HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: markc@unipalm.co.uk (Mark Cook)
Subject: Animating GIFs
Summary: Any packages available to animate a series of GIFs on a PC?
Keywords: GIF
Organization: Unipalm Ltd., 216 Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge CB4 4WA, UK
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 16:29:37 GMT

I'm posting this for a friend who is unable to post to the net but does
read this group and is on email. If you can help him, either post to
this group or email him direct at sean@camscan.co.uk. Thanks.

His message follows....

Hi,
 I intend to put SIPP-3.0 onto a PC to play at home, but the ppm format
that is produced uses gobs of disk space. Since I intend to view the
images using a GIF viewer and GIF format is much more compact I was hoping
that someone has written a GIF output function.
 Also I hope to try short animated sequences, so help in tracking down a PD
or shareware GIF sequencer for the PC would be great.
 Am I being too ambitious, or has anyone else done this and if so can you
give me some pointers. Thanks in advance.

- sean

Sean Lange
sean@camscan.co.uk
From: i34183289@VIOLET.CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: question: Imagine 2.0 on PCs?
Date: 10 Oct 92 09:03:39 GMT
Reply-To: i34183289@VIOLET.CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona


 
  I read on this group a week or two ago that Imagine 2.0, the popular
ray tracing program for the Amiga, is going to be released on the PC.
  Has anyone heard about this from any other source, and if so, what's the
price going to be? (It'll probably be jacked up to milk us PC users who 
want a good object creation interface...)
 
    K.S.I.
From: bteo@tartarus.uwa.edu.au (Teo Boon Cheang)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Renderman
Date: 16 Oct 92 02:55:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: uniwa.1blavbINNb0k
Organization: The University of Westrn Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: tartarus.uwa.edu.au
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Am interested to find out more about Renderman and its ability to render
3D objects, in particular :

   (a) can mirror like surfaces be rendered (high spectacular surfaces)
   (b) can radiosity techniques be included
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: christ@crash.cts.com (Chris Trichel)
Subject: Animation Career
Organization: CTS Network Services (crash, ctsnet), El Cajon, CA
Date: 9 Oct 92 13:49:09 GMT
Keywords: career,animation,jobs

I'm very interested in enter the animation field as a career...
currently I do 3d rendering and animation as a hobby and
wonder where to go from here... I was thinking about getting a 
B.A. in Computer Graphics from an advertising art college, but
I know this will mostly cover DTP and related areas... Does any
one have any suggestions or San Diego specific colleges/universities
with Animation Programs?
From: Bruce@Pixar.com (Bruce Perens)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Re: mis-information? (Pixar, ILM, etc.)
Date: 16 Oct 92 00:53:48 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pixar -- Point Richmond, California

In article <623@wavefront.wti.com> hb@wavefront.wti.com (H.B. Siegel)  
writes:
> For those of you that are keeping count, each and every message
> posted to this newsgroup by a current or former member of Pixar
> has contained exactly one piece of misinformation.
> 
> 	H.B. Siegel :-)

H.B.'s statement is true.
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: spiff@bert.eecs.uic.edu (Jason Leigh)
Subject: Re: Computer of choice?
Organization: University of Illinois, Chicago
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 19:10:52 GMT

In article <BvwsF2.MIo@mach1.wlu.ca> wool8657@mach1.wlu.ca (john woolsey 9209 U) writes:
>they were slower was code optimization. Let's assume the number is closer to
>1/8th. That would mean it would simply take 8 times as long. That isn't
>really that bad. Especially for the hobbiest who wants to play around with
>the images, and be creative, and not produce production quality products.

So a raytrace on an SGI takes an hour and on a PC it takes 8 hours.
That's not so bad, is it!  Nevermind an hour, let's cut it down to fifteen
minutes on an SGI, that's 2 hours on a PC.  That's not so bad right?
You're a whole lot more patient than I am that's for sure.

