ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) (07/24/87)
[ Line eater food, hell! I just like writing these things. ]
I've had a chance to play with VideoScape 3D today. I've read the
manual, and looked at all the programs and data files and examples. I think
I'm at the point now where I can form an opinion of the product.
Yuckiepoo. Yuck, yucko, ptui! EEeeeuuaaahh!
"Well, maybe not that bad, but Lord, it wasn't good."
-- P. Opus
The product just screams "Hackerware" wherever you look. I get the
impression that Allen Hastings set the program up the way *he* liked it, but
failed to make a lot of the "default" operations settable by the user. As a
result, a lot of the things that may come natural to Allen are desperately
aggrevating to (for the purposes of this discussion) me.
Point: When you load an object file into the 3D program for
previewing, it hangs around only long enough for you to preview it ONCE.
Once you exit the viewing mode, the object is flushed out of memory, and you
have to load it again. This could probably be especially irritating if you
have a very large object you're trying to manipulate. Say it takes 30 seconds
or so for the object to load, you preview it, think to yourself, "Gee, what
would that look like with a green sky instead of a blue one?" Exit viewing
mode... FLUSHEROONY! Load object again (waitwaitwait...), set new sky
color, and view again. Gaakk.
Just for the hell of it, I created a sphere with 75 latitudes and
150 longitudes. It took about three minutes to create and save to RAM:
disk. It took another two minutes or so to load into the animator, and
another two minutes to calculate and display it. I moved the camera, waited
another minute or two, and saw the new drawing. You can easily see how
irritating it would be to have the object flushed everytime you wanted to
try something different with it.
I mean, it wouldn't be so bad if it held on to at least *some* of
the settings (like lighting direction, horizon, etc.). But it flushes
EVERYTHING to default settings the instant you leave viewing mode, and there
is no way to get it to *not* flush the object. This is the most irritating
behavior of the product.
Onward. The camera motion control is not general enough. You are
allowed to position the camera at any point in space. However, you *must*
supply camera direction as direction angles (heading, pitch, bank). You
cannot tell the camera to "look at this coordinate." This could be a major
problem if you're trying to program camera motions around a stationary
object, and want that object in the center of the screen at all times.
Calculating direction angles from a "lookfrom" and "lookat" point is
relatively trivial (If I can figure it out, it's trivial :-) ).
By the way, the corrdinate system is left-handed. Positive X axis
to the right of the screen, positive Y axis straight up, positive Z axis
points into screen. Those familiar with 3D graphics will see how this
simplifies object projection.
Color restriction is restricted to 11 (count 'em) colors. They are:
Black, Dark Blue, Dark Red, Dark Green, Brown, Grey, Light Blue, Light
Green, Light Red, Yellow, White (you IBM people should recognize these
colors). There are also "glossy" versions of these colors. If you're
wondering why color selection was restricted, I offer the following
quote from the manual:
"The program's standard palette is not user-adjustable because of
the complex shading the program performs, but it is general enough to be
used for a wide variety of colorful foreground and background paintings. In
fact, the palatte's choice of hue, saturation, and value are the result of a
carefully scientific selection to ensure the most realistic representation
of three-dimensionally lighted objects."
I'm not gonna touch that one.
The object generating tools are, while helpful, not ideal for
generating more complex objects. For example, the intersection of two
cylinders must be done by hand. Granted, these are the functions of a
full-blast CAD package. However, there should have at least been a
provision in the 3D object editor to load VideoScape object files.
For those of you who saw the program "ROT" on one of the Fish Disks,
it is duplicated for VideoScape. Apparently, the only modification is that
ROT can now output VideoScape 3D object files (there are probably more, but
I haven't gone to the effort of discovering them). It cannot read VS3D
files, which is, in my estimation, a major drawback. At least with ROT
you'd have half a chance at pulling points around to get them the way you
wanted if the object creator programs couldn't do it for you.
Okay, the object creator programs. There is EGG and OCT. EGG is
the multi-purpose object creation program. EGG can generate: boxes,
ellipsoids (spheres, squashed or otherwise), cones, cylinders, surfaces of
revolution, random points on a sphere (for star patterns), tiled flat
surface, rectangular fractal patch, and a ring of distant mountains. The
user interface is keyboard only. For example, for a surface of revolution,
you specify number of rings, points per ring, whether you want interior
polygons or not, surface colors (pick two), and finally the Y-coordinates
and radius of each ring.
