From: blackbelt@cup.portal.com (Ben - Williams)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: Re: Trying to find the perfect morpher
Date: Sat,  7 Nov 92 21:21:52 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: world

Warning...
----------
This posting addresses some very specific issues. If you're not interested in
the questions that have arisen as a result of ASDG's characterizations of the
two other competing morph products, I invite you to skip this message.

Here we go:
-----------
This is a response to a data sheet that ASDG has been distributing to dealers
and etc; also to some misrepresentations that one of ASDG's online
representatives, Perry Kivolowitz has made. I'll be quoting not very loosely
from the datasheet here, from what Mr. Kivolowitz has said, and then
providing some comments. In many cases, those comments refute outright
misdirection contained in that datasheet.  In other cases, we'll just update
you since the latest version of Imagemaster does indeed address certain
issues from the datasheet very well, although ASDG would have been unlikely
to know about that.

For anyone who is interested we'll be happy to send you a copy of a far more
accurate and up-to-date comparison sheet between Morph Plus and Imagemaster's
morphing capability than the one ASDG has been distributing. Call 800 852
6442 for your free copy, or 406 367 5513 if you're out of the country. Also,
if there are any mistakes on our version (possible, of course) we'll fix
them, right away. We're only interested in a level competition, twisted
characterizations won't be neccesary. Just let us know what you think the
problems are, and if they are valid errors, we'll fix them.  Use the FAX for
the best response time for errors. The FAX number is (406) 367-2329.

Now, some of you may recognize the comments here as coming from the datasheet
that Kermit Woodall responded to a few days earlier on the internet; there
are a number of misleading issues regarding the product he is involved with
in the datasheet as well. In the main, we'll leave it up to him to deal with
those issues, although we certainly have no problem going on record telling
all and sundry that Cinemorph is a good, worthwhile product that does what it
says it can do, both quickly and efficiently. Some comments are made here
because they involve more than GVP.

ASDG went to great lengths to bring a number of issues to the front of
consumer's minds with this datasheet. We'll oblige that impetus for public
disclosure with some more accurate information about where Imagemaster stands
in relation to Morph Plus - please note that there are more than just a few
discrepancies between reality and what ASDG's datasheet says.

First, the outright misrepresentations.
---------------------------------------
ASDG says that Imagemaster has only a single window interface. Not true. We
have both a single window and a dual-window interface. We introduced them
both to the Amiga market before Morph Plus was released.

ASDG says that we do not have a variable onion skin interface. Not true. We
have both variable onion skin and discrete image displays. We introduced this
feature (variable onion skin) to the Amiga market at the Pasadena WOA, before
ASDG's product was even released.

ASDG says we don't have full motion preview. That is not true; it needs some
explanation, though. ASDG has a feature where you can show an animation of
the morph vectors only, but not the morph output - which isn't exactly
something that gives you a complete mental picture of what is going to
happen in the final morph.  Imagemaster, by contrast, can generate a real,
color or B&W, full-motion, actual-image animated preview of your morph which
you can play right there in Imagemaster within the Morph tools, and without
resorting to other software (like Fred or the Morph host or AdPro), without
saving files, without assembling into an anim, and etc. An actual, useful
morph preview is what it is - exactly what the datasheet says we do not have.

ASDG tells you that they have a capability of overshoot and undershoot
control which is useful for "comical warping". What they do not tell you is
that Imagemaster has the ability to morph and warp along spline curves,
something ASDG does not offer, which is far, far more effective at generating
emphasis for distortion in comic effects or otherwise than is over/
undershoot alone. You can make eyes that bulge out as they move, not just at
the ends of a transition the way Morph Plus is limited to.  You can make far
more fluid, organic looking morphs using this feature.  In the latest
Imagemaster, we've also added undershoot/overshoot control.

