drtiller@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Donald Richard Tillery Jr) (01/22/91)
I've been VERY impressed with the images that LightWave produces. However, I cannot afford the Toaster and all of its peripherals. With this in mind, I have dropped the following letter to NewTek in the mail. Anyone who wants to help me on this crusade can write their own letters and send them to: NewTek Inc. Technical Service Director: Kiki Stockhammer 215 S.E. 8th Topeka, KS 66603 To whom it may concern: Congratulations on the quality and subsequent success of your Video Toaster. However, I have one small comment I would like to make. I was particularly impressed with the 3-D rendering program, LightWave, and its outputs as displayed in a full 24 bits. Unfortunately, I am a college student with limited income, and as such the Toaster itself would be just at the limits of my financial ability. Any subsequent video equipment, with which I would be wont to surround your product, would put me well into the "red" before I have even graduated into a paying position. Nevertheless, I am extremely interested in 24 bit graphics and ray-tracing and was disappointed beyond words to discover that no separate version of LightWave will be made available to the general public. I have every intention of purchasing a 24 bit board (albeit a less expandable and more inexpensive model that fits more easily into my budget), and the LightWave software appears to be a necessity to pursue my interest in 3-D art. I currently own Turbo Silver and Imagine from Impulse, but have been very displeased with the support I've gotten from the company. I feel these programs represent the best ray-tracing platforms for the Amiga, but there is much lacking in the speed of their output. Using a different rendering technique, LightWave has managed to accelerate 3-D modeling to a much more reasonable pace at the cost of reflection and refraction (which rumor has it you are developing for later releases) and I can usually live without them. However, it seems quite a shame to limit such a fine piece of software to only those that can afford (in the words of a fellow UseNet user) "...the $1500 dongle." Even if such a version output only 24 bit files (in the IFF standard NewTek developed), it would be a much more popular item than the other 3-D renders in my view. For conversion, you could borrow the routines from the Digi-View 4.0 software to make the images available in native Amiga formats. I have done this with The Art Department by ASDG because I only render in full 24 bits in anticipation of my 24 bit board. I implore you to consider producing LightWave in an independent format and I can assure you that you could put my name at the top of the order list today if such a version was slated for release (again keeping in mind that I am a full-time college student). Surely such a marketing would not interfere with Toaster sales and the development time would be exceedingly minimal. I appreciate your consideration on this subject and hope to see LightWave available in the near future. Very sincerely, Rick Tillery Rick Tillery (drtiller@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu)