thomas@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Thomas Summerall) (11/16/89)
The film department here is currently considering a major purchase for
computer graphics production. Uses include genlock special effects,
titling, 24 Bit frame grabbing, and full feature 3d rendering and animation
including tweening, real time previewing, surface mapping, and ray tracing.
Ideally an automated film recorder which takes 16mm reels would be involved.
We will buy whatever computer system is required in order to run the best
3d package. Speed and rendering quality vs. Price is the key ratio.
Packages we are aware of but need more info/opinions on include:
Macintosh:
-Renderman in conjunction with Levco's transputer.
I saw it at Macworld. Seemed slow still. But Renderman has quite a
rep.
-Spotlight with whatever accelerators.
I don't know a thing but rumours. Company doesn't return phone
messages. No humans seem to work there.
-Dimensions Presenter with Yarc accelerator card and various
Other modeling pragrams. Seems like a patchwork affair with many
little programs. Would rather have a well integrated solution.
Also I think Dimensions is hard to use.
-Sculpt/Animate 4D for Mac.
Rumoured to be coming out soon and more powerful than Amiga vers.
Amiga:
-Turbosilver
????? Vhat da hell is dis?
-Caligari Professional Vers.
True 3d interface. Real time wire frame preview. An important concern.
-Journey Man
Like Caligari but supposedly better. ???
-Digital Animation Productions
24 bit RISC accelerator with amazing performance specs advertised in Dec.
Amiga world. Works with above software. Seems great.
The department currently owns an Amiga 2000 with a 68030 accelerator and
S/A 4d, but is beginning to outgrow it. There seem to be many more products
available for the Amiga, but most seem only to work with Amiga's relatively
cheesy graphics modes. We like the fact that apple's 32 bit quickdraw is
standardized. Is Amiga's? Mac products seem to be significantly more
expensive as a rule, but are they any better? When you start talking 24 bit
and RISC the number of products available for the Amiga (I think) are about
the same as for a Mac. It almost doesn't matter which system you use
given the fact that with all of these accelerators/transputers you hardly
use the native processors/ROMs anyway.
What have people used/liked?
Thanks in advance...
Thomas Summerall
thomas@eleazar.dartmouth.edu
jandreas@pnet02.gryphon.com (Jason Andreas) (11/23/89)
One problem with Renderman is that it doesn't have an interface. Although
programs, such as AutoCad will soon be able to drive renderman. The
macintosh version of SA4D as of yet doesn't have Animation capabilities like
the amiga version, but i was told E. Graham was working on this, along with
adding texturing. Caligari is junk! (PERSONAL + OTHER OPINIONS). JourneyMan
is great, plus a few of the 7 modules are shipping NOW! Turbo Silver has
great rendering, but a lousy cell editor, (BUT THIS IS ALSO BEING CHANGED).
Another program to check out is 3-Tuple, being made by Fred Michell at CBM.
The digital animation production's board is great if we can just get some real
software running. I'm currently working on a ray tracer for it that will
take in Turbo Silver CEll files, and Sculpt-Animate 4D .scene files, and
Render them, using my own renderer, which produces much better pictures than
TS or SA4D. I would take a serious look in to The JourneyMan by Hash
Enterprises, and 3-Tuple by Fred M. who i believe is on USENET!
There are some other packages coming out soon, but they're not very good.
UUCP: {ames!elroy, <routing site>}!gryphon!pnet02!jandreas
INET: jandreas@pnet02.gryphon.combaer@qiclab.UUCP (Ken Baer) (11/25/89)
In article <22607@gryphon.COM> jandreas@pnet02.gryphon.com (Jason Andreas) writes: >macintosh version of SA4D as of yet doesn't have Animation capabilities like >the amiga version, but i was told E. Graham was working on this, along with >texturing. Are you sure the Mac version doesn't do animation? At SIGGRAPH, they were implying that it did. Especially when they showed the CrackFish animation and claimed it was rendered on a Mac. I heard from other people that it was actually rendered on an Amiga with a Targa board. > JourneyMan is great, plus a few of the 7 modules are shipping NOW! I should clarify this a little. Journeyman is VERY close, but it is not shipping yet. It will be available as a complete package this Spring. Like our Apprentice package, it's modular, i.e. the modeling, action design, choreographing, and rendering are different executables. In Journeyman they are called Sculpture, Direction, Character, Action, and Render. All the modules except for Action are about to go into Beta testing. We are making the Beta modules available to Apprentice owners so we can get more feedback, and so they can play with this new technology right away. The people to buy the early modules get the whole package for free when it comes out. The way things are going, you may not need Apprentice to use the Beta version (we have more code done than we forsaw). Journeyman is really a breakthrough in character animation technology on the computer. And, yes, it's 24-bit. You can render any Amiga resolution, and we plan to support as many frame buffers as we can get our hands on. We also plan to support the Univ. of Lowell Hires Board, since it's ideal for animation. >The digital animation production's board is great if we can just get some real >software running. We'd support it if they sent us one. We've talked with them many times about it. > I would take a serious look in to The JourneyMan by Hash Enterprises Thanks for the endorsement! Did you see Journeyman at SIGGRAPH? >UUCP: {ames!elroy, <routing site>}!gryphon!pnet02!jandreas >INET: jandreas@pnet02.gryphon.com -- // -Ken Baer. Programmer/Animator, Hash Enterprises. \X/ Usenet: baer@qiclab.UUCP or PLink: KEN BAER "I want to be an ..... ARCH VILLIAN!!!" -- Petey Pate.
bobl@pro-graphics.cts.com (Bob Lindabury) (12/01/89)
In-Reply-To: message from jandreas@pnet02.gryphon.com > One problem with Renderman is that it doesn't have an interface. Although > programs, such as AutoCad will soon be able to drive renderman. The > macintosh version of SA4D as of yet doesn't have Animation capabilities like > the amiga version, but i was told E. Graham was working on this, along with > adding texturing. Caligari is junk! (PERSONAL + OTHER OPINIONS). JourneyMan > is great, plus a few of the 7 modules are shipping NOW! Turbo Silver has > great rendering, but a lousy cell editor, (BUT THIS IS ALSO BEING CHANGED). > Another program to check out is 3-Tuple, being made by Fred Michell at CBM. > The digital animation production's board is great if we can just get some real > software running. I'm currently working on a ray tracer for it that will > take in Turbo Silver CEll files, and Sculpt-Animate 4D .scene files, and > Render them, using my own renderer, which produces much better pictures than > TS or SA4D. I would take a serious look in to The JourneyMan by Hash > Enterprises, and 3-Tuple by Fred M. who i believe is on USENET! > There are some other packages coming out soon, but they're not very good. > > > UUCP: {ames!elroy, <routing site>}!gryphon!pnet02!jandreas > INET: jandreas@pnet02.gryphon.com If you are writing a renderer, please make sure not to make the mistake that Sculpt/Animate does by assuming poeple will only be rendering to HAM mode and other Amiga resolutions/colors. I've done and seen several renderings from the Byte by Byte product and I can tell you right now that if you are doing anything over the Amiga resolutions/colors (16-32bit) you are going to have rotten images. Seems they've optimized thier software to render some type of bands in solid colors and then to dither them into smooth shades in HAM. However, when you render out to a 24 bit file, the software does not dither (and shouldn't have to since 32,768 colors are available) but the bands in the image still persist. This is totally unacceptable for a package that costs twice as much as Turbo Silver SV. If Byte by Byte would update their product, I would consider it a useful product. They would have to add mapping and a realistic renderer. Turbo renders quite a bit better than SA 4D but the interface is somewhat of an obstical. The best interface around is Calagari's interface, however, you are right, the package as a whole is junk. It now support direct rendering to a TARGA 16 board through a Bridgeboard but the editor is horrible because you cannot edit points and the Animator is a joke, you're back to text scripts! As for the Interface to TARGA from Sculpt by InterActive Circuits, it's a great package. You can render directly to your TARGA 16 (through a bridge board of course) but the biggest problem still is the horrible renderer you are stuck with in SA 4D. Why spend all that money on all that hardware/software when you are going to end up with (granted, the images are better than Amiga images) rotten images? Byte by Byte doesn't seem to want to support the Amiga anymore and are after the MAC market and the jerks I've spoken to at the company seem to feel that all of us with Amigas are just hackers that can't or will not come up with the money to make any updates to their software worth the effort. Seems that in the long run, you are better off with a 386 platform and one of the readily available image boards (such as TARGA, VISTA, etc.) for doing anything of real consequence in the 3D world. Software for these type of systems are abundant and full featured and relatively easy to use but cost a pretty penny. If you are talking about going the 16bit and above route, this seems to be the answer for now or until someone comes up with a better 3D package. I understand that NewTek should have a new 3D package available soon and from what I've seen so far, the images look reasonable. Of course, if the Toaser is any indication, this one will probably be ready by the year 2000. -- Bob _________________________ Pro-Graphics 201/469-0049 __________________________ InterNet: bobl@pro-graphics.cts.com | ProLine: bobl@pro-graphics UUCP: ..crash!pro-graphics!bobl | CServe: 70347,2344 ARPA/DDN: ..crash!pro-graphics!bobl@nosc.mil | Amer. Online: Graphics3D ___________ ____________ Raven Enterprises - 25 Raven Ave. Piscataway, NJ 08854