HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jack@admin.mport.COM (Jack Craig)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Re: Computer Graphics and Video: Creating New Effects
Date: 14 Oct 92 19:23:51 GMT
Organization: Microport Inc., Scotts Valley, CA 95066 US of A

thad, this was a very interesting and informative article.

lets say someone like me was interested in getting involved
creating the software to do such effects. lets say the someone
had good kernel/driver writer skills and wanted to work with
these new technologies, perhaps even strive for wizardhood.

anyone on the net got any good ideas how to proceed?

jack...
=============================================================================
 Jack Craig  Microport         SVR4 408-438-UNIX   uunet!mport.com!jack
             Software Horizons SVR3 408-684-1375   uunet!sco.com!blznrzn!jack
=============================================================================
From: ldo@waikato.ac.nz (Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Waikato University)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Re: Step-frame capture (was Re: Video Blaster)
Date: 9 Oct 92 16:53:24 +1300
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

All this talk of home-grown solutions for doing step-frame capture is
interesting enough, but aren't there some easier, off-the-shelf solutions
available?

For example, a lot of Sony consumer decks have "Control-S" or "Control-L"
connections (my F555E camcorder has a Control-L interface, and my 757NC VCR has
both). I'm not quite clear what the difference is between these, except that
"Control-L" (also known as "LANC") seems to be the newer, preferred option.

Sony also sell a device called the "VBox". This has an RS-232C port as well
as one (or more?) Control-L ports. The RS-232C interface recognizes a command
set known as "VISCA". There is also a Sony VCR, the "VDeck", that has an RS-232C
interface and understands VISCA directly. I gather all these interfaces
basically let you send all the commands that you can invoke by pressing buttons
on the respective control panels. You can also get back information like
running tape counter readings, and even time code (if the deck supports it).

Perhaps someone else who knows what I'm talking about can explain it a little
better...

Lawrence D'Oliveiro                       fone: +64-7-856-2889
Computer Services Dept                     fax: +64-7-838-4066
University of Waikato            electric mail: ldo@waikato.ac.nz
Hamilton, New Zealand    37^ 47' 26" S, 175^ 19' 7" E, GMT+13:00
The function of the designer is to communicate the design model accurately via
the system image. The function of the user is to form a user model that bears
as little resemblance to the design model as is humanly possible.
				      -- Bruce Tognazzini, "Tog on Interface"
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: 3D-Studio does'nt free mem!
From: djlewis@ualr.edu
Date: 8 Oct 92 23:03:50 GMT
Organization: University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Have I just overlooked it or am I missing something? Running 3D-Studio on an
8meg 386/33 it uses up all available memory, as if it does not release memory
properly. Cfig386.exe appears to be set correctly. I can do a NEW and a RESET
in 3DEditor and no memory is restored. I turn off autobackup of FLIC and VIEW
and no help.
Don
djlewis@ualr.edu
From: philb@cats.ucsc.edu (Philip Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Re: Computer of choice? (Indigo!)
Date: 7 Oct 1992 19:30:24 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz
NNTP-Posting-Host: as215-ws-5.ucsc.edu


scarnie@esk.compserv.utas.edu.au (Stuart George Carnie) writes:

>Well, stick with the 486-50, I certainly have a biased opinion towards
IBM's, asI own one. With the message about the "Toaster", obviously you
haven't heard of the Video Blaster, which allows 24Bit colour, and
direct, recording to and from a video. It allows you to play the video
within a Window (running Windows), or even play it in text mode behind
DOS, and it only costs $699 AUS.

[dude. hit return once in a while :-)]

So you can watch tv in a window. big deal :-) what can you DO with it?
The toaster at least provides video special effects, in hardware.

-- 
  --------------------------------------------------
"How do I love sea? Let me count the waves.." |philb@cats.ucsc.edu
P.Anthony, "The Colo(u)r of her panties"      |philb@soda.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: jk87377@cc.tut.fi (Juhana Kouhia)
Subject: Re: speculation on synthetic actors
Organization: Tampere University of Technology
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 11:49:56 GMT


In article <1992Oct9.164134.29758@unocal.com> stgprao@st.unocal.COM
(Richard Ottolini) writes:
>
>Another approach is a completely synthetic human- along CAD lines.  I've
>seen Japanese attempts to make synthetic Marylin Monroes.  They leave much
>to be desired in terms of realism, but are getting better.

