stx@vax1.mankato.msus.edu (Kevin Whyte) (11/18/90)
Well I just got done watching Computer Chronicles. I must say that I think the show presented the Amiga in a VERY positive light. They opened with a musician using the amiga and midi in the background while the shows host told what the program was going to be about. Next they went into the studio and introduced a represenitive from commodore ( I think he was a VP but I can't remember for sure, If people really want to know I can review the tape I made and tell you) He introduced the Amiga 3000 and told a bit about the internals and how it was different from the A2500/30. He then went in a did a small demo of 2.0 which he said was included with the A3000 (duh) as well as Amigavision. He then turned the 3000 over to another person that demoed Amigavision. This was the first time I actually saw Amigavision. It looks really great!! He made a small program(?) that took a digitized picture of the three stooges and created a "hot spot"(place for the mouse to click) out of Curleys head. He then showed a premade demo of a rendered skeleton turning within a page of text and different ways to zoom in, zoom out, and stop rotation. He made it look extremely easy! Then he did a demo using a Amigavision and a pioneer laserdisk. It showed a book with different catagories of insects. You clicked on the category you wanted and it played a segment of the videodisk corresponding to the selection 'clicked'. After the demo of Amigavision they showed a story about the Palo Alto Users Group( Sorry if I slaughtered the name) then they went to Hewlett Packard where they were using an Amiga 2500/30 to develop an interactive training program for their employees. The engineer they interviewed said they selected the amiga becuase they wanted a computer/software combination that would do the job right of the shelf. After that story they went back top the studio and a couple of guys from Newtek did a demo of the Video Toaster. They did different video special effects that I thought were very impressive. I won't go into detail becuase I don't know a damn thing about video. They did tell that the video toaster for $1500 did the same job as what is being done with $50000 + equipment. Oh I almost forgot, back on the A3000 a person from Disney did a demo of the Disney Animation Studio. When asked why Disney had written the software for the amiga, the man said that the Amiga's graphics capabilities were very suitable for their application. I apologize for the post being this long I hadn't planned it to be. During the entire program not once was the amiga mentioned to be a "Game machine" instead it was refered to as a creative machine, a multimedia machine. It was a great program. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ stx@vax1.mankato.msus.edu Kevin Whyte Proud Owner of an Croaker@bbs.quartz :) Mankato State University Amiga 1000 stx@att1.mankato.msus.edu Mankato MN 56001 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
yorkw@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Willis F York) (11/18/90)
> After that story they went back top the studio and a couple of guys from >Newtek did a demo of the Video Toaster. They did different video special >effects that I thought were very impressive. I won't go into detail becuase I I don't think the Hosts realized Exactly How AWSOMELY Powerfull this Toster is. They just seemed to say, Neat-o.....So... > Oh I almost forgot, back on the A3000 a person from Disney did a demo of the >Disney Animation Studio. When asked why Disney had written the software for >the amiga, the man said that the Amiga's graphics capabilities were very >suitable for their application. One of the Hosts mentioned somthing about the program lacking a feature. it was about the Ink& paint Dept, You have to page through each frame and fill in the color whgere it should be, Ie a Blue Wing/Yellow Beak. The Host said Somthing like: " Seems like the program should automaticially fill in the correct areas with color without goint through each frame" (He said it REAL SNOOBY too) I started thinking about this... It CAN'T do this.. And i doubt if it ever COULD be done. (IS my argument above clear?) say ya have a Bird Flapping in the animation. Frame 1: The wings are down, ya fill in Blue. Tummy Yellow. Frame 2: Ya then have to fill in the wings again, Tummy again. (The Host wanted this to be done automaticially) (This is "impossible" the computer whoud have to KNOW What parts ARE wings.) I don't think the Host realized what the program was doing. It was supposed to be a INTUIVELY easy animation program. The host seemed to think it was a Structured Cad Type prog. (The more i see the CC show the more i see it's like a COMPUTE magazine ported to the Telly.) See the Software revirew? A Progam like NAG for the MAC for ONLY $130. I about Lost my Coffee at the mention of price. (Last week they reviewed a SCREEN BLANKER for $30) IT used Full color animations, Fish/Tosters/ect, What a Wast of CPU time. The show still needs work. . -- yorkw@ecn.purdue.edu Willis F York ---------------------------------------------- Macintosh... Proof that a Person can use a Computer all day and still not know ANYTHING about computers.