>Also keep in mind that IBM recently handed the 386 and 486 processors to the
>RiSC division

So what is handing the 486 to the RiSC division going to do for the
chip?  They'll produce a RISC version of the 486 chip? By the
definition of RISC, that would mean the 486 will no longer be a 486
and will no longer be PC compatible unless you're willing to run an
emulator.  In that case why doesn't IBM just use the RISC chips it
already uses in its RS6000s?

>if someone creates something great it is a simple enough exercise to
>then pump it through an SGI workstation. In fact I could probably do
>it fairly quickly myself, but it is difficult to get to the SGI

So in the end you still need an SGI.

Jason Leigh



-- 
---------------------------------------------------------  ___
| The opinions expressed above are necessarily those of | \\     \\  | \\
| the Electronic Visualization Laboratory, NAAAT!       |  \\---  \\ |  \\
| Send Replies to: spiff@bert.eecs.uic.edu (Jason Leigh)|   \\____ \\|   \\____
From: bobl@bobsbox.rent.com (Bob Lindabury - SysAdmin)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Re: GRIPE: Out of control
Date: 13 Oct 92 11:51:15 GMT
Organization: Raven Enterprises -- Piscataway, NJ USA
X-NewsSoftware: GRn 1.16f (10.6.92) by Mike Schwartz & Michael B. Smith

In article <1bcvsdINNmbb@manuel.anu.edu.au> lonachon@anu.edu.au (andrew longhorn ) writes:
>
> 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

Huh?  There *ARE* packages out there for the Amiga that do this.  It's
called Boolean operations I believe.  Imagine and Real3D support these
operations on the Amiga Platform.  I'm sure the IBM version of Imagine
will also support this.

--
 Bob Lindabury

InterNet: bobl@bobsbox.rent.com                | Raven Enterprises
    UUCP: ...rutgers!bobsbox!bobl              | 25 Raven Avenue
  BitNet: bobl%bobsbox.rent.com@pucc           | Piscataway, NJ 08854
  Home #: +1 908/560-7353                      | +1 908/271-8878
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: markc@unipalm.co.uk (Mark Cook)
Subject: Animating GIFs
Summary: Any software to animate a series of GIFs?
Keywords: GIF
Organization: Unipalm Ltd., 216 Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge CB4 4WA, UK
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 07:25:53 GMT

I'm posting this for a friend who is unable to post to the net but does
read this group and is on email. If you can help him, either post to
this group or email him direct at sean@camscan.co.uk. Thanks.

(Sorry if you've seen this before - my news reader claimed not to have
posted last time so I'm trying again for luck :-) )

Message follows....

Hi,
 I intend to put SIPP-3.0 onto a PC to play at home, but the ppm format
that is produced uses gobs of disk space. Since I intend to view the
images using a GIF viewer and GIF format is much more compact I was hoping
that someone has written a GIF output function.
 Also I hope to try short animated sequences, so help in tracking down a PD
or shareware GIF sequencer for the PC would be great.
 Am I being too ambitious, or has anyone else done this and if so can you
give me some pointers. Thanks in advance.

- sean

Sean Lange
sean@camscan.co.uk

Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: dewolfe@ug.cs.dal.ca (Anarchy for Peace)
Subject: Re: Computer of choice?
Organization: Math, Stats & CS, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 13:24:19 GMT

In article <1992Oct6.182341.25739@ultb.isc.rit.edu> wlt4326@ritvax.isc.rit.edu writes:
>>>
>Now, the Amiga, there's a Brain-Dead, Backwards system... :)  :)  :)  :)
>
>

Now watch it buddy, or we're gonna have to beat you up. :) :) :) :) :) :)

Colin DeWolfe  (Note smilies)
dewolfe@ug.cs.dal.ca
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: Bruce@Pixar.com (Bruce Perens)
Subject: Re: ILM, Pixar, and mis-information
Organization: Pixar -- Point Richmond, California
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 18:19:23 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.013336.7605@kpc.com> hollasch@kpc.com (Steve  
Hollasch) writes:
>> One errant rumour was that one of our
>> animations had been rendered on "a roomful of Amigas".
> 
>     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?
> 
Chris Hawley says that Paul's paper attributes the quote to one "E.  
Graham". If anyone has archives of comp.graphics from '86 and '87 and
can grep through them, we can find out for sure.