Also, remember Magnanet-Thalmann & Thalmann with Marilyn Monroe
and Humbrey Bogart.
Was it Marilyn or Marylin? I think it is Marilyn; so shall it be
Marilyn :-)

Juhana Kouhia
=================================
Read my lips: no new taxes - Bush
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: leslie@cgrg.ohio-state.edu (Leslie Bishko)
Subject: Re: speculation on synthetic actors
Organization: Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 15:01:05 GMT

	Yes, eventually we will see computer synthesized beings walking down
	the street...

-- 
Leslie Bishko
leslie@cgrg.ohio-state.edu


Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: good@pixar.com (The one who dies with the most toys wins)
Subject: Re: Pixar goes to the Movies
Organization: Pixar - Pt. Richmond, CA USA
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 09:01:13 GMT

In article <1b48mrINNb0h@phoenix.apana.org.au> hunter@phoenix.apana.org.au (James Gardiner) writes:
:
:ILM have been working with PIXAR.  The main reason we don't see any more
:PIXAR animations is because they are to busy working with ILM.

ILM uses some Pixar software, but ILM and Pixar are also competitors.  ILM
has not been "working with Pixar" (Please note that "Pixar" is not an acronym).
The main reason you don't see any more animated shorts from Pixar is that we've
been making TV commercials for three years while preparing to make a feature
film.

Some folks on the net seem mighty sure of themselves, don't they?

		--Craig
-- 
	good@pixar.com
-
Vote for a change this fall! 
Vote all those Liberal Tax-N-Spendocrats out of Congress!
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Subject: Re: speculation on synthetic actors
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 04:21:34 GMT

broehl@sunee.uwaterloo.ca (Bernie Roehl) writes:
>Rendering human hair realistically is not easy; at the moment, the computation
>cost is prohibitive.  Matching human skin is no easy task, either.  However,
>I suspect that there will be solutions to these problems; when there are,
>you'll be able to create a feature film while sitting at your desk.
>>I think it is only a matter of time.  Perhaps this decade.  There is a lot
>>of money in entertainment and people will try.

       Hair and skin are both being done, as are facial expressions.
It apparently takes the simulation of 80,000 hairs before human hair
looks right.  But it's happening.  And real progress is being made in
facial animation.
       See "New Trends in Animation and Visualization", Thalmann and
Thallmann, eds, 1992, Wiley, ISBN 0-471-93020-2.

					John Nagle
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: entpph@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Subject: Re: Interpolation
Reply-To: entpph@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 12:17:55 GMT

What you describe as an object oriented animation systems is available
from Cambridge Animation System
3 KIngs Parade
Cambridge, UK
CB2 1SJ

e-mail  admin@cam.ani.co.uk

Erik Timmerman
Film/Video Department
RIT
From: aron@samarra.ced.berkeley.edu (aron bonar)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Re: 3D-Studio does'nt free mem!
Date: 14 Oct 1992 05:02:19 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: samarra.ced.berkeley.edu


|> 	But to be more specific, When I run 3ds and load a project and do
|> whatever to the project and save my work and get ready to load something
|> else, the memory used for the previous operation is not freed. It shows under
|> system stats or something similar in the upper left drop down selector. I am
|> sorry for the vague description for the heading in the dropdown menu that
|> shows the memory statistics. 
|

Hmmm...that sounds bizarre...

If I understand you correctly...after you finish working one project/model...whatever,
you want to delete that stuff and work on something else.  You don't want to load something
new into the same project. (i.e use the MERGE function)  Assuming you want to do the former,
what I do is... after I've saved what I wanted to, I just go ahead and pull down the LOAD option
and select a new file to work on.  It then puts up a window that tells me that its going to replace
everything that is currently in memory and asks me if i'm sure that's what I want to do. I confirm
this and it just replaces the old project with the new one. Its not a matter of you getting rid of
the first project so the program can load the second, the program does it for you.

Common sense tells me that you've already tried this.  So...have you tried the RESET function?  That 
clears out everything and returns the program to original state when you first loaded it up.  You
should be able to load something new then...  But you've probably tried that too...

I've used both releases of 3DS on two different computers:

A 386sx-20 with 4 megs of RAM and
Currently a 486dx-50 (Local Video Bus) with 16 megs. 

