This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (524 messages)
Ah, but Shrevepit, Looserana really is the Nation's Largest Hick Town. We're the second or third largest city in Looserana (depending on what statistics you believe, we are either just barely larger than or just barely smaller than Baton Rouge, but of course N'awlins has us both beat in size),…
It's not exactly my suggestion. It's one of the examples of Things To Try in the Yost IPAS Boutique #4 User's Manual. Works, too. 🙂 I think I'll start an IPAS/Plug-Ins Wish List thread, wherein any of us can post ideas for Plug-Ins where developers such as Digimation, Schrieber, etc.…
#IPAS3 Disk 7 & r4
Message #168214
In addition to the wishes JKJ gave for two-sided materials (actually that should be two-sided FACES, each side of which can have a different material, similar to the current BOX Mapping mode for Objects — there would simply be "Surface/Materials/Assign/Faces/Exterior" and "…/Interior" and "…/Both" commands — Exterior means the side…
Welcome back, Aaron! Now that you're healthy again, STAY that way! 🙂
#Autodesk Animator
Message #168212
David, you can't sell the manuals legally either. Read the license agreement again. It covers not only the application, but also "… the accompanying documentation." I have a proposed solution, which would also be a P.R. coup for Autodesk: why not allow old products and versions which are no longer…
No, I hadn't heard that. Why did they, and what did they replace it with?
Flying through stars would require a .AXP, not a .IXP. Actually, you can do a Star Wars-like hyperspace effect by simply using RAIN.AXP (from the Yost IPAS Boutique disk #4, "Particle Systems") with its bounding box rotated and stretched out so that the camera is inside the bottom plane and…
Speaking of Siggraph, just where and when is it this year? As for our replying about a month late to Forum messages, that will change when (if) Compuserve ever implements that 14.4kbps node (we're currently stuck with 24.4kbps, which means we pay six times as much for the same information…
Seeing as we have not yet updated either our Photoshop or Photostyler to the latest versions with layering and masks that can be saved in the native format, I seriously doubt that that's the cause in our case. But thanks anyway. It's more of a curiosity than anything else, as…
#Autodesk Confirms NT 3ds
Message #166935
Now THIS is NEWS!! Looks like "r5" will be the REAL "r4" we've been waiting for!! OS/2 Peer (peer networking successor to OS/2 Warp due any day now) and OS/2 SMP will be able to run Win32 apps. OS/2 Warp can currently run Win32s apps (yes, Virginia, you can play…
#DISK#1
Message #166934
If someone wants to do an improved STARS (the latest is STARS3 which does what STARS2 does plus is compatible with 48-bit color space and 16-bit Alpha with gamma as introduced in r3, plus allows random starfields of user-definable number of stars without having to run STARMAKE), here's an idea:…
#DISK#1
Message #166933
Gary, you say you are discontinuing IPAS Disk #1 because LenzFX is better and you don't want to compete against it. So, along these lines, are you also planning to discontinue Disk #5 (Silicon Garden) because of the existence of Schrieber's Nursery? It would be the same logic as discontinuing…
#DISK#1
Message #166932
I can understand protecting the software (especially if it's true that JERKS out there have been pirating Mirage — you know who you are, you criminals, and I do so hope your life of crime leads you to the fate you so richly deserve), but why a HARDWARE lock? Our…
Windows NT & 3ds
Message #166931
Uh, Gus, when you said "NT is the first thing close to a true multitasking, multithreading OS," you meant to follow that with "from Microsoft," right? Even then, though, you'd be wrong, since OS/2 was originally from Microsoft as well. (NT was in fact going to be OS/2 3.0 before…
#A Truly WEIRD Crash!
Message #166930
Here's a _weird_ one for ya. We loaded in a .AI into the Shaper, and had 3D Display on. Earlier we had tried to Merge in the shape but ran into a 512 vertex limit and didn't feel like editing 3DS.SET just for this one thing, so we Loaded it…
#camera roll not wanted
Message #166929
This quaternion (quanternion?) math thingie is why the "rotation" of Cameras and Spotlights are called "Roll" instead of "Rotation." The angle of Roll is the angle away from that needed to keep a line that starts at the center of the Camera (or Spotlight) and passes through it's "bottom center"…
#Multiple PRJ render?
