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.