CompuServe Messages

Doing DCTV animations with LightWave is easy. I know of several people doing so (and I hope to be doing so soon as well). Depending on how you do it, it can be time and disk consuming. If you've got your DCTV 1.1 disks, look for a directory with compressed files (.LZH I think). One of the compressed files is a CanDo application I created several months back. If you don't have the 1.1 release, look for ADAM or DAAM within the libraries here. You run ADAM in the background while doing your LightWave renderings. ADAM will wait for each IFF frame and use DCTV's IFFTODCTV to convert each frame to DCTV's format and store it away for you with an option to delete or move the original 24bit IFF frame. You can either do this on a frame basis or have ADAM wait for a series of frames, converting each one until the last frame is generated. Once the last frame is done, ADAM will call MAKEANIM and build a complete DCTV animation for you. If you don't already have MakeAnim or any IFF viewing program (though ADAM looks for one called SHOW, just rename the one you have to SHOW.), you'll need to grab those as well. IFFTODCTV SHOULD be on the release disks for DCTV. There are some limitations you'll need to avoid. First, since the Amiga will be pushing around hi-res IFFs for the ANIMs, if you have a lot of change from frame to frame, the playback rate won't be that quick even with 030 or 040 boards. Still, I've done 704×482 3 bit plane DCTV anims that play back well. If you know what to look out for, you can get impressive animations. If you can't find ADAM, MakeAnim, or anything else ADAM requires, let me know and I'll send it to you through email. Dan Dan McCoy – via Whap! and saving money doing it too!