But I've never had a problem with memory or loading new files like you seem to have.

What memory manager are you using? I can't think of a reason why this would make a difference
but its another possible problem. 

Are you using release 1 or 2?

If all else fails you might back up your personal files and meshes and reinstall.  You've probably 
tried that too.

I'll try and load a bunch of projects and files after each other and see what happens on my system.

Aron


Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: nwickham@nyx.cs.du.edu (Neal Wickham)
Subject: Re: Computer of choice?!
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Reply-To: nwickham@nyx.UUCP (Neal Wickham)
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 16:16:17 GMT


>>Well, stick with the 486-50, I certainly have a biased opinion toward
>>IBM's,
>>as I own one. With the message about the "Toaster", obviously you haven't
>> heard of the Video Blaster, which allows 24Bit colour, and direct,
>>recording
>> to and from a video. It allows you to play the video within a Window
>>(running Windows), or even play it in text mode behind DOS, and it only
>>costs
>>$699 AUS.
>
>Hmm, in all the ads and reviews I've seen on the Video Blaster, there's
>been no mention of capturing movie *sequences*, only single *frames*. Can
>the Blaster do this? What sort of real-time frame rate can you manage?
>
>(You might like to compare the Video Blaster with the VideoSpigot card
>for a Mac.)


A lot of the special effects you see on TV at night are being done on the
Toaster.  The "Blaster" and VideoSpigot are not even in the same league of
hardware as the Toaster folks. (end of discussion)


>> PS, IBM's have far superior computing power to Amigas, for the cost.


With a clunky old system and MSdos/Windows, you need superior computing
power with an IBM.

And the new AGA Amiga 4000/040 is "right in there" with the cheapest of the
el cheapo clones.


>I hear Microsoft is busy working on AVI (Audio-Video Interleaved), which is
>its answer to Apple's QuickTime. I also hear it'll be able to play back
>about
>15 frames per second at one-sixteenth (160*120) size on a 33MHz 486
>machine.
>
>QuickTime 1.0 can manage that--with real-time dithering thrown in--on a
>20MHz 68030.


Wow!  At a Commodore show last year some folks there were playing a 3 minute
full-screen/overscan animation of Back to the Future II at 30 fps and in
stereo surround sound with an Amiga, two 600 MB drives, DCTV and a sound
card.  Many people thought it was a hoax and believed that it really must
have been playing from a stereo VCR.

But I am impressed by what the giant Microsoft can do with a PC.  You have
to be.  :)


                                     NCW
From: lonachon@anu.edu.au (andrew longhorn )
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: GRIPE: Out of control
Date: 12 Oct 1992 22:57:16 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
Distribution: world
Reply-To: lonachon@anu.edu.au
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.43.50


I am really disappointed that after all the years the mac has been out and all the
graphics packages that have come and gone that no good modern package on any platform allows object operations like solid subtractions unions and intersections like the
first B&W 3D modeller for the macintosh... I think it was called "easy-3D".
It made it so easy to create complex shapes by just sticking the corner of a cube
into a sphere and selecting the subtraction operation, bingo! one complex object that
would take you ages to create with a modeller. A sphere with a chip knocked out of it.

Well, anyone know if any packages they know would support these types of operations?

Andrew

lonachon@mehta.anu.edu.au
From: aron@luxor.ced.berkeley.edu (aron bonar)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Re: 3D-Studio does'nt free mem!
Date: 12 Oct 1992 23:33:52 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: luxor.ced.berkeley.edu

Are you saying that when running, 3ds doesn't leave any free memory?

Well of course it doesn't, it'll take everything you give it.  I have
16 megs on my system and it takes as much as it can get.  The only time 
it will give you back memory is if you quit the program or shell out.

If you are trying to run 3ds in multi-tasking/task-swapping enviornment,
that's a bad idea.  That program has fits if you try to give it virtual memory
or some other memory substitute.  I've made attempts to run it in windows, 
desq-view, and desq-view X and every time it has either locked up imediately or 
not run at all.

If what i've said is irrelevant to your problem, please clarify what your specific
trouble is.

