Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    Please to excuse...
    	What is Mimetics frame buffer?
    

    Mimetics has announced a frame buffer card for the A2000.  It is
    supposedly a single frame display device with it's own memory. 
    It will provide a 640 x 480 non-interlaced single frame to be displayed
    on any suitable monitor.  You can get the frame from a capture device
    (that they will also sell) ala Digi-View, or something called an
    RGB file, which Sculp-3D supports.   It will also display any standard
    IFF file format, though I assume the IFF image will be limited to the
    original colors/resolution it was created in.  Unless they have
    some really smart software.
    
    This board DOES NOT replace the Amiga's default display hardware,
    so you can't run spreadsheets or Deluxe Paint in this mode.  It
    functions independantly from the custom chip buss, so the Amiga
    won't die trying to display at such a high bandwidth.
                                      
    What this IS useful for is professional grade recording from a single
    frame VCR, or a Polaroid-Palette type system.
    
    The board is on a single Zorro-II card, so it will plug right into
    an A2000 or a Zorro rack for the A1000.  Retail price is $699, and
    they claim that it will ship sometime after August 15.  (Thats a
    pretty safe claim).
                    
    If anyone wants more info, you can call Mimetics at
    
    Mimetics
    PO Box 60238 Station A
    Palo Alto, CA 94306
    (408) 741-0117
    
                       

    Now that I've explored Sculpt-3D a bit more, I've gotten a better
    feel for my likes and dislikes.
    
    Likes:  
    
    I still love the object editor.  I made a fairly complex scene
    involving spheres, three lamps, a checkered ground, 3-D text, and
    extrusions in about a half hour.
    
    A model can be test-run in several smaller sizes to check the overall
    visual appeal prior to a full-blown HAM or overscan HAM tracing.
    These 'tiny' models execute in minutes instead of hours.
    
    Dislikes:
    
    There are a limited number of textures available, dull, shiny, glass,
    mirror, and luminous.  DBW_Render also offers wood, marble, and
    brick.  It sure would be nice to have these additional textures.
    
    In 'PHOTO' rendering mode, there is no way to control how long the
    model will run, as there is in DBW_Render.  After checking my model
    in 'TINY' mode, I let it run unattended in interlaced HAM mode,
    full screen.  Well, it's been running for 12 hours now, and it looks
    about 1/2 done.  The rendition is fabulous, but I wish I could speed
    it up in non-important areas.  With DBW_Render, I can split the
    screen any number of ways, and do a quick pass over the boring parts,
    and fine tune the details.  I can then paste the strips together
    later.
    
    Byte-by Byte has unbundled technical support from the package to
    help keep the price down.  As a result, you must purchase tech support
    time to answer any questions.  This isn't so bad, since the manual
    is pretty flawless, and explains every possible feature of the program.
    But I'd like to know if the program will recognize a 68881 FPP chip.
    
    All in all, I'm still having a ball with this thing, and I'd recommend
    it without a moments hesitation.  But I now think that DBW_Render
    gives much more control over the tracing process.
    

    When it rains, it pours...
    
    I was perusing the PLINK message base last night, and I noticed
    that there are now two more commercail Ray-Tracer programs available.
    
    The first is called 'Silver' , and is published by Impulse, the
    people who did the Prism HAM painting program.
    
    John Foust of Amazing Computing (who must have a beta or release
    copy) said that it was MUCH faster than Sculpt-3D, yet still had
    a nice friendly object editor.  John uploaded a nice animation of
    some colored balls orbiting around a glass ball on the standard
    checkered plane.  It is a very clean looking job; they've done some
    great anti-aliasing.  If there is any interest, I can upload the
    ARC file here.  (It's 178K long).
    
    I forgot the name of the other program.  But I did see that John
    Foust has written a utility to use the Sculpt-3D or Silver object
    editor with VideoScape3D (which has an unfriendly editor).  John
    plans to sell these utilities, so you won't see them in the PD.
                                                 
    It's boggles my mind to think that just a year ago, it was a struggle
    to find any decent software.  With all this new stuff hitting the
    streets, I can hardly keep up.  Or afford to keep up.

    
    I'd be interested to take a look. I'm sure within the next couple
    of months I'll be investing in one of these programs. 
    
    Great info - Thanks!
    
    -Ray
    

    another vote for uploading the .arc
    
    I'm beginning to really miss usenet, what are the current rates
    for Plink?
    
    I'm curious, what is the next generation after ray-tracing?
    It wasn't too long ago that digitized sound and ham mode pictures
    got lots of oohs and ahhhs.  Now they are just normal things
    you expect to see in Amiga software.  Soon even ray-traced animation
    and Digiview's enhanced ham mode will be the norm.  What's next?
    
    -dave

    re:  .6
    
    Plink is really the place to hang out for the latest Amiga skinny.
    At last check, there were over 3000 members of the Amiga Zone, and
    about 60 megs of storage.  Plink has allocated more disk space to
    the Amiga club, since it is BY FAR their most active group.  Current
    rates are around $5.50/hour @1200 baud, but for a flat rate fee
    on $10 per month, you too can become a preferred member, which lowers
    the connect rate to $3.75/hour.
    
    If anyone saw the Computer Show last week, they had a report on
    SIGGRAPH.  It was clear that the next wave is real-time generation
    of images.  The hardware needed to do this is way over poor Amy's
    capabilities.  Even the MAC ][ was paging pre-recorded images
    from it's superfast hard disk.  I think only Sun and Pixar were
    doing real-time rendering, and it was nothing very fancy, and at
    a sub-standard frame rate.  The images that they were generating
    in real-time looked like Flight Simulator on a CGA PC.  Nonetheless,
    very impressive considering the amount of number crunching occuring.
    
    I remember back in the early days of the C'64, when programmers
    kept pushing the limits further and further.  I still can't believe
    some of the things that little sucker can do.  If the past is any
    indication, I'd say that the Amiga can be pushed quite a bit further
    before it peaks out.  At the very least, it can keep up with a Mac
    ][ with a CSA 68020/68881 chipset. 
    
    But I agree, the shock value quickly wears off, and one needs greater
    and greater doses of slickness to be impressed.  
                                       
    God, I am rambling... two beers really loosens my tongue... anyway,
    look in Jake::User2:[Acciardi.Amiga]Balls1.arc
    

fyi:	Eric (Juggler and Sculpt-3D) just bought a copy of DBW_Render... so
	maybe you will see new textures in a future release :-)


dave


P.S.	Look for DBW_Render V2.0 announcement sometime next week (I'm
	(FINALLY!!!!!!) finished!).

    If anyone has had problems (or for that matter, success) in de-ARCing
    and running the BALLS demo, please respond here.  It's been GURU-ing
    one person's Amiga, and if anyone else has problems, I'll re-ARC
    and re-UL it.
    
    

    Yup! It downloaded and de-arced with no problem. Tried running it
    and got the GURU.  Tried changing the stack 40000+ and it wouldn't
    GURU, but it still wouldn't run. I'd get a series of letters and
    numbers after it attempted to start.  How much memory does this
    need (i've got 512K)?
    
    					Jim Collum
    

    There was no mention in the PLINK file description about memory
    requirements, but the sum of all the frames exceeds 400K.  I guess
    I assumed that the player compresses the frames to a fraction of
    their original size.
    
    I'll try disconnecting my Starboard and see if it will run on mine with
    512K.  I can't do it now, since I'm doing a ray tracing in the
    background.  (Gawd, I love this machine!)  I'd suggest holding off on
    any further downloading attempts until I can track down the problem.
    Watch this space ===> ( ) 
    
    

    Last time I tried it on my 512K Amiga (unsuccessfully, of course)
    I showed about 398K of free memory before starting it. I hope there's
    a way to make it work, 'cause I'm probably still a month or two
    away from a 2.5 meg machine.

    It's official; 'Balls' just won't make it into a 512K Amiga.  Sorry
    for any inconvenience.  Just another excuse to spring for a 2 meg
    board :^)
    
    BUG ALERT:  It's been confirmed that there is a nefarious bug in
    Sculpt-3D.  Any objects created with the 'GLASS' texture will take
    about ten times longer to render than the other textures.  It will
    eventually finish, but will take forever.  I wouldn't let it prevent
    me from buying the program, since you can still use the super slick
    object editor to learn to think in 3D.  Just don't use any glass
    if you can avoid it.
    
    Stay tuned...
    

    re: .13
    
    well i finally got around to downloading Balls1.arc...it didn't
    guru for me, didn't work either (512k), just returned back to the cli.
    I just used Wb 1.2 and ^D to abort the startup file.

    Turns out that the script file has a very simple format, basically
    a text line, then the numbers of the pictures to load, followed
    by FFFF, the number of overlap frames, then FFFF.  After multiple
    tries with Filezap, i got a script file that does work on a 512K
    system (25 pictures/ 0 overlap instead of 38 pictures/ 2 overlap)
    The animation jumps when it restarts, but at least you can see it
    without buying extra memory.
    
    the script file can be found in BAGELS::[BRANNON.AMIGA]SCRIPT.
    
    -dave
    

    Which device??
    
    						Jim
    

    sorry about that
    
    try BAGELS::USER1$:[BRANNON.AMIGA]SCRIPT.
    
    -dave

    Update on Sculpt-3D:
    
    Eric Graham and Byte-by-Byte have signed on with PLINK to support/plug
    their products.
    
    The next release of Sculpt will purportedly run 10-30 x faster then
    the present one.  Several new textures will also be provided, such
    as wood, brick, etc.
    
    I haven't personally spoken with them yet, but I'm going to ask
    if they'll support MicroBotics' 68881 adaptor and/or any 68020/68881
    board.  I believe the 68881 support is radically different in the
    above two schemes.
    

    I just bought a copy of Sculpt-3D.
    
    I have no comment on it yet because I fell asleep last night reading
    the manual and haven't had a chance to try it.
    
    I did try and make a sphere and "paint" it, but the machine guru'd
    when I told it to "start" the trace.  I have a 1 1/2 Meg A1000.
    All of the settings were at their defaults.  The sphere had two
    subdivisions (haven't read what the means yet.)  Anyone know why
    my machine may have crashed?
    
    I repeated it.  It crashed again..
    
    	--Mike

    Mike:  Make sure you have version 1.101 of Sculpt.  The first
    commercial release was 1.05, and had a few bugs.  My earlier release
    crashed a few times.  I eventually edited the Workbench info requestor
    to increase the stack to 100000 bytes.  Never had a guru since.
    
    For some reason these ray tracers need a phenomenal stack size.
    Dave Wecker recommends 100K also, if I recall, for DBW_Render.

    Thanks Ed,
    
    The Stack increase helped.  I figured that Byte-By-Byte would have
    tweaked the stack size in the icon before they released it.
    
    I just got my version of Sculpt-3D from Moe at the Software Shop.
    It says in the title bar, "SCULPT 3-D: Version 1.03."  If they
    are really up to 1.101, I will ask for an update when I send in
    my registration.  Do they give free updates?
    
    Review:
    	I am an impetutous type, and did not read the instructions very
    carefully before trying to trace stuff.  Not understanding how to
    sculpt objects makes it incredibly hard to make something.  But,
    on a close examination of the manual, I learned that Sculpt-3D does
    everything with triangles and point light sources.  In order to
    create any object, you have to be able to draw it with billions
    and billions of little triangles.  Of course, they give you all
    the tools you need to create objects.  Most of the rendering tools
    are in window gadgets.  There are 16 gadgets in the border of each
    window, and the mouse has about 5 or 6 functions to.  Even with
    all of those gadgets, it still is pretty easy to make objects. 
    The hardest part is realizing your ideas in their Tri-View system.
    You have to render all of your ideas into three windows.  Each window
    gives a view orthogonal to the others.
    	They do have some fancy tools though to help you draw complicated
    objects.  Remember back in Calculus I when your where rotating 2D
    stuff about some axis to make conics or other fun volumes.  Sculpt
    3-D lets you do that with cross sections that you create.  There
    are also tools to help you make curves.  Once you make a curve you
    could rotate it to make a "Sculpture."  There are also tools for
    subdividing all of your triangles into more triangles.  This will
    help you get much greater resolution in your final image.
    	Another great feature is the script file system.  You can write
    software to help you design  very complicated objects, and then
    just feed the output into Sculpt-3D and use the object in your scenery.
    	I am happy with the product.  I have no doubt that the folks
    at Byte-By-Byte will soon make other products to help generate
    fantastic scenes for Sculpt-3D.  My wish is that they come out with
    a Fractal Generator that makes its output readable by Sculpt-3D.
    
    	--Mike

    Oh, I forgot to mention:  I wrote the last message while raytracing
    a complicated object.  Smokey and Sculpt-3D can share the system
    without fighting at all.  I have a 1 1/2 Meg system, and still have
    602K of Memory left to play games.
    
    	--Mike

    Mike:  Byte by Byte has a wonderful upgrade policy; they automatically
    send any upgrades to all registered users.  They request a $5.00
    donation to defray the costs of media, shipping, and additional
    development.  I think they are to be applauded for producing a good
    product (with absolutely no copy protection) with approximately
    free upgrades.  Hell, Electronic Arts charges an extra $20 for a
    non-CP'ed version, plus an extra $100.00 for a new version that
    only does what the original should have anyway.  No wonder EA is
    a multi-million dollar outfit.
    
    When I received my upgrade, there was a nice letter from BbB thanking
    me for my support, etc.  They announced that they are close to
    releasing two new versions for an additional $30.00.  One version
    will be compiled for a 68020/68881 board, and another will use
    MicroBotics' MultiFunction module w/68881 math chip.
    
    Re:  Multitasking...
    
    A guy in the ST notes file doubted that the Amiga was much good
    while doing a CPU bound task such as ray-tracing.  I assured him
    that my word processors and terminal programs ran at or near top speed,
    since these require there tiniest fraction of CPU time, and spend
    billions of nanoseconds just waiting around for inputs.  During
    these insufferable waits, the other tasks gracefully give the CPU
    back to the ray tracer.  People will never comprehend how insanely
    wonderful the Amiga is until they try it themselves.

    I'm still poking around at the Sculpt-3d I just got, and sure enough
    Guru from a small stack.  I'm kinda disapointed that the object's
    seem to be all planar, as opposed to a 'mathematical' object, (like
    the coffee cup example look's terrible!!,  it looks more like a
    hexagon than it a cylinder).  Is this *really* how sculpt-3d create's
    these objects? or am I missing something.
    
    BTW some parts of ray-tracing alogorithm's can get recursive, thus
    the large stack size.
    
    Robb

    If you select 'Smoothing' from the editor menu, the program will
    invoke a Phong smoothing algorithm, which blends the sharp edges of
    adjacent faces into each other.
                                                    
    The manual should really be read.  There's lots of stuff in there
    that's not intuitively obvious from the pull-down menu choices.