This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (2,112 messages)
Terry, put it this way: About any recent PC-based video card (NOTHING to do with the OS) will support any number of monitors any number of ways. The level of that support is is defined in terms of resolution and scan rate. The Apple folks tend to skip the technical…
Hi Chris, Your 486 with 32MB should be fine for learning and doing jobs with 3DS Classic. The size of hard drive you need depends largely on how many maps you'll want to keep on hand and what kind of animations you intend to create and store. Full-frame .TGAs can…
Not too old to remember those days, Steve! -Alan
Hi Rachel, Yup, that was me doing my best "Jimi" for Gary and the crew. Thanks for the kind words… Nope never really taught, just coached some young players (still do). You should come back down and visit us sometime! -Alan
Sheesh, Jeffrey, pick yourself up! Sometimes I really wonder about these "stars"… -Alan
That's our friend RachelR who makes the "little" people, Mike. I remember her telling me some time ago that she liked to hit the ball. Maybe we'll have to get to N'Awlins early next year and have a little 3DS round robin… The ubiquitous tennis can reared it's head in…
Agreed all around, Mike. They said Brooke & Brad were "like": "Hey, chill out a little and be happy you pulled it out fer cryin' out loud! — Play a round of golf or somethin'!" Andre is certainly old enough now to to be a bit more thoughtful about where…
Chris, I think you have pretty much answered your own question, here. Since you have stated that you: A) …would like to use this system to produce small rendering/animation jobs, and B)…want to stay with the same (486) processor… I think your way is pretty clear. 3DS MAX is going…
A couple days at the Open, eh? Lucky you! I'm about to put down my mouse and pick *up* a racquet… -Alan
Sounds great to me, Alex! -Alan
He-he… Maybe the seat was, er, un-FedEx-able after JJ used it…. -Alan
Gawd….I've got NO secrets around here! The real truth is that there wasn't much sense in staying in high school after 1973 — the miniskirts went away…:-( Don't even ask how long it took me to "finish" 2 years of college… -Alan
Hi Mark, Hey, I've had some moments myself from checking out the workstation-class stuff, too. All we are trying to point out is exactly what all classes of machines are capable of in terms of quality and speed and how accepted their output is in the industry. Once these issues…
If enough of us relay our wishes to them (thru Digimation), perhaps they'll give it some serious thought! -Alan
Ask about the Celebris line, Sanford. It'll support all kinds of Intel and Alpha solutions, has on-board SCSI and IDE support, and has a great warranty. A little pricey, but for once you just might get what you pay for. -Alan
What? No Public Flogging? -Alan
Just read today's paper, Mike. It seems as though it was the CLOCK Agassi was looking at that got him so upset. He just didn't think he should have been out there at 11:00PM! This supports my theory about his earlier upsetness being caused by his inability to easily roll…
Sounds like like you've got a great handle on this stuff, Mark. Sheesh, you sounded so knowledgable, I thought you were a veteran of this industry that was swallowing a little too much SGI hype, so sorry about sounding like you should have known better. Like MartinF has said, if…
I'll hit tennis balls anywhere, anytime, Mike. If we're ever in the same spot long enough to do it, I'm game! I was replaying Agassi's water-bottle scene trying to discern what he was looking at when he seemed to go off. At first I thought it was something in the…
Mark, I'll gaurantee you that the fact that any film did not use 3DS for it's effects had NOTHING to do with it's lack of raytracer. 99%+ of 3D feature film work is NOT raytraced. Unless you are talking about something like a flight simulator, or UI previews, hardware-assisted rendering…
Oh. So you "hide your identity" because you are *told* to. Hmmm…. can't imagine why…
Congratulations, Jason! I hope your senior year (when you get to it) is as much fun as mine was. The trick is to make the first three REALLY count! Best, -Alan
>>…tennis…
Use a CIS navigator, Frank, and connect time will be minimal. -Alan
I'd DIE to have that sort of environmental control *inside* MAX! Whew, it blows me away just thinking of it! -Alan
