This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (374 messages)
#21122-
#q's from the underland
Message #21192
Ha! I tried talking to you in the morning, and, with a glazed look on your eyes, you mumbled something about coffee, then stumbled away. Evan
Tom: Bus speed is not an issue. Get a 486/50DX with 64 MB RAM. Evan
Phil: I'm an authorized multimedia dealer. I have this client – we'll call him "Doug." He has a problem with the aspect ratio of a Wacom digitizer running on AAPro. Since it's the Autodesk supplied WACOM.IDR driver, Wacom is of no help. How do I go about scaling the pointing…
I, too, have the Texel. The only down side is that it doesn't have a CD disk bundle with it. Evan
#15286-
frame-by-frame taping
Message #15297
Gregory: The cheapest way to go would be to have a forum member lay the job onto tape for you. Otherwise, you're talking about $10,000 in equipment to do the job yourself. Evan
Arthur: My personal opinion is that 3DS will probably stay away from Windows. After all, it's a high power $3,000 application that needs all the horsepower it can get. Why saddle it with the limitations of Windows? Evan
Tom: A 486/33 with 16MB will be just fine. Eventually, you'll want to pop for more RAM, but 16MB is OK for a long time. There are 3DS drivers from Panacea and Vibrant which support the Sierra HC. I personally render 24 bit TGAs to file, then use VPIC to…
Tom: Generally, when people talk about "borrowing" software, they mean making a copy. I just wanted to warn you that 3DS has a hardware lock, which fits on the parallel port. No offense wasn intended. Autodesk has always sold expensive professional software. 3DS, in particular, needs about $20,000 worth of…
Tom: Both #1 and #2 are hard. 3DSr2 is hardware locked. Evan
James: My guess is that if Chrysler were to come out with a Viper for $4,000 it might increase sales too. Might also scavenge sales from their *real* Viper. I have never heard the argument that 3DS was overpriced. I have, however, heard many people say it is underpriced. Autodesk…
James: Sort of a 3DS-VGA? I don't know. Seems like you'd also have to disable mesh export too. Essentially cripple the program so that it's of no use to 3DSr2 users. My guess is that it's just not worth doing. Why would Autodesk want to scavenge 3DSr2 sales? Evan
Ken: How important do you think portability is? After all, the vast majority of desktop computers are intel based. You pay a penalty for portability. The code is most often big, fat and slow. It requires massive computer resources. In general, portability breeds piggishness. Evan
Gary: Last I heard, Autodesk ran out of product for about 5 days, but now has stuff waiting to go out on the docks. Evan
Larry: There are a lot of authorized dealers. Just call a few, explain that you want Animator Pro, and need a good price. You'll get a deal. Evan
Cohn and I tried out the one at NCGA. Real tiring. Evan
Kevin: What are your thoughts on the Howtek scanner that is sold direct? Evan
Will WAVES work? Evan
Heather: More accurately, the ATI Graphics Ultra is two cards on one: a 1MB 8514/A compatible card, and a 512K VGA. Evan
Gary: How come the only times I ever see you are when you're totally burnt from working on a project? Take some time off. Please. Go find a beach and do the Yost maneuver. Evan
Matt: Autodesk is interested, and I'll bet you get a nice message back from the Autocops within the next couple of days. Evan
Good point! Evan
Kevin: The darkening he's seeing is like one of the surfaces is at an angle, and catching a shadow. Like this: ______________ ______________ | | |\ | | | | \ | | | | \ | | | render | \ | |————–| ———-> |————–| | | | |…
John: I remember when Apple came out with the fx. One of its code names was "wicked fast Mac." Do you really think 6MFLOPS at $12K is a bargain if it's being used as a render-box? I'm not trying to be difficult, but I believe that it is going to…
Concerned (Is that *really* your name?): Just out of curiosity, do you have much occasion to move your dongles around (like to home and back?) Evan
It was interesting seeing the ILM presentation on T2 at NCGA. Looks like they had to air-brush in the T1000's knees as he walked out of the fire. The scenes they showed had gaps at his knees as he walked. Evan
Craig: What do I know of courtroom proceedures? It just seems to me that an animation must be explicitly supported by non-graphical data. Any animation that shows what *might* have happened, without having supporting data, seems destined to fail. Evan
Which goes to show that 3D Studio is just a tool. The expert witness blew it. Evan
Kevin: OK – that makes sense if they're used by service bureaus. For some reason, I thought Exabyte 8mm tapes were one of the prefered standards. Not? Evan
Gary: At NCGA, one of the ILM guys said that they *needed* surface patches -hence, Alias and Renderman. But I wonder – with enough RAM, tesselation might be more practical than patches. What do you think? Evan
Jay: You forget that Autodesk owns a CD mastering system. Evan
#10536-
#3D Studio R2 LOCKED?
Message #10699
Dave: Different world, different time. AutoCAD will probably never be locked in the US. Evan
#10520-
#3D Studio R2 LOCKED?
Message #10698
Gary: In the past, I've been against dongles. But, in this case, I'm really ambivalent. If I look at the plusses in 3DS R2 (multiple render and CD ROM), the lock is acceptable. And, to be fair, if I want to work on 3DS at home, I can just grab…
Craig: More accurately, the form is filed at the time the license is transferred. Later, the new owner can send in the #1 floppy for an update. Evan
Try the DOS command CTTY. By typing CTTY COM1: on the remote machine, it'll listen to the com port instead of the keyboard. You should be able to issue player commands from the other computer. I don't know if this'll work – try it and let me know.
Myron: Actually, competition is still not much of a problem for Autodesk. They own about 70% of the market. Evan
Tony: OK – I didn't run it. My Artist XJS was out of the office at the time. But I have run other monitors at 1600×1200, and have total confidence that the Diamond Pro 20 will do it all day long. Evan
Myron: I think the mail order thing is what set me off. In any event, Autodesk has a test-drive version of the software — although I'm not sure if it's available for the Mac. Someone here can tell. As for getting a *live* version of the software — I still…
Craig: I can't generally argue with your points. My only real problem with lawyers in this respect is that their TV advertisements are often tacky and misleading. In Phoenix, some of the personal injury lawyers have gotten out of hand in their advertising. It's almost gotten to the point where…
Dennis: All I was saying was that, when using AutoBase or EDMS, it's not a good idea to spread drawing files out across a network. It's better mamangement to have them stored in a central server. Evan
Fortunately, silicon is pretty stable. 486SX chips should last as long as 486DX chips. It's the same problem with hard disk drives. At least in that case, a bad sector can be flagged out.
Myron: You're kidding – right? AutoCAD isn't generally mail ordered, and it is *very* unlikely that any dealer will let you try it on a trial basis. Evan
It's good business sense for Intel. When they test 486DX parts, those that fail the coprocessor tests get labeled as 486SX. Essentially, Intel is selling scrap.
"The canibals found that the most tasteful — and tasty — way to serve lawyers was on a spit, basted with guava juice."
Dennis: Sure. But the best bet is to use a centralized server, instead of spreading out files all over the network. Evan
#9369-
#9256-Animation Marketin
Message #9422
Shoot, if it's all that simple, they should buy a Violin and write a few symphonies. Or maybe buy a chisel, and become a sculpter. Or even buy some ice skates, and go to Albertville. They could buy a scalpel and do their own surgery too. There will always be…
Dave: If the pixels are consistant with reference to each character, then the problem is in the graphics card. Actually, a failing monitor will never generate random pixels. Evan
Dave: More RAM. Yea — that's the ticket. No such thing as too much RAM. Evan
Paul: If I could figure out a way to prevent lawyers from advertising — or at least make their ads tasteful — I'd do it in a second. One company in Phoenix is trolling for people with breast implants. Evan
#Shareholder Lawsuit
Message #33559
Paul: I've seen reenactments on TV too. Generally, they stink of editorial bias. Twelve good people overcame the fact that the plaintiff was a mugger. I suspect there was a reason. Evan
#Hardware cache size
Message #33558
Dave: Isn't that what I said? Seriously, if you can get maybe 512K or more, it might make a difference. But there are better places to spend your money. Remember that doubling the cache size only results in a small percentage increase in hit-rate. You can improve speed by going…
Page 7 of 8