This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (97 messages)
Jonas, Thanks I wil try the KXP kxp_chooset_node to get the light info but from what I understand from the Animter.zip he was only able to get frame 0 info and I need to get the light source and target location for all frames. Guess I will just link object…
#AXP questions
Message #195958
2 quick questions about AXP's. 1. Can an AXP get spot light info(target position and FOV)? 2. How do you get a pick dialog to select objects. I could not find a gfx_?? call to do this. Peter Watje Spectral Imaging
#AXP interaction
Message #195079
Does anyone know if it possible 2 AXP routines to interact with each other face/vertex data? For example is it possible to write a particle system that could use collision detection on an object that is using Bones Pro. I am not sure how to get the name of an…
Thanks. Peter Watje
#IPAS3 to IPAS4 upgrade
Message #193545
I currently have the 3d Studio R3 IPAS Toolkit and have beeen trying to obtain the upgrade to R4. Called Customer Service at 1-800-538-6401 and they told that there was no free upgrade path to R4 which is counter to what you emailed awhile back. I was wondering if you…
James, From what I hace by listening to various user groups most of it was done in Lightwave and some done by Alias. I think the company that did the animations is Area 51. Peter Watje Spectral Imaging
Grant, The macro for the gfx_get_paths looked like this: #define gfx_get_paths(type,num,p,file) I changed the param file (and all the refereces) to f and presto the problem went away. Thanks for the help. Really appreciate the quick response. Peter Watje Spectral Imaging .
#gfx_Get_Path question
Message #192778
I have a question about the gfx_get_path function from the IPAS3 toolkit. I am trying to get the 3ds root path. The reference list the params for gfx_get_paths as follows int,int,char*,char* but when I fill out the params I get an error message on compile. Here is the code and…
Brendan, You can also try BOSS Studio, Bullet Proof, Hyperbole Studio, StarWaves, Synergestic Software Co. those are all the one that I can think of right off the top of my head. I know theat are also a lot of really small 3 to 4 people game companies here to.…
Lee, Do you have his CIS number? Peter Watje Spectral Imaging
I have no confirmed date but it was rumored to be the Sept 17, but now rumored to be at the end of the month. Peter Watje Spectral Imaging
Greg, It affects the rendering quality immensly especially if your animation contains motions. I have LenZFX 1.3 and have to render to frames when going to tape and any quick motion is not smooth. Peter Watje Spectral Imaging
I got the same message to. It seems that most IPAS developers have pretty lame customer service when comes to telling the truth about when an IPAS will be released/upgrading. I am still waiting for a final release of puppeteer which was promised to me about 9 months ago. Also…
#LenZFX .ENV File format
Message #191207
Does anyone know the file format for the LenZFX envelope(.ENV) files? I am trying to write my own envelope editor.(the LenZFX editor is pretty weak). I have gotten it down to 276 byte header file and 28 byte per node, But am not sure of the exact data within. Peter…
I thought it was pretty neat but what I would really like to see is an animation with alot of irregular cuts (jagged shapes). The two animations that I have scene all the cuts appear planar ( the dragon and the chevy). Peter W. Spectral Imaging
> I consider most of these bug fixes or features that should have been implemented in the first version. The main one is the lack of Field Rendering. So basically I feel like I am being forced to pay 50 bucks so I can make it field render. Also BTW…
Basically I have to pay 50 bucks for a bug fix. Kinda lame. Peter Watje Spectral Imaging
#Metareyes vs Organix
Message #187354
What exactly is the difference between the Digimation Metaballs and the Schieber(4D) metaballs. BTW is Metareyes V2.0 out yet and is the Digimation Metaballs currently available. Peter W. Spectral Imaging
#Reposting Press Release
Message #187353
I was wondering of it is OK to repost the 3D Studio MAX press release and screen shots on a Web Page. Peter W.
Dan, If you are rendering to FLIC file, you can render to a stream of GIF's instead and video post them later on into a FLIC. PeterW.
Daniel, The network rendering feature works great for stand alone machines. When rendering use the NET QUEU option. When you want to start the actual rendering stick your machine in slave mode. You can now stop the rendering anytime you feel like it by taking the machine out of slave…
Martin, I don't normal have that many objects , but lately I have been playing with metaballs and keyscripting to simulate various liquidy and organicy type effects (mainly gore and guts for some game animations) and to get a real smooth fliudy look using metaballs it take quite a few…
When you get past about 1200 objects 3d Studio really bogs down. If I have a lot a object 1000+ I will start using the quick keys to access the menu selection. It helps quickens things a little bit but not a whole lot. Peter W.
Thanks for the info. Peter W.
#3d Max/Rendering Engine
Message #184553
Did Autodesk at Siggraph mention anything about the rendering engine that would be shipped with THE MAX. The press release mentions that the rendering engine would be open architecture but that was about it. I assume that all the HDI stuff is just for previewing and not for actual rendering…
Have they put a price yet on the Biped plugin yet? Peter W.
James, I have not worked with morphing materials a whole lot, but if you are just trying to fade an object out you can use the vary.sxp in the opacity channel to fade the object out. Petre W.
Chase, The best way for organic shapes without any IPAS routines is to use the Loft/Fit with user defined cross section. If you are having problems visualing the the cross section take a precreated 3d Mesh like one of the heads on the CD or one at Avalon then take…
James, Render the the wall out to a TGA and use it as your background. Then using the object attribute turn on the matte object for the wall and render out the animation with the arrow and wall. Should solve your problem. Peter W. Spectral Imaging
Something to add to the previous message make sure unzip all the files into your scripts directory because there are some data files that also need to be present beside the K3D and the 3DE file. Peter W. Spectral Imaging
Jarod, If you have animator pro some one wrote a nice motion blur poco that uses animator pro's glass ink effect I think I used it a couple of times to generate a fake motion blur and the effect came out OK. I believe the poco is in the animator…
#Spray keyscript
Message #181918
I just uploaded the Keyscript I used to generate the liquidy metaball animations in the scripts library. It is a particle acceleration script that allows you simulate various explosion, spraying, and jittering effects. It works really well with metaballs and vapor/flame. Right now it has basic collision detection but I…
Mike I just called them and they said it would still be about a month. Am I getting the run around or what? PeterW.
Mark, Not yet, I got swamped with other work this. But I am almost through with docs so it should by done by monday. Peter W.
Thanks.
#screengrab
Message #181124
Anybody remember what the command was to set 3D Studio so you could do a screen grab.
Andy, I also heard rumors that Digimations is going to release a Metaball IPAS themselves. I think I heard they were going to try to show it off at siggraph but am not exactly sure. Does anyone else know anything about this? Also does anyone know when the v2.0 of…
>>Is this the May 1995 CGW pg 36 "Plug-Ins Electrify 3D Studio"? Actually I think it is this months copy. I just skimmed quickly but it seems to be a tutorial on how they built the T-Rex using the snap shoot tool with a background image of T-Rex as a…
I am still running version 1 and am still waiting for the next version(no one from shcieber has contacted me about it yet) so I don't think version 2 is out yet. Everytime I call they keep saying it will be out in a couple weeks. I bought mine from…
Conrad, IThe only suggestion that I came up with is maybe to add foot roll so that the follow object rolls/rotates into and out of an anchor position and also maybe some way to implement turning. Also I had problems with bouncing the main body. The feet were working fine…
Thanks, Ijust added the finishing touches this weekend. All I need is to add doc's to it and should e done ( probably around Wed. or Thurs.) Peter W.
Conrad, I am going to take the WALKER script it home this weekend and run it through it paces and build some sample animations hopefully. Maybe I will have some sample animation I can upload and gewnerate some more ideas. Peter W.
Just downloaded the WALKER script and it looks like it will be a real usefull tool, Kinda funnny I was just ready to write my routiine to do the same thing. I really aprrecitae it. Thanks, PeterW.
Thanks, Hopefully I will have the script completely done here soon, so anyone with metaballs will be able to do effects like these. Peter W. Spectral Imaging
#Metaballs & Keyscripting
Message #180119
I don't know if anybody is interested but I uploaded several images and animations that show the use of Metaballs and Keyscripting to do liquidy looking animations. I know some one was looking for liquidy looking text. There are two still index JPG files SPRAY.JPG and META2,JPG that show still…
If you want really good watery looking text use metaballs. Just design your text out in the 2d shaper and uses the shapes as paths for your metaballs and snapshot the metaballs over time. Once you have all your metaballs done uses keyscripting to give them some random constrained motion…
I use both Bones and Skin. We use Bones is primarily for all are character animation stuff and Skin we use for objects that need to have really smooth surfaces that would usually have really hugh vertices counts such has tires for car or motorcylce, or terrain. Peter W.
As a last resort you might want back up your drive and then reformat and then reinstall all your software and then restore your data. I have done this couple times for 3d Studio and Windows apps. Seems to stabalize my system as a whole. Peter W.
Are you using liquid speed? I thought I saw a thread somewhere that had a similiar problem and that it was related to using liquid speed. If you are usign disable it (I think you hold both shift keys down when loading 3d Studio) and see if that fixes the…
Getting Segment Frame
Message #177320
I am using the IPAS3 SDK (haven't gotten SDK for 4 yet) and am trying to convert a Keyscript to a KXP. I have two quick questions. First how do you get the segment start and end frame? Second there is a FracInterpolateKey in the keyscripting language but could not…
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