This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (164 messages)
Dave, Don't work to hard, check out Adobe Premiere for some ideas – alpha channel mattes and image mattes. It requires a whole lot of calculating, but hey, what's hardware for… (Photoshop gives you still equivalents of masks with gradients.) Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
Dave, IMO, a blurred mask would not be a 1-bit image (as it is in Animator Pro) it would be a 256 level grayscale image. The gray value would control the "density" of the incoming ink. The logical extension is that the mask is a FLC file itself? Maybe something…
Dave, to expand on the link between sound and animation in Animator Studio. I thought it is basically a function of the AVI format. And while with "fast enough" hardware you can paint by frame, on "slow enough" hardware AVI playback will favor sound over image – resulting in dropped…
I agree, for FLCs with lots of frame to frame changes, using an AVI file with RLE compression isn't the ticket. It did work well for me on one project – but then the FLCs had lots of still areas. Chuck Jameson
Kathleen, have you considered converting the FLC to an AVI format (say with the RLE compressor if you want it to be pixel accurate). Director would be able to play it directly? Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
It's nice to understand your conception of what a dealer should be doing. From my experience my dealer doesn't offer training or support worth beans. I guess I'll get my upgrade there and go grouse. For-profit training and support would be attractive to me. And while we talk about it,…
That's real nice Anne, but I don't monitor that section so I'll see their reply when it gets ready to scroll off if you are nice enough to send it to me by Email. Perhaps you only read the message title. The content was chit chat that folks who use…
ADesk Mktg Strategy?
Message #177626
I was struck by the inclusion of Animator Studio in the Egghead catalog I received. It sort of puts a cap on what I'll pay a dealer for an upgrade! And my goodness, if my customers can find it that easily, what will they think! I'll lose respect. Gee I…
#Rendering Params for FLC
Message #176309
My consultant needs a bit of help (notice how I'm too polite to drag his name into this – yet.) He has the scene, modeled, keyframed, etc. but seems stumped on easily generating the FLC I need. He seems more familiar with making video tapes. I'd like a FLC that…
ANI Pro – histogram/sort
Message #174847
Is there a POCO utility out there that will find the least used colors (and then sort the palette in that order)? Windows likes the data that way, and I can think of other uses. Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
ANI Pro – 'clone' ink
Message #174846
I may have missed it, or forgotten it, but is there a "clone" ink in ANI Pro – as in Photoshop. Oh, maybe a tool is the proper way to implement this. It would work like this – you pick a source point and then the color information from the…
Nik, I haven't got upgrade information (that I recognized well enough to keep anyhow) from ANI to AS, but I just figured it was SOP and you really didn't want to know who I was any how, and I just to go back to my somewhat indifferent dealer and pay…
#AniPro and Wacom ArtPad
Message #170912
Is anybody using the little Wacom ArtPad with Animator Pro? Do you need a special IDR file? Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
yeah, ASOFT, except they've changed the moniker to AMMEDIA. Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
#'Cartoony' 3D Studio
Message #167095
I'm working with a 3D studio artist on a project. Perhaps I need a bit of help putting my wishes in the right terms. We are working with some model of railroad hardware. The final project is going to run in 16 colors (on a standard VGA display). (I've provided…
Steven, I'm not as hopeful as Dave that you can get the result you want. Scaling with interpolation will require that there be blending at the edges between the background color and the foreground object. But if his suggestion about scaling a clip works for you, great. Chuck Jameson Silver…
#STUDENT UPDATE ANI3-D
Message #165352
Please keep me on for the next session Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
#STUDENT UPDATE ANI2-D
Message #165351
Please keep me on for the next session Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
#STUDENT RESPONSE ANI2-C
Message #162019
More notes on using Polygon/Splines and reuse/redo. You can move a polygon and you can't "move" a macro recording (or can you). You'd use Tween Move Shape, or of course you can use all the Optics Tools! Well, one work around for moving a shape created with the macro recording…
More notes on using Polygon/Splines and reuse/redo. You can move a polygon and you can't "move" a macro recording (or can you). You'd use Tween Move Shape, or of course you can use all the Optics Tools! Well, one work around for moving a shape created with the macro recording…
STUDENT RESPONSE ANI3-C
Message #161838
Jerry, Thanks for these Poco lessons. A couple of thoughts from ANI3-C. Your description of & – the "address of" prefix was good. Next time, I'd pair it with the explanation of * – the "assume it's an address" prefix. You say that's what it means, but the explanation doesn't…
STUDENT UPDATE ANI3-C
Message #161837
Please keep me on for the next section. Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
#STUDENT RESPONSE ANI2-C
Message #161836
Mark, I really liked using an angled flat brush with your Draw/Macro technique. When using a Polygon (or a SPLINE!) you can "redraw" after selecting a new ink/brush by clicking on REDO right on the panel – you don't have to go find REUSE. The Polygon method doesn't have a…
STUDENT UPDATE ANI2-C
Message #161835
Please keep me on for the next segment. (I hope we don't get lost in a forum redo over the next few days.) Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
Whoa Jack, Inks make _a_lot_ of difference – all the time. If you are just used to Opaque (and now Scrape :{)) you should try them all out. You can even do an action (draw a filled box), click on undo, change the ink, and then click on redo to…
> Tike flies when you're increasing productivity. I've often wondered how to get more work done with my 1 year old daughter around. Thanks for the hint about to firing up Flight Simulator on the laptop down on the floor for her to work on.
Mark, cool. I appreciate the effort you do go to prepare the materials and clarify things. Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
I understand the clip function – it makes a clipping of pixels you have changed since coming onto the frame. And the Clip and repeat function carries forward to the next fram all the changes made on the current frame. A good example of using it is to show "drawing",…
#STUDENT RESPONSE ANI2-B
Message #158917
I'm a little confused about the suggestion in exercise 3 that the clip changes and repeat changes might make it easier to do exercise 1. I did exercise one of lesson B entirely with the animcel you provided and optics functions. The changes functions are neat, but I don't get…
#STUDENT UPDATE ANI2-B
Message #158916
Please keep me on for the next segment of ANI2 Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
#STUDENT RESPONSE ANI3-B
Message #156950
I got the POCO program going (first and last name and their lengths), but I used the strlen() function rather than picking up on your hint to use the "char lname[]="x"" form of the variable declaration. I'd like to understand what you had in mind. Can you give me another…
#STUDENT UPDATE ANI3-B
Message #156949
Keep me on for the next session. Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
#STUDENT UPDATE ANI3-A
Message #154435
Please keep me on for the next section. I've written my first POCO program! Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
#STUDENT RESPONSE ANI2-A
Message #154434
Thanks for the lesson on saving work in progress. I've already started using "INS, right arrow" regularly. Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
#STUDENT UPDATE ANI2-A
Message #154433
Please keep me on for the next section. Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
Brian, You'll need to use GRASP's capability to play animation in the 640×480 16 color mode. It can lop off the top 236 colors, but it works best to get the 16 colors looking good in Animator and then send it to GRASP. Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
Brian, He wants a 16 color animation because he can take it into GRASP and play it on standard VGA displays at 640×480 resolution. I do this all the time, also for animations that are not full screen – just little 100×100 snippets. Animator is a good GIF paint program…
Martin, According to the documentation with Photoshop 3, there is a "Quick Edit" plug-in that would let you open just part of an uncompressed TIFF file to work on it. In Chapter 3 "Acquiring Quick Edit Files" FWIW. Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
#Zsoft Font Foundry need
Message #137603
I need a tool to help me with bit-mapped fonts. Zsoft's Font Foundry would do the trick? Any one have a copy on the shelf they'd care to deal for?
The NAAUG course materials for Animator Pro are available in Lib 14. I haven't paid, but maybe I'm missing something. Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
Sure Bob, To composite a flick making a specific color slot/color the key color so it is clear can be done this way. (RTFM – Animator Pro, pages 3-11,12,13,14) As you noted, get the background GIF and the flic using the same palette. I suppose you can do this with…
There is a course going on in the NAAUG section of the forum that covers some topics in Animator Pro – check it out. There were a flurry of books when Animator first came out. Animator Pro added a few features, but the big change was the ability to set…
The standard QEMM install puts in a DPMI driver. For ANI-Pro to work, I had to take it out of my config.sys (autoexec.bat?). Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
Are you aware of the CONSULT forum? Run by (I believe) the "Independent Computer Consultants Association (ICCA?). They do have a section on contract issues. They like it if you become a member, but they welcome lurkers. Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
Regarding a difference "matte" (scene shot with and without character – goal is to extract the character). First – doing these video conversions is hard work. I've done some down to 16 colors. It just takes work in my opinion. One idea to elimiate jitter in a background is to…
Charles, Have you found the NEAR choice and NEAR threshold in the controls for the separate control? That would let you pickup an assortment of "blues" on one pass with the SEP tool. Consider the mask idea too, because there may be some blue flecks in your foreground object that…
I'm a developer of interactive communications tools – usually business to business. The business name is Silver Tongue Software. I can't help you with a bit-map. I was trying to suggest that an accurate bitmap/bump map of the globe may not provide the effect you are looking for (or that…
FWIW, At a perspective that allows you to see all of the world, the hills and valleys of the surface are rather minor: +- 5 miles on a diameter of 8,000 miles. Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
Some install programs give you the ability to edit the INI files as part of the installation. I use HPI's Instalit, and it does. It has a command (procedure) called ModifyTextFiles. It takes care of things like offering the user a choice, saving a backup file or making the change…
Dave, I really like it that CELSPRAY works with all the inks! (Darken, scrape, glass, etc.) Chuck Jameson Silver Tongue Software
Page 1 of 4