Message #153173
JNJ, you may want to consider getting OS/2 2.11 on your machine. With it, you can set up TWO instances of 3D Studio that will run at the same time. One will be in the background running as a Slave Renderer, while the other runs in the foreground full-screen allowing…
Meshes for Human Model
Message #153172
Has anyone yet released, or is anyone working on, human models that are not only clothed, heirchically linked, and with full materials (to Release 3 standards), but are also Sliced for SKINning and have a linked Skeleton (of Dummies or simple Primitives) with IK joint info already embedded? Seems to…
No Splines In R4?
Message #153171
Secret message!? Send it, please!
Why then have at least two separate independent benchmarks shown OS/2 Warp to be slower — as much as 60% slower in some cases — than 2.11 in the same identical exact tasks? That's two independent benchmarks out of two that I've seen, thus 100% of the ones that I've…
Yeah, but it'd be faster still under OS/2 2.11. IBM had to slow Warp down to get it to fit into 4MB of RAM, but they tweaked the "snappiness" of the Workplace Shell user interface so that it FEELS faster. But in terms of actual program execution, Warp is slower.…
#144692-
#KUB's TSE saves 3DS!!!!!
Message #146330
(I'm stuck with using DOS CIM which won't let me change the addressee of a [Reply] message — this is to everyone, not to Jonas, so I can respond to several points raised in several messages without having to post several replies — gee, GEnie's PC-Aladdin is SO much nicer…
Okay, then. FM cards for straight General MIDI stuff (no attempts to do dynamic modification of tonality during a note, such as via breath control or aftertouch) would be analogous to the standard Preview/Make facility in 3DS, with Wavetable being more like Fast Preview in r"4". MIDI renderer is now…
David, that depends on the instrument. An instrument with a single point sound source (such as claves) would indeed not need stereo. But the vast majority of real-world instruments would require it for the most realistic results. For instance, a piano doesn't have one hammer and one string. It has…
No, John. The three types of subsampling and the three levels of the proposed television standard are NOT only NOT the same thing, they aren't even RELATED CONCEPTS! You're confusing your apples with your igneous rocks here.
Bruce, sorry if my "whinnings" [sic] and rantings offend you. As for legalease, no, most press releases aren't legally binding as contracts. But then again, most press releases aren't written as the official announcements of the features of a product and its price, with NO "escape clause." Corporations are usually…
#STARMAKER
Message #145532
Also interested. Check out some of the other POCO stuff in the Lib here! One guy even did a PARTICLE SYSTEM! I myself put up a simple one that renders almost any FLiCs to fields.
OS/2 Warp V3 is significantly slower than OS/2 2.11 in all aspects except for responsiveness of the user-interface. WAY slower in some respects. Warp is pretty and memory-efficient and all, but for 3DS work I'd stick with 2.11. You might be able to shave quite a bit off that 10%.…
I'm sorry about not signing my posts. It's not my idea. My boss just doesn't want our names to be used here. It's his account, so I gotta do what he says. If it were up to me, I'd be using my real name. David, your faith in Autodesk is…
But John, wavetable cards ARE second-rate approximations! It's just that FM is THIRD-rate! Seriously, even the best wavetable cards have, what, 4MB of sound samples? Since there are 128 instruments in the General MIDI spec, plus the drum kit, and since each instrument should optimally be sampled in stereo (or,…
No doubt I will. Gary has already mentioned at least one new feature for r"5" that will be an actual new feature in the program itself (even complete with a USER-INTERFACE and not just a 3DS.SET parameter!), not a plug-in, extension to the plug-ins API, or performance increase. Do you…
Oh? And here I thought that .BXPs were keyed off of extensions, so that the only way to do that would be to use a non-standard extension for the new, more-controlled JPEGs, seeing as ".JPG" is already taken by the r3/"4" built-in JPEG processing. Not to mention that .BXPs can't…
Not so. When JPEG performs subsampling, it looks at "u" and "v" pixels of chrominance information for every "y" pixels of luminance info and considers them ONE pixel of chrominance (averaged from the "u" and "v" values of those pixels). The format for specifying subsampling is "y:u:v:" so "4:4:4 subsampling"…
#144777-
#KUB's TSE saves 3DS!!!!!
Message #145331
David is correct, of course. I am not in any way connected to KUB. I am just an enthusiastic (perhaps a wee bit over-enthusiastic) fan. 🙂 My point remains that TSE is highly beneficial to the future of 3DS, and that Autodesk could do a lot worse than to bundle…
MIDI Renderer v1.3, $69.95 from Acoustics Inc., Huntsville, AL. Voice: (800) 365-6134 Voice & Fax: (205) 722-0490 A Wavetable card would be desirable, but not necessary, for MIDI creation. Hearing your MIDI stuff in Yamaha OPL3 FM while creating and then hearing the final CD-quality result after rendering would be…
The 32-bit Windows platforms don't support DPMI *at all*!? I heard they did, but that the implementation thereof sucks dead bunnies through a straw. Windows 3.1 supports DPMI, albeit imperfectly. To prove this, run PKZIP or PKUNZIP 2.04g (the latest version) both outside Windows and inside a Windows DOS Prompt.…
#144687-
#KUB's TSE saves 3DS!!!!!
Message #145328
John, 3DS is on top of the world right now. And VisiCalc was on top of the world in the spreadsheet market (which it created). And the Intel 8080 was on top of the world in the CP/M CPU market. And Ashton-Tate's dBASE was on top of the world in…
#144663-
KUB's TSE saves 3DS!!!!!
Message #145327
I have developed many viable, professional applications with QuickBASIC (not quite the same as QBASIC, I know), so it can be done. Basically (pun not intended), there are a lot of applications where most of the computer's time is spent waiting for input from the user. For such applications, blinding…
Object Cameras in the next release!? YIPPEE!! And here I've been trying to figure out how to go about using KeyScript to transform and copy Rotation keys from a Dummy object and translate them to appropriate Roll keys for a Camera linked to the Dummy, in effect doing my Object…
Why I won't upgrade
Message #144660
Thom, true about the title of the post, but we don't get to change the name of a thread to suit us here on Compuserve when replying to an existing thread. I didn't start this thread; I merely replied to it. For one thing, we here at M&M C.C. DID…
#3DS3 Window NT
Message #144659
Has anyone tested 3DS with Windows NT 3.5 (codename "Daytona")? Is it possible that this has fixed the problem?
RazorPro questions
Message #144658
There has been much talk in this thread about sound cards — especially the wavetable type. My advice: FORGET WAVETABLE CARDS! You don't need 'em when you have a standard .MIDi music file you want to play at the highest quality and record to tape or embed into a .AVI…
#Wish list
Message #144657
Gary, on November 27, you replied to Rudy Mantel that it's possible to rotate at sub-1o increments by typing in the rotation amount in the Key Info dialog. Uh, have you ever actually TRIED that when you have a lot of rotations in progress at some point in a path…
To OS\2 or Not To OS/2
Message #144656
Scott, we're WAY behind on our Compuserve reading here, so I just now saw your message from November 26. Perhaps others have already answered your question better than I can, but here are my comments: Windows no. !OS/2 si! Why? 3DSr3 or "r4" (r3.5) running under OS/2 2.11 (I haven't…
#KUB's TSE saves 3DS!!!!!
Message #144655
For those of you who don't know, "KUB, Inc." is the company which developed the Keyframer Scripting .KXP Plug-In which is included in 3D Studio Release "4" (I STILL say it should've been called 3.5, but that's another topic). Also, they have announced and I believe are now shipping a…
Errant FLAME
Message #138035
Easiest way to rotate a discrete single-element object such as an APXBOX at the sub-object level is to use Modify/ELEMENT/Rotate. No need to select all the vertices and/or faces in the box. And yes, it will indeed correctly rotate the local coordinates of the APXBOX, which Modify/OBJECT/Rotate will not do…
Glow by "1 color"
Message #138034
Actually, you don't even need Gouraud, since the Self-Illumination being 100 will prevent any Ambient shading from appearing anyway (thus no facets will be apparent). Use Flat, since it's faster. Also, you should make sure that both Shininess and Shininess Strength are set to 0. The Specular color thus becomes…
Batch render probs
Message #138033
Forget Batch Render and use Network Queue instead. You CAN do it with ONE machine! Just edit the 3DSNET.SET file's first few values (clearly marked), then load each Project one at a time and tell it to Video Post Render as "Net Queue" to machine. Then, when you've put the…
#question rendering
Message #138032
You will ALWAYS get banding on 16-bit displays. The reason is simply because of how 16-bit displays work. Those 65,536 colors are PRESET. They are NOT a palette of 65,536 colors from an available color space of 16,777,216 shades or even 262,144 shades! That board can display ONLY those SPECIFIC…
3DS & Game Development
Message #138031
To see the true face structure of a 3DS object/scene, do Display/Geometry/All Lines.
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