[comp.graphics] Help with choosing system for animation sought!

d4umf@dtek.chalmers.se (Martin Forsberg) (08/10/90)

	Hello everyone, I have a question regarding what to buy to be
	able to make computer animation, and record it on video. I have
	had the following system in my thoughts for a while :

	Some sort of i486 based computer (PC-compatible).
		Maybe Compaq, HP , Dell or some other brand.
	VGA-Producer for making TV signal out of VGA standard.
		This card seems to be the best for PC systems
		acording to PC Magazine.
	A Time Laps video to be able to record frame by frame. AG6720
		by Panasonic has S-VHS and one-shot recording possibilities.
	Some public domain raytracer.
		DKBTracer, rayshade, DBWrender?
	Animator by Autodesk (they make AutoCad)
		I have only seen this on a video, it seems to be a very
		useful program when animating objects.
	A graphics card called SPEA with an i860 processor.
		This card can emulate a VGA window, but primarily I want
		to use the computing power of the i860 processor.
	Maybe a Weitek math coprocessor W4167 for the i486 PC.
		Primarily used when raytracing.
	A 24bit framegrabber with 512*512 pixels resolution, made by HI RES
		Technologies. This I will use to grab pictures from other
		material that I want to use.

	This amounts to about 25000 dollars which is my top limit.


	Now I both want opinions on the setup that I have been looking at,
	and some opinions of other system setups, maybe UNIX machines. What
	I can spend is about 25000 dollars, but then I want a similar system
	to what I described above, ie. something that can record frames one
	at a time and have atleast the resolution that Super VGA has (800*600
	pixels with atleast 256 colors). I think that I have seen discussions
	of this before in this newsgroup so I am hoping that someone will
	answer my questions.

	Thanks in advance!

	Martin Forsberg

	d4umf@dtek.chalmers.se

jmarvin@oracle.oracle.com (John W. Marvin) (08/22/90)

In article <1990Aug9.182640.4509@mathrt0.math.chalmers.se> d4umf@dtek.chalmers.se (Martin Forsberg) writes:
>
>	Hello everyone, I have a question regarding what to buy to be
>	able to make computer animation, and record it on video. I have
>	had the following system in my thoughts for a while :
>
>	Some sort of i486 based computer (PC-compatible).
>		Maybe Compaq, HP , Dell or some other brand.
>
... more specs deleted to save space...

>	This amounts to about 25000 dollars which is my top limit.
>
>
>	Now I both want opinions on the setup that I have been looking at,
>	to what I described above, ie. something that can record frames one
>	at a time and have atleast the resolution that Super VGA has (800*600
>	and some opinions of other system setups, maybe UNIX machines. What
>	I can spend is about 25000 dollars, but then I want a similar system
>	pixels with atleast 256 colors). I think that I have seen discussions
>	of this before in this newsgroup so I am hoping that someone will
>	answer my questions.
>
>	Thanks in advance!
>
>	Martin Forsberg
>
>	d4umf@dtek.chalmers.se

An alternative:

Amiga 3000, 25Mhz, 68882 Math Chip
Diga-View 4.0 24 bit color digitizer (NewTek) or
Living Color TBC/Digitizer 24 bit color digitizer (Digital Creations) or
Video Toaster 24 bit color digitizer & editing system (NewTek)

Frame Buffers:
Video Toaster comes with one or,
FrameBuffer (Mimetics) or,
Living Color Frame Buffer (Digital Creations)

Genlocks:
Video Toaster (again, NewTek)
OmniGen 721 (Omnicron Video)
RM-2B Professional Genlock for Amigas (GlennLoc)
SuperGen 2000S (Digital Creations)

3D Animation:
Sculpt-Animate 4D, includes Ray Tracing (Byte by Byte)
3D Professional (Progressive Peripherals & Software)
Turbo Silver, includes ray tracing (Impulse)
Caligari Pro Animate (Octree Software)

Vendors:
NewTek 913/354-1146
Digital Creations 916/344-4825
Omnicron 818/700-0742
Mimetics 408/741-0117
GlennLoc 703/273-5663
Byte by Byte 512/343-4357
Progressive Periphs 303/852-4144
Impulse 612/566-0221
Octree 212/262-3116

Unless you buy all the above, you should stay under $25K easy!

*******************************************************************
*  Nhoj Nivram                                                    *
*  email: jmarvin@oracle.com                                      *
*  "Reality is a Harsh Mistress..."                               *
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