This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (572 messages)
Steve, Info is free. Your welcome. Sanford
Tim, Animation Master…..I sure got the wrong message from Steve's message. I'm glad they didn't close the door on the 3D Studio connection. That would be an economically poor decision. I hope I havn't caused too much chaos by posting his "no dxf" message. Thanks for the clarification. Sanford
Tim, Yes, we should get together. I know people who have Vistavision projectors, but I don't know any in public facilities. Vistavision is a great format, and I also have digital film printer plans. I would be interested in your digital-to-film ideas. I will be busy for two more weeks.…
Rico, Marketing can sometimes blind software authors. Even the high-end packages that are so highly hyped have stupid inaccesable features buried benieth layers of illogical pull out/down/up menus that are nearly undocumented. Massive attention to user's needs (high productivity tools) is the only way to do it. Sanford
Brian, I am "discussed out" regarding DXF for this week. If the new spline modeler IPAS works well, there will be less reason to import meshes except from packages like Autocad. Sanford
Andrew, Digital Arts was bought out by Lyon Lamb in Burbank. They did port it to SGI…I saw it run. The program is in mothballs currently. Call Mr. Film in Venice, California. They are the only ones I know of who still use it for production. Sanford
David, Perhaps you should GO ANVENA and ask Steve. I havn't asked him. Sanford
Brian, I am surprised you don't find any relevance is discussing DXF files in the Asoft forum. What are all those DXF file providers like Acuris, Viewpoint, etc. going to do if you exclude DXF from this forum? I'm puzzled. I never mentioned Autocad once, so why would you assume…
David, By all means….(G) The playmation sculpture module is all you need. The rest of the program cannot be used by 3D Studio. The only thing you might do is animate a character against Alpha, and then import the resulting Targa images into 3DS. ( First you must flip them,…
Bob, I havn't tried print-to-fit. I have been running my print output through Aldus Pagemaker 5.0. It is very savy about making things the right size. Boy, these are great tools. And Adobe owns it all! I'm surprised they don't have a 3 D product. They seem to have the…
Danny, This is great news. I assume Digimation will distribute. They have come out with some nice product recently. This will really help make 3D Studio a more mature product. Keep up the good work. Sanford
Tim, I have been building VistaVision equipment, cameras, projectors, optical printers and recently digital scanners for the film industry for nearly 20 years. I have put together a collection of these tools and am currently interfacing my 3D CGI setup to that equipment. I am also building a home brew…
Ed, I looked it over and found a limited menu of tools available. The writer of Nurbs tells me that a new version is on the way very soon and has lots of new features. I hope it is more sophisticated in the new generation. Sanford
Robert, A lot of software is going to have to be fixed for Win NT. Most have an NT version in the works. I can't forsee Adobe allowing themselves to be incompatable for very long. I run Photoshop 3.0 on Window F. W. G. and it is great. I havn't…
Bill, Have a wonderful life.
Rico,
Gary, I wonder why they did that …drop DXF? What can they be thinking? It's a shame to loose tools. I want more! More!….Sigh. Sanford
#OOps…no more DXF
Message #161868
Gary, My favorite modeler just quit! Look at this quote from Hash: Boy, I sure hope somebody gets into the "spline to DXF" business. I will pray for a spline modeling IPAS plug-in that is solid. No more Animation Master upgrades for me! Oh well. Sanford
Edward, Well, things have changed up at Animation Master, so I'm not sure I will continue using it. Check out this quote from Hash, Inc. :: So, That means I won't recommend it to anyone else. Now, where do we get a good spline patch modeler? What happend to Danny…
I only mention other software here in relation to how it works with 3D Studio. I think being aware of all the tools available for a job is necessary for success. The center of my world is 3D Studio. The center of my 2D world is Photoshop. Beyond that is…
The spline modeling feature is identical in the inexpensive version of Playmation.
You and I both write for magazines. I have read your articles. You may or may not have read mine. Simply put, if you don't agree with me, that's OK. I feel that if you don't see the usefulness of a PAR, and I do, then we have different orientations.…
I don't know anybody besides you who has Microstation. How is it to model with? I use Form Z on my MAC and I have played with Ray Dream and Alias Sketch 2. How does Micro compare?
I don't animate in Animation Master. I tried it. I use it like an IPAS for spline modeling in 3D studio. It runs on an older 486 next to my 3DStudio workstation.
I'll try to add a little "shoe polish" to what I write. Animation Master is both powerful and frustrating. That has caused me not animate with this package. You feel the potential as you quickly build models, but then you can't find selection sets or put color on parts of…
I realize that you could assemble any type of system. I am currently working on a film and finding a 128 meg 100mhz Pentium barely adequate for the job. The PAR is manditory in a production environment, and tape drives of less than a gig are not useful…I guess it…
Sorry, I re-read your list of IPAS's and saw Meshpaint. I agree that many are out of date. I havn't used all that many until now when I am using all the particle systems I can find. Most are quite limited and hard to manage. That makes them nearly unusable…
Bill, A small note on the real workstation needed to do professional work: The machine I would want for 3D Studio would cost considerably more than the one you listed. You need a PAR, with TBC, Exabite drive, 128 megs of RAM minimum, 2 gigs of hard drive space, a…
Bill, SGI is more expensive to be sure….but Wavefront just cut their price "up to" 50%…we'll see what that really means. Meanwhile, there are actually lots more IPAS's that could and should be included like Meshpaint, and a careful selection of some of the older schreiber, and all of the…
Gary, I will begin compiling the Killer 3DS power workstation3DS/Ipas feature list ….should be an eyeopener for the doubting thomases. Sanford
Peter, Thank you I will take a look. My main interest is in animals and insects. And since they live on, in and around flowers, I need good modeling tools to create scenes.
Jim, Too bad about Animation Master. I am attempting to put together a manual this year but I'm not sure when it will be ready. If I'm successful, I'll make an announcement to anyone interested in the secrets of A.M.
Jim, does the new version contain real docs this time around>>> PMJI, but Hash Inc. tells me the new version only has help. No Docs. (On paper) A mistake in my humble opinion. Sanford
Yes, indeed, Some of these packages are over-priced. I wonder if the market can support some of the costlier ones. Many users are hobbyists, and don't make any money with their systems. Its real tough on them. But, you just gotta have Bones and Meshpaint, and then you need …..etc…it's…
Ed, I tried to do cel animation (I wanted to work at Disney) but I don't draw like a disney animator. But now I can drive a pretty good mouse/hot key workstation, so I am a happy guy. Thank goodness for new technology, 'cause I'd hate to be still trying…
Gary, Undoubtedly you are right about being able to purchase 3D S power plug-ins piece at a time. My take on this matter is that: since 3D STudio with its vast array of plug-in is comming closer to competative parity with packages like Wavefront, it seemed obvious that a fully…
Ed, Has anybody ever added up how much you would have to spend to have all the IPAS's? I'll bet its close to 20 big ones. Just Bones and Metareys along with Pinello, Puppeteer and Kai's power tools costs more than 3D STudio! Who said this would be cheaper than…
Ed, I am getting Bones Pro so that I can run tests to see how far a A.M. model can be bent and deformed by Bones before it starts to open up. Many models don't need much Bones type movement to animate them. Sanford
Philippe, Sorry, there is no cheap way to get this software. Metaballs is totally different from Animation master and you cannot make the same kinds of models. Metaballs is fascinating by itself for the wierd shapes you can get. Animation master is much harder to use but worth the struggle.…
Philippe, Animation Master is from Hash Inc. (206) 699-5360….It is not expensive and the new release is out this week…runs in windows, Windows NT, Mac, SGI, and Alpha, as well as the IBM PC. I use it as a kind of "super plug-in" for 3d studio. Super for organic shapes,…
Rico , ((exporting morf targets for keyframer)) Sorry, you just can't use Animation Master to make morf targets. The vertex count is never the same. You have to use Bones or deform to animate A.M. models unless you buld things that naturally have joints. I wish it would work. That…
John, Even though it seems the magazine market is saturated, it really isn't. There is always room for a better magazine. Bill has made remarkable progress with 3D Artist in the last two years. Most of the other magazines meerly do product reviews and publish no-brainer press releases. Sanford
Andrew, Alias power animator's fillet is great. Just what 3D Studio needs, along with a "match surface edge" and some sort of edge join or weld function. If that could be put in along with nurbs and some other spline patch modeling features, 3D Studio could be a much more…
David, Thanks. I'm glad you liked it. As luck would have it, I am currently working on a movie compositing 3D STudio animation into film which jumps around, has no tracking data starting points, and the lighting is not planned correctly for CGI work. It is a nightmare to rotoscope…
John, I think this is the best issue ever of the magazine. Bill Allen is really getting a feel for what his readers like. Sanford
Kevin, Eat some spinach and jump into the fray……well….anyway, I don't like marketing much myself. Its too much like pulling a pitbull's tail. Sanford
Kevin, Roger, thanks. See you soon. Sanford
Peter, If you can make Nurbs easy to use, it will be a great addition to 3D Studio. Sanford
Kevin, I seem to be answering questions just after you do. Oh, well. I will have to try to read ahead to see if people already gave the info. You know more about Siggraph than I do. Are you going to be representing Computer Support Assoc. there this year? Or…
James, Siggraph……I just got a Siggraph mailing from Smith, Bucklin & Assoc. Chicago, ill. 312-321-6830. Call about info. See ya there. Sanford
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