Jane, you might try rendering with 3DS's gamma set to 1. Hopefully, this will get your background to render the correct color. Hope this helps, -Alan
In their glory days, the band Van Halen didn't allow ANY brown M&Ms in their dressing room! Maybe they had a good idea… -Alan
>>…unless I'm playing…
Don't worry about my tennis watching, Neil. Whaddya think the Sony reference monitor at my workstation is for? (BorisB is playing just beautifully right now, and AaronK is trying to put together one of his famous 5-set comebacks, BTW). From what they said, doing a complete exportation for Classic would…
John, your comment regarding lower plug-in prices due to hardware lock tie-in is an extremely interesting one! Certainly seems like a possibility, doesn't it? I hope it's the case. I'd like to run this question by ScotS and DavidA and see what their thoughts are… -Alan
Sounds great Tom. Thanks very much, -Alan
Can't say for sure, but Gary just may be running a DEC PC/XL with the Alpha 233Mhz chip. Only he knows for sure! -Alan
No Z-socket or MB change, Sanford. The MB actually has a CPU daughterboard, which will support mutilple Intel or Alpha chip solutions. -Alan
What exactly do you mean by reseting, Terry? -Alan
#US Open Tennis
Message #188108
Can't miss any US Open tennis, Mike! -Alan
I'm not from Digimation, Bob, but I think I'll jump in anyway! Just wanted to relay some information gleaned from a couple of converstations I had with the developers of WB at siggraph, and my personal requests of them: When WB was first explained to me some time ago, I…
Thanks for the info, Tom! So your 8Mb version supports full True-Color, eh? I wonder what the rendering speed hit is compared to say, 16bpp dithered to 24. -Alan
Snaford, keep in mind that while NT running on SGI's is one thing, having MAX re-compiled for the MIPs 4xxxx platform is something completely different, and, I suspect, fairly unlikely in the near future. However, ya just can't second-guess a company like Adesk, can ya? A wait-and-see attitude is probably…
#DEC PC's
Message #187910
>>…Alpha…
Tom, could you go into a little detail about the Elsa card you are talking about? I'd like to know which Glint chip you are using, the maximum color depth, resolutions and scan rates, RAM requirements, and any co-processor support for rendering other than rasterization, say for transformations and clipping.…
Nope, never "played" with Prisms, Ron (expensive "toy"). I've always been a fairly "workstation-challenged" sort of guy…. But it sure sounds like the concept of procedural modeling is really the way to go here. Your comment regarding folks' initial impressions of the power of procedural modeling is a wonderful prediction,…
Rico, there is obviously no way you are going to understand what I am trying to tell you. There is no way I am going to go into a long, involved explanation of exactly what's involved here. My programmer friends (and they're VERY good ones) have explained it to me,…
Ah-ha…I had a feeling Max the duck was a new concept… -Alan
When did he get it? -Alan
Rico, you are just not understanding the philosophy and concept under which MAX was developed. Backwards compatibility with Win95 would indeed be a step *backwards*. The Yost Group would actually have to "cripple" the code to make it happen and there's just no reason for it at all. It's of…
Scott, you should be just fine re network rendering with NT workstation. -Alan
All of that sounds just great, Michael! Hmmm…that cloud shader sounds REAL interesting. Hope you go ahead and do it… -Alan
Quite simply, Bruce, WinNT is an all-new fully 32-bit operating system capable of multi-threading and multi-tasking. '95 is not. The Yost Group needed to take *full* advantage of the PC platform to make MAX the best it could be, and WinNT was one of the ways to do that. PhotoShop…
Jeffery, as I understand it, the Alphas are much more forgiving when it comes to sharing system resources than the Pentium. Gary's comments regarding multiple processors were strictly for the Pentium. So it's quite possible (probable, really) that you won't find diminishing returns as you go over 2 processors using…
Jerome, I share your enthusiasm about the possibility of raytracing in 3DS. Here's what I suspect will happen: As there are many, many others who have written wonderful RT code, I wouldn't expect the Yost Group to re-invent the wheel, so to speak, and re-write a whole new raytracer when…
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