This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (1,099 messages)
Thanks, Lee, for the help in your excellent message(s). After my first query to Richard, I discovered (by clicking on *.*) how to use the BXP .GRD conversions in MatEd and was able to try some things with the supplied COPPER.GRD. The others seem to be unusable due to missing…
>>what happened… Hi Ralph! I did see the message. When I tried this the materials do morph properly (gradually) as you'd expect. However, as the gradient appears, it stretches _with_ the object as it scales. The effect needed for this type of animated graph is considerably different – you want…
>>view which presets are included by going to OPEN… Thanks for repling, Richard. There is no OPEN anywhere on the screen or in any menus I can find. Regardless, the gradients included with the demo version I downloaded are obviously FADE, ANIMGLOW, COMET1, COMET2, COMET3, COPPER, & VIDEO. As I…
more HSC KPT questions
Message #157322
Hello Richard again, With some more experimentation, I was able to figure out a few more things about the Gradient Designer, such as how to use the GRD files in the materials editor. A little more detail on problems I had with your demo version… ——– Choosing the following .GRDs…
>>with morph targets… Let me know if you figure out how to do this with morph targets – I couldn't get that to work out right. True, if you make the source and target objects different materials and morph, and the beginning and end will look great. What I couldn't…
#HSC KPT, help…
Message #157262
Richard, Thank you for providing a DEMO version of your Gradient Designer for 3DS. Could you give some hints on how to check it out? I downloaded the demo version GDFX10.EXE, installed it, switched to 16bit Vibrant drivers, and the interface comes up fine. When I select certain presets from…
Hi Larry – I see you've been out of town (out of the country?) again. Hope you are doing well. PMJI, but DLLs a not much more than (compiled) subroutines that don't have to be linked ahead of time. There are certain coding restrictions, but in general, you can write…
>>how do 3DS animations interface with VB, etc… No problem. The animations themselves are non-denominational. They don't care if a DOS, Windows, or other program is playing them. JKJ
Bob, If I understand you correctly, you are scaling separate objects, each of which is a plot with a fixed color scale. There is no way I know of to morph mapping coordinates, which would do this easily. Do you want just the upper surface to change color, or do…
Hi Stefan, When I wanted to do the same thing (create a DXF from my own program), I found everything I needed in the AutoCAD manuals. Do you have access to AutoCAD? BTW, my little program created a surface (polyface) mesh (like a terrain) based on data in an ASCII…
A couple of people on this forum have purchased/evaluated the MARS. From what I've heard, it is fine if that resolution is not a problem. Most animation for video is done at a higher resolution (the PAR is 756×480 and video framebuffers are usually no less than 512×486), but the…
Peter, In case you didn't see message #156757, as well as CAMERA.ZIP, Jonas noted the following file in the library here: ———————————————————————- File Info for LENSDA.TXT Section: Software Dev. Kits Contributor: 71033,3070 Size: 1063 Submitted: 1/25/94 Type: Text Accesses: 97 Title: Nikon/3DS Lens FOV Data Keys: CAMERA LENS FOV ANGLE…
>>wireframe render, any interest?… Yes! A routine that would render clean wireframes (with or without hidden-lines), would be very useful. Does your existing program run on the PC? Are you offering to release it? My off-the-cuff wishlist for a perfect (IPAS) routine might include: – render the selected viewport -…
>>frame count in IFL… (wow, a whole message without a Pyros Pun!) Ah, page 3-47 in the ole manual, huh? I clean forgot about that – much better solution. Thanks, Mr GP. JKJ
>>urgent, camera lens… For any calculations using the 3DS camera, use the FOV angle, measured horizontally for the desired rendered resolution. To correlate with a standard camera lens, you'd have to calculate the equivalent FOV. We went through something like this in '93 at work and discussed it somewhat on…
>>mesh->SEEZ->image->displace->morph… I like it too. You get the creative thinking award for this week! JKJ
