CompuServe Messages

<Continued> Now you are confusing two different issues in your message. You want a standard format for animations, and you want a standard format for the objects that these programs create. The first is valid, the second is not. Standard for animations formats, this is the final compression that creates one animation file from the individual frames, or pictures: Here there should be a standard. I know of 4 different compressions used by VideoScape, Sculpt 3D/Animate 3D, Silver, and Animators Apprentice. Each one takes IFF pictures (frames) and uses a different technique to compress them for animations. Here a standard would be good, but the only real benefit for now, would be to have just one Player utility for all animations. Your second point which is being confused with the first, is your desire for a standard in object data. This is just undoable. Each program stores it's data internally (the data that represents the 3D objects) differently. If all used the same format, then all would have the same capabilities. This would lend to moving objects from one program to another easily, without a middleman. BUT, each program would virtually be identical….but as you have seen, they are not. They differ in abilities vastly. To attempt to create a standard in object data would be futile, unless of course, every program is given the same ability as the rest. For instance, Vscape supports polygons with N number of vertices, 1,2,…,N number of points per polygon. It is also limited to a fixed 11 colors, supports no reflections, no transparency, is not ray-traced, and not HAM. Sculpt only supports polygons of 3 vertices, has transparency and reflections, is ray-traced and supports HAM. Silver supports what Sculpt does, also supports true refraction of light through glass, texture mapping, stencils, more flexible reflections and mirror values, etc. As you can see, each is geared towards different results. For each to have compatible object formats would require putting limitations on the more capable products. This type of standardization is not needed, nor desired.