This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
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#Aspect Ratio, PVR
Message #197210
The aspect ratio for the PAR is .85, because 640 divided by 752 = .85. So, the aspect ratio for the PVR should be 640 divided by 720 = .89. When I render a sphere at 720 x 480 x .89 and view it on the TV through the PVR,…
How is it possible to render from 3DS straight to the PVR? There's no IPAS for this, as there is with the PAR, and the dedicated SCSI drive isn't visible to 3DS.
Pixel aspect for PVR
Message #196828
Resolution and aspect for the PAR is 752 x 480 x .85, the .85 being because 640 divided by 752 is .85. So, I figured that 640 divided by 720 means that I want to render at an aspect ratio of .89 for the PVR. When I render a sphere…
I talked to Digital a couple days ago. They sent the "real" manual to the printer, and we should get them in a few weeks. They said it's much more complete than the Manual Lite they initially shipped out. They're also close to mailing the NT disks.
Use PKunzip to decompress the zipped file (if you don't have the PKzip program, search & download from the main Cserve screen). It will unzip into a .tga, .jpg, .gif, or whatever, and you can use any viewing program.
This forum costs about three bucks an hour. $1,000 gets you 333 hours of solid info from people who aren't in a hurry to get you off the phone, and who actually know what they're talking about (or at least readily admit when they don't). You also get free humor…
I tried the DC1 for a couple days. Animations looked bad. Edges of things looked as if they'd been torn. Miro tech support had me try a couple things, which didn't work, and they finally suggested that it wasn't the product I wanted. It's meant for stuff off the TV…
The motherboard I'm using with the PVR is the PVI-486sp3, which I think is made by ASUSTek Computer Inc (that's the only company name I can find in the documentation, anyway). I don't have the daughtercard, so I don't know if it would block a PCI slot. I've had lots…
I watched the "progress" of the MARS's entry into the market, and called Daewoo several times trying to get info, and it seemed like lots of good talk, and no substance. I saw the thing at Siggraph, and it looked great. But, will it ever be available? They started advertizing…
Don't the Avid and Media 100 do that themselves? I know someone with a Media 100, and glancing through his documentation, I saw file input format lists that included TIFFs and TGAs. Are you looking to avoid rendering individual TGAs, and just render an AVI or Quicktime right out of…
The only light I can offer is verification that the product of Video Post is usually greater than the sum of its parts. The other oddity of Vpost that I wonder about is why , when joining two flics, the rendering starts out very fast, just a few seconds per…
Thanks for the help, Dave. My BIOS has a field for "PCI Configuration", where the IRQs for the three PCI slots can be set. Once I found that out a couple nights ago, I got IRQ 12 to work with the PVR. It still crashes my Kurta digitizer, so I…
Thanks, Hans. Late last night I finally thought to look in the BIOS, and found the field to set the IRQ for the three PCI slots. IRQ 12 finally worked. Sounds like we're in the market for another IPAS. I thought the ability to render from 3DS to an animation…
No, the documentation is pretty short on technical stuff. Kind of surprising. Reads like a manual for a Sounblaster or something. It seems like someone buying the PVR would be expected to be comfortable with more in-depth info, and would need it. I'll get back to you when I get…
#How change IRQ?
Message #193302
Hans, You can't render frames directly from 3DS to the dedicated PVR drive? Really? I sure hope I'm misunderstanding this, because I'm currently trying to get my new PVR running, and I definitely expect to render to the expensive Micropolis drive I got to go with it. While we're on…
Lee, In the past, have you kept an eye on the memory usage status during renderings? If you render stuff that sends that count near or over 16 megs, then you're going to page to disk when you drop to 16 megs in the Pentium machine, and at that point…
Stephen, I'm pretty sure I've got the PVR set to SCSI address 7 (the factory default), and the Micropolis drive set to 0 (also the default). The problem seems to be not with the SCSI addresses, but with the IRQs. Apparently, the SCSI controller on the PVR needs to inhabit…
#PVR & IRQs
Message #193255
Can someone tell me how to free up IRQ 0 so the PVR will work? The PVR is set to SCSI address 7, and the Micropolis drive is set to SCSI address 0. When I try to start the PVR software, to format the drive, I get "Invalid IRQ=0 Assigned".…
Dithering is turned on & off in a sub-screen of the render screen. Once you're in the render screen, I think it's "Options", then "Dither 256" is set either on or off. Using dither not only causes pixel pox, it also yields much bigger file sizes. Most people find the…
#renumber
Message #191551
Actually, I could have used such a thing a few days ago. I forgot that I had set Nth serial back off, and ended up with odd-numbered .tgas that Smacker couldn't work with. Took me half an hour to renumber them.
Might be two different topics. Do you render flics with dithering turned on? If so, that's probably where the wierd pixels are coming from. As for the flics locking up, welcome to the club. Happens to me, and from what I read in this forum, it happens to a lot…
Doesn't the "Nth serial numbering" parameter in the 3ds.set file determine this?
Yeah, self-illumination sounds like exactly what I need to do. This forum more than pays for itself; I don't know how long it would have been before that solution finally occurred to me (never?). Thanks. Dan
I've been working on a piece in which the camera starts outside a house, enters the house, zooms in on a monitor sitting on a desk, and seems to enter the monitor. I rendered frame 1 of the animation and then mapped that frame onto the screen of the monitor…
You need what's called a codec (for "code-decode"). Codecs come in two varieties; software and hardware. Xing-CD is a software codec. The quality of the playback with software codecs depends on the speed of your hard disk, bus, video card, etc.. If your machine can't play MPEG back quickly enough…
Yes, it's called Xing-CD. It ain't cheap, but it seems to work.
This discussion brings up a question I've had for a while, and can't find in the books. When two flics are combined in Vpost, either splicing or compositing, does the pallette setting in Vpost even matter? Does Vpost re-calculate pallettes, or does it just use the original ones? If I…
Hi Anne, I've been away all week, so I'll poka around and see if there's more info on the Epson Stylus. Thanks for the help.
Smacker
Message #188742
Terry, I've been away this week, and can't remember what the license fee question was in reference to. Do you mean, is it shareware with a registration fee? If so, no, it's not shareware. The new version just started shipping last week. It's advertised as faster, more versatile, and multi-platform.…
#187438-
Smacker
Message #187543
Yeah, I've had it for a few months. It's excellent. Gives you lots of control in balancing compression and image quality. Even at highest quality, it'll reduce the file to a third of the original size. Several good playback parameters as well. One nice feature is a utility included called…
#Epson Gamma?
Message #186756
Gus, Thanks for the reply, even though I filed this in the wrong forum. I read the same advice you give in Inside 3DS, and so I set output gamma to 1 in the 3ds.set file (which the book recommends rather than just turning it off). When I rendered a…
Epson Gamma?
Message #186608
Can you tell me how I determine the best value for file-output gamma in 3DS for my new Epson Color Stylus? I print from photoshop 3.
Two ways come to mind. One involves animated maps, the other involves animated lights. For the map, if you're handy in Animator Pro you could make a short flic going from your first color to your second, and then back, over a series of frames. The resolution of that .flc…
Randy, I've got a DX4-100 with the Stealth 64 Video Vram 2mb. The word from Vibrant is to use the basic "Stealth 64" selection in Vibcfg. My version of Vibcfg is from about March or April; there may be a fresh one with a driver specifically for the new Stealth…
#Mpeg IPAS?
Message #186182
At some point in the last few months, I read a reference in a magazine to an IPAS routine for rendering an MPEG stream directly from 3DS. Anyone know what it's called?
Not only will Michele's suggestion of rendering the flc at 320 x 200 make the stars bigger (but a little coarser), it'll also keep the memory situation managable. It sounds like using it as a background is the best solution. If that won't work, and the flc has to be…
I can't remember if the new AutoVision (the add-on renderer for Autocad) does viewpoint animation (walk-thrus), but I think it might. AutoVision produces great images, comparable to 3DStudio, but it's slow. A faster renderer that does do walk-thru is Accurender by Robert McNeel & Assoc. It's also an add-on to…
#Zoom Extents Problem
Message #185817
A colleague has made an architectural model in AcadR13 and .3DS-ed it to 3dStudio R4. Views created in Acad came in to 3ds (I'm not sure if they came in as cameras or as vports. I've never used R13, and I forgot to ask). When he zoom extents the various…
Yeah, I had the same experience with my Stealth 64 Video Vram. Just choose the "Stealth 64" driver, not the VRAM driver, and everything should work fine (this advice came from vibrant). I'm not sure if I have the absolute latest VibCFG. Mine's about April '95 or so. Maybe they've…
Jeffrey, I've got a Kurta. Works fine in 3DS, but only in relative mode, and I'd been told by Autodesk people that absolute tablet mode was not supported by 3DS (that may have been R3). Does R4 allow absolute positioning? How did you do this? If I could get the…
300.00 will get you a Diamond Stealth 64 Video VRAM. First I jumped from a Speedstar Pro to a Diamond Viper. It was slower than the Speedstar, and after many phone calls the consensus is that that card rots. So I traded for the Video VRAM, and It's been more…
Steve, Wherever you live, there is probably a 3dStudio user's group within a drive of an hour or so. Books are a good reference resource, and a good learning tool too if you can stand to do lots of tutorials (which I can't), but nothing helps more than human resources.…
#Epson Stylus
Message #185311
I've read that the Epson Color Stylus isn't actually able to produce 720 DPI. What resolution can it actually do? If I want to print on 8 1/2 x 11 paper and leave a 1/2" border, at what resolution should I render the Targa? And what aspect ratio should I…