C#, Do you have programming skills? (Seems like I remember from long time ago that you do.) If Z is scaled by some function, it sounds like a candidate for the TSE. Alternatively, (and probably easier) you could write a simple program in C (or BASIC) to process the original…
>>I guess I need digital putty or wood or something… You may be interested in some software that FARO Technologies is working on for use with their 3D digitizer. I put some details in another message (#156690) with a more appropriate subject line. JKJ
digitizers/digital clay
Message #156690
>>I guess I need digital putty or wood or something… You may be interested in some software that FARO Technologies is working on for use with their 3D digitizer. From a press release dated 2/20/95: "Sculptor 3D, Version 2, expected release July 1995, includes the concept of sculpting of primitive…
>>university video… There are three ways I have some experience with: A great way is a device called the PAR which will give you 24bit color at 30fps, but it will cost $2500 or so. The quality is perfect for industrial/technical animation. A much worse way, but with much better…
I have the ATI-AX0 (PCI) card in my P5/66 computer and gave up trying to get 3DS to work with it under Windows. (Same kind of problems) On another computer with an old Diamond Speedstar VGA, it works just fine. JKJ
I don't know, I've heard a lot of comments made with respect to you. JKJ
The BonesPro routine from Digimation will let you do this, with the bonus of letting you add small motion variations to make a very organic-looking animation.
>>multiple image map… I don't know if it could apply to your requirements, but I did something very similar just last week. I had four viewpoints (top, left, front & camera) of animated action, kind of like an animated engineering drawing. I rendered each viewport to a little less than…
>>topo morphing… There are lots of ways to make something look "terrible!" If the vertices don't match up (the faces get crossed up during the morph) as Martin suggested, you may be out of luck using your original pair of meshes. I've done morphs like you describe (using surfaces made…
>>other outline ideas?… I've thought about this before, and I think you can do it with traditional image processing techniques using sobel, (or perhaps dilation and erosion kernels) on the alpha channels of the individual objects against a black background. I think one could create an outline layer consisting of…
Cool is right! I can't think of _anything_ I've done in the last 30 years or so that's given me more deep enjoyment than working with those little kids. (And 5-6 is the perfect age – old enough to communicate with but not quite to the "smart alec" stage. )…
>>Objects/Tracks/Copy… >>This method can be applied to to align >> any object with another… Good technique, if you need to align two objects relative to their transformation matrices. If one object has been translated, rotated, or scaled, the CopyTracks method will very nicely translate, rotate, or scale a second object…
>>warm feeling you got way back in church/nursery school… Hey, thanks for the encouragement you didn't even know you gave! (I teach a sunday school class of 18 kindergartners 🙂 JKJ
PMJI, but with field order in 3DS=1, the numbers you use for the PAR are different depending on where they are set: in PARDRV = 1 in PAR.EXE = 2
>>cylinders-cube=??? John N. Jordan, You said, "like a c shaped pipe" – did you using TUBE or are you using the two cylinders to make the pipe? Does your pipe have inside and outside walls? Have you attached something to give more than one element? I just tried a number…
IRQ: No DMA: No Memory: No I/O Address: Yes (208, 218, 228, 248, 380, 390, 3A0, or 3A8) Computer: Doesn't matter Fan: Yes Windows: Razor Pro comes with MCI drivers. Pyros don't do Windows.
The easiest way to run 3DS with two monitors is to install a framebuffer card like Truevision's TARGA+ or ATVISTA and connect it to an NTSC monitor. This way the 3DS interface is on the computer's monitor and the rendered output is on the NTSC monitor. I use the ATVISTA…
Rather than use Deform Fit, wouldn't it be easier to make the wall, then make the base, then boolean them together (if necessary)? Or is there more to the problem than the simple picture? If you really need to use the Deform Fit, then you can move the vertices in…
And don't forget, just because you're NOT paraniod doesn't mean they're not out to get you. It's enough to make one paranoid.
