************************************************************* * RAYTRACE USER NEWS ISSUE #4 MAY, 1992 * ************************************************************* BARGAIN OF THE CENTURY! With its June 1992 issue, ST FORMAT UK is once again including the full version of GFA Raytrace 2.1 on its coverdisk. A great opportunity for those new to raytracing to give it a test drive, and for those that have struggled with some of the incredibly difficult PD tracers like QRT and Rayshade - a chance to see just how easy GFA Raytrace's 3-D modeler is in comparison to script-based scene description... If you're just getting started with Raytrace, the much needed manual can be easily had (if you have a VISA card) just by ordering direct from GFA UK. The 15 Pounds price translates to less than $25, and VISA does the conversion for you automatically. I used this method a year back when I upgraded from the Michtron v1.0 version and received it in less than a week. Technically, GFA US has never marketed Raytrace in America - it has only been available as an import with the UK manual, but they do carry it. I don't know if you can get a comparable price offered to ST Format readers by dealing with GFA US - but you might want to give them a call and check it out: 1-800-776-6GFA. An even better deal can be had from E. Arthur Brown, who's now liquidating the Michtron version for only $9.95. There's really no difference in the manauals - even when V2.1 was released, the few changes were documented in the README file thats on the ST Format coverdisk anyways. E.A.B.'s # is 1-800-322-4405 M-F CST. HELLO? IS ANYBODY HOME? Well, I have to admit my little campaign to share pics and tips with other Raytrace users over the past year has been an utterly dismal failure. Either I've really failed to garner any interest, or maybe I'm the only person in the WHOLE WORLD to have mastered GFA Raytrace to any degree. I _DARE_ anyone to prove me wrong! Until I see otherwise, I hereby declare myself to be the world's Grand Master of GFA Raytrace in hopes that someone will try to dethrone me. I haven't forgotten the months of trial and error it took to finally get a grip on the 3-D editor and all the variables of color, light, placement, and materials. The learning curve of Raytrace is pretty damn steep, and perhaps only the most determined graphics enthusiasts are willing to climb it. With a circulation of nearly 70,000 issues a month, I hope that ST Format's publishing of Raytrace will generate another round of enthusiasm for the program and we can get a chance to see what a new generation of Raytrace users can do with it. They did provide a decent 3 page tutorial to get users off to a good start. FULL COLOR PRINTS? With Lonny Pursell's Raytrace to Spectrum converter, Trio Engineering's SPC2GIF and alot of phone calls, I've finally been able to get high quality color prints of my favorite traces. Very nice results using a 486 PC and Photostyler to import the .GIF files, then output to a Kodak color laser printer/copier at $5 a page. A bit nicer than thermal transfer printers which give very glossy prints. Color saturation was quite reasonable tho not as intense as a monitor. If you do go to a service bureau to try this, be prepared to also experiment with the pictures aspect ratio to prevent 'squashed' printouts. We modified the pics vertically to a 320 x _235_ resolution (1:1.3 aspect) to keep images in proper proportion. Programs such as ViewGIF and DMJGIF will analyze a GIF and tell you how many unique colors the file has. For my first printout I used a pic of a rainbow that had 252 unique colors. It proved to be a good test of the printer's color gamut and showed its weakness in the tan/brown range and the propensity to print blues a bit on the purplish side. If you try color output, share your experiences. I'd still like to try printing to Hewelett-Packard's color injets which are good at bold, bright colors. But I'm also aware they do not hold up well over time, the inks fade significantly from UV light. If anyone's aware of any sort of ST printer driver for Spectrum pics to any of HP's color printers please let me know. There's been talk on GEnie of someone working on a HP Deskjet C driver - lets hope so! Quality color printing is finally getting affordable. As much as I've putzed with Cyberprint and another PD program for my Okimate 20 color thermal printer, results are dismal at best. COMPILING A PORTFOLIO Spectrum offers some interesting block functions in its tool bar that can be used to merge several converted tracings onto a single screen. Spectrum has a great block feature that can proportionately scale a picture down - preserving its aspect ratio and intelligently averaging the colors. Though quad-screen pics retain more detail, I've done a 16 screen 'thumb-nail' conversion that gives a quick view of my best raytracing's to date, all on a single screen. With manual in hand, you should be able to come to grips with Spectrum's PIC > BUF, BUF > PIC and scaling options within a half hour. SPX is an interesting PD utility that lets you create a vertically scrollable 512 color pic file from Spectrum pics, and lets you use the arrow keys to scroll through them for viewing. Using the quad picture screens I created in Spectrum, then using SPX to stitch them together, I have a single file thats 320 x 1200(!) resolution for convenient viewing. FASTER LOADING In the last issue I mentioned that any .SUL pic can be renamed STARTSCR.SYS to customize the opening screen with a pic of your own. However, Raytrace doesn't mind if the file isn't found, and will load directly to the Edit screen eliminating the need to press a key to begin work. Deleting STARTSCR.SYS will shave a few seconds off loading time and free up 50K on disk. Using an executable program packer such as PFXPAK will also shrink the main program file in half to under 80K, and set the Fastload Bit for you. If you're a floppy user like me, the extra 130K on disk comes in handy - also a Fast formatted disk (using TLC Format or Diamond Formatter) will get you up and running in half the time, highly recommended. RAYTRACE'S FUTURE... Technology marches on - and the video chip tricks used by Raytrace (and Spectrum) to get 512 colors onscreen spell doom for its future on Atari platforms beyond TOS 1.6 on the STE. I have been pressing GFA for the okay to allow me release the source to Raytrace in hopes that talented programmers might get a chance at adding enhancements that GFA is no longer interested in providing. There's some positive signs that this may become possible in the months ahead. Even if Raytrace is limited to the older ST/E line, there's still alot of room for improvement and I'd like to see that happen. The source is about 180K of GFA Basic, with 50K of assembly to speed things up. I'm hoping someone might be able to optimize the assembly code to provide even faster rendering times at the very least. If you have the talent in assembly to try this, please contact me. The way Raytrace is structured, this assembly code is loaded and executed at the start of the program as GFA_RAY.SYS - almost a module of sorts, and an optimized version could be used to speed up the program by simply adding the new version to your disk. I'M OUT TO CONVERT YOU... Don't be trapped by Raytrace's native .SUL/.SCL picture format! There's a way to edit out those nastly color streaks that often creep up in complex pictures with Lonny Pursell's program SUL2SPU. Once converted to Spectrum format, further conversions, importing into other programs, and color printing all become possible. Your Raytrace disk is incomplete without it. And considering that E. Arthur Brown (phone # listed above) is liquidating Spectrum 512 for $9.99, both are bargains too good to pass up. You can get the registered Raytrace to Spectrum share- ware converter by sending $5 to: Lonny Pursell re: Rayvert P.O. Box 145 Pandora, Ohio 45877 USA I'LL SHOW YOU MINE IF YOU SHOW ME YOURS! I'd really like to see what you've been able to do with Raytrace so send a disk my way! I'll send you back a disk with my best pics, a .SUL pic viewer, the demo version of Lonny's converter, and the back issues of Raytrace User News in exchange. Not a bad deal for the price of a few stamps. If you're a GEnie subscriber - drop by GFA Category 22 Topic 4 in the ST Roundtables and help me keep a discussion of GFA Raytrace lively, or send e-mail to S.SMITH65 and let me know your out there! Write me: RAYTRACE USER NEWS c/o Nick S. Smith 4406 5th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55409 USA