Here's how you do it...it's simple. > > 1. Create a sphere. Doesn't have to be an incredible number of faces, > just enough to do the trick. Make this sphere HUGE...I usually use > about 10000 to 50000 units. Yes, I'm serious! Yes, but it looks like hell when animated (unless YOU know how to fix it). When it's animated, patches of stars flicker and look realy bad. ## Subject: Re: Starfields Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 03:39:00 -0400 From: rosario.salfi@canrem.com (Rosario Salfi) Awwwww...sorry, should've specified in the first message...make sure the BRIGHT option is selected. Believe me, it looks fine during an animation. My last one involved quite a battle between a Federation starship and a Romulan battlecruiser. I had no trouble with the starfield whatsoever. ## Subject: RE: US Cybernetics Transputer Date: 29 Sep 1993 10:35:36 U From: "Oxley David" In article , Nikola Vukovljak wrote: >I believe that now would be the time to possibly write a letter to Impulse >and ask them to release Imagine 3 version for this transputer board. Agreed! The thought of a 50MFLOPS transputer running alongside the '040 in my A2000 (is this possible?) is thrilling to say the least :P >So what do you think guys ? Now, if Impulse had an E-mail address, we >could compile a list of people that would consider bying this version and >mail it to them .... In a recent post from Thomas Setzer, Mike H at Impulse said that he'd be back on the IML "soon". Question is...can we wait that long? I'll dig out his fax number and see if he has anything to say on the matter. Regards, David Oxley, Logica UK Ltd. ## Subject: RE: US Cybernetics Transputer Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 07:41:46 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug Kelly Yes, the WARP System sounds extremely promising. I was contacted last week by a representative of the company, who had some interesting additions to the official announcement. I asked about the 600MIPS configuration, since that would seem to be directly comparable to the Screamer; he said that the target price would be in the neighborhood of $8000-$9000. He was quick to point out that the entry-level board would only be around $800, though, so you could scale up as the work demanded (and presumably as the work PAID for the demands). The 600MIPS Level 2 board is also the largest configuration that will fit inside the A2000 case (at this time). Interesting, that you will be able to get the processing power of the Screamer without an external board. The WARP Systems rep also said they'd talked with Mike H. at Impulse. It's up to Mike now, but the WARP people would really like to get Imagine ported over. At 600MIPS, you could actually get stereo pairs rendering at 30fps (as long as you keep the procedural textures under control); a Virtual Reality machine! I'm starting to save my pennies...too bad it won't be shipping by Christmas. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Doug Kelly Information Specialist First Consulting Group dakelly@class.org (310)595-5291x125 P.O.Box 5161, Los Alamitos,CA 90721-5161 "The difference between genius and stupidity: genius has its limits." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ## Subject: RE: US Cybernetics Transputer Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 00:50:25 +1000 (EST) From: Nikola Vukovljak On 29 Sep 1993, Oxley David wrote: > >I believe that now would be the time to possibly write a letter to Impulse > >and ask them to release Imagine 3 version for this transputer board. > > Agreed! The thought of a 50MFLOPS transputer running alongside the '040 in my > A2000 (is this possible?) is thrilling to say the least :P Well, that's one person apart from me any more takers ? BTW, from what I've read about this. the above example should be possible. The software included is meant to allow multiprocessing from my understanding. > >So what do you think guys ? Now, if Impulse had an E-mail address, we > >could compile a list of people that would consider bying this version and > >mail it to them .... > > In a recent post from Thomas Setzer, Mike H at Impulse said that he'd be back > on the IML "soon". Question is...can we wait that long? I'll dig out his fax > number and see if he has anything to say on the matter. Could you post that Fax number ? Impulse don't seem to ever release it in any correspondence. Nik. nvukovlj@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU ## Subject: Re: SIlver Texture & Morphin Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 15:38:02 GMT From: glewis@pcocd2.intel.com (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~) What you need to do is have two objects with the exact same >topology... all points correspond to each other, in the same grouped >hierarchy. All edges correspond to each other, and all faces >correspond to each other. The only way I know to achieve this is to >copy the original object to another, and modify the second object to >make the final version. If I'm not mistaken, there are some programs >out there that will help you with this, such as Morphus (I hear), and >T3DLIB (I wrote). Hi glenn. I think T3DLIB is great (but who doesn't?), but I only got an old version (not sure which), in which you mentioned in future versions you'd probably add support to "make-topology-compatible" two objects, so we could morph any 2 3D objects. Now that you've mentioned it, did you do it? Any reason why you couldn't? Lightwave Modeler's programmer, Stuart Ferguson, told me he "couldn't think of any way", or something like that. Of course I disagreed, but I'm not a programmer... Breno A. Silva (INF02@BRUFSE.BITNET) ## Subject: RE: US Cybernetics Transputer Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 14:22:04 CDT From: setzer@comm.mot.com (Thomas Setzer) > > Could you post that Fax number ? Impulse don't seem to ever release it in > any correspondence. impulse fax (612) 425 0701 ## Subject: transparency & 3D objects Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 13:04:21 -0600 From: Steve Koren Lets say I have a flat plane, like this: ------- / / / / / / ------- I can shape this plane in interesting ways using transparency textures; for example, a recent picture I made used 4 Essence "linearturb" textures to effect a flame object, with the textures turning on transparency towards the edge of the plane to make the turbulent shape of the flame. Now lets say I want to extrude the object thusly: e-------f / /| /g / /h / / / a-------b/ | |/ c-------d And I again apply a transparency texture to accomplish the above effect. What happens is that planes aefb and cghd are made transparent in the manner that I wish, but unfortunately so is abcd and efgh. It is obvious why this happens, because if the transparency texture is applied to aefb to "cut" it off, the cross section between aefb and cghd has no polygons to appear between the two planes. Instead of an effect like a broken-off cement wall, one gets an effect like two planes separated from each other by some distance with nothing between them. However, that's not what I want. I want to make a sort of crumbled wall effect as you might see in ancient ruins. Modeling this with polygons will be a royal pain, and will not look very good close up. It seems like some sort of "linearturb" texture would be the perfect solution, save for the above problem. I run into this sort of thing all the time with Imagine, because 3D objects aren't really "solid", they are really empty space bounded by polygons. Has anyone discovered an interesting way to get around this difficulty? In order to _really_ get around it, I suppose the renderer must model solid objects instead of space-bounded-by-polygons. Does R3D do this? Lightwave? Aladdin? And if so, do the allow the technique of using a transparency texture to "lop off" the extruded plane? - steve ## Subject: US Cybernetics WARP System Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 14:06:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug Kelly Has anyone out there heard anything more about the transputer system for the Amiga that was shown at World of Amiga in Pasadena on September 10? All I have to work from is the text of GEnie's 5-Minute News item, and they don't give company contact info, just the name. US Cybernetics doesn't appear in any of the national company directories, either. I've got a call in to the people who organized the show, but if anybody has any contact or background info on WARP Systems or US Cybernetics I'd really appreciate it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Doug Kelly Information Specialist First Consulting Group dakelly@class.org (310)595-5291x125 P.O.Box 5161, Los Alamitos,CA 90721-5161 (310)427-4225 fax "The difference between genius and stupidity: genius has its limits." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ## Subject: Repeating Altitude Maps Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 16:57:18 MST From: spencer@lowell.edu (John R. Spencer) Greetings: After several months of bafflement with Imagine, I got hold of Steve Worley's "Understanding Imagine" book and now (almost) everything makes sense. Thanks, Steve! However I'm still having trouble with a couple of things: 1) I tried simulating brick walls and unpolished wood using infinitely-repeating 24-bit altitude maps, featuring the cracks between the bricks and the pores in the wood respectively. Results look pretty good except that the seams show between the repeating "panels" of the altitude map, either with black lines or raised "ridges". The original greyscale 24-bit images I'm using for the altitude maps match perfectly at opposite edges. Is this a familiar problem and does anyone have a solution? I'm creating the altitude maps using Opal Paint. 