OCT is used to join several seperate objects into a single object
file. For example, you might attach four trapezoids to the outside of a
cylinder (generated by EGG), and cap it with a cone. Instant rocket. Or
you might take one or two "rocks" you've defined, and place them in various
positions and orientations in space. Instant asteroid field. OCT also
allows some primitive object manipulation to be performed on an object
before it is written out to the destination file. You can scale, rotate,
and translate on all three axes to get an object where you want it.
To its credit, all object files are ASCII text files, which can be
edited with any text editor. The manual fully describes how these files are
defined, and how to create your own. The camera and object motion
definition files are also ASCII text. I suspect that you will need to
hand-tool all but the very simplest of animations.
Example: Object files are a list of coordinates, followed by a
connectivity list i.e. which points connect to what to form the individual
polygons. You must enter the point sequence in clockwise order (so the
program will know which way the polygon faces). You can specify degenerate
polygons (lines and points). You can also specify surface details for any
polygon (paint splotches, instrumentation, etc.). Each polygon and surface
patch may assume any of the 11 colors.
Limitations of the animation system appear to be hard-coded. The
limits are as follows:
o 30,000 points, 30,000 polygons, 30,000 surface polygons.
o 1000 of each of the above for a 512K system.
o Up to 200 verticies per polygon (larger polygons can be simulated
by attaching two co-planar polygons).
o Up to 25 objects in one scene, with motion description for each
(note that "objects" can be multiple polyhedra on-screen; but
they are a single object to the program, and are moved as such).
o Up to 25 key frames per scene (24 tweens).
o Up to 30,000 frames per scene.
(Didn't this guy ever hear of linked lists?)
The package is distributed with three disks and a 128-page manual
(with index). The boot disk contains the 3D animator, ROT (called Designer
3D), EGG, OCT, a helpfile for Designer 3D, and various empty drawers. The
Objects disk contains numerous object motion, camera motion, and object
definition files. Inspection of these is very helpful if you wish to create
your own objects from scratch, or optimize the ones put out by EGG. The IFF
disk contains a few IFF backgrounds and foregrounds, and two ANIM files; one
of a triplane flying around the VideoScape title screen, another of the
Boing Ball bouncing off a moving series of VideoScape logos (Flying Logos!
AAGGHHH!!).
Incidentally, the ShowAnim player doesn't appear to have any
graceful way of exiting it; you seem to have to reboot (ack!).
The manual seems to be reasonably complete, and gives a decent
introduction to 3D graphics. However, keep in mind that I'm quite familiar
with 3D graphics, and can visualize an object in a 3D coordinate system.
Hence, I'm biased. Someone else might be hopelessly confused by the manual
(but I don't think so).
In summary, VideoScape does provide useful tools for the creation
and recording of 3D animation sequences. However, be prepared to put in a
*lot* of work to get up to speed on the system, and even more work into
creating a computer graphic video. I think it could end up being more work
than you bargained for. Also be prepared to bump into the program's
limitations. I can think of two scenes that would overwhelm the current
implementation right off the bat.
Looking forward to VideoScape 1.1.....
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape ihnp4!ptsfa -\
\_ -_ Bike shrunk by popular demand, dual ---> !{well,unicom}!ewhac
O----^o But it's still the only way to fly. hplabs / (pronounced "AE-wack")
"Work FOR? I don't work FOR anybody! I'm just having fun." -- The Doctorali@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Ali Ozer) (07/24/87)
In article <3613@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes: > Incidentally, the ShowAnim player doesn't appear to have any >graceful way of exiting it; you seem to have to reboot (ack!). The ShowAnim program that comes on the "El Gato" (the rotating cat) demo disk can be interrupted with a CTRL-C. CTRL-C isn't exactly your most graceful exit either, except it's better than rebooting. I imagine the ShowAnim that comes with VideoScape 3D works the same way... Thanks for a pretty complete review. Is the product out yet, or were you able to get a hold of one through other means? Ali Ozer, ali@rocky.stanford.edu
lachac@topaz.rutgers.edu (Gerard Lachac) (07/25/87)
Thanks for the (p)review, Leo. I have been looking into getting into the
Desktop Video field, and I might just take a different route now...
One note that I would like to make (wouldn't exactly say it's a correction),
is that I recently say ShowANIM on Plink. It was a newer version of the
viewer that allowed you to exit properly.
--
"Truth is false and logic lost..."
