kim@amdahl.UUCP (Kim DeVaughn) (11/13/86)
[ "Send lawyers, guns, and money ..." ]
Here is a summary of the First Amiga User Group (FAUG) meeting that was
held at the Palo Alto Hyatt on November 4, 1986.
First, there were *alot* of people there ... it was SRO, and between 350
and 400 people showed up. Some of the attendees of the Developer's
Conference, being held in Monterey, even made the drive up!
The meeting started with JoAnn Gillerman showing video tapes of two Video/
Music performances that were given were given live; the 1st at the 1983
Digicon (using all analog video equipment), and the 2nd given at SigGraph
1986 (which used the Amiga and DVideo, as well as some analog equipment).
JoAnn was the Video Performer in both performances ... which were *very*
impressive!
Tim Jennison, President of NewTek, then showed off the new v2.0 version
of the Digi-View s/w. Some of the enhancements include a "fast mode"
that digitizes in less than half the time currently taken (but with half
the quality), 640x400 Hi-Res color support, an optional (~$59) motorized
attachement for the color filter "wheel" that is s/w controled, and some
support for use of color cameras (though you still need to use filters).
The really outstanding, major improvement is in the 32 color mode where
an improved dithering algorithm makes the 32 color mode look almost as
good as a 4096 color HAM image ... no kidding! Along with this comes the
ability for the user to specify the number of colors used; even at 16
colors, the images were quite good (that's a heck of a good dithering
algorithm they're using).
Release of this 2.0 s/w will be "within a couple of weeks", and upgrades
will cost ~$10 for a new floppy and manual; documentation is also said
to be muchly improved.
Tim then showed-off NewTek's latest product, Digi-Paint ... a full 4096
color HAM paint program. It isn't as full-featured as DPaint or Images,
but is excellent for editing Digi-View HAM images (you should have seen
the "Girl With the Lollypop" with orange tinted glasses edited in :-) )!
Some of the things Digi-Paint can do are "blend-increment", shading,
smoothing, squeezing, cut and paste, logical functions (and, or, xor,
not), several brush functions, and alot more (hard for me to read the
notes I tried taking in the dark :-) ).
Availability for Digi-Paint is "6-8 weeks", and it will cost $59.95.
It is NOT copy-protected (applause). In a conversation I had with Tim,
he said that other new products will be focused on "image processing",
which I infer means things like edge enhancement, contrast enhancement,
applying various transforms and filters to images, etc. Look out, JPL ...
Next, Allen Hastings showed two 3-D animated videos that he had done
with s/w he developed. His s/w generates one frame at a time on the
Amiga, which is then transfered to an 8 mm camera. After all the images
are on film, he then transfers it to video tape. Marco Papa described
these in a recent posting as "3-D Star-Wars-like", and "Stuff that you
only see at SigGraph". He's right on both counts! Allen has developed
some outstanding s/w, and is currently negotiating with a "major s/w
publisher" to bring his program to market. I hope he can strike a good
deal ... he certainly deserves it! Look out LucasFilms ...
Mike Wallace then Demo'd the current version of his "Return to Atlantis"
adventure game. He's been working on this program for a *long* time (a
version was demo'd at the FAUG meeting a year ago), and if it ever gets
to market, it'll be quite something to play! EA will be publishing it.
Then there was Deluxe Paint II. If you thought DPaint was outstanding,
just wait until you get *this* version! I can't begin to describe all
the things Dave Grady (EA's Producer for DPaint) made it do, but here's
a partial list of features I saw:
o can utilize more than 512K, if available (but not for the
actual images, of course)
o has a WorkBench interface as well as the CLI now
o picture size can be larger than the screen
o 4 cycle ranges (up from 3)
o something called "multi-cycle" mode ... I hope they include
the "fountain" demo of this
o pattern-fill (any brush can be a pattern, and *anything* can
be a brush ...)
o anti-alias smoothing
o perspective (and perspective pattern fill) capability
o fixed background (you paint "on top" of it)
o stencling
o improved "sizing" and rotations of hollow/filled shapes
o tile symmetry mode
o variable dithering
o gradient fills
o can switch between 320x200, 640x200, 320x400, and 640x400
modes more cleanly
o an "undocumented feature" called Exclusive Brush (Used when
doing [say] a pattern fill with a single-pixel-wide square
outline [for example] ... where square touches square, should
the line be one or two pixels wide? With Exclusive Brush,
you can have it either way)
o a "matte" mode
The above is just a dry list of features ... I wish I could describe
what they can do!
Dave would only say "soon", and implied that "soon" was to be before
Christmas (of this year :-) ). He also said the upgrade cost would
be "modest" ... and then added that the price of DPaint I plus the
cost of the upgrade would be <= the price of DPaint II.
He also said that DPaint III would have a "record mode" to capture the
user's actions as they're painting ... so EA is continuing to work on
DPaint.
Then there was a demo by Rob Terry, who works for Vision Tech Productions
in Danville, CA. He showed two Rock Music Video's that were done with
the Amiga using A-Squared's Live! and Aegis Animator (and other s/w).
I didn't care much for the music itself, but they did show some interesting
visual effects that can be done easily on the Amiga.
The final demo was given by Perry Kivolowitz of ASDG. He plugged in one
of the ASDG Mini-Racks, and proceeded to show how the Recoverble Ram
Disk can go through a Guru without loosing it's cookies. I sure wish
Perry would unbundle this piece of s/w from his h/w, but he says he won't
as long as it provides ASDG with a "competitive advantage". Sigh.
I don't recall Perry announcing any new products that haven't been
mentioned before on the net, but if I missed something, I'm sure he'll
let us know ... :-). It was the first time I've actually seen the ASDG
products, and they performed very well!
Lastly, there was a short Q&A period with Jay Miner. The only thing
I heard that was "significant" was that Jay said 1000 Genlock's are
being produced *now*; no word on when they'll be on dealer's shelves
though, but at least they've passed the FCC (finally)!
Sorry this has been so long, but there was *alot* of very impressive
stuff being shown ... stuff that really shows the power of the Amiga
in a way that NO other machine in it's price range can even come close
to!
Best comment that I heard: Tim Jennison of NewTek was apologizing for the
relative slowness of Digi-View's digitization of an image when compared
with A-Squared's Live! ... the person he was talking to replied, "Don't
apologize ... it's taken A-Squared 17 months (so far) to do what you're
doing in 30 seconds".
/kim
Obligatory disclaimer: I have no interest in any of the companies
mentioned above, except as user (or potential
user) of their products.
--
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