2) Almost half the time when I do a "Quickrender", the image is calculated but not displayed: I get the "Delete Quickrender File?" message as soon as calculation is done. I can then view the image, stored on RAM:, in Opal Paint, but it's a pain. Any solutions? Equipment: A3000, 25Mz, 6 Megs RAM, Opalvision. ## Subject: IML-FAQ #4: 9-29-93 Date: 29 Sep 1993 20:31:05 GMT From: +======================================================================+ | Imagine Mailing List | | FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS | |----------------------------------------------------------------------| | Compiled By | | Michael B. Comet | | Steve Mund | | Mark Oldfield | | Dave Wickard | +======================================================================+ This is the Frequently Asked Questions posting for the Imagine Mailing list. This posting is sent every so often to answer general questions that users of the 3D rendering software, Imagine by Impulse Inc. may have. It is aimed toward all users, especially newcomers to the program. If you find any errors or have answers to other frequently asked questions that you would like to have included in this posting, please send e-mail to: imlfaq@flip.sp.paramax.com (FAQ List). - Mike C. ======================================================================== Last Update : September 29, 1993 Wednesday Issue Number : 4 What's New : "Amazing Amiga" added to magazine section Section 6, #10. Making conical lights. Section 6, #11. Lighting your scenes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS: ========= SECTION 1 - Support Products/Sites 1] Imagine related: References/Help Books/Magzines/ftp sites. 2] How do I reach Impulse? 3] What is the Imagine Mailing List and how to get it? SECTION 2 - Modeling and Detail Editor 1] How do I brushmap a ground plane? 2] How do I make glass? 3] The Slice command doesn't work or gives me errors. 4] How can I make a room so that the walls don't have cracks? 5] When I select a group of points in the DETAIL editor, all I can do is drag them...not ROTATE or SCALE interactively. 6] List of common Index of Refractions 7] How do you make mirrors? 8] How do I make "metals" and what are some good gold attributes? 9] Is there a quick way to add faces to my object without using the Slice command? SECTION 3 - Forms Editor 1] After a Forms Editor object is loaded into the Detail Editor and manipulated, it won't reload into the Forms Editor. SECTION 4 - Cycle Editor 1] I made this animation sequence in the Cycle editor, but when I set it up in the stage/action editors, the motion of the overall object isn't there! SECTION 5 - Animation, Stage Editor and Action Editor 1] Even though I move an Object/Camera/Light to a new POSITION/ALIGNMENT/SIZE in the STAGE editor, Imagine seems to 'forget' what I did! 2] How do I use the Grow Effect? 3] How do I use the Tumble Effect? 4] How do you get something to roll (at the right speed!) while following a path? 5] When I move a Tracked Camera in the STAGE editor, it doesn't realign and draw the Perspective view correctly! 6] When I increase the number of frames in an animation I find my scene gets mangled in the first frame. Why? SECTION 6 - Rendering and the Project Editor 1] Why do objects render fine in Scanline, but disappear in Trace? 2] I have a problem with Filtered objects/fog and the Global Backdrop! 3] My animation frames look fine, but when animated, they have the "crawly" effect. 4] What situations, parameters, attribute values, etc. require the most trace rendering time? 5] How do I get rid of the "Jaggies?" 6] How can I figure out pixel aspect for a given resolution? 7] When making a disco ball effect, will a SPHERICAL light set at 255 be bright enough to cause visible spots on the surfaces in a scene? 8] How long should it take to do a full trace picture with perhaps one transparent glass on a Amiga 3000/25? Is 4.5 hrs too much? 9] Is there any particular format that Imagine prefers? Ham? 32 Color? EHB? 24 bit 1000 x 1000? 10] I would like to use conical light sources with my rendering, is there anyway "see" in wireframe where the light will fall? 11] How important is lighting for a rendering, and is there any "preset" method used to get good results? SECTION 7 - Essence Settings 1] Electrical Arc 2] Veined Marble 3] Rough marble/rock SECTION 8 - Miscellaneous 1] What the heck is BTW, IMO and other weird abbreviations... 2] Rendering and refresh times are MUCH too slow, even with an accelerator. Are there any Basic tricks or hints to help? 3] How long will before my renderings aren't ugly anymore? CLOSING - Closing statements and Disclaimer ======================================================================== SECTION 1 - Support Products/Sites ======================================================================== 1] Imagine related: References/Help Books/Magzines/ftp sites. REFERENCES AND HELP BOOKS: "Imagine 2.0 User Manual", Impulse Inc, 1992. (Yes....read the manual!) "The Imagine Companion", David Duberman, Motion Blur Publishing, 1991 "Understanding Imagine 2.0", Steven Worley, Apex Software Publishing, 1992. MAGAZINES: These are some good graphics magazines, most of which focus on the Amiga computer. If anyone has some other suggestions please post them to the FAQ list! "Computer Graphics World" P.O Box 122 Tulsa, OK 74101-9845 (800) 443 - 6632 (918) 835 - 3161 ext. 400 (918) 831 - 9497 (FAX) (A general computer graphics magazine focusing on the latest technology from PC's to SGI's) "Amiga World" P.O Box 595 Mt Morris, IL 61054-7900 (800) 827 - 0877 (815) 734 - 1109 (A general Amiga computer magazine, focusing on both hardware, software, utilities and graphics) "Amiga Video/Graphics Magazine" (formerly AVID) 365 Victor Street Suite "H" Salinas, CA 93907 (408) 758 - 9386 (408) 758 - 1744 (FAX) (A general Amiga computer magazine, focusing on both hardware, software, utilities and graphics) "Amazing Computing for the Commodore Amiga" aka "Amazing Amiga" P.O. Box 2140 Fall River, MA 02722-9969 USA (508) 678 - 4200 (800) 345 - 3360 (508) 675 - 6002 (FAX) (A general Amiga computer magazine, focusing more on how to, hints and tips, programming, reviews of software and hardware(less ads and more meat than AW)) "Video Toaster User" 21611 Stevens Creek Blvd. Cupertino, CA 95014 (800) 322 - 2834 (A magazine focusing specifically on NewTeks Video Toaster device. Nothing related to Imagine, but some more neat pictures to look at!) FTP SITES: There is now a new ftp site set up for Imagine related items including pictures, animations, tutorials, objects, and help files such as previous postings from the list, and this FAQ at: wuarchive.wustl.edu in the /systems/amiga/boing/video/imagine Under this directory are the following sub-directories: art archive anims objects Note: New files cannot be sent directly here. Instead send any new files you wish to upload into the same directory: /systems/amiga/boing/incoming/imagine Files here will/should eventually get moved to the proper location by the ftp site administrator. Don't forget to send a text file explaining the data you uploaded. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2] How do I reach Impulse? Impulse Inc. 8416 Xerxes ave. North Brooklyn Park, Minnesota 55444 USA (612) 425-0557 (800) 328-0184 FAX: (612) 425-0701 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3] What is the Imagine Mailing List and how to get it (From the Imagine Mailing List Sysop, Dave Wickard) The Imagine Mailing List is a wide variety of Amiga computer artists sharing friendship and knowledge. The main thrust of the List is the Imagine renderer. Subjects discussed though have varied widely. There are discussions of Imagine and it's competitors, Imagine wish lists for future versions, 3D rendering principles in general, single frame recording techniques and many more. With first day users thru battled scarred veterans :-) there is someone at your level of knowledge on the List. We are always glad to see questions from every level of user. So often a simple and seemingly embarrassingly easy question will lead to an interesting comment on a related topic. New products, both hardware AND software, are discussed as to their relationship with Imagine and Amiga 3D rendering. Names of Amiga luminaries dot the list, and often join in to lend their insights without the usual "noise" of a USENET newsgroup. There are over 300 individual sites receiving the Imagine Mailing List, and they include many networks, BBS systems, user groups, and individual computer artists from literally around the globe. We share one thing. Interest in each other's work with Imagine. YOU can get the Imagine Mailing List. All you need is access to Internet mail. Simply mail to the following address: imagine-request@email.sp.paramax.com and in your subject line, enter the word "subscribe". If you are reading this from a Commercial System, ask the Amiga Coordinator to set up an Imagine Mailing List area that everyone can read. ======================================================================== SECTION 2 - Modeling and Detail Editor ======================================================================== 1] How do I brushmap a ground plane? The problem with brushmapping a ground plane is that the ground itself is off 90 degrees in relation to its' axis for proper brush placement. (Add a primitive plane, a ground and compare them). The following will properly set a ground wrap: 1) Add a ground object, select it, go into attributes, select a brush to use. 2) You will now be in a requestor for the type of brushmap and placement etc... 3) Select TRANSFORM AXIS 4) Click on ALIGNMENT and set X = -90. Leave Y and Z at 0 5) Click on SIZE and leave X = +640. Set Y = +2, Z = +400 6) Click on POSITION and Leave X = -320, Y = -200. Set Z = +1 7) Click on PERFORM. 8) If you want the brushmap to repeat forever click REPEAT. 9) Click OKAY. Your brushmap will now be placed correctly. You can of course resize it on the X/Z axis if you wish for scaling purposes. Basically step 4 re-rotated the brush axis properly and 5 and 6 fixed the size and position which Imagine screws up since it thinks it's brushmapping on the other axis. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2] How do I make glass? You can use the following Attribute setting for a default glass: RED GREEN BLUE VALUE COLOR 0 0 0 * REFLECT 0 0 0 * FILTER 255 255 255 * SPECULAR 255 255 255 * DITHERING * * * 255 HARDNESS * * * 255 ROUGHNESS * * * 0 SHININESS * * * 0 (Very important see below!) PHONG = ON INDEX = 1.50 FOG LENGTH = 0.00 This should give you glass. One thing many people get confused by is: 1) Shininess must be set to ZERO. If you set this to anything but 0, the FILTER setting will not work. This is just the way Imagine works since FILTER usage assumes shininess automatically. 2) No background. To get glass, you need surroundings. If you render a glass cup on a pure black screen, you'll probably just see the highlights. Adding global colors for Scanline and Ray Trace will give your object something to refract. 3) Ray Trace. To get refraction of surrounding objects exactly, you need to Trace, though scanline WILL approximate refractivity. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3] The Slice command doesn't work or gives me errors. Due to the complexity of doing a 3D slice, sometimes Imagine gives errors, or actually crashes during this operation. Things to do if you plan on using this function are: 1) Save _ALL_ currently loaded object BEFORE trying to slice. 2) If you get an error, move one of the objects slightly and try again. Moving one of them may yield a working slice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4] I'm making a house which has many rooms and thus many walls, what is the best way of adding walls to the house so that they leave no cracks in the corners ? Three possible methods --- 1. You can design your walls to be nice dimensions like 100 or 1024 instead of 383.38. Place your axis at the corner of each wall. Then, to get seamless joints, use "snap to grid" in the project editor which will instantly adjust your walls to a perfect fit (If wall lengths are multiples of the grid line spacing). 2. Create a 2D outline of the floorplan and extrude it up. Then simply pop a ceiling and floor on it. The floorplan could be created either in Imagine or even a paint program and then auto-traced. This means you will have to bust up a few polygons to add the windows and doors, but that is a minor task if you have a complex floorplan. 3. A cheesy option is to make your walls too big. Then INTERSECT them. You get a mess BEHIND the wall, but if you don't look there, you'll never see it. wall 1 | ------------------+-- \|/ | bug-eyed O.O | wall 2 monster v | | camera X ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5] When I select a group of points in the DETAIL editor, all I can do is drag them... it doesn't let me ROTATE or SCALE that clump of selected points. Imagine will let you move selected points, as well as rotate and scale them. The limitation is that you cannot do this interactively in Version 1.1 or earlier by using the mouse: The Transform command does the manipulation. The picked points can be translated, scaled, rotated, and positioned INDEPENDENTLY of the rest of the object. Rotations and scalings all use the object's axis a reference point. Absolute positioning will move the FIRST point you pick to the location you choose, and the rest of the picked points will be translated an equal amount. Interactive dragging is accomplished using the "drag points" mode. Note: Versions 2.0 and later support interactive point editing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6] List of common Index of Refractions (and not so common too!) (All items except Vacuum are in alphabetical order) (STP = Standard Temperature and Pressure) MATERIAL Index ------------------------------------- Vacuum ...................... 1.00000 (exactly) Air (STP).................... 1.00029 Acetone ..................... 1.36 Alcohol ..................... 1.329 Amorphous Selenium .......... 2.92 Calspar1 .................... 1.66 Calspar2 .................... 1.486 Carbon Disulfide ............ 1.63 Chromium Oxide .............. 2.705 Copper Oxide ................ 2.705 Crown Glass ................. 1.52 Crystal ..................... 2.00 Diamond ..................... 2.417 Emerald ..................... 1.57 Ethyl Alcohol ............... 1.36 Flourite .................... 1.434 Fused Quartz ................ 1.46 Heaviest Flint Glass ........ 1.89 Heavy Flint Glass ........... 1.65 Glass ....................... 1.5 Ice ......................... 1.309 Iodine Crystal .............. 3.34 Lapis Lazuli ................ 1.61 Light Flint Glass ........... 1.575 Liquid Carbon Dioxide ....... 1.20 Polystyrene ................. 1.55 Quartz 1 .................... 1.644 Quartz 2 .................... 1.553 Ruby ........................ 1.77 Sapphire .................... 1.77 Sodium Chloride (Salt) 1 .... 1.544 Sodium Chloride (Salt) 2 .... 1.644 Sugar Solution (30%) ........ 1.38 Sugar Solution (80%) ........ 1.49 Topaz ....................... 1.61 Water (20 C) ................ 1.333 Zinc Crown Glass ............ 1.517 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7] How do you make mirrors? The trick with mirrors (or especially chrome-like objects) is not setting the attributes of the mirror correctly, but making sure that the environment is set up so something will be reflected into the camera. If a mirror is TOO reflective, the mirror can actually become invisible! This is because the mirror's own flat glass/metal flat coloring is overwhelmed by all the reflected light. You see a PERFECT reflected image, so the object itself isn't shown. This is especially true with flat mirrors. Some attributes that give a nice mirror polish: RED GREEN BLUE VALUE COLOR 150 150 150 * REFLECT 200 200 210 * (a bit of a blue tint) FILTER 0 0 0 * SPECULAR 255 255 255 * DITHERING * * * 255 HARDNESS * * * 255 ROUGHNESS * * * 0 SHININESS * * * 0 PHONG = ON INDEX = 1.00 FOG LENGTH = 0.00 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 8] How do I make "metals" and what are some good gold attributes? One thing you can do to make your objects look more like metal is to give them a specular setting close to the main color of the object, but higher in intensity. One mistake is to often make the specular a pure white. This makes objects look more like plastic than metal. For example, if you are trying to make gold, don't make the specular pure white, but try a bright yellow or yellow/orange creame color. Another problem is that many metals reflect the world. For example a chrome ball is pretty much just a shiny mirror. Thus, if you want to make realistic metals you will need to at least simulate reflection. This can be done by adding a global reflect map, doing a true ray trace or even just setting sky colors in the stage editor. You can use the following Attribute setting for a default gold: RED GREEN BLUE VALUE COLOR 205 205 80 * REFLECT 180 160 125 * FILTER 0 0 0 * SPECULAR 255 255 160 * DITHERING * * * 255 HARDNESS * * * 255 ROUGHNESS * * * 0 SHININESS * * * 0 PHONG = ON INDEX = 1.00 FOG LENGTH = 0.00 This should give you something close to gold. Note that the reflect values are fairly high. You may wish to lower them to see how it would look if you don't have anything to reflect etc... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 9] Is there a quick way to add faces to my object without using the Slice command? Here is a neat trick to add faces. This method works best with an object that is basially concave (such as a circle). 1] Make the outline of your object, i.e.: points and edges. 2] Extrude the object a distance away. 3] Pick all the points that were just made...i.e.: The ones that now comprise the back face. Using Bounding box selection would probably be helpful. 4] Choose Join! 5] Translate the now 1 pt back on the Y axis by the distance you extruded from, and position the point somewhere in the center of the object. The object is now a solid faced object with all faces connected to one point on the center, just like the primitive disk object. ======================================================================== SECTION 3 - Forms Editor ======================================================================== 1] I was working in the forms editor on an object, and loaded it into the detail editor for modification. However, I can't seem to be able to get it back into the forms editor! Help! Simply put, you cannot load objects saved from the detail editor back into the forms editor. The reason is the forms editor requires a specified object structure which the detail does not. Thus, saving an object in the detail editor loses that information. When you work with the forms editor is recommended that you keep a spare copy of the FORMS OBJECT saved separately from any detail object. In this way you can then go back and make modifications in the forms editor. ======================================================================== SECTION 4 - Cycle Editor ======================================================================== 1] I made this really great animation sequence in the cycle editor, but when I set it up in the stage/action editors, the motion of the overall object isn't there! When using the cycle editor, Imagine only remembers changes in size, position, and so on in relation to the main parent. Thus, if you make a change to the parent object, it gets forgotten. What this means is if you make a nifty robot jumping cycle, and make it in the cycle editor so the robot actually move up etc... all that will be remembered is the changes to the legs, arms and anything OFF of the PARENT. The overall rotations and movements to the main object will be gone. Two solutions exist. One is to simply make those changes in the stage editor each time you need to. The second is to group a plain axis before you start to your object. (ie: Make the parent have a Null link). Then, you can rotate everything by rotating the main child grouped right under this null axis. This way you aren't moving the "parent", and everything will be remembered. ======================================================================== SECTION 5 - Animation, Stage Editor and Action Editor ======================================================================== 1] Even though I move an Object/Camera/Light to a new POSITION/ALIGNMENT/SIZE in the STAGE editor, Imagine seems to 'forget' what I did! All objects must have timelines split wherever there is a change in position, alignment or size. If you do not set this up, Imagine will forget the changes no matter what. Rather than going back and forth to the ACTION editor and adding timelines, you can have Imagine automatically create the timelines properly so everything tweens as normal. There are the "Position Bar", "Alignment Bar" and "Size Bar" commands under the OBJECT menu in the STAGE editor. So, if you have just gone to a frame and are making a new POSITION, ALIGNMENT or SIZE for an object (or camera or light) to tween to, press RIGHT AMIGA and 7/8/9 respectively. Or use the respective bar commands from the OBJECT menu. This will extend or put a 'split' in the timeline for you (you can check this in the ACTION editor). Also, don't forget to "Save Changes"if you want to keep the motion! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2] How do I use the Grow Effect? To use the grow effect, create an object in the DETAIL editor that you wish to have 'extrude' over time. Create a spline path as normal in the detail editor. This will be the path the object extrudes along during the animation. GROUP (not join) the object with the PATH AS THE PARENT. If you do not make the path the parent, it will not work. To do this, select the path, then hold shift and select the object, then select group. Save your GROUP for loading in the animation. Finally, add the effect in the ACTION editor for the grouped object. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3] How do I use the Tumble Effect? The tumble effect is used to tumble 1 or more objects during an animation. To tumble an object, create your object or objects in the DETAIL editor. Still in the detail editor add an axis. Group (not join) the AXIS to all the objects you want to tumble with the AXIS AS THE PARENT. Then load the GROUP into the STAGE/ACTION editor and add the effect as normal. NOTE: The reason for the null object (axis) as parent is that Imagine does not TUMBLE the PARENT, just the children. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4] How do you get something to roll (at the right speed!) while following a path? Getting an object to spin (like a plane doing a barrel roll) is easy- you align to path, then set Y rotation to be from 0 to 360 and it will do a complete spin. This is not in the right direction for a rolling ball, though. [Annoying feature- you can't say from 0 to 720 for two spins, or 0 to 3600 for ten.] To get it to roll I created a second path, which was basically a larger copy of the first, so the first path was just inside of the second path. I had an axis (a track) follow this new, outside path, then used "align to object" to make the sphere point to the axis. Thus, as the ball moved along its path, one end (the positive Y axis direction) was always pointed at right angles to the direction of motion. Is this clear? Now using the "initial Y angle" and "final Y angle" I set them to 0 and 360 and it rotated as it rolled. As a special effect, I raised the "track path" a little in the Z direction so the sphere looks a little bit like a top rolling around, since the spin axis was not horizontal anymore. An alternative would be to make a cycle object, rolling around the X axis. This is equally valid, but I did it this way first. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5] When I move a tracked Camera in the STAGE editor, it doesn't realign and draw the Perspective view correctly! If you have Imagine 2.0 or higher, press RIGHT AMIGA and the K key together, or select "Camera (Re)track" from the OBJECT menu. This will make the camera repoint to the track from the new position and will redraw the perspective view. If you have an older version of Imagine (or if you just want to) you can press RIGHT AMIGA and the C key or select "Goto" from the FRAME menu. Go to the current frame you are already on which will cause imagine to redraw everything. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6] I have found that after creating a scene in the Stage editor, and then deciding that I want an animation and adjusting the highest frame count, my scene gets mangled in the first frame. Why? Well, it seems to me that this will happen if you don't split your channel bar from the first frame (where you want stuff to be exactly) to the second frame. I usually setup my scenes so that I have the first frame all set as it should be and then I do my transformation from frames 2-whatever. In this way, the first frame is ALWAYS where it's suppose to be no matter what changes I make in the remaining animation. If you look at your channel it should have a break between frames 1 and 2 and then be continuous (if that's the way your animation works out) from 2 on. ======================================================================== SECTION 6 - Rendering and the Project Editor ======================================================================== 1] Why do objects render fine in Scanline, but disappear in Trace? There are 2 possible causes for this. 1) You are running out of RAM 2) You objects are outside of the World Boundary To check #1 (for the Amiga), pull down The Project editor after you start a render during the initialization phase. Click once on the Workbench backdrop and you should see how much RAM you have on the top of the screen. As Imagine starts to render, this will decrease. If it becomes close to 0, chances are, that's your problem. To solve that, buy more RAM. The other possibility is that the objects are outside of the world boundary. The world boundary is basically a box in which your objects are placed. When you enter the STAGE editor, you are placing objects in this "virtual box" whose center is 0,0,0. When you Trace, Imagine clips ALL objects that fall outside of the box. The size of the world boundary is set in the ACTION editor. In this editor, there should be an item named GLOBALS. Whatever numbers are set in the SIZE timeline becomes the size of the box so that it lies from +/- Value for X,Y and Z. The default is no information present, which Imagine assumes is +/- 1024 units for all 3 coordinates. Thus to fix this problem you can: 1) Scale your entire scene to fit inside the +/- 1024 size boundary 2) Add a size line and set the X,Y,Z to the values you need (This can be found by using "coordinates" in the STAGE editor and moving the cursor around to find the values) 3) Add a size line and set the X,Y,Z sizes to 0,0,0. This will force Imagine to calculate the world size for ALL frames based on where objects are for the FIRST frame. This is important since if your objects move farther out during subsequent frames, you will have to set the size manually (see 2 above) since it will now be outside the computed boundary, and thus clipped. Note: The world boundary has no effect in Scanline rendering. Note: Setting the World Size to 0,0,0 regardless of problems will usually DECREASE Trace times! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2] I have a problem with Filtered objects and the Global Backdrop! For some reason, clear or glass like objects will not be clear when used with a backdrop. To get around this render with "genlock sky" and then use an image processing program to composite the rendered image onto the background pic for each frame. Fog objects have a similar problem. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3] I have created an animation (Hurrah!) and when I look at each of the individual frames, they look just as I thought they might. However, when I animate them, anywhere I have applied the "roughness" parameter, surfaces look animated...with lots of "crawling" effect on them. What gives? Roughness should NOT be used on objects that will be animated. (Unless of course, the "crawley" effect is what you're after). This is caused by a bug in the roughness algorithm. One of the main work-arounds suggested, is by using a very small or fine bump-map. Another work- around is to create a DPaint (or for that matter ANY IFF) multi-gray shaded screen and apply it as an altitude map. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4] What situations, parameters, attribute values, etc. require the most trace rendering time? The list is long: reflections and refractions increase rendering time significantly, anti-aliasing (0 longest)-BTW this you must edit in the .config file and resolve depth (also in .config file), number of polygons, camera position (obliqueness), size of brush maps and even the numerical entries of solid textures, resolution, display and render modes etc etc. The big ones are refraction, edge level(antialiasing, reflection (along with "depth") and #of polygons. Pretty well in that order too. Remember that a higher refraction index is longer rendering time also. And yes the scale of the object means a LOT. Imagine uses something called an *Octree* to calculate the scene. This is related to the world size setting which is also discussed here in article number 1 above. The difference can go from *hours* to minutes, so scale your scene by the size you make your world. You can select everything in the scene (including camera and lights) and scale it interactively. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5] How do I get rid of the "Jaggies?" The .config file for anti-aliasing defaults to 30. This is ok, but not great. The best is 0 and final rendering should always be 0. So you must edit this file every so often (before opening Im) or build a front end on the work bench (requires programming knowledge, though). BTW, the anti-aliasing is EDLE in .config file. {for those unfamiliar with the term jaggies - they refer to the way lines drawn by computers tend to haved a jagged or stair stepped appearance, instead of a smooth continuous line. This is usually found more in low resolution images.} ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6] How do I figure out the pixel aspect for a certain resolution display? I am rendering a picture to be displayed on a macII at 1024x768. Does anyone know the formula or is it device dependent? Pixel aspect ratio depends both on the aspect ratio of the display device (your monitor) and the resolution that fits onto that screen. Most monitors use a 4 x 3 aspect ratio so that to achieve square 1:1 pixels, the resolution must also be 4:3. 1024 x 768 will achieve this as well as 640 x 480. The Amiga typically uses a non-square aspect ratio of about 1.2:1 such as 320 x 200, 640 x 400, 768 x 480, etc. So the pixel ratio can be found using... (horiz res. / horiz display size) : (vert res. / vert display size) If your monitor has a 4:3 aspect, you should have 1:1 pixels. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7] When making a disco ball effect, will a SPHERICAL light set at 255 be bright enough to cause visible spots on the surfaces in a scene? No, I bet that a light of 255 won't work too well. So crank it up to 2000! Lights are not limited to 255 (It is logical that lights can be as bright as they want). Values above 500 or so are pretty severe; they cast strong shadows, like a very sunny day. Above 3000 or so and it looks like you're world is lit by nuclear weapons. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 8] I have a Amiga 3000/25. How long should it take to do a full trace picture with perhaps one transparent (nearly) glass? Does 4.5 hours sound reasonable to you? I am running the floating Point version of Imagine. The floating point version of Imagine uses inline floating point code for maximum speed. It does not use the libraries. I suspect that the non-FP version uses the libraries, just in case. You can probably SPEED UP your trace time SIGNIFICANTLY by scaling up the whole scene in the stage editor (see question 4 above!). A trace time of 4.5 hours on a 3000/25 definitely a "wee bit" on the high side for a scene as simple as you describe. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 9] Is there any particular format that Imagine prefers? Ham? 32 Color? EHB? 24 bit 1000 x 1000? The best is a 24-bit image, of course. Anything works, but the color range of a 24-bit will beat the tar out of a 16 color any day. Exceptions would be objects with a few discrete colors, like a red, white, and blue flag. Then a 24-bit and a 4 color image are equal in quality. Note that Imagine converts them all to 24-bit internally, though- the memory goes down equally for a 100 by 100 4-color as it does for a 100 by 100 24-bit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 10] I would like to use conical light sources with my rendering, is there anyway "see" in wireframe where the light will fall? For conical lights, the X-axis size determines the radius of the light beam at the distance set at the Y-axis. This if a light has a X size of 50, and a Y-size of 200, the light would have a circle with the diameter of 100 units at a distance of 200 units from the light's axis itself. You can use this information to create a conical light object in the detail editor. By creating a wireframe light, you can then load the light in and actually "see" and resize it to get an idea for the lights size. Add a primitive cone object. Then position the axis of the cone such that it is at the exact tip op the cone object. Finally rotate and resize the cone's axis so the Y axis extendes to the end of the cone and the x-axis (which should allready be set okay) has the diameter of the cone. The above can be done in 4 steps using the transformation requestor, make sure that the "transform axis only" box is checked in steps 2,3 and 4: 1] Add a primitive cone with default values. 2] Set the Position on the axis -100 on the Z-axis. 3] Set the axis alignment to -90 on the X-axis. 4] Set the axis size to X=50, Y=100, Z=50. Front or side view of cone: Z---X /|\ / | \ / | \ / | \ / | \ +-----|-----+ Y Once this is done you will now have a cone object with the axis set correctly to be a light. It is not yet however a light source. Go into the attributes requestor for the object and click on the box labeled "light". In here is a standard light box just like those in the action editor. Click on conical, and set the color and other options as you wish. At this point you must remove any faces from the object. If you do not do this, when you render the object will will have a white cone. Simply go into "Pick Faces" mode and then "Select All" of the faces and finally "Delete" or "Cut" them. You will now have a wireframe cone light. Save this object. From now on, you can load this as a normal object into you renderings and resize, scale and move the light around as you wish. The only drawback to this method is that to change light parameters such as color or shadows, you must re-edit the object in the detail editor and then resave it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 11] How important is lighting for a rendering, and is there any "preset" method used to get good results? Lighting in computer graphics is a very important element in creating images. It takes a while of experimenting with different types of lights and settings to get good results, but there is one basic setup that can also be used as a starting point. The basic approach is one used for lighting real world video scenes. It is known as a "3 point" light setup since it involves 3 light sources. The first light source named the "key" light is the main light for the scene. It is usually placed about 45 degress above and to the side of the camera. This provides overall light so you can see your objects etc... The second light is known as the "back" or "top" light. Place this light above and slightly behind the center of your scene. In video this is used to show highlights on a persons hair so you can tell where the back of their head is. In this case, it provides a similar function so that you can see the back parts of objects. This is typically set at about 2 times the key lights intensity, though for computer graphics a setting equal to or less than that of the key is usually enough. The final light is the "fill" light. This is usually placed at a 45 degress angle below and to the side of the camera so that it is on the opposite side of the "key" light. This light should be dim and possible colored and diffused to give some illumination to any part of the scene not covered fromt the other lights. For rendering this means lowering the intensity and or making the light "diminish in intensity". With this setup there should be an improvement over any rendering using just one light. As a test setup a ground and a stationary object. (The typical chrome ball with cool highlights on a checkered ground works well here) Render once scene with just one light (the key light only). Then add the other 2 or more fill lights and re- render it. There should be a big difference. Also, don't forget that lights can be colored, can cast shadows and can be "conical spotlights". All this can be used to give greater value to your scene. ======================================================================== SECTION 7 - Essence Settings ======================================================================== 1] Electrical Arc Here's how to make an electrical arc between two rods, like something out of Frankenstien's lab. 1] Start with a plane with 255 R,G,B on Color and a light blue (or whatever color you want the arc to be) in Filter. 2] Use Ringfract as follows: Set the Z axis to point out of the plane, (rotate 90 on X) Low Trans Start=30 Low Trans Width=5 Hi Trans Start =40 Hi Trans Width =5 Set the color to 0,0,0 for RGB. Leave other settings at defaults Place the axis of Ringfract in the middle of the bottom edge of the plane. 3] Now use Swapcrf to swap the color and filter values. Do this by setting all parameters to 0, and then setting the following values to 1: Filt -> N Color = 1 Refl -> N Refl = 1 Color -> N Filt = 1 Now when rendered, there should be something similar to an electrical arc (or maybe some sort of plasma). To have the arc grow, rotate the Ringfract axis on X up or down so that the plane and cylinder do not intersect at 90 degrees. If you animate this it looks like the arc gets taller until the arc breaks (i.e. the plane no longer intersects Ringfract's cylinder in a curve, but instead in two lines). Also setting the plane to bright will make it look correct in dim scenes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2] Veined Marble The veinedmarble texture is used twice, once for large, widely spaced veins. The second use is for finer, closely spaced veins. For veined green marble set the object color to 40,80,40 for Red Green and Blue respectively. The texture veins are a gray-green color. Text#1 Text#2 Parameter Text#1 Text#2 Parameter 800.0 300.0 Initial Scale 4.0 5.0 Turbidity 7.0 7.0 # of Scales 0.9 0.98 Color Level 0.4 0.4 Scale Ratio 120.0 120.0 Color Red 0.6 0.6 Amp Ratio 150.0 150.0 Color Green 0.4 0.4 Time Ratio 120.0 120.0 Color Blue 0.0 0.0 Time 0.0 0.0 Fade 0..1 1.0 1.0 Sharpness 0.0 0.0 20.0 10.0 Vein Spacing 0.0 0.0 Rotate the second texture 45 degrees around the X and Y axes with respect to the first texture. You may want to rotate the first texture as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3] Rough marble/rock This uses 2 textures, one for a main color variation, and the other for the bump/roughness. This is very effective for creating stone surfaces. Try these settings on a primitive plane. Object Attribs R G B Value Color = 136 118 128 Specular = 153 134 132 Dithering = 255 Phong = On All others at 0. Texture 1: fractalcolor Texture 2: bump Parameter Value Parameter Value Initial Scale 15 Initial Scale 5 # of scales 5 # of scales 4 Scale Ratio 0.4 Scale Ratio 0.5 Amplitude Ratio 0.4 Amplitude Ratio 0.5 Time Ratio 0.4 Alt. Adjust 3 Time 0 Fade 0..1 0 Base->1 Trans 0.3 Axis placement left at default 1->2 Trans 0.6 Color 1 End 1 Color 1 Red 70 Color 1 Green 60 Color 1 Blue 60 Color 2 Red 255 Color 2 Green 240 Color 2 Blue 240 Fade 0..1 0 Axis placement left at default When rendered an off gray stone will be created. Great for caverns, dungeons and so on. Just slap it onto the walls or columns to give it good-ol' natural look. ======================================================================== SECTION 8 - Miscellaneous ======================================================================== 1] What the heck is BTW, IMO and other weird abbreviations... BTW is an abbreviation for "By The Way". IMO is an abbreviation for "In My Opinion" IMHO is an abbreviation for "In My Humble Opinion" IML is an abbreviation for "Imagine Mailing List" :) is a sideways smiley face :( is a sideways frowny face ;) is a winking-eye face etc... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2] My rendering times and even my refresh times in the editors are much MUCH too slow, even with an accelerator. Is there any basic tricks or hints that are often overlooked that might help me out?" Always be sure to MERGE your objects. This eliminates multiple faces, points and lines. Some objects have a VERY large number of these and it can slow your times down by up to 1/2! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3] When does one get good enough so that they don't render ugly pictures! Practice with a simple objects (to cut down trace time) over and over and over. Varying lighting & color etc. This will allow you to get the effect you want which is only a technical problem. ======================================================================== CLOSING - Closing statements and Disclaimer ======================================================================== Hopefully this document is useful to people out there. Once again, if there is anything you want added/changed/deleted, please e-mail as listed at the top of the document. What follows is a small disclaimer so no one gets sued for information that is accidentally incorrect or misleading. (If you find a mistake...please send e-mail so it can be fixed!). Disclaimer: There is no guarantee regarding any information presented in this document. The information may not be correct, useful or helpful. The reader accepts ALL responsibility for actions pertaining to reading this document, regardless of consequence. ======================================================================== END OF IML-FAQ ## Subject: Re: transparency & 3D objects Date: 30 Sep 1993 00:37:24 GMT From: . [TONS-O-STUFF deleted at various locations] . > polygons to appear between the two planes. Instead of an effect like a > broken-off cement wall, one gets an effect like two planes separated > from each other by some distance with nothing between them. > > effect as you might see in ancient ruins. Modeling this with polygons ... > like some sort of "linearturb" texture would be the perfect solution, Hmmm. It seems to me that the problem is the texture. I don't see why you want linearturb is you're trying to make small pockets of clearness. One of the noise textures like fractalfilter or whatever it's called should be used instead i think. The linear turb will make half the object clear and the other half gone. If you set up the texture axis Z-axis okay you shouldn't be missing anything. Maybe you're axis is misplaced/angled? I am not sure why it would appear as 2 floating planes. Mike C. ## Subject: us cybernetics transputer Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 16:32:08 MDT From: "Neil MacMullen" If people on this list are interested, I would be happy to post details of our soon-to-be-released transputer board for the amiga. Neil MacMullen, US Cybernetics. -- Neil MacMullen Vc. (1-403) 264-2338 neil@powerstor.cuc.ab.ca Vc. (1-403) 289-0252 Fax: (1-403) 282-1238 ## Subject: Re: Repeating Altitude Maps Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 23:43:04 EDT From: Steve J. Lombardi > > 2) Almost half the time when I do a "Quickrender", the image > is calculated but not displayed: I get the "Delete Quickrender File?" > message as soon as calculation is done. I can then view the image, > stored on RAM:, in Opal Paint, but it's a pain. Any solutions? > If you jump to another screen while quickrendering and the image finishes it pops up for a second and disapears. Even if you swap back to the Imagine screen before the render is finished this will happen. My solution is a hot key using the FKEY commodity to pop RAM:QUICKRENDER into the Opalvision buffer. On another unrelated note. Has anyone heard if if the Stereo rendering feature is going to make it into imagine3.0?? I really hope so. | Hey Beavis. Essence-II's Crumpled texture steve lombardi | really KICKS ASS. Mhhh huh. Yea. And those space stlombo@acm.rpi.edu | textures don't suck either. Huh. ## Subject: Re: Repeating Altitude Maps Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 09:45:40 +0100 From: robin@robin.lausanne.sgi.com () On Sep 29, 4:57pm, John R. Spencer wrote: > 1) I tried simulating brick walls and unpolished wood using > infinitely-repeating 24-bit altitude maps, featuring the > cracks between the bricks and the pores in the wood respectively. > Results look pretty good except that the seams show between > the repeating "panels" of the altitude map, either with black lines > or raised "ridges". The original greyscale 24-bit images I'm > using for the altitude maps match perfectly at opposite edges. Is > this a familiar problem and does anyone have a solution? > I'm creating the altitude maps using Opal Paint. It seems to me that this has been reported as a KNOWN-BUG in Imagine 2.0, and we all hope that it will be fixed in version 3.0. Am I wrong ? Robin -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin Chytil, Staff Engineer Mediterranean Distribution Territory Silicon Graphics Vmail: 5-9389 Email: robin@lausanne.sgi.com Tel: +41 21 6269737 Fax : +41 21 6259184 \|/ @ @ ---------------------------------------------------oOO-(_)-OOo------- ## Subject: Repeating Altitude Maps Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 08:25:21 EST From: Adam Benjamin Text item: 9/29/93 7:57PM (IA5Text Enclosure) Hi there, You'll probably get a slew of replies, but just in case... > 1) Results look pretty good except that the seams show between >the repeating "panels" of the altitude map, either with black lines >or raised "ridges". Yup, been there... Done that... It is a "feature" of imagine. Actually I think this is described in Steve's book somewhere. Altitude mapping works by figuring the diference in color of ajoining pixels, since there is no adjoining pixel at the edge of your map it gives those ridges. (even though you repeated the map, it doesn't figure into the formula) As far as I know there is no easy fix for this. >2) Almost half the time when I do a "Quickrender", the image >is calculated but not displayed: I get the "Delete Quickrender File?" >message as soon as calculation is done. I can then view the image, >stored on RAM:, in Opal Paint, but it's a pain. Any solutions? Sounds like you are leaving the quickrender to do other things on your system. If the Imagine screen gets inactive (by you switching to another task) it will do this. No big deal. I do this all the time on my 4000. I quickrender in 24bit and then use Viewtek to look at the quickrendered image. as soon as Viewtek get switched in front of Imagine it asks "Delete Quickrendered image?" Kind of a pain but it's the only way to view iff24's in ham-8. You can switch away from Imagine while it is doing the quickrender, but when you switch back be sure to click the mouse ONCE on the imagine screen to make it the active screen again. Enjoy Imagine Adam B ## Subject: Re: Repeating Altitude Maps Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 00:39:32 +1000 (EST) From: Nikola Vukovljak On Wed, 29 Sep 1993, John R. Spencer wrote: > infinitely-repeating 24-bit altitude maps, featuring the > cracks between the bricks and the pores in the wood respectively. > Results look pretty good except that the seams show between > the repeating "panels" of the altitude map, either with black lines > or raised "ridges". The original greyscale 24-bit images I'm > using for the altitude maps match perfectly at opposite edges. Is > this a familiar problem and does anyone have a solution? > I'm creating the altitude maps using Opal Paint. I've had a ame problem and can't work it out. Is this a known bug ? > > 2) Almost half the time when I do a "Quickrender", the image > is calculated but not displayed: I get the "Delete Quickrender File?" > message as soon as calculation is done. I can then view the image, > stored on RAM:, in Opal Paint, but it's a pain. Any solutions? This often happens if you happened to click in the Imagine window while it was renderig or just finishing. No real silution but the one above. Nik. nvukovlj@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU ## Subject: RE: US Cybernetics Transputer Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 00:28:31 +1000 (EST) From: Nikola Vukovljak On Wed, 29 Sep 1993, Doug Kelly wrote: > Yes, the WARP System sounds extremely promising. I was contacted last > week by a representative of the company, who had some interesting > additions to the official announcement. I asked about the 600MIPS > configuration, since that would seem to be directly comparable to the > Screamer; he said that the target price would be in the neighborhood of > $8000-$9000. He was quick to point out that the entry-level board would > only be around $800, though, so you could scale up as the work demanded > (and presumably as the work PAID for the demands). So, this is with 3 transputers. I could assume that the 200 mips config. would be about $4000 or so, right ? (assuming that bying the additional chips woud be cheaper) The cheaper board is the one I'll be gunning for if Imagine gets ported - still having another CPU of the caliber of 040 in performance would be great. > > The 600MIPS Level 2 board is also the largest configuration that will fit > inside the A2000 case (at this time). Interesting, that you will be able > to get the processing power of the Screamer without an external board. > > The WARP Systems rep also said they'd talked with Mike H. at Impulse. > It's up to Mike now, but the WARP people would really like to get Imagine > ported over. At 600MIPS, you could actually get stereo pairs rendering at > 30fps (as long as you keep the procedural textures under control); a Virtual > Reality machine! > Well, how about all the guys who are interested contact Impulse about this ? Nik. nvukovlj@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU ## Subject: Re: us cybernetics transp Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 12:52:00 -0400 From: roy.park@canrem.com (Roy Park) > If people on this list are interested, I would be happy to post details > of our soon-to-be-released transputer board for the amiga. > > Neil MacMullen, US Cybernetics. Yes, I'd love have some pricing information. Hope it's cheap enough for every Amigan to afford it. > -- > Neil MacMullen Vc. (1-403) 264-2338 > neil@powerstor.cuc.ab.ca Vc. (1-403) 289-0252 > Fax: (1-403) 282-1238 ---- Roy Park // roy.park@canrem.com A3000@25 \X/ 1st yr UofW Comp.Eng. APO/SparX ## Subject: Re: transparency & 3D objects Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 10:15:57 -0600 From: Steve Koren > see why you want linearturb is you're trying to make small pockets > of clearness. One of the noise textures like fractalfilter or whatever > it's called should be used instead i think. The linear turb will make > half the object clear and the other half gone. Well, I'm trying to do just that (make part of the object transparent). That way I can actually shape the object using the linearturb texture (with transparency turned on for the texture). It is a technique that works pretty well with flat objects; I've used it to good effect for shaping flames & other such things which would be darned near impossible to get right by hand. > I am not sure why it would appear as 2 floating planes. It sort of makes sense when you think about what Imagine is doing. With a single flat plane, you can make part of it transparent with linearturb (or whatever), and so you can "shape" the plane using textures. But an extruded plane into a 3D box is not really a solid object to Imagine. If you apply a texture which makes everything along the texture's +Z axis transparent, this will include part of the top, part of the bottom, and the sides of the box. (Ie, all parts of the box with texture-relative coordinates greater than 0, or whatever you set). Since the edge of the box is made transparent, the box suddenly appears to be 2 planes floating unconnected. To successfully do what I said before, the renderer would have to have an understanding of objects as volumes, not merely as