Aron
From: STDN%MARIST@VM.MARIST.EDU (Dan Newcombe)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Re: speculation on synthetic actors
Date: 13 Oct 1992 07:42:17 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

>I suspect we'll also see entirely computer-generated characters appearing in
>some fantasy films; sort of like Roger Rabbit done with computer graphics.
I know there were a few scenes in "Fern Gully" that were computer
generated, you could tell by looking at them.  But look at movies like
"Tron" and "The Last Starfighter"  Whole parts of the movie were done
with just computer animation, and these were years ago.

But I still prefer original animations, hand drawn to those that
are computer done.  It looks better and puts more value into the
work.
  -Dan
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: jet@boxer.nas.nasa.gov (J. Eric Townsend)
Subject: Re: Computer of choice? (Indigo!)
	<1aism1INN5db@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>
	<1992Oct4.023622.22566@bert.eecs.uic.edu>
	<1anmanINNd34@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> <2031@celia.UUCP>
	<justin.718330333@mik.uky.edu>
	<1992Oct7.053911.16045@cam.compserv.utas.edu.au>
Organization: Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation, NASA Ames
Date: 7 Oct 92 16:06:04

"Stuart" == Stuart George Carnie <scarnie@esk.compserv.utas.edu.au> writes:

Stuart> towards IBM's, asI own one. With the message about the
Stuart> "Toaster", obviously you haven't heard of the Video Blaster,

Um, you really need to see a Toaster in action.  It's *much* better
than a Video Blaster.  (Not that the Blaster isn't pretty cool in and
of itself, but it's just not the same sort of thing as the Toaster.)
--
             J. Eric Townsend --  jet@nas.nasa.gov -- 415.604.4311
                              '92 R100R, DoD# 0378
"I love the iPSC/860.
The iPSC/860 is my friend." (repeat until your code runs...)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: Bruce@Pixar.com (Bruce Perens)
Subject: Re: speculation on synthetic actors
Organization: Pixar -- Point Richmond, California
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 16:41:13 GMT

In article <1992Oct14.162243.2394@mr.med.ge.com> scafati@thor.med.ge.com  
(Victor-charles Scafati 4-6784 MR Srv) writes:
> While I'm in this thread-  Several years ago I said, after watching the 
> premere of Pixar's "Tin Toy"- "We're going to have a new Humphrey Bogart
> film, partially computer generated, by the year 2000."  We'll see if
> I'm right.

"Play me again, Sam".
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: farm@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (B. Munroe)
Subject: Re: Abekas A60 Digital Disk Recorder, opinions, alternatives?
Organization: UTCS Public Access
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 04:32:11 GMT

In article <1ar08fINN6v8@agate.berkeley.edu> desilva@taos.ced.berkeley.edu (Deanan Da Silva) writes:
>Could you please post on how to put an animation to exabyte
>or dat tape and then take it to a bureau. Also, does anybody know of
>any places in the SF bay area that does this?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Deanan


I am just about to release a Mac application called Digital Video Link that
does exactly what you want.  It reads and writes Abekas (YUV) and PICT files
to/from exabyte tapes.  You can also connect your Mac directly to an Abekas
(SCSI) and transfer frames that way.  DVL also acts as a SCSI command editor.
You can add any valid SCSI command to the program (for future extensibility).
DVL supports standard SCSI commands (erase, rewind, unmount, etc.) in addition
to read/write.

DVL will be released in about 8 weeks.

Bob Munroe
farm@utcs.utoronto.ca


-- 
.............................................................
Bob Munroe		: Internet>	farm@utcs.utoronto.ca
The Farm		: CompuServe>	71160,3455
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: haas@wam.umd.edu (The Future Mr. Graf)
Subject: Re: Cutting up old movies
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 02:58:54 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.174850.8070@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> c60c-3gp@web-3b.berkeley.edu (Francois Chew) writes:
>
>In aritcle <1992Oct9.164134.29758@unocal.com> (Richard Ottolini) writes:
>
>>I wonder if the current Diet Coke commercial is a sign of things to come.
>>The creators of this commercial do a pretty good job of mixing old movie
>>footage (e.g. Groucho Marx) with new film.  I speculate we will see more
>>of this in the future with dead actors doing new scenes.
>
>> [ stuff deleted on how great it woudl be ]
>
>>Imagine: new Clark Gable movies.  New I Love Lucy epsisodes! Boggles the mind.
>
>>I think it is only a matter of time.  Perhaps this decade.  There is a lot
>>of money in entertainment and people will try.
>
>	The only problem is that even when we do have the
>technology, stuff like that will be impossible for legal reasons. There
>will be those nostalgic people who will want to keep their Lucy and Clark
>Gable the way they were and not muck around with them.

