This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
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You're quite welcome, Terry. Glad TedB and I could help some. -Alan
In addition to Nik's info about the ADESK party, Zac, the CIS/AMMEDIA 3DS get-together will be at the Grand Avenue Sports Lounge in the LA Biltmore (same address) starting around 7:00 PM Sunday night. August 6th. It is an un-official, informal party that is advertised on AMMEDIA only. Everyone who…
Can't wait, Gary! Contrats to the Proud Papa(s). See ya there… -Alan
What I mean, Terry, is to take the "busier" map, granite.cel in this case, bring it into a paint program and try to match it, color-wise, to the original map. This is so the reflection on the object itself looks as consistant as possible between curved and flat faces. Let's…
Terry, in addition TedB's advice, let me tell you af another approach. Because (spherical) reflection maps depend on the face normals' ability to sample the RefMap, flat faces often look dull compared to their curved counterparts. The flat face's single, perpendicular normal just doesn't sample much of the map so…
Gosh, Alec, but I wasn't really planning on bringing any sound reinforcement equipment to the party. As we are not renting any particular area but just gathering at a otherwise public establishment, we've gotta consider the other non-3DS patrons. On the other hand, I'll certainly ask the manager if there…
Geoff, the elephant head sounds like it could be done in the 3DS Lofter using the Deform/Fit technique. Read up on it in the manual, and do the applicable tutorials if you are not completely familiar with it. Also, I believe there is some good reading re Deform/Fit in the…
Ralph, I don't care what the credits say (the only people that ever see them are the ushers picking up popcorn cups in the aisles between shows anyway), I'll always think of the hard work and personal sacrifice you made for Virtuosity's CG/SFX whenever I hear the name of that…
Zack, although I may not be understanding you correctly, I don't see in your description where you have done the Surface/Material/Apply… operation to your object, faces, or element. In order to successfully apply texture-mapped materials to faces in 3DS, one must have applied mapping coordinates *and* applied the material itself.…
Way to go, mate! I'm extremely glad to hear the good news, but blown away that Ralph was left out of the credits. This is truly unacceptable, and I hope whomever is responsible can be made to understand what a horrible, horrible mistake that was. -Alan
Zack, have you read everything in the manual concerning mapping coordinates, material application, and the properties of Decal transparancy? By your message, it's quite difficult to pinpoint exactly where you are running into your problem. Also, there are a number of ways to approach the "decaling" of an object in…
Glad to hear it's all working, Bob. -Alan
Power problems often manifest themselves in the computer's power supply, Bob. Have you tried swapping the supply's pigtails around? it could be that the legs of the supply powering your floppies got trashed. If that didn't do it, I'd check the drives themselves, then the supply itself. Good luck! -Alan
Is your hardware lock firmly installed in your parallel port, Paul? If so, check for things like enhanced parallel ports, and printer power settings, etc. There is a hardware lock problem-oriented piece in the libraries you can DL for more info. -Alan
Uh-huh… -Alan
Thanks for the great PVR report, Martin! -Alan
Terry, if it's not too much trouble, I'd immediately trash Himem and Emm386 and throw the latest version of QEMM on those machines. It's fixed problems like these hundreds of times for me and many others. Your slaves, BTW, don't really need to run any video drivers right now, do…
That's great, Greg. Now, all I need is the invitation! -Alan
>>…ALAN.CEL…
Glad you can make the AMMEDIA party, Andrew! To tell ya the truth, I haven't exact directions from any particular place to the Biltmore Hotel. I know it is downtown, fairly close to the Convention Center, and is on Grand Avenue. This should be a good start for you. The…
Run out and pick up New Rider's "3D Studio Special Effects" (hopefully) at you local bookstore, Randy. There is an interesting chapter concerning manual refraction mapping that may help you out… -Alan
Hi Scott, You're right about 3DS having many ways to "skin a cat". I believe it was designed to let us really stretch our imaginations and that's a great feeling. I was actually on the RA2 team for only a short time as a freelance animator until they hired some…