connected polygons, which is why I'm also interested in the more abstract question of whether other renderers such as R3D, LW, or Aladdin can do such a thing. It would be a fairly powerful technique if it worked with 3D objects as well as 2D. - steve ## Subject: Re: Starfields Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 12:42:38 EDT From: F. Felixberto >stuff deleted... >This makes beautiful still pictures. However, I have not been able to make >the star field pan very well. The stars flicker too much. > > >Brian You might be panning too fast. Try to limit your pan to around 1 degree per frame. That's what I use and it works just fine. felix ## Subject: Imagine 3.0 release date Date: 30 Sep 1993 18:10:23 +0000 From: "Oxley David" I called Impulse today to ask when Imagine 3.0 would ship. They told me 31 October. Hmmm. So what happened to "end of September", I wonder? Oh well, another date to look forward to :( Regards, David Oxley, Logica UK Ltd. ## Subject: Suggestion for InterRender Interface Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 19:18:41 +0100 From: Hannes Heckner It is not so unusual on the Amiga to use several programs to create an animation. So I think now is the time to get a standard interface bewteen 3D programs. Something like Motion Control could make it possible to composite VistaPro landscapes in the background and a Real3D or Imagine forground. What do you think of it? Hannes ## Subject: Lights Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 23:51:32 GMT From: Tony Jones Posted for Paul Rance (2:253/516.2@fidonet.org) I don't know about anyone else but Imagine's lamps have given me a bit of grief over the years , but I've found how to get round a bug/limitation when trying to make an object into a lamp and make it cast shadows. What happens is that if you create a bulb object and make it bright and into a lamp it works ok until you set the cast-shadows button on and then it stops work. Basically because the attributes are assigned to the objects axis and not the polygons themselves. So the outer surface of the object is a barrier to the light when cast-shadows is on. Here's the way around it: 1. Create the object 2. Select attributes 3. Set the colour - keep all the other settings to 0 or the default will do 4. Make FOG = 1.00 - this is the important bit. The fog setting will basically make the complete object into the light and not just the axis. I hope this isnt old news, I havent seen a way around it in any books or in the texts from the imagine mailing list. I noticed steve worleys desklamp object had a conical lamp set just outside the bulb object to get around this (I think thats why anyway) ,this works fine but not if youve got a wall fitted lamp. You can apply textures to the object without upsetting the brightness,colour,etc which means you can make realistic looking candleflames,etc Paul ## Subject: fog 'feature'? Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 17:59:33 MDT From: pringleg@cuugnet.cuug.ab.ca (Greg Pringle) Recently, I was doing a render that had a plane with a brush filter mapped onto it. There was also fog object in the scene ( I can't remember if it was in front of or behind the plane). When I went to render, everything looked fine, except.. the fog was gone wherever there was a transparent part of the plane! I couldn't seem to get around this with any amount of fudging, and eventually had to take out the fog.. Sorry if this has been discussed to death, but is there a workaround for this? Greg ## Subject: Impulse and the Transputer Date: 1 Oct 1993 10:10:34 +0000 From: "Oxley David" On 30 Sept, I faxed Mike H at Impulse a letter asking about Imagine being ported to the WARP transputer board. He replied very promptly. I hope he doesn't mind me posting his reply, but I thought it might be of interest to other speed-hungry IML-ers :) 66 ... I have spoken several times to Mr Ron Henry in the past and as recently as today. I thought you might like to know what is really going on. There are not really any of these boards in the hands of the developers as you listed. They are trying to develop something but they are doing so blind. I was the first person Ron talked to about this boards, I said to him the following, when you have a working set of boards, send them to us with the development system and environment and we will port Imagine if it is wise to do so. That was two years ago. To date they still have no boards but I do think that they are very close, and Ron assures me that he will be sending me a board or two next week. I look forward to this. Once we have the board, we will investigate it to the nth degree, we want to be the fastest and the best rendering software solution. Unfortunately there are many problems when companies market what they don't have. This is a perfect case, for some reason that goes over my head these guys needed to find out if anyone wants to go 100 times faster than they do today, well you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know the answer to that question. We are comitted to helping you and everyone else who owns Imagine, to make your job easier as well as FASTER, we are on the job and have been from the start and have been aware of these things, we just don't like rumours we like the real thing even if we don't get done with software on time we do try. Let me know what you think, Mike. ... 99 So it sounds like Impulse and US Cybernetics have been in contact for a while. I wonder how long it will take Impulse to investigate the WARP to the nth degree? In a recent newsletter, Impulse talked about a high speed rendering engine. I wonder if the WARP was it, or the WARP has made them think again about their own board? Who knows...more questions to Mike I suppose. Regards, David Oxley, Logica UK Ltd. ## Subject: fog 'feature'? Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 07:11:17 -0600 From: Steve Koren > the fog was gone wherever there was a transparent part > of the plane! I couldn't seem to get around this with any Does that for me too. Annoying, no? The only thing I have been able to do to work around that problem is to fix it after you render the image. I use ImageFX. Usually you can outline just the area that the transparent plane covered and tweak the color balance for that area until it looks "right" (which isn't as bad as it sounds, because you can just fiddle until the sharp edge of the transparent plane goes away). If there is a better way to fix the problem, I'd sure like to know about it. - steve ## Subject: Lights Date: Fri, 01 Oct 93 10:53:41 EST From: Adam Benjamin Text item: 9/30/93 7:51PM (IA5Text Enclosure) In a previous post Nova@ibmpcug.co.uk wrote: >I don't know about anyone else but Imagine's lamps have given me a bit >of grief over the years , but I've found how to get round a >bug/limitation when trying to make an object into a lamp and make it >cast shadows. >4. Make FOG = 1.00 - this is the important bit. WOW! Does this really work???? I never heard about this work around before, this sounds too good to be true. Also while I'm cluttering up your screen... 8-) A Downloaded an Anim from (I think) Animet that was called Valkrie Transform. It was a robotech ship transforming. Very VERY cool. I don't suppose the object (or objects?) are available anywhere? Adam Benjamin ## Subject: Nuke Effect... Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1993 04:33:00 -0400 From: roy.park@canrem.com (Roy Park) Hello all... I once saw somebody mentioning max value for Imagine light source, and how it could create "nuclear explosion" effect. So far, I've tried ONE spherical light source with value about 32000 (very close to max value of 32xxx) and couldn't really get that effect. I have a scene with checkered ground, one object in the center, and the bright light source. I placed the object and the light source without thinking any- thing about their 3D distance (Imagine's 3D coorinate), would this be why? For example, would it yield better result if I was to scale down the object by factor of 10 and decreased the distance by 10? Or using of more lights will help at all?! What about the global light settings? I found that you can't enter any higher value than 255 for global light. My Amiga isn't too fast... so I really don't want to put it through another run unless I have some guarantee. (or something similar!) ---- Roy Park // roy.park@canrem.com A3000@25 \X/ 1st yr UofW Comp.Eng. APO/SparX ## Subject: Re: transparency & 3D objects Date: Fri, 01 Oct 93 13:41:47 EDT From: Mark Thompson Steve Koren writes: > An extruded plane into a 3D box is not really a solid object to Imagine. > If you apply a texture which makes everything along the texture's +Z > axis transparent, this will include part of the top, part of the bottom, > and the sides of the box. > whether other renderers such as R3D, LW, or Aladdin can do such a thing. LW's fractal noise texture is a 3D texture that gets projected onto 3D *surfaces*. If you create a box and transparency map it with fractal noise, the noise will appear on all 6 surfaces as though you carved a box out of swiss cheese and hollowed the box out (except the swiss cheese holes are blurry and ragged :-) Generally, transparency mapping is better suited to adding detail to an existing form rather than creating the form itself (as far as 3D forms are concerned). So if you are creating a 3D flame, shape the object like a flame and use transparency mapping to a vary the tip of the flame. Aladdin, ofcourse, supports gaseous objects which supposedly have actual 3D volume as apposed to simply being surfaces. %~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~% % ` ' 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: bright vs light source Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 12:57:51 CDT From: setzer@comm.mot.com (Thomas Setzer) Its been a while, so please forgive if I'm wrong... I thought I read in Understanding Imagine 2.0 that setting the attribute bright, didn't make the object emit rays of light, but made it so that the objects color wasn't shaded or effected by other light sources. In otherwords, if you set an objects color to 100,100,100, then it would be 100, 100, 100, and no shadows would be cast across it. People on this mailing list seem to imply something different. They suggest that setting the bright attribute, makes the object a lightsource. I have seen that implication in quite a few recent posts. This *may* be causing the problems with cast-shadows and a lightsource. Does anyone know? Steve, can you verify? Is the name "bright" misleading, or am I just plain wrong(say it ain't so)? Tom Setzer setzer@ssd.comm.mot.com "And of course, I'm a genius, so people are naturally drawn to my fiery intellect. Their admiration overwhelms their envy!" - Calvin ## Subject: Screamer and CRAY-1 Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 20:27:53 +0200 From: Ilias Alexopoulos Hi everybody Does anybody know the speed of SCreamer in MFLOPS? I have read that the Cray-1 Supercomputer has a speed of 160 MFLOPS. When they say that the SCreamer has double the speed of Cray-1 they mean in MIPS, MFLOPS, all overall performance? The Hard(ware) way. Commander Ilias ## Subject: Re: SIlver Texture & Morphin Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 19:13:35 GMT From: glewis@pcocd2.intel.com (Glenn M. Lewis - ICD ~) >>>>> "Breno" == Glenn M Lewis writes: Breno> Hi glenn. I think T3DLIB is great (but who doesn't?), Hey, thanks! Breno> but I only got an old version (not sure which), in which you Breno> mentioned in future versions you'd probably add support to Breno> "make-topology-compatible" two objects, so we could morph any 2 Breno> 3D objects. Now that you've mentioned it, did you do it? Any Breno> reason why you couldn't? Lightwave Modeler's programmer, Stuart Breno> Ferguson, told me he "couldn't think of any way", or something Breno> like that. Of course I disagreed, but I'm not a programmer... I have ideas on how to do this, but have not yet implemented it, and will probably not in the near forseeable future... working on too many other things right now. Sorry. -- Glenn ## Subject: Shadows and Light Objects Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 15:46:16 -0400 (EDT) From: "David A. Rollins" I see many people having trouble with light objects casting shadows. I see many tricks being discussed here. The easiest way to get your light objects to cast shadows is to scale the axes down to almost nothing. Many times your light object's axis may be so large that the only thing being illuminated is the light object itself. We made this discovery while rendering the examples of our objects that will be released for sale in the very near future. The solution is to model your light object, do all your tweaking and whatever, then scale the axes down to as close to zero as is possible. This is something that is not documented. It is just something that we discovered by accident. ## Subject: MS-DOS Imagine Date: Fri, 01 Oct 93 15:59:00 PDT From: Stethem Ted 5721 Hi, I have been reading some archive IML about Imagine for MS-DOS and thought I might be able to help out some people with problems. I also started out with the same problems (program wouldn't load, crashes, etc). I am still having a few problems but have gotten it to work for the most part. First had it on a 386/33 with DOS 5. Now I have it on a 486/33 with DOS 6. The primary problem in getting it to load up is in the CONFIG.SYS. Imagine appears to dislike ANY expanded memory manager. This is my CONFIG.SYS to get Imagine to load up: DEVICE=C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM /E:1024 /P DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS DOS=HIGH DEVICE=DOS\ANSI.SYS FILES=30 BUFFERS=30 LASTDRIVE=Z STACKS=9,256 It also appears that Imagine needs as much of the standard memory as you can get, like in excess of 580K. This CONFIG.SYS works for me and I named it CONFIG.OLD so I can use a batch file called OLD.BAT which I run and reboot the machine to use Imagine. I have another NEW.BAT which loads CONFIG.NEW into CONFIG.SYS when I need to use all the other MS-DOG junk. I have used Imagine 2.0 for almost a year on my Amiga 3000/040 so Imagine doesn't totally throw me on the MS-DOZ machine. Anyway, it appears that Imagine is running almost 2 times faster on the 486/33Mhz as compared to my A3000/040/25Mhz. MS-DOS Imagine DOES load DXF, but like most DXF loaders, not all the time. You have to delve into the .DXF "standard" to understand WHY!!! MS-DOS Imagine will produce .FLC animations. It works although the public-domain .FLC players will vary in their ability to play it back. AAPLAY doesn't work very well. PLAYMOVY plays the Imagine .FLC animations very well and has quite a bit of control over dissolves, pauses, playback speed, etc. I am going to send up an animation with the PLAYMOVY player to amiga-boing or aminet when I figure out how to ftp send (my 486 crashes right now for some reason when I tried this, another EMM386 error??!??). There are a lot more memory management problems with the Intel/MS-DOS machines compared to the Motorola/AmigaDOS. Well, I wuv my Amy but ECS is looking really old. Imagine animations and renders at SVGA 640x480x256 colors look pretty awesome compared to 16 color or HAM Interlace although HAM Interlace produces pretty nice results. The 486 is really fast also but it spends more time during the cleanup and showing of images. It would really scream with a 486/66 Mhz or go ballistic with a 486/99Mhz. No problems with DOS 6 that I can see and, actually, Imagine seems to run a little better under DOS 6. Still, I will be going along and it will crash all of sudden but usually after doing several .DXF imports, back and forth between Detail Editor, Project Editor, Stage Editor, Action Editor, etc. Sure do miss that multitasking gadget in the upper right corner though. Only problem now is that my Amy seems kind of slow ... where is that 100Mhz 68060? Hope this helps a little. ## Subject: Impulse and U.S. Cybernetics Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1993 11:33:16 MDT From: "Neil MacMullen" First of all my apologies to everyone who is not really interested in this.... I certainly don't want to get into a flame war here, but I would like to clarify some points. >On 30 Sept, I faxed Mike H at Impulse a letter asking about Imagine being >ported to the WARP transputer board. He replied very promptly. I hope he >doesn't mind me posting his reply, but I thought it might be of interest to >other speed-hungry IML-ers :) > >66 ... > >I have spoken several times to Mr Ron Henry in the past and as recently as >today. I thought you might like to know what is really going on. > >There are not really any of these boards in the hands of the developers as you >listed. They are trying to develop something but they are doing so blind. Clint of VistaPro is currently working with one of our boards; another 10 will be sent to developers (including Mike) as soon as we get them back from the pcb manufacturers in about a week. Up to now, boards have been in very short supply and naturally, highest priority had to be given to our own development team. I'm not sure what Mike means by 'developing blind', but I can assure everyone that we have a very firm idea of exactly the way we want the hardware and software to go. > >I was the first person Ron talked to about this boards, I said to him the >following, when you have a working set of boards, send them to us with the >development system and environment and we will port Imagine if it is wise to do >so. That was two years ago. To date they still have no boards but I do think >that they are very close, and Ron assures me that he will be sending me a board >or two next week. I look forward to this. As Mike says, we have been in contact with him for a long time. As with most startup companies, we have had to struggle to overcome numerous hurdles to get to this point. I certainly don't wish anyone to think that the reason that Imagine is not currently running on the warp board is down to Mike. I have been reluctant to comment on the recent calls on this list for Impulse to port to the warp board because I assumed that Mike would want to keep any business dealings private until he had seen the board and made a decision. >Once we have the board, we will investigate it to the nth degree, we want to be >the fastest and the best rendering software solution. Unfortunately there are >many problems when companies market what they don't have. This is a perfect >case, for some reason that goes over my head these guys needed to find out if >anyone wants to go 100 times faster than they do today, well you don't have to >be a rocket scientist to know the answer to that question. The reason we approached Mike was that we felt, and still feel, that there is no point trying to sell a piece of hardware unless there is some software to run on it. Since we saw Imagine as being the market leader in a field which was a natural application for the warp board, we hoped that he would be enthusiastic about porting his product. > >We are comitted to helping you and everyone else who owns Imagine, to make your >job easier as well as FASTER, we are on the job and have been from the start >and have been aware of these things, we just don't like rumours we like the >real thing even if we don't get done with software on time we do try. > >Let me know what you think, >Mike. > >.... 99 > >So it sounds like Impulse and US Cybernetics have been in contact for a while. >I wonder how long it will take Impulse to investigate the WARP to the nth >degree? In a recent newsletter, Impulse talked about a high speed rendering >engine. I wonder if the WARP was it, or the WARP has made them think again >about their own board? Who knows...more questions to Mike I suppose. > I believe Mike was referring to the WARP in this newsletter. Well, I hope that can put things to rest. If anyone has any further queries I will be happy to respond, either to the list (if requested) or privately. Neil -- Neil MacMullen Vc. (1-403) 264-2338 U.S. Cybernetics Vc. (1-403) 289-0252 Email: neil@powerstor.cuc.ab.ca Fax: (1-403) 282-1238 ## Subject: Re: Screamer and CRAY-1 Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 21:14:00 -0400 From: roy.park@canrem.com (Roy Park) > Does anybody know the speed of SCreamer in MFLOPS? > I have read that the Cray-1 Supercomputer has a speed of 160 MFLOPS. > When they say that the SCreamer has double the speed of Cray-1 > they mean in MIPS, MFLOPS, all overall performance? 160 MFLOPS eh? must be 'entry level' Cray or something :) Seriously, you can't really compare different computers in terms of MIPS or MFLOPS since they are not the best way of measuring performance. Remember, number of instructions or flip-flops are can be really different machine to machine... efficiency, etc. can be another factor. > The Hard(ware) way. > Commander Ilias ---- Roy Park // roy.park@canrem.com A3000@25 \X/ 1st yr UofW Comp.Eng. APO/SparX