     Think about it.  Ted Turner has gone through hell trying to 
     just colorize old black & whites.  I think that the possibility
     of, say, new Honeymooners episodes would go over about as well
     as New Coke did.  I think it's a pretty cool idea, but very 
     few people would go for it.

Jeffrey

-- 
***********************************************************************
* Jeffrey Haas     * We Come From The Land Of The Ice And Snow        *
* HAAS@WAM.UMD.EDU * From The Midnight Sun Where The Hot Springs Blow *
***********************************************************************
From: philb@cats.ucsc.edu (Philip Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Re: Computer of choice?
Date: 11 Oct 1992 19:21:37 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz
NNTP-Posting-Host: si.ucsc.edu


bobl@bobsbox.rent.com (Bob Lindabury - SysAdmin) writes:

>In article <1992Oct10.191052.7800@bert.eecs.uic.edu> spiff@bert.eecs.uic.edu (Jason Leigh) writes:
>> So a raytrace on an SGI takes an hour and on a PC it takes 8 hours.
>> [...]that's 2 hours on a PC.  That's not so bad right?

>Not to add to the computer wars topic but I do 3D animation in a
>production environment.  No matter what platform we use, we have set a
>threshold for the amount of time any single frame should take to render
>in any given animation.  That timeframe is 20 minutes.  If a animation
>is taking >20 minutes per frame to render, then we take measures to
>reduce the render time.

Well, yeah. but what I think you neglected to mention for the layman:
"raytracing" and "rendering" are almost difference things.  in that
raytracing is the "brute force" method, that tries to duplicate what
actually happens, Physic-ally speaking. whereas the usual methods of
rendering.. Gouraud, Phong,[and of course Renderman :-)] etc, are
"short-cuts" in themselves, yes?!!

>Maybe we can all drop this silly "which platform renders the fastest"
>discussion in favor of discussion of technique.

That would be nice. but it's up to you people "in the bussiness" to start
that. the rest of us "interested viewers" are left talking about things
we know about... speed of platform.

Philip
-- 
  --------------------------------------------------
"How do I love sea? Let me count the waves.." |philb@cats.ucsc.edu
P.Anthony, "The Colo(u)r of her panties"      |philb@soda.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: amundson@sol.cs.wmich.edu (Tugrik d'Itichi)
Subject: Re: Video Blaster
Organization: Western Michigan Univ. Comp. Sci. Dept.
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 00:30:54 GMT


Yeah, i've seen that done (IR LED hookup). There is a commercial version of
just that for Amiga, forget the name of it, that lets you control up to
6 VCRs or something, for full editing (not just stepping).

Best bet is to get plans for a "universal remote", and mabye buy a $40 
Radio Shack cheapie, and gut it... put in a simple data-line toggle for
pressing a 'key' on the remote.  "Teach" the remote the command for frame
advance, toggle a dataline on the parallel port hooked up to it, and voila.

If you do this, and have some kinda macro in Windows to run the Video Blaster
software, or if you code your OWN video blaster software (no clue on that, 
sorry), sure, you could digitize frame-by-frame full motion sequences to 
individual BMP, GIF, JPEG or TGA files.

  -Tugs

Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: good@pixar.com (100% natural and hypo-allergenic.)
Subject: Re: ILM, Pixar, and mis-information
Organization: Pixar - Pt. Richmond, CA USA
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 06:05:28 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.013336.7605@kpc.com> hollasch@kpc.com (Steve Hollasch) writes:
:
:    Since this appears to have attained true folklore status, would you
:happen to know if Heckbert's "Ray Tracing JELL-O (r) Brand Gelatin" paper
:(Computer Graphics, 1987) was the originator of this idea, or was he just
:passing it on?

Paul thunked that one up on his own (to the best of my knowledge).  He was
working with us at Pixar at the time, so I have some memory of it.  I know that
he got encouragement from a lot of people there at the time.

		--Craig
-- 
	good@pixar.com
-
Vote for a change this fall! 
Vote all those Liberal Tax-N-Spendocrats out of Congress!
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation