This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (1,176 messages)
>> Haven't touched base with you in awhile… Quite a while… I look forward to meeting you at Siggraph. Let me buy you a cup of coffee – or something a little stronger, as thanks for your help a couple of years ago. Man how time flies… – Dave
>> back up your drive and then reformat and then reinstall all your software Good suggestion. With all the swapping and huge quantities of images stored and removed, I'm sure fragmentation becomes a serious concern. – Dave
>> best chocolate chip cookie recipes… I'm bummed. Isn't that like >> the basic diet of the well healed animator?! That and Hagen Daz >> Chocolate ice cream? Actually, I prefer brownies (extra fudgy and a little sticky) and Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough Ice cream! (At Siggraph, you'll likely…
>> Since then I have gone to T. Chris Martin. Still some confussion, >> however. Please note that your "Forum name" still reads "Chris Martin [PRC]". – Dave
>> Sean (was I too strong in this post?) In my personal opinion, not at all. In the pre-Windows days (when 12×12 digitizers cost over $1000,) the Calcomp boards were the absolute best. Accurate, easy to configure, responsive, and excellent buttons. IMO, the Drawingboard line is toylike in comparison. Awful…
>> still bombs out… It sounds like it might be time to get down to some real nitty-gritty hardware debugging. If you are not comfortable working inside your PC, (or if doing so will void your warranty,) please ignore this post. I can make no guarantees that this will help,…
>> I'm scared… Since that odd error occured, I've been far better about saving frequently using the "+" button to create incremental saves. In the worst case, I figure that I will only lose 15 minutes to 1 hour's work. As I mentioned, the problem has not resurfaced here in…
>> I had this happen a few times a while back, but had forgotten about it. Here's a useless answer… I saw the same thing a few times. I couldn't save my mesh to ANY filename, drive, etc. Nor would HOLD work. Reset the system and everything ran just ducky.…
>> I've been trying to avoid linking the ball for other reasons… If linking the ball presents problems elsewhere in the animation, create a second ball (snapshot) and use hide keys to show whichever ball you need. >> I look forward to meeting you and the rest of the Forumites.…
>> rolling around the rim with no slippage. I'd use a dummy in the center of the rim to control position along the rim, and roll the ball itself for the rolling movement. It would help you greatly if you calculate the circumference of the ball and rim. Determine how…
>> I found that loading 3ds4 4 to 5 times slower than my previous 486DX2-66. Check for any "green" utilities such as POWER.EXE and try running your computer without them. Also, post the name of your video card here. I remember hearing about a few cases where cards took "forever"…
>> Could someone please give me some advice on which digitizer to buy? My personal opinion is that a digitizer doesn't give you any real benefits within 3DS. Using a digitizer in Tablet mode is a little "clumsy" feeling, so most people resort to using them in "mouse" mode. At…
TV Segment
Message #177346
Eric, Caught the tail end of the ME/U (Jones Comp. Network) special about the development of Daedelus (sp?). Congrats on the game and the publicity! – Dave
>>DLD-VGA 256 Color V2.09B – ADI 4.0 Display List Driver >>Copyright (C) 1989-1992 Panacea Inc., Londonderry NH, All rights reserved. It's possible that this ADI driver is messing with the graphics card. You probably need it for AutoCAD, but won't need it for 3DS. – Dave
>> Does it matter at the price? Awesome program at any price. Be aware that it is likely non-upgradeable. Everything you learn in R2 will be applicable to R3 and R4, so it is a good place to start. The renderer and IPAS plug-ins are dramatically improved in later releases.…
#Australia video?
Message #177238
To anyone who might know: Does Australia use NTSC or PAL format for video? Thanks, – Dave
>> "squint and match the grey squares" To somewhat simplify the concept, gamma makes up for the non-linear response of certain video devices. RGB computer monitors are fairly linear, ie. 50,50,50 is half the intensity of 100,100,100. OTOH, on NTSC video displays, this isn't necessarily true. Gamma adjustments allow you…
#176657-
Siggraph PARTY!!
Message #176848
Thanks for the update on the Siggraph party. I've got to plan my Electronic Theater viewing around it… – Dave
>> What would you recommend? Last year was my first Siggraph. I signed up for the full conference, which was probably a bit too much. I strongly recommend the Courses — full of good stuff from industry experts. As for the exhibits and other stuff, whew, expect complete sensory overload.…
>> I was thinking that two days is probably plenty… I guess you've never been to Siggraph before. Nothing has been officially announced about this year's Autodesk party. FWIW last year's party was on the Wednesday. Keep in mind for your planning that the exhibits are open Tuesday through Thursday.…
>> I'm thinking this is a funky gamma effect… Could be. It sounds as if the file-output gamma and file-input gamma are set differently. Under normal circumstances you will keep them set to the same value. – Dave
Once you move the vertex and click to drop it at the new location, CONTINUE HOLDING THE BUTTON. You can now move your mouse to drag spline control arrows for curvature adjustment. – Dave
>> What we need to do is find a utility that will sync the date and time >> from the command line. In Lantastic it would be: NET CLOCK \\server-name – Dave
>> if 3DS is working with single precision I believe that 3DS DOES use single-precision numbers due to the faster calculation times this produces. If at all possible, make note of your coordinates and move the whole model closer to 0,0,0. – Dave
>> When opened in default RGB format in Photoshop, they look fine on the >> screen, but when converted to CMYK format, the colors are really >> screwed up Check into the Photoshop handling of out-of-gamut colors. There are many RGB colors that just won't convert to CYMK (and vice…
>> combining it with a cylinder, rather than trying a Boolean Subtraction. Outward pointing sounds good, and to avoid booleans altogether, you could just "attach" it. – Dave
>> treads would have to start in the same place You can do this, but then modify the keys within the TrackInfo box to "slide" their position in time. Not as simple as I make it sound, but it works well, and once you get started you will see how…
Eric, It sounds like you may be confusing several aspects of the shaper/lofter/editor processes. I would encourage you to do the tutorials again – note that every detail is significant. If I understand you correctly, you are having difficulty getting the text and circles to match correctly. Also, due to…
>> …to consistently point toward the axis of the helix. Try setting "LOFT-BANKING = OFF" in your 3DS.SET file. – Dave
>> I found a 3DS.set setting called Shadow-Sample-Range that has a range >> or 1-10 and a default of 3, pg. 44 in the Installation Guide, that >> may or may not help your scintillation. This is also accessible from within 3DS under global shadow control and spotlight shadow map…
>> The text would not loft. Help. Be certain that all the shapes along your path have the same number of vertices. Also, if you have a two-piece shape like an "O" (ie with a hole), and your second shape has no hole, you may get unpredictable results. – Dave
>> I feel that the Animator STudio manual somewhat fall short. I'm just >> wondering is there some kind of third party book on Animator Studio >> that's going to come out soon? The Yost Group wasn't involved in AAS development. You should direct your inquiry to the Autodesk staff.…
Your message was posted twice. See my reply to your earlier post. – Dave
>> I can't seem to get the background images to appear clear as i am >> working. It only appears clear when the view is rendered. 3DS can only show background images as grayscale in the editing windows. To see the full-color version, you must render. – Dave
#175520-
#Phar Lap Error
Message #175719
>> The 386 chip is currently executing in virtual 8086 mode under the >> control of another program. It sounds like there is a TSR conflicting with AAPLAYHI. Try starting with a "clean boot" and see if the problem goes away. To clean boot, rename your config.sys and autoexec.bat files.…
>> Is [summa] working in r4 now? IMO, it's still best to work in mouse mode. If you -must- work in tablet mode, use the built-in tablet driver rather than an ADI driver. – Dave
>> wacky colors (everything is bright pink & green) and poor image quality. Sounds like the "blue" cable is damaged or not connected properly. – Dave
>> I want exact camera movements with no unwanted movement. Moving the Continuity slider to 0 will eliminate the "anticipation" and "follow through". >> Camera cuts… You could create keys in one frame, and then move the camera and target in the next, but be sure to set Continuity to…
>> I can't think of a way offhand to change key info on multiple objects The Keyscripter… – Dave
>> [Mapping six sides] Once more: Is there amn easier way or do I right ? If you haven't tried it yet, how about "box mapping" (Surface/Material/ Box/Assign). You may need to experiment with your materials a little to get the orientation correct, but this is very easy for simple…
Your text color problem is likely related to the fact that the FLIC format uses only 256 colors. Take a look at custom palettes in the reference manual, pages 8-117 through 8-119. What you'll need to do is develop a custom palette that has a decent sampling of colors from…
#174862-
#Sob..Sob.. BACKUP!
Message #174931
>> My last save proved to be entirely counterproductive. My computer >> locked during the save, and the project file is now corrupted. Try to get in the habit of saving incrementally numbered files… MYJOB01.PRJ, MYJOB02.PRJ, etc. The "+" button on the save screen makes this really easy. If you…
>> Just how much do you blieve most 3D scanning services would be? I haven't ever had it done. I did check into Cyberware rates for one project and a full head scan with associated translation was around $250, if I remember right. – Dave
MarkG, Yet another vote: Include bound documentation. Myself and most software users aren't ready for the paperless society yet… – Dave BTW… Thanks for the suggestion on time based filter painting.
I've seen similar network behavior. Perhaps this is related to what is described on page 29 of the User's Manual. It says that to exit slave mode you press , but if you ran 3DS SLAVE from the command line, you need to press to return to the command line.…
>> scan a small (3 X 3 X .5) 3D object… There are many companies that offer 3D scanning services. Post your location and maybe someone will jump in with the name of a nearby company. – Dave
>> like to make a pipe transparent and show some water moving throug The simplest method that I can think of would be to create your pipe in the 3D Lofter with mapping coords ON. Apply an animated opacity map to the pipe that "reveals" the water moving through. Your…
> Check with John Foust at Syndesis. His company's Interchange program may support this conversion. – Dave
>> KPT lovers… Mark, it appears that gradients and path-based effects in AAS are based upon the bounding box of the selection (or brush stroke). In the case of an animated brush stroke, the color may vary from frame to frame as the bounding area grows. Is there any way…
In addition to using the most current ACAD revision, also verify that you have the latest 3DS revision Rel. 4c1. It made some corrections to handle changes to the DXF format. The error messages you are getting would seem to indicate that there are too many objects in the DXF…
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