bj@cbmvax.commodore.com (Brian Jackson) (11/18/90)
In article <yorkw.658894851@stable.ecn.purdue.edu> yorkw@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Willis F York) writes: > >One of the Hosts mentioned somthing about the program lacking a feature. > >it was about the Ink& paint Dept, You have to page through each frame >and fill in the color whgere it should be, Ie a Blue Wing/Yellow Beak. > >The Host said Somthing like: " Seems like the program should automaticially >fill in the correct areas with color without goint through each frame" >(He said it REAL SNOOBY too) > >I started thinking about this... It CAN'T do this.. And i doubt if it >ever COULD be done. (IS my argument above clear?) > >say ya have a Bird Flapping in the animation. > >Frame 1: The wings are down, ya fill in Blue. Tummy Yellow. >Frame 2: Ya then have to fill in the wings again, Tummy again. >(The Host wanted this to be done automaticially) >(This is "impossible" the computer whoud have to KNOW What parts ARE wings.) Not really. The ability to "know what is a wing and what is a beak" requires some rudimentary edge detection and that the colored area not change from frame to frame in increments large enough to cause the program to lose the color in question at a given X/Y coordinate. In other words, as long as the position of color block X in frame #2 still overlaps the position of color block X in frame #1, the program can figure things out with relative ease. This is the basis for the routines that are used to colorize B&W films. Once you define a new scene and and tell the program what blocks of the display are what colors, it's really not hard to follow them from frame to frame. The only problem comes with the "rabbit out of the hat" - something crawls out from under the bed. The computer now says "huh?" :) bj >yorkw@ecn.purdue.edu Willis F York ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Brian Jackson Software Engineer, Commodore-Amiga Inc. GEnie: B.J. | | bj@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com or ...{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!bj | | "Caught in the vice of heaven and earth, | | he turned his life into a cell" Think Green. | -----------------------------------------------------------------------
jma@beach.cis.ufl.edu (John 'Vlad' Adams) (11/18/90)
Wasn't that show GREAT!?!?! Some of the more memorable quotes: "The ultimate video machine." "Fonts for the blind." - Hedley Davis - Commodore "How does a $1500 card do what takes a studio $50,000?" "Part of the magic is the Amiga." - Paul Montgomery - NewTek Then we all laughed when Random Access news talked about the multimedia from the IBM without mentioning prices. For a transcript of the show, send $4 to: Computer Chronicles PTV Publication P.O. Box 70 Kent, Ohio 44240 On a related note, this poor gal just bought one of the education IBM machines. A 286 with a 60 meg drive and VGA for the patry sum of $3600. -- John M. Adams --**-- Professional Student on the eight-year plan! /// Internet: jma@beach.cis.ufl.edu -or- vladimir@maple.circa.ufl.edu /// "We'll always be together, together in electric dreams" Moroder & Oakey \\V// Sysop of The Beachside. FIDOnet 1:3612/557. 904-492-2305 (Florida) \X/
mwm@raven.relay.pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer) (11/20/90)
In article <15938@cbmvax.commodore.com> bj@cbmvax.commodore.com (Brian Jackson) writes: >(The Host wanted this to be done automaticially) >(This is "impossible" the computer whoud have to KNOW What parts ARE wings.) Not really. The ability to "know what is a wing and what is a beak" requires some rudimentary edge detection and that the colored area not change from frame to frame in increments large enough to cause the program to lose the color in question at a given X/Y coordinate. Yes, it can be done. But even the simple bird flying animation would have problems with sudden movements (the wings appearing below the bird on the bottom of the stroke). I talked with Leo about this several years ago, basically suggesting what you did. He wasn't sure it could be done. What is clear is that it can't be done reliably, and TAS is for naive, inexperienced users. What is perfectly acceptables for professionals at TBS may not be acceptable for such users. On the other hand, the demo on CC managed to missed coloring one part of the wing for one frame. A "check coloring" feature for detecting such would be nice. Wouldn't be hard, either - except for dealing with things colored in the background color. [NB - I don't own TAS, so this may be there.] <mike --
bj@cbmvax.commodore.com (Brian Jackson) (11/20/90)
In article <MWM.90Nov19131152@raven.relay.pa.dec.com> mwm@raven.relay.pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer) writes: >In article <15938@cbmvax.commodore.com> bj@cbmvax.commodore.com (Brian Jackson) writes: > >(The Host wanted this to be done automaticially) > >(This is "impossible" the computer whoud have to KNOW What parts ARE wings.) > Not really. The ability to "know what is a wing and what is a beak" > requires some rudimentary edge detection and that ... > >I talked with Leo about this several years ago, basically suggesting >what you did. He wasn't sure it could be done. What is clear is that >it can't be done reliably, and TAS is for naive, inexperienced users. >What is perfectly acceptables for professionals at TBS may not be >acceptable for such users. Oh yes, I totally agree. This was just theory mind you :) We had such code working on an old Inovion PGS-1 a while back (there is a picture of this machine in the dictionary under the word "slow") that did it fairly well. As long as a given block of color overlapped at least part of the position it held in the previous frame, it could find it's way through about 95% of the time. It still stopped at each frame to be sure that you were happy with things but it worked. bj > <mike ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Brian Jackson Software Engineer, Commodore-Amiga Inc GEnie: B.J. | | bj@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com or ...{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!bj | |"Kill a small animal, drink a lite beer." | -----------------------------------------------------------------------
