CompuServe Messages

>>>I'm not sure I understand. Are there 2D and 3D primatives in A:M? I suppose this has to do with the "different animal" observation I made earlier… Yes, they are. No, there aren't any. <BG> Imagine a situation where to make a circle requires onlu 4 connected points… To make a sphere it takes only half of that circle and "spin it around"… When I got Playmation there was a library called Primitives where you would find simple shapes — box, sphere, cone and so on… (Don't know/remember if this is still the case). Those were regular objects, though — not the "primitives" you find for example in Imagine. >>>Are control points to basis of rotations in an object or are they just the various points along the curves? How are splines "connected" to control points? Curves are made of control points. Imagine 4 separate lines: each has to have a control point on the end. If they are disconected — there is no shape, nothing will render. You have to connect them (snap, glue, whatever by draging them over each other and clicking the second mouse button) — make into a patch — 3 or 4 lines over wchich you can streach imaginary "paper" — no lines, nothing to hang on to <g> The line between only two points can only be a straight line — no difference from "polygon world"… When you add a third point to your line, things come to life — you move it and the straight line turns into curve — pretty much the way it works in Drawing porgrams; Illustrator or CorelDraw, althogh without the Bezier type controls (You can affect the "smoothness" of the curve with 3 diferent numerical controls, not as intuitive and with the visual feedback of Bezier). You always scale, rotate and drag the points, the courves simply follow, nothing can be done tho them… >>>Are "patches" pseudo "faces" bounded by the edges / vertices of the object? Exactly. With the difference that the surface between those points is not flat — it flows with your curves… Unless it is between 4 points on the same place conected with straight lines — ("peaked" points, as if the line just started there. You can "peak" any point and forget that Playmation/A:M is "character" type of program, it will look as stiff as most of the 3D stuff <BG>…) Since there are no short straight lines on edges, there is no need to hide them with Phong or Gouraud — there is nothing th hide! >>>>Is there more than one camera available? Now, this is something you will simply love! In Direction, you add points and splines… As many as you want, wherever you want. You can click on any single point an press a camera button. That point becomes your camera point — you click on another point, press the target button and that point becomes the target of your camera (the "eyball" of your frame)… You can jump from point to point to see diferent views… If your camera is on a spine, the first point is the start of your animation the last point is the end of it (using "channels" the movement can be controled, even reversed from frame to frame — the end point would become the maximum). Same thing with lights, light targets and your actors… all have to be attached to single points or spines… This part of the program is a pure joy to use! Pawel Ps. The graphs called "Channels" are used throughout the program for controling the transition of changes for almost anything (with spines and points of course) — from amount of fog, to color, light intensity, camera angle, to scaling the objects between the frames.