>>need stripes… Do you mean stripes such as vertical stripes repeating in wall paper or paint? Do you need to create geometry so you can get real close to the wall with the camera or because the stripes need depth? If you need repeating stripes, the easiest thing might be…
Moties…
Message #156108
Those dang watchmakers have rewired all my TVs and toasters into 500 Mhz Alpha computers. Can't even watch Gilligan's Island anymore. Are you ready for another package yet? PS: I made arrangements yesterday: the family and I will be wandering around Utah and Colorado the first half of June.
>>flic to fields… Mr. Sanford. I didn't see if you got your question answered, but if not, you might check out FIELDR.ZIP in LIB 2. It looks like it may do what you want (I haven't tried it): ——————————————————————– [70700,2777] FIELDR.ZIP/Bin Bytes: 2581, Count: 170, 26-Aug-94 Title : POCO: "fieldizes"…
>>cabled dongles… Hi Chris. I'm no sysop, but your proposed cable scheme will work just fine. I have mine mounted inside a switchbox cabled between 2 computers so I can switch to run 3DS from either.
>>can't get fields to work… Hi JWS, This problem was a bunch of frames rendered with fields and sent to the PAR with the wrong field order. With the field order in 3DS.SET set to 1, the field order should be set to 1 with PARDRV or to 2 with…
>>Targa and NT… If you haven't done so, make sure you send Chuck Mitchell at Truevision [75300,3705] a (private) email with your thoughts on the Targa. >>framebuffer… Lest I mislead you, the PAR technically does have a framebuffer, but as far as I know you can't access it directly with…
I understand completely – I HATE mornings. My brain doesn't seem to start until sometime after 11am! I'm glad you're doing it right – you'd be surprised at the number of people who seem to pride themselves on how little they open a software manual. Ack! This may work fine…
I just wanted to reinforce what Jack said. If you want to be any good at all with 3DS, you should do ALL the tutorials. In fact, there is so much to absorb that I did them once then went back and did them all again. You mentioned you were…
>>will PAR replace Targa?… There are differing opinions on this, but my humble (and accurate ) opinion is the PAR will NOT replace a separate framebuffer for efficient 3DS development. Along with my PAR, I use an ATVISTA board instead of a Targa but the same principle applies. While modeling,…
David, This is concerning your PAR field order problem you reported on 2/21. I realize this is late and you probably have everything taken care of by now, but I ran into something similar a couple of days ago. I had loaded the new PAR.EXE 1.5 half-way thru a project…
#155524-
TARGA+ NT DRIVERS
Message #155663
Chuck, Thanks for your interest in the 3D Studio user. I've sent you an EMAIL on 3DS/NT from the ATVISTA users' perspective. JKJ PS: ATVISTA people: this message is really to you – you may want to take this opportunity to send your comments to Truevision.
>>I think TIFF could be read by everyone… If your audience is the set of 3DS users, JPG support is included in the latest versions. Most of the graphics programs commonly in use, including the popular shareware Paintshop Pro, handle JPG. Also, with so many flavors of TIF, more programs…
>>blown away… What fun! Maybe you should compare notes with Alec Jason. I've seen some video of him shooting up a car with a 50 cal machine gun, tracers and all. Also, there's a place in Atlanta that, for a fee, will let you full-auto blow away anything you can…
>>SIRDS… The book "Create Stereograms on your PC" $26.95 by Dan Richardson Waite Group Press has everything you need to know and the software to make RDS. It comes with RDSGEN which is also available on CIS (GO GRAPHDEV). Dan can also be reached at 72537,1341. I've used RDSGEN to…
SCALPEL pictures
Message #154890
Hello Edwin, I noticed your pictures in the forum library illustrating the SCALPEL IPAS routine. Just a suggestion, but you might consider rendering to JPG for uploading instead of TIF. The file size will be much smaller and MANY more people will download and see your images. For example, I…
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