nsw@cbnewsm.att.com (Neil Weinstock) (11/22/90)
In article <yorkw.658894851@stable.ecn.purdue.edu>, yorkw@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Willis F York) writes: [ ... ] > See the Software revirew? A Progam like NAG for the MAC for ONLY $130. > I about Lost my Coffee at the mention of price. > (Last week they reviewed a SCREEN BLANKER for $30) IT used Full color > animations, Fish/Tosters/ect, What a Wast of CPU time. On the Amiga, we have C compiler wars, comm program wars, hard disk controller wars, etc. On the Mac, they have screen blanker wars. I swear I have never seen so much wasted effort as gets put into these commercial screen blankers (which, of course, never really "blank" the screen). On the other hand, a screen blanker is a great place to put neat little graphics hacks that have no real purpose. Some of them are really quite cute. The funny thing is that many of the modules they have in the blankers don't serve the ultimate purpose that they're supposed to. That is, they leave lots of stationary graphics on the screen, often in bright saturated colors. Woops! - Neil --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-- Neil Weinstock @ AT&T Bell Labs // What was sliced bread att!edsel!nsw or nsw@edsel.att.com \X/ the greatest thing since?
david@twg.com (David S. Herron) (11/26/90)
In article <yorkw.658894851@stable.ecn.purdue.edu> yorkw@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Willis F York) writes: >The Host said Somthing like: " Seems like the program should automaticially >fill in the correct areas with color without goint through each frame" >(He said it REAL SNOOBY too) ... >Frame 1: The wings are down, ya fill in Blue. Tummy Yellow. >Frame 2: Ya then have to fill in the wings again, Tummy again. >(The Host wanted this to be done automaticially) >(This is "impossible" the computer whoud have to KNOW What parts ARE wings.) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >I don't think the Host realized what the program was doing. >It was supposed to be a INTUIVELY easy animation program. *exactly* It *should* be a sort of thing where you describe to the program the *objects* in the animation. Part of the description is the color of the part. Part of the description may be rules about how they move in relation to each other. Reason? Think about a 20-minute animation. That has, what, 21600 frames in it (18 frames/second). Think about hand coloring that many frames. The role of computers in this world is to make mind-numbing jobs like that *simpler*. -- <- David Herron, an MMDF & WIN/MHS guy, <david@twg.com> <- Formerly: David Herron -- NonResident E-Mail Hack <david@ms.uky.edu> <- <- Use the force Wes!
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (11/27/90)
david@twg.com (David S. Herron) writes: >Reason? Think about a 20-minute animation. That has, what, 21600 >frames in it (18 frames/second). Think about hand coloring that >many frames. The role of computers in this world is to make >mind-numbing jobs like that *simpler*. Gee where have you been David? The state of the art cartoons only do around 5 frames a second any more :-) take a look at those cheopo Japanese cartoons Heck sometimes they only do 2 or 3 frames a second, and even then they only move one small part of the picture at a time (like maybe the mouth and eyes) [not to mention they all talk like 'Lothar of the Hill People' (from saturday night live TV show)] So you only need 6000 frames to make a 20 minute state-of-the-art animation :-) -- John Sparks |D.I.S.K. Public Access Unix System| Multi-User Games, Email sparks@corpane.UUCP |PH: (502) 968-DISK 24Hrs/2400BPS | Usenet, Chatting, =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-|7 line Multi-User system. | Downloads & more. A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of----Ogden Nash
seanc@pro-party.cts.com (Sean Cunningham) (12/01/90)
In-Reply-To: message from sparks@corpane.UUCP I don't really want to start something over this, but being an avid anime fan, I just had to comment on your message regarding Japanese animation... While it's true that your average daytime cartoon has very few frames, 5-8 per second, the artwork level on a per-frame basis far exceeds that of US animations in the same category (especially if you're dealing with Hanna Babara...ick!). Whether or not you consider this an okay tradeoff I guess depends on what you're into... Sean >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> .SIG v2.5 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc RealWorld: Sean Cunningham ARPA: !crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc@nosc.mil Voice: (512) 992-2810 INET: seanc@pro-party.cts.com ____________________________________ // | * All opinions expressed herein | HELP KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/ | Copyright 1990 VISION GRAPHICS | >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<