The very strange comment:
-------------------------
ASDG tells you at the very beginning of the datasheet comparison that they
have "compatibility" with AdPro - they present it as an advantage, of course,
and mark us as having "NO" compatibility. Well. First off, we are bottom-line
compatible, we allow the user to generate 24-bit IFF so you can use these
images in Adpro, if you like.  However, since Imagemaster provides far more
sophisticated abilities to process images than AdPro does, "compatability" in
the sense of a direct tie is uneccesary.

From which we get to pointing out that not only does Imagemaster do much more
than AdPro2 and Morph+ added together in the areas of image manipulation,
morphing, touchup and so on, Imagemaster also produces far higher quality
Amiga mode output images - if your eyes are normal, you can't possibly miss
this advantage in a fair comparison. Imagemaster can do this because:

        1 - Its color picking technology is more advanced than ASDG's
        2 - Its dithering technology is more advanced than ASDG's
        3 - Its image data scaling technology is more advanced than ASDG's

The reason for all that long-winded presentation is to underscore the fact
that compatibility with AdPro is as high as it needs to be for you to get the
best results possible from *either* program.

A related claim of ASDG's (made in the same paragraph) is that AdPro2 is the
"Amiga's best-selling image processing package". That could be, it's very
hard to verify - we do hear differently, but we're willing to go along for
the moment. Note, however, that Windows 3.1 is the best-selling OS-level
product today, and that is certainly not because it is "the best" - is is
most assuredly not "the best" - it's because of marketing, luck and timing.

Do you want popularity, whatever the reason, or do you want performance?
Think about it - it's more than a little bit relevant. Performance-based
claims of superiority always mean something.  Popularity based claims may
mean very little of use to you as a consumer. We believe that this is the
case here.

Simple corrections to the rest of the datasheet:
------------------------------------------------
* ASDG says that we don't provide a minimized time penalty for complicated
  warps. That's not true. Using the current version of Imagemaster, you can
  add as many vectors as you like without incurring any significant speed
  penalty.  In fact, we encourage you to.

* ASDG says that we don't have fast, asychronous zoom in/out. We do.

* ASDG says that we don't have fast, asynchronous scrolling. We do. You can
  even scroll the images (quickly, asynchronously) independantly of each
  other.

* ASDG says you can't isolate regions well in Imagemaster. You can.

* ASDG says that you can't guarantee image boundry integrity in Imagemaster.
  You can.

* ASDG says you can't precisely define disolve regions in Imagemaster's
  morphing capability. You can. What ASDG (accidentally?) "forgot" to tell
  you is that you can only define dissolve (and velocity-controlled) regions
  "precisely" in Morph+, so a smooth, multiple source dissolve (or velocity
  change) using Morph+ is difficult or maybe even impossible to do.
  Something else that enhances our capabilties here is that Imagemaster
  associately drives transparency maps with the user's active velocity
  changes so that transitions look more real.

* ASDG says we don't have variable brightness and contrast available in the
  morph tools. We do.

* ASDG tells you that we can't handle/edit/show/hide logically related
  vectors in groups. We have all the important parts of that functionality.

Some questions for the reader:
------------------------------
Should a consumer accept a performance evaluation story from people who
repeatedly fail to paint an accurate image of issues in question? Look at
what ASDG has done recently:

    * Placed ads containing outright lies and/or claims based upon
      incomplete comparisons, completely misleading in content.
    
    * Released datasheets containing completely absurd attributions of
      no capability at all to competitors, using a technique of not
      mentioning any features that are specific or unique to other products
      but rather tilting the comparison towards the specific methodology
      Morph Plus uses. The problem here is that it is made to look like the
      other methods are not useful or competitive, when in fact they are
      quite competitive and in some cases actually outperform Morph Plus.
    
    * Posted a "Fair compare" animation where a poorly done morph from a
      competitor's product was contrasted with a most carefully done
      reprise and presented as supposedly reasonable and representative
      examples of likely end-results of the two products, when in fact that
      was not even remotely the case.
    
Do you object if companies defend themselves when unjustly accused of poor
performance?

