CompuServe Messages

Hi, Martin! >>you seem rather excited Alek <g>. I am very excited! First of all I like new interface very much (I had some experience working with SoftImage and WaveFront and I like that MAX picked theirs best findings in UI like noun/verb approach, creative environment, Animate button etc and took them couple steps better). Second, I do have Visual C++ for plug-ins development and rather extensive experience programming Windows DLLs. And third, YG took care about our existing IPASes (and those in the future) not solving problems our IPASes help to solve. Quite opposite, with new IPAS-pipeline architecture and ability to call renderer as many times as we need, we can teach our IPASes (like Refraction and Aurora Mapping) new neat tricks. And then even inclusion of true raytracer in the MAX will not be able to overweight our advantage in speed and qualities of scanline rendered distortions calculated by raytracing algorithms (I am talking about Refraction Mapping). And forth, I just resolved spherical mapping case (most complicated one) for applying correct (STICKY, as Danny Mercurio suggeted to call it) texture mapping on the animated metaballs. Nobody can do it, but Video International !!! (I really mean NOBODY: neither SoftImage, nor Alias/Wavefront, nor anybody else. Oleg is preparing a theoretical paper for the next SIGGRAPH). It means blobby Casper will be able to wear pants, metaballish snakes will be able to swallow eggs and organic fingers will be able to have nails, and most important: poor woman from Metareyes ads will be able to wear a bra, which even when woman is animated will stay where it belongs to… —————————————- It was very good to meet you too. Now, I can appreciate titanic effort of movie's SFX people, and I've got an idea what kind of tools you guys need most (doesn't mean I know how to make them (yet)). It was great to talk to you, Alex, Video International