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#Desktop-Video
25 messages in this thread
I have a question for the sysop or anyone who feel's like jumping in.
QUESTION: Why is there no Desktop Video topic in Amiga Forum?
I feel (Along with many others) that the Amiga is the best personal
computer (that costs less than $5000) to use with Video. In my area alone
(CENTRAL/NORTH Jersey) there are many people allready using this AMAZING pc
in Video. There is also plenty of software to support VIDEO on our computer.
However there are a lot of problems with some of this software. For
instance, I use the sculpt/animate 3d package to do some of my projects, and
a friend of mine has a video titler package from Aegis that i was thinking of
buying. I don't know if i will until a few of my questions are answered. Why
are there two different ANIM formats? Why or when will there be a standard
like the IFF pictures? There are plenty of other programs that are usefull
,like the director, to put all your pictures and ANIMs together and add some
effects also, unfortunatly from what i understand the director wont support
Sculpt-Animate 3d Anims. Whats going on? What, if anything is being worked
out?
I feel a Desktop Video area is what we need here. We will have a area to
swap ideas and or tricks to get around some of this incompatiblity. It will
also be a place where we can exchange script files and technique's. Talk
about the HOTTEST & LATEST video hardware to hit the market. etc..
AMIGA IS TO DESKTOP VIDEO LIKE THE MAC IS TO DESKTOP PUBLISHING (At
least 'till we get better publishing software!hehehe)
How do you feel about a Desktop Video area? How do we go about getting
one started?
Is it true that Aegis ANIM differs from Sculpt ANIM? And does The Director
support Sculpt ANIM's? I would like to get these and i am interested and
want to know if my information was correct!
Message section 6 (Videophile) is dedicated to video/graphics. Rather
than assigning a "DeskTop Video" section, an all encompassing heading
(Videophile) is used. Also, the number of sections is limited. If you can't
access section 6, type OP at the function prompt and change your SU(btopics)
to include area 6.
Now, you are right about the incompatibilty of Aegis & Sculpt anims. But,
there's more! Impulse, Forms in Flight, Hash, all have their own formats.
I have been told that a standard is being talked about. Hopefully
something will come about at the developers conference.
The Director will only read in Aegis ANIM formats. If you would like to
use your Sculpt animations with The Director you can do 1 of two things.
Either read in each frame created by sculpt and page flip them, OR create
an ANIM using your Sculpt frames. Currently, Aegis Video Titler will
create ANIM files from pictures passed to it.
I seem to recall something going by in the past while about PixMate
having problems saving IFF files. I don't know if it was here or on Usenet.
Do you remember anything about it? I am especially trying to find out what
the problem was. I think it may have had to do with some hunks being out
of order.
Larry, Pixmate saves a CAMG (?) chunk that some show utilities blow up
with. There is a file in DL16 called DFILTE.ARC that will fix such IFF
files.
Thanks GreG… I was figuring I'd have to write one, but that will save me
the trouble.
Thanks GreG… I was figuring I'd have to write one, but that will save me
the trouble.
No, the problem with PixMate was incorrect bits being set in the BMHD hunk.
DFILTER only removes the newer AUTH and Photon Paint HAM hunks, none of
which are registered, and which make some (dumb, dumb dumb!) PD IFF readers
throw up. So someone would have to write a BMHD fixer to AND the bits with
a valid mask.
John, Hmmm…..according to the docs for DFILTER;
Pixmate saves the viewmodes in the CAMG chunk, with the SPRITES and VP_HIDE
bits on, which can cause problems in readers that don't mask these out.
That is a quote from the docs. I agree though, it's VERY dumb! DFILTER says
nothing about removing the AUTHOR chunk. If it does, it's a shame…I've had
no problems _yet_ with using AUTHor chunks.
GreG
John, Hmmm…..according to the docs for DFILTER;
Pixmate saves the viewmodes in the CAMG chunk, with the SPRITES and VP_HIDE
bits on, which can cause problems in readers that don't mask these out.
That is a quote from the docs. I agree though, it's VERY dumb! DFILTER says
nothing about removing the AUTHOR chunk. If it does, it's a shame…I've had
no problems _yet_ with using AUTHor chunks.
GreG
No, the problem with PixMate was incorrect bits being set in the BMHD hunk.
DFILTER only removes the newer AUTH and Photon Paint HAM hunks, none of
which are registered, and which make some (dumb, dumb dumb!) PD IFF readers
throw up. So someone would have to write a BMHD fixer to AND the bits with
a valid mask.
Larry, Pixmate saves a CAMG (?) chunk that some show utilities blow up
with. There is a file in DL16 called DFILTE.ARC that will fix such IFF
files.
I seem to recall something going by in the past while about PixMate
having problems saving IFF files. I don't know if it was here or on Usenet.
Do you remember anything about it? I am especially trying to find out what
the problem was. I think it may have had to do with some hunks being out
of order.
Message section 6 (Videophile) is dedicated to video/graphics. Rather
than assigning a "DeskTop Video" section, an all encompassing heading
(Videophile) is used. Also, the number of sections is limited. If you can't
access section 6, type OP at the function prompt and change your SU(btopics)
to include area 6.
Now, you are right about the incompatibilty of Aegis & Sculpt anims. But,
there's more! Impulse, Forms in Flight, Hash, all have their own formats.
I have been told that a standard is being talked about. Hopefully
something will come about at the developers conference.
The Director will only read in Aegis ANIM formats. If you would like to
use your Sculpt animations with The Director you can do 1 of two things.
Either read in each frame created by sculpt and page flip them, OR create
an ANIM using your Sculpt frames. Currently, Aegis Video Titler will
create ANIM files from pictures passed to it.
Here Here! A Desktop Video topic makes alot of sense. This is the Amiga
nitch market, and it needs to be exploited. As to ANIM…
Aegis uses the IFF ANIM file format that has been released (the format) to
the public. There are no private formats in use at Aegis for animation.
Code is also available on Compuserve's support section on BIX … but it's
fragmented. By the time the developer's conference happens, both the
documentation and code will be more organized. We will also be releasing
(at no cost) a program called GRABANIM. It functions like Grabbit(tm) but
rather than gathering single IFF images, it records frames of animation!
Gary thanks . As for the 2 different ANIM's, is it because animate 3d uses
HAM and must use a different compression in order to manipulate the images
faster than Aegis since,as far as i understand, Aegis titler wont work with
HAM images and images other than ham do not require such compression? (What
i LONG sentence! But hey, I am NO writer!)
The history of ANIM is long and garbled. It is a tremendous example of the
IFF standard process gone wrong. The Aegis ANIM format was poorly
documented and poorly implemented in VideoScape 1.0. They since changed
it, and there are bits and pieces explaining the changes on BIX.
Sculpt's author decided the VS 1.0 compression was lousy (hey, so did
Aegis, they changed it…) so he created his own, but didn't want to
release it. For that matter, Forms In Flight, Silver, Animator: Apprentice
all use different formats. I know some of them will incorporate ANIM to
some extent in the future, which means things will get even more muddled in
the coming months, when products implement different variations of ANIM.
There are a number of other changes to ANIM that will be requested at the
developer conference, so I wouldn't expect it to be all nailed down until
several months afterwards. By then, there will be PD code for playing and
recording from at least one other source besides Aegis.
Thanks for the help John!
Thanks for the help John!
The history of ANIM is long and garbled. It is a tremendous example of the
IFF standard process gone wrong. The Aegis ANIM format was poorly
documented and poorly implemented in VideoScape 1.0. They since changed
it, and there are bits and pieces explaining the changes on BIX.
Sculpt's author decided the VS 1.0 compression was lousy (hey, so did
Aegis, they changed it…) so he created his own, but didn't want to
release it. For that matter, Forms In Flight, Silver, Animator: Apprentice
all use different formats. I know some of them will incorporate ANIM to
some extent in the future, which means things will get even more muddled in
the coming months, when products implement different variations of ANIM.
There are a number of other changes to ANIM that will be requested at the
developer conference, so I wouldn't expect it to be all nailed down until
several months afterwards. By then, there will be PD code for playing and
recording from at least one other source besides Aegis.
Nope, we've allways had HAM support in our ANIM's. In fact the animation
with the ray traced scene and the airplane flying around it is HAM. The
2.0 Videoscape release also supports HAM. We haven't seen any compression
better than the latest ANIM specification. I would love to incorperate any
new compression techniques (ANIM is extensible) once they are made public
and IF they offer any advantages over the RIFF style ANIM (the most
compressed ANIM form). We went out on a limb to release our animation
formats, now we have several companies supporting IFF ANIM (the Director
for example). They can support it because it's public.
William Volk
VP Technical
Aegis Development.
P.S. ANIM was developed by Sparta Inc. and Aegis Development.
Oh, ok. That sounds great. I did not know videoscape supported HAM.
Video Titler also supports HAM? (I would purchase the titler first
since animate 3d is what i use now.)
Thanks,
Troy Barlow
Oh, ok. That sounds great. I did not know videoscape supported HAM.
Video Titler also supports HAM? (I would purchase the titler first
since animate 3d is what i use now.)
Thanks,
Troy Barlow
Nope, we've allways had HAM support in our ANIM's. In fact the animation
with the ray traced scene and the airplane flying around it is HAM. The
2.0 Videoscape release also supports HAM. We haven't seen any compression
better than the latest ANIM specification. I would love to incorperate any
new compression techniques (ANIM is extensible) once they are made public
and IF they offer any advantages over the RIFF style ANIM (the most
compressed ANIM form). We went out on a limb to release our animation
formats, now we have several companies supporting IFF ANIM (the Director
for example). They can support it because it's public.
William Volk
VP Technical
Aegis Development.
P.S. ANIM was developed by Sparta Inc. and Aegis Development.
Gary thanks . As for the 2 different ANIM's, is it because animate 3d uses
HAM and must use a different compression in order to manipulate the images
faster than Aegis since,as far as i understand, Aegis titler wont work with
HAM images and images other than ham do not require such compression? (What
i LONG sentence! But hey, I am NO writer!)
Here Here! A Desktop Video topic makes alot of sense. This is the Amiga
nitch market, and it needs to be exploited. As to ANIM…
Aegis uses the IFF ANIM file format that has been released (the format) to
the public. There are no private formats in use at Aegis for animation.
Code is also available on Compuserve's support section on BIX … but it's
fragmented. By the time the developer's conference happens, both the
documentation and code will be more organized. We will also be releasing
(at no cost) a program called GRABANIM. It functions like Grabbit(tm) but
rather than gathering single IFF images, it records frames of animation!