Sounds like your HDD (Hard Disk Drive) controller card is not functioning properly, James. Your system is not seeing the hard drive. Hopefully, you jostled it a bit when moving your modem around. The first thing you should do is carefully remove it and then re-seat it. Then, make absolutely…
Cameron, I think Martin realizes this. What he is trying to *avoid* is re-installing the OS. Is there a way for a single-processor WinNT system to "find" a new, second processor *without* re-installing? -Alan
Since Ralph helped me a little recently, let me jump in here and try to shed a little light on this, Scott. While building a piece for Rebel Assault 2 last year, I had to model a complicated body (the Speeder Bike) and Deform/Fit seemed the only way to approach…
Shai, check the r4 features list (in the libraries here) to see if they are something you really need. If they are, buy it! As r4 is not reccomended by Adesk to be run under Win95 anyway, it probably shouldn't be an issue… -Alan
Nice reading except for the "new" animated texture maps mistake… -Alan
The soon-to-be-released refraction IPAS plug-in could be just what you are looking for, Randy. Give Digimation a call at 1/800/854/4496 for details. -Alan
>>…sent out to the Important People first…
You're welcome, Mark. -Alan
Hey, JI anytime! -Alan
You're welcome, Tyler. The very first time someone mentioned fields to me, I had the exact same feeling. 60 actual fields of movement per second is actually quite a bit of motion data, especially when you consider that feature movies are only 24 fps. Of course, movies has the natural…
I'm glad it worked for you, Don. RalphF's explanation says it all (thanks, Ralph!…) -Alan
If you are "combining" on a field-sensitive piece of equipment, and everything is rendered correctly, you have an excellent chance of having no problems, Mark. I imagine there are some problems that could be present, but I'd have to see the piece… -Alan
There are a few ways to go about this Don, but perhaps the quickest and easiest is to take the RefMap you are using into a paint program and *increase* it's level of detail quite a bit. What I mean by that is to "busy" it up as much as…
Tyler, rendering to fields mkes a HUGE difference in object motion smoothness for video! When rendering to fields, the renderer takes advantage of NTSC's 60 field/30 frame per second frame rate and actually calculates TWICE the motion data than when rendering to frames. Twice the motion data means animation that…
Let me ask you, Mark, do you have an example of a 3D-rendered 320x200x8-bit image that you consider acceptable? Could you use it to explain to me exactly what 3DS is lacking that other programs seem to be able to accomplish in this lower resolution and bit-depth? As you no…
Hide Keys for your self-illuminated spheres and animated Omnis should help you with the flashing lights, Craig. -Alan
Not really taking names, Paul, but glad to hear you'll be making it! And thanks for the B-day wishes… -Alan
What exactly do you mean by "dreadful", Mark? If you can be a bit more specific about your problems, I'd like to try to help you. -Alan
>>How'd you make it this far
Laurie, Well, you sure know how to brighten up a foggy Monday morning. Yesterday was a "recovery period", so please excuse the late reply. >>…lofter would be an easier way of creating extrusions than Corel…
Thanks mate! -Alan
>>Siggraph badge
Hmmm, indeed! Looks like you kind of got a work-around here. Are you for some reason taking text out of Corel, bringing it to 3DS's Shaper, and then going back to Corel with it? I'm curious as to why you'd do that, 'cause once I'm 3-D-ing something in 3DS it…
Perhaps the Siggraph announcements will shed some light on the Alpha questions, William. -Alan
Laurie, what exactly is your problem concerning .AI output fron CorelDraw5? It's "breaking holes" in your text? I'm still using 4 and find the DXF export pretty unusable. The .AI works well with a little vertex welding in the Shaper, but you sound like you're having a bigger problem. Maybe…
Thanks for letting everyone know about the problem with PVR installation in your IBM box, Roy. I think it's going to be a good idea to look *very* carefully at any machine one may want to install the PVR into, given it's PCI requirements and full size. Hopefully, your experience…
Not yet, but I'll see it soon, I hope… -Alan
>>Not terribly complicated
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