- Neil Peart
(who at the time didn't realize he was talking about RU)
lachac@topaz.rutgers.edu <--------OR--------> {seismo|ames}!rutgers!topaz!lachachrlaser@pnet02.CTS.COM (Harv Laser) (07/27/87)
Showanim version 3.50 is the one that allows a Ctrl-C exit. However
I'm finding that that sometimes leaves my CLI screen in interlace
mode, which is just about as rude as forcing me to reboot to quit the
.anim since I end up rebooting anyway to get rid of the interlace!
(unless someone knows another way???). I haven't seen the actual
Videoscape package yet, but I've been told that it comes with an
earlier Showanim (3.00 ?) that does still require rebooting to quit.
The 5 or 6 .anims I've seen so far are impressive, but they have a
somewhat annoying "sameness" to them.
Harv
UUCP: {ihnp4!crash, hplabs!hp-sdd!crash}!gryphon!pnet02!hrlaser
INET: hrlaser@pnet02.CTS.COM PeopleLink: CBM*HARV
"I know this and I know that and when it's cold I wear a hat" P. Stationadh@well.UUCP (Allen D. Hastings) (07/28/87)
=============================================================================
First of all I'd like to say how glad I am that VideoScape 3D is
finally in stores (after 19 months of hard work) and is being received
enthusiastically by the Amiga owners that I've spoken with, and by local
dealers who tell me that sales are brisk. Even though it has only been
out a few days, I know several people who have already created new 3D
objects and animations, including several demos to be shown at SIGGRAPH
(I had figured it would take most people about a week to get up to speed).
The purpose of this posting is mainly to respond to recent
messages about VideoScape by Leo Schwab and Carlos Smith. I agree with
the main point of Leo's messages, which (I think) is that to get the most
out of the program requires investing a lot of time. There is definitely
a learning curve to climb, and setting up the data files for a complex
scene does take some work. The program is not for casual users, and
hopefully potentially buyers will read the note on the package:
'VideoScape 3D is a sophisticated script-file-based animation
tool designed for producing special video effects. It is intended for
the professional or advanced video hobbyist.'
On the plus side, early buyers have told me that they like the
manual and that it allows even those who haven't encountered 3D geometry
before to climb that learning curve fairly painlessly (a careful reading
of the manual is a must). I have been pleasantly surprised by how quickly
beginners have caught on to the basic concepts. Several advanced users
have also complimented me on the program, and some are creating sequences
for fall network TV shows with VideoScape, which should give the Amiga some
good (and much-needed) publicity.
I will try now try to respond some of Leo's other observations:
> Point: When you load an object file into the 3D program for
>previewing, it hangs around only long enough for you to preview it ONCE.
This is something I will definitely change in any future versions,
since it seems to annoy some people (including myself sometimes). There is,
however, a reason why the program works this way. Generating an animation
is highly destructive to the variables used, so to be able to immediately
return to the beginning of a scene would require keeping copies of the data
structures lying around, which would reduce the amount of memory available
for object storage. One of the goals was minimizing memory usage so that
512K Amiga owners could get the most out of the program (this also explains
why IFF backgrounds are reloaded). Future versions won't be so stingy
about using memory and will solve these problems. For the present, I
recommend placing large objects and IFF backgrounds in the RAM disk.
> Onward. The camera motion control is not general enough. You are
>allowed to position the camera at any point in space. However, you *must*
>supply camera direction as direction angles (heading, pitch, bank). You
>cannot tell the camera to 'look at this coordinate.' This could be a major
It is not difficult to keep the camera aimed at a particular point
(there are many examples of this in the 'Infinite Loop' video). The
tutorial in the manual provides another example, showing how to pan the
camera to follow a spaceship that flies by. Since camera files are ASCII
text, it wouldn't be hard to write a short utility to calculate direction
angles for you based on 'from' and 'to' coordinates. I'll probably make a
PD program to do just that. Also, I've heard rumors of interactive scene
editors under development that would allow one to do this graphically.
> Color restriction is restricted to 11 (count 'em) colors. They are:
>Black, Dark Blue, Dark Red, Dark Green, Brown, Grey, Light Blue, Light
>Green, Light Red, Yellow, White (you IBM people should recognize these
>colors). There are also 'glossy' versions of these colors. If you're
These are actually ranges of colors that can be assigned to
polygons, and shouldn't be confused with the actual colors in the screen's
color table. The program picks the actual shades during rendering, based
on each polygon's shading model and it's orientation with respect to the
light source and the camera. Thanks to dithering, there are actually
56 shades available in 352x220 and 352x440 resolutions and 26 shades in
704x220 and 704x440 modes. Just look at the ANIM file demos to see how
colorful VideoScape scenes can be. HAM mode with 3DG2 files will be the
ultimate solution.
