MORE MACROS!
17 messages in this thread
After having used both Amigas and IBM machines for animations and swearing
that I would only use Amigas from now on…..there is one feature that so
much of the Amiga graphics software could use, yet no one uses it yet to my
knowledge.
I am talking about an easy to use MACRO feature that can be used by any
klutz such as myself and that does not take an experienced programmer to
create. A MACRO that can even reproduce certain brush strokes or fills
over a series of animation frames.
To see what I'm talking about, you have to see the Autodesk Animator, a
program that does a remarkable number of feats despite its 320×200
resolution. I strongly advise that the creators of the following software
products buy Animator, use it, get familiar with it, and then try to port a
number of its features to Amiga Animation products. In particular, I would
simply die for an Amiga Animation software program that is able to use the
MACRO feature in the easy to use fashion that the Autodesk Animator does.
It is a tool with such simplicity and power that it must be seen and used
to be completely understood and appreciated.
Come on creators of DeluxePaint IV, Disney Animation Studio, Spectracolor,
Art Department Professional…etc., please buy a copy of Autodesk Animator,
use it heavily, and bring the tools of this amazing product to the Amiga!
Don't get me wrong, the Amiga remains a superior (BY FAR!) animation
machine.
It's just that the drawing tools that we use could take some ideas from IBM
creations such as Animator.
Don't apologize about the migration of ideas! Animator has its roots in
Atari and Amiga ports of an earlier product by the same developers. The
Mac and PC markets are busy stealing ideas from the Amiga market – they'd
be fools if they didn't. Some Amiga people can be darn myopic about
recognizing the good points in Mac and PC products. It's a shame. (I've
got a 486/33 running AutoCAD, 3D Studio and Animator Pro, a Mac IIci with a
half-dozen Mac paint, 3D and illustration packages, and of course a
Toaster'd Amiga. All three run at once while I'm here, and sometimes it
doesn't seem like enough computing power… 🙂
There's at least one program I know of that has macros like you describe,
and I *think* (not sure here) it's Real 3D. I saw it at AmiExpo in
Orlando.
And remember, AREXX is a big plus too. It's amazing the things you can do
with it. I just wish more packages included AREXX ports.
Steve
.. In some respects, the entire operation of Vapor paint is a macro…
Every stroke you make is recorded in a floating pint space and can be
cropped, redrawn scaled and animated, and later rendered. Not a "nice"
program like others, but…. it does do that motion bluured 2-d anim
withthe flying camera moves and 24-bit color. Oh look! it's a free program,
recently uploaded!
.. jhhl, the author of the said software. Danger: not for the weak of
heart.
Did you upload the source, too? Have you ever seen the program called
Monet on the Mac, or the program called Fractal Paint?
Yeah, I've seen Fractal's "Painter" using a Wacom at the local decent Mac
store. It's the best. Amiga Desparately needs a paint program in this
class. As you know by now, 3d rendering itself is a sort of a trivial
process. The hard part is the database organization and the clip routines
to go with it! but Beautiful , Painterly effects like Fractal's Painter
does require a bit of thinking about paint, art, etc. etc. and then, a few
algorithms. So, let's you and me call 'em and port it, eh? I was going to
get one for the office anyway (I work on Mac..) AMigaDos 2.0 has provisions
for pressure sensitive pens. LETS DO IT. Summa, Kurta and Wacom are now
providing the technology. (I could even plug them into Vapor if I had
something to test it with…)
I dowloaded VaporPaint, and tried to use it. The docs are minimal. It took
me about an hour before I was able to load an animation, render it, and
play it. Never did quite find the way to stop them, short of hitting 'Esc'
which brought up a blank requester that actually asks whether I want to
quit or not. You've written a very neat program – if it were only
documented, and a bit more user friendly, I'd say you have a winner.
Imagine a combination of Monet with VaporPaint – fractal brush strokes
along semi-random paths. Instant rotoscope effects previously available on
machines costing $100,000. Whoops, startin' to sound like NewTek
marketroids. 🙂 Yes, buy a Wacom for the office, and bring it home for
the Amiga.
Of course, the only user VPAint is supposed to be friendly to is me. Note
that 64k or so of doc files is not what I'd call minmal for a 160k
program.. Vpaint's universal "SHUTUP" key is the space bar. and the ANim
you want is probably "SHift-A", not A… but I digress. Fractal has a New
version of Painter out, sez the new Mac week. Maybe I'll just blow 350 on
it and about 800-1100 on a Wacom… heh! it's only money. I just bought a
twin Bernoulli 90 drive , but it hasn't shown up yet. Maybe then I'll get
back to programming (not enough room on this 50 meg disk).
ANyway, have fun with VPaint, if at all possible. It's really intended for
tablet work.
J H H lowengard, writer of vaporous wares
Bulk does not equal quality. 🙂 I stepped through a lot of the help
screens, a nice touch, but I still had trouble figuring things out. Ever
hear of the ten-minute-test? If you can't do something with the program in
ten minutes without the manual, it's too complicated.
John,
That would (I suspect) depend a LOT on the purpose of the program. Some
things are inherently complex and canNOT be done in 10 minutes.
To paraphrase Einstein, you're not a genius if you can make the complex,
complex. You're a genius if you can make the complex simple. 🙂
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and
wrong.
— H. L. Mencken
The trash Icon awaits it. It's a simple way to make Vapor Paint even more
Vaporous. If you still want to read any of the doc, I suggest looking at
the (poorly named) Glossary. Workscreen and KEys and Pums/Icons are pretty
important. I spent months just drawing things and flying around them with
the keypad. Then I got down to writing the animating part! some of the help
file material was from previous help files, oddly shoehorned into the new
system. I had hoped to use "Hyper Help" which is much better than my help
system in some ways, but it crashed much too often. Also, the Fixes file
shows a lot of the more exciting work as it evolved. On the other hand,
Vapor Paint is not a 10-minute program by any means.
Henry, VPaint is one of those programs that I think: "Gee…. this sure is
an *interesting* program!" I *sense* considerable power in it, but it's
tough to get a handle on. Your docs do help, but the whole idea of it is
sort of 'alien'; maybe that's why I like it. Now if I can figure out how to
*use* it enough to do serious things with it. Thanks for making it
available 🙂
–jp–seattle–
JP – just wait till you realize how the thing fits together. How you can
remap the widths(Radii) of brush strokes en mass by going into the X-R
dimension view and selecting the whole thing and dragging it with the Move
lines pen up a few millimeters…. stuff like that. Also, go into X-Z, zoom
out and see the eyeballs 10 units in front of the view !
I am going to try to figure it out. Like I said, it *feels* like it has
all this power, but it's not intuitive.
OTOH, maybe it really cannot be 'intuitive'? To be intuitive, one must be
able to relate (in some fashion) the problem (program) to one's prior
experience. I haven't seen any other 'paint' (?) programs that have the
same paradigm. There don't seem to be many '1 to 1' mappings between VP
and DP, for instance. 🙂
Not complaining. If the power is there, then it's likely worth exploring.
TTFN
–jp–seattle–
Have any of my intrepid users tried rendering the Examples yet? Just press
"l", choose a .vee file, and render with "shift-A". or test render with
"a". SHift-5 will test render from the View's point of view.
THe Vaporous Jhhl