A long time ago, Paul posted a "jargon generator" that would write
National Enquirer-style headlines about us. One of the phrases that the
generator would use was "Sam Leffler and a roomful of Amigas".

It's interesting that long after Paul has left, the food research group
at Pixar has become one of our most profitable departments. Our images
of Life Savers, Gummy Life Savers, Egg-Beaters, Trident Fresh-Mints,
various Tropicana fruits, drink cartons, bottles of Listerine (to wash
away the residue) and other food-related-substances have been a regular
source of income, and have been shown more than all of our other work.

						Bruce Perens
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: atlan@cs.tu-berlin.de (Bertram Walter)
Subject: Looking for books with ANIMATION-TECHNIQUES
Organization: Techn. University of Berlin, Germany
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 11:06:08 GMT


	Hello!


	I'm a student and I have to write a study-work (don't know the
	the english/american name), it's a work in which I have to
	write about 30 pages about animation techniques.
	The university has nearly nothing, so I have to buy one, but
	which.

	Which book gives the most information about the
	animation techniques (Key-Frame animation, Free Form Deformation,
	Displacement animation etc.). 
	The book I've found is "3-D Computer Animation" written by
	Vince and published by Addison Wesley. From this book are the
	above technique-names.

	Are there better books.

	Thanks,
		Bertram.
	
	
	
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: ted@cs.uow.edu.au (Edward Simon Dunstone)
Subject: Sculpt Animate 4D
Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Wollongong University, Australia
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 07:49:14 GMT

Is anyone aware if this Amiga program was ever ported to the IBM. There
was talk of it being ported to the Mac a few years back. It is by
far the best raytracing/Animation package I have ever used.

Ted

Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: vivek gupta <vigupta@tope.cs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Looking for...
Organization: Computer Science, Indiana University
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 92 21:50:05 -0500

Hi,

Someone had posted an article quite some time ago about something their professor had shown them using a light and different colored gel filters. They looked through a tube and could see a different color, then their eye perceived.

Well if anyone has this or the original poster, could please send me a copy. I wanted to send it to a friend.

Thanx.
Vivek
vigupta@greatwhite.cs.indiana.edu
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: ren@Turing.ORG (Karen Prestemon)
Subject: Erik Timmerman, where are you?
Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 19:23:32 GMT

Sorry to all for cluttering netspace, but Erik, I got the stuff you
sent me, I have some questions, and I deleted your email address
somewhere along the line!  Ack!  :)

Karen Prestemon
From: larry@celia.UUCP (Larry Weinberg)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Re: Animation resolution questions
Date: 15 Oct 92 11:33:43 GMT
Reply-To: celia!larry@usc.edu (Larry Weinberg)
Organization: Rhythm & Hues, Inc., Hollywood

In article <1992Oct15.035650.5378@infonode.ingr.com> ekins@infonode.ingr.com (Brian Ekins) writes:
>
>1) At what resolution are most of the frames generated at that are used
>   for big screen motion pictures, ie. the pseudopod from The Abyss?

Not being from ILM, I didn't work on the abyss,  but most film
resolution jobs that I've been part of or heard about are usually
delivered at something like 2k pixels across. Whatever the
aspect ratio is determines the height.  Something fairly common
is 2048x1536.  There are formats (or demanding clients) which might
demand a higher resolution like 4k.
Particularly soft and blurry images can be computed at
1k or less, then scaled up to 2k before shooting to film.

>2) At what resolution is the live action footage digitized when it needs
>   be digitally enhanced for some reason?
Either 2k or 4k usually.  Some traditional animation studios, I have 
heard, actually scan backgrounds in tiles to produce images of about 16k
so that they can do moves around them.
Even if images are to be used at 2k, footage can look better scanned at
4k, then scaled down.

>3) When a computer image is added to live footage how is the computer 
>   image antialiased into the frame digitized from the live footage,
>   or is it composited directly onto the the live footage without the
>   live action footage having to be digitized?