> The object generating tools are, while helpful, not ideal for
>generating more complex objects. For example, the intersection of two
I agree (especially about Designer 3D, which I never use). I
prefer the complete flexibility of the graph paper method described in
the tutorial. The Mayan Pyramid on the Objects disk, for example, was
drawn and entered in about an hour. I also use EGG and OCT a lot. I
believe that Designer 3D was included because full-blown object editors
for VideoScape are still under development. I have recently played with
a prototype editor and it's really neat, allowing you to zoom, pan,
resize the three views, etc. (my little CLI utilities will become
obsolete). I also like Leo's suggestion about making a translator
program for VideoScape and Sculpt-3D objects.
Expect to see lots of new premade VideoScape objects and fonts
soon, both in the public domain and as 'art disks' from various companies.
Also, there are lots of existing 3D object databases out there for more
expensive systems, and it wouldn't be hard to translate them (I have
already downloaded a complex object from a Macintosh 3D program, for
example). This should further alleviate object description difficulties.
> Limitations of the animation system appear to be hard-coded. The
>limits are as follows:
>
> o 30,000 points, 30,000 polygons, 30,000 surface polygons.
> o 1000 of each of the above for a 512K system.
> o Up to 200 verticies per polygon (larger polygons can be simulated
> by attaching two co-planar polygons).
> o Up to 25 objects in one scene, with motion description for each
> (note that 'objects' can be multiple polyhedra on-screen; but
> they are a single object to the program, and are moved as such).
> o Up to 25 key frames per scene (24 tweens).
> o Up to 30,000 frames per scene.
>
> (Didn't this guy ever hear of linked lists?)
Having graduated with Honors in Computer Science from UC, I
have heard a lot about about linked lists. In fact, a form a linked list
is used to store polygon information (so as not to waste memory). In
some other places linked lists were replaced with arrays which resulted
in a significant speed improvements. To be fair, I think the limits are
pretty high for a micro-based package (it's hard to imagine 30,000 frames
in a single scene), and if they aren't high enough for a particular scene,
there are many ways of working around them. None of the scenes in the
'Infinite Loop' video use more than 10% of the object data capacity.
Other 3D programs have limits, too: Forms in Flight, which requires a
megabyte to run, has a default limit of 600 points, and Sculpt-3D limits
polygons to three vertices instead of 200 (I am not trying to knock these
programs at all).
> Incidentally, the ShowAnim player doesn't appear to have any
>graceful way of exiting it; you seem to have to reboot (ack!).
The main tool for displaying ANIM files is the PlayANIM program
included with VideoScape, which also you to play an animation any number
of times, tinker with frame timing, etc. The reason that ShowANIM is also
included is because it is freely distributable and doesn't require any
prompts. Other messages on the net indicate that an 'exitable' ShowANIM
is now being distributed.
Carlos Smith posted a message recently describing his experience
with VideoScape 3D at a dealer. Apparently, the program would crash with
the simplest operations on the single machine that he tried it on. Leo
replied:
> Based on your description, I would say that the hardware was flakey.
>I've had minimal crashes with both systems I've used it on (A1000's with
>2Meg ASDG racks (stop snickering, Perry :-) )).
After trying many variations on the sequence of actions Carlos
describes, I have been unable to cause a single crash. I have to agree with
Leo that there is something strange about that particular machine or disk.
I spent a lot of time fortifying the program against attacking Gurus, and
any bugs reported by the beta testers were ruthlessly hunted down and
squashed. All the reports I've heard state that the program works fine
with multitasking, extra memory, hard disks, and the new models (500 and
2000). I have tested all these things myself (except for the 2000 - Aegis
tried that), and there have been several beta testers working with the
program since March. If anyone does find a repeatable bug, mail me an
exact sequence I can follow to reproduce it and I'll fix it.
> OCT has also seen a lot of use from me. Something you should watch
>out for: If you apply a rotation to an object, all rotations seem to happen
>'at once', not in a sequence. That is, if you ask for both heading and
The sequence of rotations is spelled out in the manual: rotation
about the Z axis (bank) is applied first, then rotation about the X axis
(pitch), and finally rotation about the Y axis (heading). This is the
most logical order when dealing with vehicles (imagine an airplane flying
along the Z axis).
> You *NEED* two megs. At least. The way I've been working, I 'run'
>VideoScape, and load EGG and OCT when I need them. I run out of Perry's
>Sooper Dooper VD0:, and keep progressive object files in it, updating to
>floppy when they're done. VS3D works nicely out of VD0:. I also keep my C
This is probably the best way to use VideoScape. However, two
megs is not really necessary (I only have one myself, allowing about 5000
points and polygons to be loaded), and both the space battle film 'Verx'
and the original 'Infinite Loop' were generated on a 512K Amiga. I
suspect that Leo must be making some pretty humongous objects (I can't wait
to see what he creates). More memory definitely helps, especially for
making ANIM files.
> In summary, VideoScape does provide useful tools for the creation
>and recording of 3D animation sequences. However, be prepared to put in a
>*lot* of work to get up to speed on the system, and even more work into
As I said before, it can be time-consuming, but for me, seeing
the Red Baron flying again or walking around an imaginary house makes it
all worthwhile (and I've had fun showing my films to amazed Amiga owners
and even-more-amazed Mac and ST owners). If you are really serious about
making 'Infinite Loop' style animations, then I'm sure you can create
great new films with VideoScape 3D (I hope that didn't sound too corny -
I'm trying to be serious here). As a 3D graphics junkie, I'm looking
forward to seeing some really impressive stuff done with VideoScape.
>Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape ihnp4!ptsfa -\
> \_ -_ Bike shrunk by popular demand, dual ---> !{well,unicom}!ewhac
>O---- But it's still the only way to fly. hplabs / (pronounced 'AE-wack')
>'Work FOR? I don't work FOR anybody! I'm just having fun.' -- The Doctor
- Allen Hastings
=============================================================================
wrichc@madvax.UUCP (Rich Commins) (07/29/87)
In article <1069@gryphon.CTS.COM>, hrlaser@pnet02.CTS.COM (Harv Laser) writes: > I'm finding that that sometimes leaves my CLI screen in interlace > mode, which is just about as rude as forcing me to reboot to quit the > .anim since I end up rebooting anyway to get rid of the interlace! > (unless someone knows another way???). Try using "SETLACE Off" from an early Fred Fish Disk (I cant remember which one). -- -- Rich Commins (415)939-2400 \ /\ Varian Instruments, 2700 Mitchell Drive, Walnut Creek, CA 94598 \/--\ {ptsfa,lll-crg,zehntel,dual,amd,fortune,ista,rtech,csi,normac}varian!richc
ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) (08/01/87)
In article <3640@well.UUCP> adh@well.UUCP (Allen D. Hastings) writes about what I wrote: I'm glad that Allen took my review so well. In particular... >> (Didn't this guy ever hear of linked lists?) > > Having graduated with Honors in Computer Science from UC, I >have heard a lot about about linked lists. [ ... ] Sorry, should have put smileys around that one. It just struck me that the 25 object limitation was a trifle small. Suppose I wanted all the polygons in an object to explode all over the place. The logical way to do it is to have each polygon be a seperate object. Only now does it suddenly dawn on me to create several different versions of the object with its polygons thrown around. However, I'm not sure how I'd specify that to VideoScape without a seperate settings file for each frame. I've said it before; I'll say it again. VideoScape is a very useful tool, but be prepeard to put in a *lot* of work. Now, if I could just afford a CSA Turbo Highrise... _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape ihnp4!ptsfa -\ \_ -_ Bike shrunk by popular demand, dual ---> !{well,unicom}!ewhac O----^o But it's still the only way to fly. hplabs / (pronounced "AE-wack") "Work FOR? I don't work FOR anybody! I'm just having fun." -- The Doctor
jdow@pnet02.CTS.COM (Joanne Dow) (08/02/87)
Ah well - after all his complaints about the userface of VS3D he sure provided
us with a show stopper at SIGGRAPH, didn't he? 700K of anim file, 96 frames of
a unicycle juggling three balls as the viewpoint circled the stage. It shows
that for all the human interface problems VS3D can sure do some nice stuff.
(And I liked the way ShowANIM and SONIX worked so well together...)
<@_@>
Like WOW Leo - ya out done yerself Kid!
jdow@bix
UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, ihnp4}!crash!gryphon!pnet02!jdow
INET: jdow@pnet02.CTS.COMkeithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle) (08/02/87)
In article <1097@gryphon.CTS.COM> jdow@pnet02.CTS.COM (Joanne Dow) writes: > Like WOW Leo - ya out done yerself Kid! Yes, and don't forget to let us know how your interview at Pixar goes. :-) Keith Doyle # {ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd # cadovax!keithd@ucla-locus.arpa Contel Business Systems 213-323-8170