    * GVP was rated as having no capabilities in ASDG's sheets. They
      responded and at least one network user complained about the whole
      event. We agree it's not very nice 'round here right now, but point out
      that GVP didn't start this up. You should be complaining directly to
      ASDG, if you have complaints to make. It's not fair to turn to someone
      who has just been punched in the nose and critisize them for punching
      back, at least in our view it's not.
    
    * GVP was the victim of the "Fair Compare" animation atrocity perpetrated
      by Perry Kivolowitz of ASDG, a totally biased and unfair exercise in
      ethics-free marketing.
    
    * Black Belt was represented as missing many capabilities that we
      do indeed have in ASDG's sheets.
    
    * Both Black Belt and GVP were maligned by the untruths in the ASDG
      Morph Plus ads.
    
Do you appreciate ads where the comparisons made and claims advanced are
patently untrue? Do you think that the assumption that you're not smart
enough to find out the truth is specious, or is it a given that if something
is in print, then you actually will assume it's true? Look at these facts:

    * In ads, ASDG said that Morph+ is 3-11x faster than competing
      products, and repeated that it was the fastest morphing product for the
      Amiga...  this is nonsense; since the day they released Morph+, it's
      been slower than Cinemorph and just barely near the speed of
      Imagemaster. "3-11x" just isn't true - and it *never* has been during
      the lifetimes of the _released_ products.
      
    * ASDG also said that Morph+ is the easiest to use - that isn't open to
      interpretation, either: GVP's CineMorph is the easiest to use, hands
      down - and anyone who tells you differently after using Cinemorph,
      Imagemaster and Morph+ for any length of time is either hallucinating,
      or lying. You be the judge - try all three products. Please. By
      comparison, the learning curve on Cinemorph is around two minutes,
      under ten for Imagemaster, and several orders of magnitude longer for
      Morph Plus. Note that nowhere here am I telling you anything about
      effectiveness or power - just easiest to use and learn. The bottom line
      here is that ASDG's claims of "easiest to learn" were not, and are not,
      true.

    * ASDG has said that Imagemaster does not present an onionskin interface,
      when in fact we were the first to release this style of interface to
      the Amiga market. We know that ASDG was in possession of the version of
      Imagemaster with this feature from remarks that Perry Kivolowitz made
      on CompuServe at the time - he was remarking on a feature that was
      added *after* the onionskin was - many weeks before ASDG's datasheet
      with the errors on it was distributed.

What?
-----
Did you somehow get the impression that I, a representative of Black Belt
Systems, said that (a) GVP's CineMorph is easier to use and (b) the fastest
morphing product out there?

You did, because I did say those things. I said them because they are true.
I'll also point out that it is the least expensive, because it in fact is.
I'm perfectly ready to concede that Cinemorph is an astonishing bargain - and
even suggest that you may well want to buy it, it's worth every penny.

I can say these things because fair competition doesn't bother me, or anyone
else at Black Belt Systems for that matter. In fact, competition drives us to
excel, and we believe that's how it should be. But fair competition doesn't
include the kinds of tactics that ASDG has been using, in our opinion.

I would only further point out that for the extra effort and money invested
in either Imagemaster or Morphplus, in addition to or instead of CineMorph,
you'll have more features at your beck and call and you'll be able to do a
larger number of things, which, if you're serious about morphing at all, you
are likely to find useful. I suspect that the GVP types might not even
disagree with that statement.

In closing...
-------------
This whole episode has been very distasteful for us. We'd like to see it over
with - but that is unlikely to happen until and unless ASDG begins presenting
Morph Plus on it's own merits, instead of enmeshed in a web of disinformation
about competing products.

Any time that a Black Belt product is unfairly characterized, we will do our
utmost to ensure that the situation is straightened out ASAP. For this
reason, it continues to be extremely unwise to engage in the brand of
hyperbole and obfuscation we've seen here when dealing with Black Belt.

Ben Williams

President,
Black Belt Systems
Xref: sparky comp.sys.amiga.graphics:7390 comp.sys.amiga.hardware:19518