mikep@hpmwtd.HP.COM (Mike Powell) (10/03/90)
The NewTek Video Toaster.....
First Impressions-
The Hyatt Palo Alto, California. The 5th Anniversary of the First
Amiga Users Group (FAUG), Oct.2, 1990
The Toaster is here....
To a croud numbering in the hundreds, NewTek presented the Video
Toaster package. I will attempt to sum up some of the basic
features of the device and its impressive companion software
packages, and to give an account of the demonstration.....
Here goes....
Paul Montgomery, one of the FAUG founders (and now a NewTek
employee) hoasted the meeting and introduced Tim Jenison to
begin the demo. He placed all blame on the delay of the Toaster's
introduction (some two years late) on himself, and gave no other
explanation of the delay except to say that he decided that the Toaster
should be (and more importantly COULD be) much more than it was
back in 1988 (basically just a DVE), and decided to further pursue
the vision rather than to compromise. He then announced to the crowd
that the Toaster began shipping a week ago last Friday. It's
official... it's out! We even wittnessed a lucky FAUG member win
a Toaster right there at the meeting (some door prize!), when asked for
a comment, he said "I guess I'm going to buy a 2000 now..."
On with the demo... Paul demonstrated the Digital Video Effects
portion of the show to show the familiar (and sometimes not so
familiar) wipes, blinds, pushes, etc. that was already a part
of the 1988 Toaster... very intuitive, and appeared to be of the
higest quality that video viewers have come to expect. It's
important to note that while these transitional effects (the effects
that are part of trasitioning from one video source to another..
Ex: a simple fade) are happening, the effect image is still LIVE and
in motion. Some cheaper DVE's 'cheat' by freezing the frame and then
making the transition... the Toaster doesn't ever freeze the image.
There are 32 effects available on each 'panel' with a total of four
panels available to the user.... There are MANY more details, but
simply too much for me to put here (espeially since it's 2:00 am).
The next portion of the demo was on the Chroma FX color processing
software. This software is simply called from the main Toaster
screen by a single button, as are all the other programs that are
launched from Toaster (Toaster Paint, Lightwave, etc.) and form the
complete, integrated package.... but back to Chroma FX. I really
know quite little about this part of the video world, but basicaly
Chroma FX allows for the real-time manipulation and mixing of the
color and luminosity of the video sources (or something similar...
where is a video guru when you need one???). Two cameras were
used as video sources for Toaster, showing two angles of the
demonstrator at work. Chroma FX allowed for the simple tinting
of the live image.... giving everyting a red tint for example. A
slightly more impressive effect was tinting different regions of the
picture with different tints.... with 16 million + colors, the
effect can be made quite subtle... great for tweaking video.
Then came the really wierd effects.... solarization (sp?) effects,
then a fantastic (and unique to the Toaster, we were told) chrome effect
that made the presenter seem as if he were made of fluid chrome.
Stunning. More vivid colors, outline effects, and zebra stripes
followed.... and the effects are customizable by the user, by just
altering settings, similar to fooling with a synthisizer to make
sounds....
Next, we were treated to a short 'Vacation Video' that was spruced
up with the Toaster, that featured a full range of possible effects
including an Allen Hastings animation and end titles.... impressive.
We then saw Toaster Paint (actually, the order of the presentation
is a bit foggy... I hope I'm remembering correctly). Looks a LOT
(read, 'nearly identical') to DigiPaint 3. Two monitors are used
to create images with this package (as with most other parts of the
software) one is a 1/4 scale magnification of the final image with
a smaller color resolution... one simply paints in this display, and
when desired, sends the image to the 24 Bit frame buffer in the Toaster
(one of two frame buffers actually!) to be displayed in its full
pixed and color resolution. This is a much nicer working arrangement
than in first sounds.... it all worked VERY smoothly. A 5 Meg system
is required to paint Hi-Res images though... as the image is 24 bit
planes deep, and has an undo buffer and a swap screen.... It imports
all IFF images and Digiview files..... Beautiful.
Next was the now famous Penn and Teller video.... well done and quite
entertaining..... mostly DVE effects.
Then came the charactor generator demo (again, called up from the
main screen at the press of it's button). Very nice... professional
quality. I recall hearing that there were some 30 fonts included
with a Amiga Bitmapped font converter utility in the probable future.
Standard stuff here.... different scroll speeds etc. The things
that stand out are the shadow capibilities.... the shadows cast by
the fonts are partially transparent to the live video behind.... and
the kerning of the fonts is adjustable for each position of each
character on the screen.... Nicely done.
Then came the 3-D object modeler system.... if you know about Aegis
Modeler 3-D, then you have the basic idea.... it's a standard 3-view
system, with a fourth view being a 3-D wireframe preview area (which
can be rotated about all axis real-time). More powerful than modeler,
and without menus..... everything is run from buttons on the screen,
as is most of the software package, BTW. A really great environment.
A lot of thought went into this one.... Allen Hastings even prefers
it over graph paper! (inside joke....)
Allen next took over to show the Animation package, which is in charge
of creating the content and movement of the 3-D environment.....
I really can't say enough about this one... Allen really out did himself
on this one.... All objects are easily moved and rotated via the mouse
(or numeric requester for more precise entries) which includes the
camera and the lights! Yes, the camera and lights are actually
depicted in the scene, and are resemble the actual articles, right
down to the 'barn-doors' on the lights, to the film magazine on top
of the camera.... there are many many views possible, ranging to the
static, plain views, to the dynamic perspectiv view to the actual camera
view..... all objets are rendered as wireframe. The lights and camera
can all be targeted to any object, meaning that they will point toward
the object where ever it goes. They can also be attached to any object,
following it around where ever it might go. The system uses key frames
and tweening to produce the motion. All objects are easily scaleable,
squashable, strechable, etc... by the mouse in real-time. Lot's more!
This one is HOT.....
Lastly (whew!) was the Lightwave renderer.... Ray-Tracing may not be
dead yet, but Lightwave is likely to push ray-tracing aside for many
folks, as it produces BEAUTIFUL images of ray-traced quality at speeds
that I would estimate are about 50 times faster.... reflection mapping,
shadows, texture, bump, and image mapping.... simply beautiful. Waves
can be defined, and made to animate and INTERFERE with eachother in a
natural way.... nothing short of magic! You MUST see this package.
Allen put orange-peel onto a vase.... very realistic! Simple and
flawless image wrapping onto objects too.... and much more.
We then saw a final video that Allen made that was a 24-bit version
of his last years SIGGRAPH animation "Rush Hour", about a small car
stuck in rush hour traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge, that dreams
of becoming a red Lotus, that sprouts jet engines and small wings
that allow it to blast-off into the air above San Francisco, avoiding
hostle gunfire from attack helicopters, the parachuting home....
Professional quality all the way.... the crowd went wild.
Toaster price tag is $1595.... advance orders are getting filled
first, and authorized Amiga dealers (with a store front... no mail-order)
will be getting next priority, for a single unit only, to serve
as an in-store demo to promote the product until the main production
run finally gets units out to dealers shelves.... (December is an
often quoted time frame for this).
Hope this begins to answer some questions for everyone.... hope I got
my 'facts' straight. I need to sleep now... Goodnite all.
-Mike Powell-