Many papers have been written on digital compositing for siggraph
and other things.  Computer generated images are usually calculated
with antialiased mattes.  It is a simple matter to digitally composite
this with a scanned bg.
Most people who go through the trouble of computer graphics will composite
digitally.  It is superior to optical processes in the sense of
generation loss.  The output should always look nearly as good as the
the scanned image.  There are situations, though, where CGI elements
are provided (with mattes in a seperate piece of film) to be used later
in optical composites or for other practical effects.

>4) At what resolution are most of the frames generated at that are used
>   on TV, ie. the Listerine commercials?
If an abekas, or quantel format device is used,  the resolution
is 720 across by 486 down.   Various other formats can be used depending on 
the output device.  Another common one is 636x484.
From: bill@src4src.linet.org (Bill Lanides)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Re: Computer of choice? (Indigo!)
Date: 9 Oct 92 17:17:23 GMT
Organization: The Source for Source Pub Access Unix

In article <1992Oct7.053911.16045@cam.compserv.utas.edu.au> 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.
>
>PS, IBM's have far superior computing power to Amigas, for the cost.
>eg, Someone I know just bought a 486DX-33, 8Meg RAM, 130Meg HD, 1-Meg SVGA, 
>NON-Interlaced Monitor, for $3200 AUS.
>
>I'll let you dwell on that.
>
>-- 
>scarnie@esk.compserv.utas.edu.au
>

Video Blaster?? I doubt many people have heard of it!
Id say from your discription of it, it's not very impressive.
The Toaster is still in an absolute class by itself.  I was at ImageWorld
a few weeks ago and the whole show was a big Toaster demo.  Even Panasonic had
a Toaster in their booth.
I thought that by now there would be plenty of "Toaster Killers" but there was
not ONE product that even attempted to be a Toaster killer.
Anyway, I am not pleased with Commodore or their marketing but I an amazed
at what Newtek has done.  The Toaster is definately a product to check into.


-- 

      -Bill Lanides-        |  Tracing the lines that god drew...
 -bill@src4src.linet.org-   |  ...all the way back!
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Subject: Re: Computer of choice?
Organization:  Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 92 06:04:46 GMT

In <2032@celia.UUCP> neil@celia.UUCP (Neil Richmond) writes:

| In article <justin.718330333@mik.uky.edu> justin@mik.uky.edu (justin sullivan) writes:
| >graphics. Backup system? Sure, but not for 7K-10K. About $3K for a 5GB 8mm
| >internal tape backup (large primary drive included in above price). Also
| >note that all you'd want is the Wavefront Advanced Visualizer which is what?
| 
| Elan's come with a fairly small drive. I believe my 7-10k is accurate for a
| replacement drive and an Exabyte drive for backup. SGI really marks up the
| price of their peripherals. Also, even if your price included a large drive,

So buy your peripherals from someone else!  You might not get quite
as good performance, or you might have to try a couple of different
drives, but by and large, things should work (I've gone way out of
my way to make sure that they do!).  I don't speak officially for SGI, etc.
etc.

(The standard disk drive is a 400 or 500 Mbyte drive, with a 1.2 GB optional).
--
Let no one tell me that silence gives consent,  |   Dave Olson
because whoever is silent dissents.             |   Silicon Graphics, Inc.
    Maria Isabel Barreno                        |   olson@sgi.com
From: phardie@nastar.uucp (Pete Hardie)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Re: speculation on synthetic actors
Date: 12 Oct 92 15:19:04 GMT
Organization: Digital Transmission Systems, Duluth, GA.

In article <1992Oct9.164134.29758@unocal.com> stgprao@st.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.

While I think the commercials are a nifty thing, techologically-speaking, they
still leave much to be desired from visual standpoint - they are (mostly)
colorized [non-realistic shading], and have a 'washed-out' appearance.

>Perhaps it might require shooting scenes of human models to
>to get realist movements, then morph the images onto these.  This has been
>done in Bashki's Lord of the Ring cartoons and the Terminator II (better).

Minor correction.  Ralph Bakshi's "Lord of the Rings" used rotoscoping, which
is (I recall) normal animation over a live action film, and/or 'solarizing'
(shifting all values to black or white) then coloring the live action film.


