From: blackbelt@cup.portal.com (Ben - Williams)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: Re: Trying to find the perfect morpher
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 12:46:55 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: world
  <1992Nov15.034518.26357@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <69612@cup.portal.com>
  <1992Nov18.070137.21238@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>

Ben Scott writes:

"a 244K Addendum file?  That's way beyond reasonable.  I will look forward to
the new manual provided my client decides to pay for any upgrades."

    Reasonable is one of those slippery, individually defined terms. You are
    welcome to your opinion, of course. We think it IS reasonable,
    considering the price of the product. That is not to say that we like the
    situation. If Imagemaster was priced where it should be for the features
    it provides, it would be financially feasable to do a new manual on a
    regular basis - but we believe that the Amiga market absolutely will not
    support that kind of pricing.
 
"Yes, I realize that [bug was easy to get around] as well.  But with bugs
like that, I can't help wondering how they got through the testing phase?
With new features coming out every few weeks, IS there a testing phase?  (OK,
loaded question, I know)"

    Sure it's loaded. :^) Yes, there is a testing phase; we have several
    versions ``cooking'' at one time. Some things get tested more than
    others, and furthermore, some things are added VERY late in the game and
    so are tested minimally. The HAM defaults got by us simply because no one
    here uses HAM as a default - we like the register modes better. Note that
    the bug ONLY exists based upon a particular default configuration, of
    which there are many thousands - it's not a fully testable situation, in
    short.
 
"I do not expect a file called "addendum" to contain the only mention of
probably half the major features in a software package.  I have this funny
idea that it should be possible to at least find the word "morphing"
somewhere in the manual of a software package that advertises morphing."

    The addendum is part of the manual. Your failure to treat it that way is
    not in accordance with the organization of the package we sold you - your
    choice, again, but your implied assertion that the morphing is not
    documented is unsupportable. It *is* documented, there ARE mentions of it.

[lotta Morph+ stuff deleted - see Ben's msg if curious]
"Gee, this is turning into the mini-review I said I wouldn't do..."

    Yeah... looks that way, doesn't it. :^)

"I'd recommend you add that [vector preview] to Imagemaster if you haven't
already (I couldn't find mention of it anywhere)."

    It's possible we'll do that - it's not a very high priority, though.
    Imagemaster can already generate an image-based morph preview in just a
    few minutes on a 3000-class machine. There are much higher priority items
    in the queue first (you DO want us to test this stuff don't you?)
    <ducking and running>

"Also, I had a lot of trouble keeping the (non-morphing) background stable
while the foreground faces were warped - even placing dozens of non-moving
points around the background, and outlining the faces with them as well, I'd
still get distortion even inches away.  (it was a curtain with lots of
vertical folds)"

    Hmm. You should be able to get a high degree of isolation by adding edges
    to the points surrounding the areas to be controlled, and then
    surrounding the morphing region with an enclosed, edged, IShape that does
    not move. Edge features are v21+, I'm not sure what version you have, btw.

"Perhaps I missed something... that would allow you to draw a freehand SOLID
line separating the morphing area from a background, and assuring (better, at
least) the confinement of the warping effect?"

    Nope - we don't have a freehand tool, but you can place points and then
    connect them with edges, which should provide the same capability in the
    end result.

Ben (Williams... we could get confusing here... :^)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics