CompuServe Messages

Gary- Since everyone seems to be in the wishing mood, I thought I would let you know the one major thing I would like for Christmas (or Easter, or whenever you release R3). REALTIME previews. It doesn't have to be fancy, just flatshaded, or even wireframe if you must, but the ability to make a move and then view that change immediatly would sure make life easier for me. I'm writing this as I'm rerendering a 30 sec open that didn't quite move the way I thought it would. I know that we PC folks are somewhat limited in processor power, but even if it took an accelerator board of some type, I think it would be invaluable. In the production environment it is becoming less and less practical to wait for previews while a client is sitting next to you. Too many ad producers are used to working in real time with the video post ADO's and the like. When we opened our shop 2 years ago everyone in town was using Cubi's. Now everyone but us has gone to SGI systems. (2 Indigo's running Vertigo and 1 4D running SoftImage) I feel confident that we can compete with them on all fronts except speed (Not necessarily rendering speed, but production speed. We can always add additional CPU's for rendering speed). Anyway, it may not even be possible to accomplish this on our platform. (you'd know better than I), but if it is, that's what I want for Christmas. BTW, the big boys were all touting their preview and modeling speed at SigGraph, but I never could get an answer to how long final rendering takes on an SGI system. (Phong shaded with shadows and reflections) Do you know how final rendering speed of our stuff compares with say an Indigo running Vertigo? Thanks -Mark