-- 
Pete Hardie:  phardie@nastar  (voice) (404) 497-0101
Digital Transmission Systems, Inc., Duluth GA
Member, DTS Dart Team           |  cat * | egrep -v "signature virus|infection" 
Position:  Goalie               |
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: broehl@sunee.uwaterloo.ca (Bernie Roehl)
Subject: Re: Video Blaster
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 13:44:17 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.231041.2019@sol.cs.wmich.edu> amundson@sol.cs.wmich.edu (Tugrik d'Itichi) writes:
>The things it can do well are pretty much this: display video in a window, any
>size up to 640x480.  Decent realtime scaling of the image.  Snap a SINGLEFRAME
>(NO motion recording possible)

That brings up an interesting point.  My VCR is capable of single-frame
playback; is there any way I could hook up infrared LEDs to a parallel port
so that I can step it in software?  (i.e. single-frame, grab, single-frame,
grab, and so on)

-- 
	Bernie Roehl, University of Waterloo Electrical Engineering Dept
	Mail: broehl@sunee.UWaterloo.ca
	BangPath: uunet!watmath!sunee!broehl
	Voice:  (519) 885-1211 x 2607 [work]
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: markv@pixar.com (Mark T. VandeWettering)
Subject: Re: Pixar goes to the Movies
Organization: Pixar -- Point Richmond, California
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 16:32:43 GMT

hunter@phoenix.apana.org.au (James Gardiner) writes:

>gpivar@maestro.mitre.org (Greg Pivarnik) writes:
>> I thought the special effects in the Abyss and T2 were generated and rendered
>>on SGI's. That would put Pixar out of the picture, so maybe it was ILM.

>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.

>Abyss and T2 where all done on SGI.  Some prototypeing was done on Macs but
>everything on the screen is produced with SGI hardware.

>James

*SIGH*  If you don't know for sure, please don't speculate.  Pixar (its not
an acronym) supplies ILM with the RenderMan rendering software, which has 
been used on several high visibility movies (such as the Abyss and T2).  Pixar
only "works with" ILM in that they are valued customers.  Pixar has its own
animation department which has been concentrating on commercial advertisements.
It is my guess that you have been seeing more and more Pixar animations, you 
just haven't been aware of them.  Craig Good posted a comprehensive list before.

It is amazing to me how many people are misinformed about Pixar, ILM and SGI
and the relationship between the companies.  It is even more amazing how often
these people will post their opinions as fact.

				Mark
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: broehl@sunee.uwaterloo.ca (Bernie Roehl)
Subject: Re: speculation on synthetic actors
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 13:29:40 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.

Absolutely.  I suspect we're only a few years away from the use of computer-
generated backgrounds (including extras seen from a distance).  Given that
computing power is increasing while its cost is decreasing, and that the
cost of building real sets and so forth goes up every year, it's just a matter
of time before it becomes practical.

I suspect we'll also see entirely computer-generated characters appearing in
some fantasy films; sort of like Roger Rabbit done with computer graphics.

Eventually, we'll find it hard to be certain which characters are CG and which
are human; however, there are a few (interesting) problems to solve first.

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.

Agreed!

-- 
	Bernie Roehl, University of Waterloo Electrical Engineering Dept
	Mail: broehl@sunee.UWaterloo.ca
	BangPath: uunet!watmath!sunee!broehl
	Voice:  (519) 885-1211 x 2607 [work]
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: flip@cgrg.ohio-state.edu (Flip Phillips)
Subject: Re: mis-information? (Pixar, ILM, etc.)
Organization: OSU Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 04:10:45 GMT

In article <623@wavefront.wti.com> hb@wavefront.wti.com (H.B. Siegel) writes:
>For those of you that are keeping count, each and every message
>posted to this newsgroup by a current or former member of Pixar
>has contained exactly one piece of misinformation.
>
>	H.B. Siegel :-)

I never worked at Pixar.

-- flip


-- 
Flip Phillips					flip@cgrg.ohio-state.edu
The Ohio State University
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation