From: kholland@hydra.unm.edu (Kiernan Holland)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: Re: c.s.a.LightWave.advocacy?
Date: 31 Jul 92 06:12:24 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <bobl.681y@bobsbox.rent.com> bobl@bobsbox.rent.com (Bob Lindabury - SysAdmin) writes:
>In article <b-nm=9a@lynx.unm.edu> kholland@hydra.unm.edu (Kiernan Holland) writes:
>
>> Yep. And Radiance and Rayshade is sh*t, right?
>>
>> Why the heck doesn't anyone have a modeling program that
>> just outputs formats for public-domain ray-tracing programs??
>> I mean, the rendering for some ray-tracing programs can blow
>> Lightwave away.
>
>Oh no..here we go again.  You just don't get it do you?  Yes, Radiance
>and Rayshade ARE shit if you need to bang out 3D animations in a
>production environment under strict budgetary and time guidelines.
>Lightwave allows the "professional" to produce animations for paying
>clients in a timely manner.  Ray-tracing is NOT required of *MOST*
>clients and adds too much time overhead to most projects.

And now you are going to tel me that Mr. Mandelbrot is not using Rayshade.
Hmmm???

Now consider this. We have a MIPS R2000 (about 8 times faster than my 16mhz 68030
with 8 people on the system), we have rayshade. It can do simple renderings in
a matter of minutes (say 640x480 takes 5 minutes with 20 objects).
Now, if a school didn't want to buy 8 toasters to do animations, but 
rather use their super fast RISC system to do all the calculations. 
Where are they? Up shit creek, that's where. 

Now compared to our setup, it is a bit of a waste to get lightwave. One
reason we don't have Amigas and Video Toasters is that  (at least this is the 
SU's arguement here) there is no use for it since the graphics students
here must learn how to **MAKE** rendering programs. Now, if someone could 
develop a program for the Amiga that outputs Rayshade, Radiance, and 
such formats, Amiga's would be more interesting to people like our SUs. 

What would even be better is a Rayshade animation-->ANIM-5 converter. 

Now for the tight budget users I can sympathize, but lightwave  
is no big deal if you are not into it for the production side. 

Our main SU is so impressed with the Indigos that that is what he wants 
us to get, but like it is 8000 dollars and more to use it. 

I guess, a IMAGINE to RAYSHADE converter would be cool. I'm probably 
being selfish, but there is way more power in those RISC based architectures
than Amiga could ever afford to provide, and for some these high-powered 
machines are more accessible.

Say, how about a output module for Vertex (I know it is a cheap 
program, but hey it is SW), then convert the output to rayshade. 
Add surface attributes like marble a-top wood, give it one of 
my Oilly-Doughnut (anyone seen my picture RLE/JPG picture on the nets,
Hall7 I think) and have it flying through space with motion blur. 
I could even have the UNIX system at school run the rendering as a 
background process. Then I could use my Amiga for much more important
things like HOMEWORK!!!

Clients??? Videography??? Maybe someday, but when that someday 
comes, I'll make sure the processor is at least 4 times faster
than a 68040. 

Later.      

PS - I'm serious. How do you think I created hall7? All it was was a
	 rayshade rendering that lasted 2 days, but I had my Amiga 
	 running at 100% CPU time, since the picture wasn't being rendered here.

>
>Maybe you should grow-up for a few years and refrain from posting in
>this forum until you learn a bit more about such things.
>
>-- Bob
>
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