From: kholland@hydra.unm.edu (Kiernan Holland)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: Re: Raytrace buzzword revisited (was Re: I'd like to get into ray-tracing, SO:
Date: 14 Apr 92 02:34:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: lynx.1lxj2sq
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <1992Apr12.060001.23185@cis.ohio-state.edu> watters@gecko.cis.ohio-state.edu (david r watters) writes:
>In article <1992Apr12.003030.17724@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> sah@gnu.ai.mit.edu writes:
>>
>> ..A few questions.
>>
>>1) I can't afford Imagine or Caligari.  I'm looking for a somewhat decent
>>PD ray-tracer.
>
>I rest my case. :)
>Caligari is not a raytracer.  I would imagine that you are looking into getting
>into 3D graphics, and would like to find a nice PD _renderer_ that has a decent
>interface. There are none.

Oh, for the Amiga there is none. But for the MAC's we got a copy 
of Vision 3D which *is* PD, and does IMPORT to Renderman, 
Radiance,DXF,Rayshade and several others. I'm not going to go 
into detail, but it is a lot better than most programs I 
have tried (most commercial) in editing objects, 
Which is all it does. 

Now if Impulse had looked at this program first, they would 
have really had a rush of ideas. The guy who created it is a 
architect in Finland??
I don't remember all that info. 

I wish there was such a programram in the PD for the AMiga.
I remember seeing some sort of new rendering program in the 
fred fish library. I will check it out OK??


The only thin is you must have a MAC II (or a 68030, which 
implies MAC II or SE/30) to run this program. 

Now you see, I do work on other systems besides Amiga's. 

>
>>2) Also, how does one produce ray-traced animatoins?  Does Imagine do this, or
>>do you have to use a separate program?
>
>The same way you create all 3D rendered animations. :)

And how is that?
Is it like Silver?? 
I think that is what the guy meant. Animations in general 
are pretty simple. Actually I think the other guy was on your 
wavelength. He is probably a MSDOS or 
MAC user that has had to use other programs to piece 
frames together, or render (like you must if you are using 
renderman which is just a little BLACK BOX). 

Amiga's are still the only way to go if you don't want to 
fidle with all the screen resolutions, display drivers 
and file support, becuase the animations are very very easy.
Just about every program on the Amiga supports animating 
capabilities (except for the spread sheets, 8-|) ). 

However, if you want to do really neat stuff, Amiga's just don't 
have the capabilities, not even at 320x400 or DCTV resolutions. 
I work on static images, so I prefer 1K by 1k resolutions 
but it costs way too much to support on the Amiga and support 
here is no different from the other platforms (not to mention 
not much faster. Not even your blitter or data path-width will 
save you from this monster). Amiga's are just as fast as any PC 
in graphics this is the bonified TRUTH. You can flame me as 
much as you like, it will not change the fact that 
the ISA bus is .70 mhz faster than the Amiga chipset (on any machine
including the Amiga 3000) and that the ability to animate 
has nothing to do with the blitter but your actual BUS 
and CPU speed. If you have a 32-bit bus, and your bus is 
25mhz, and your CPU is using an external graphics card, then 
your animations should be much faster than a standard AMIGA. 
Even a 16-bit bus at 8 mhz should animate faster. 

The advantage is that the Amiga's HAM mode is 6-bit 
not 8-bit (like VGA) so you can move more frames 
with upto 4096 colors. But HAM is screwy becuase it 
is not 12-bit which would make it easier to live with. 
It would be hard to explain to the novice amiga users 
how the HAM mode works but I SAY DO NOT SAY HAM 
IS 12-BIT IN ANY WAY BECUASE THE LOGIC SUCKS. 
It is just like saying I can view 2^24 colors on my 
screen becuase 

1. Screen sizes can not hold 2^24 pixels (each with a individual 
color)
2. No one can perceive more than a few million colors anyway.
(3. if they say 2^32 colors, tell them, that is not logical.)

>Imagine does generate anims from within the program.
>
>>3) Does this machine set up sound ideal for making really nice ray-traced
>>pics and anims?: A3000, 25MHz, 2M CHIP, 4M FAST, 68030, not sure about math
>>co-proc.
>
>Yep, sounds good.  Might even make some nice solid model pics too. :)
>
>If money is such an issue, I would suggest picking up a used copy of TurboSilver
>or SculptAnimate.  TS has better output and doesn't suck, and SA is easier for
>a beginner to pick up.  Both generate anims within the program.

Ya, but Silver is much nicer to look at. ;-)
I like Imagine, but I don't worship it like I used to. 
I think Impulse lost something on the way to IMAGINE from TS. 
I liked Sculpt Animate, but since I haven't heard anything from 
Byte by Byte, I assume they are not making for the 
Amiga anymore. I do know that they develop for the MAC's. 
I wish Mac's had a CLI, ICONS suck. Aside from that, they do have 
a lot more rendering programs than Amiga users could ever dream of. 
Not to mention, better. But the price tag and speed is like SLOW
and HIGH. I always turn my letters into these multi-platform 
comparisons. Sorry. I haven't been an Amiga user lately. 

>Imagine 1.1 can be found for a pretty good price now that 2.0 is out, and I would
>strongly suggest that one since it has all the advantages of TurboSilver, and has
>a better interface (IMHO) than SA and doest SUCK like SA does. :)
>Do I sound bitter?  It probably isn't because SA 4D can not generate an anim in
>Scanline Painting mode when a take is loaded and BytemyButt refused to address this
>bug and shortly after jumped ship to the Mac.  $500 down the drain!!

Yep, I hate companies that just jump platforms without 
support for both. Most companies have just totally lost 
this customer relationship shit. I mean, total loss of respect 
for any platform. I mean, if you have a president of a large 
corporation who loves Amiga's and BYTE by BYTE drops 
SA, then the president will have second thoughts about 
by X number of Sculpt Animate packages for his machines. 

I swear, software companies are just getting plain stupid (measuring status not brains)
business wise. 

>
>David "There not all raytracers" Watters

Kiernan "Who cares if they are all raytracers" Holland. ;-) 
>
>
>-- 
>   "Dave's going to graduate???  Did the planets align? Hell freeze over?"
>     Yep... finally... so the companies can now form a line to the left.
>   watters@cis.ohio-state.edu | Video Toaster Chef | call sign: The Weasel! 
>   "Eagles may fly, but a weasel will never get sucked into a jet engine!"