CompuServe Messages

Christopher, I'm not angry. I just wanted to remind people that any kind of tool is only as good as the person who really knows how to use it. If you take a quick overview of the computer 3D arena you will find software packages for different platforms ranging from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. And not one of these applications will meet 100% of the needs of every user. I see a lot of discussion as to which application or OS or platform is better. It doesn't matter. There are so many quality 3D applications available now that the industry is not looking for users of a particular program, instead, they see a piece of animation and want to know who created it; it is the artist that matters more than the application. In the next couple of years, there will be over 500 channels available. You can bet that more than one of these channels will be devoted to games. And the current trend for computer game programming is to use a lot of 3D ray traced animation. And it is not just confined to the computer. Look at the new Nintendo game on its way called Donkey Kong Country. Most of their marketing muscle is going to be pushing the fact that it is the first FULLY RENDERED video game. Trends like this can only be good for animators, but like I mentioned before, there will also be people without the drive, or creativity taking available jobs. That's why I think it's important to get as much as you can out of what you have to work with and make a name for yourself. As each new person decides to enter the field, they are going to have better, faster machines and applications to work with; I started in February buildingmy own machine – a DX2/66 VLB 800MB of HD, 256 Cache, 16MB RAM, Promise Technology Hard Drive Caching Controller Card w/4MB RAM and a Media Vision Pro Graphics 1024 Windows Accelerator w/2MB VRAM. Three weeks after I had just spent six months and $3,700+, Intel rolls out the 90mhz Pentium and systems are available that would bury mine for $2,500. Next year, some new animator will get to learn with 3d Studio realease 5 or AM 3.x. They won't have had to go through a lot of the things the rest of hopefully will have gone through. If we choose to do it, it will only serve to make us all the more ready for the next wave of technology. Michael S. Flynn