#Silver Object Editor
31 messages in this thread
Sculpt for the Mac has appeared in several 3D round-ups in MacWorld and a
Mac CAD magazine, and it's getting rave reviews. Mac heads like its
interface more than the other Mac programs – which sort of disproves the
"baby duck" theory of 3D interfaces. I'm confident that some are better
than others.
Granted, some interfaces are positively ungodly. However, when two
programs are as evenly matched as Sculpt and Silver, IMHO, the first
learned program seems to be the easiest to use. –Rick
I agree that it isn't just which one comes first, but even though I prefer
Sculpt's object building interface better, I sure wish it had some of the
features of Silver's editor. The numerical interface is a real plus
sometimes… One thing though… there *must* be an ARexx interface in
Imagine! Even though Sculpt didn't have ARexx, it at least had programmable
macros.
If Imagine doesn't have ARexx, it will surely put some real sour chords
into the death knell it sings for Sculpt. ( I just noticed how I refer to
Sculpt in the past tense 🙂 To be able to link Imagine to something like
Digi-Paint via ARexx to do batch image processing will be tooooo coool!
BTW, Perry K, I really think you should hurry with that ARexx interface
for "The Art Dept.", as it, along with Imagine, stands to push the Amiga
into some heaven high cloud layers… Scott
Scott, Imagine will DEFINITELY have an ARexx port.
–Rick P.S. I personally hate to think of
Sculpt in the past tense. Has anyone heard whether Centaur is supporting
the program and working on updates? How is the program doing on the Mac?
A friend here in Vancouver has talked with Eric Graham on the phone about
Sculpt and the Amiga, and basically, the Amiga version will continue to be
upgraded, even though the Mac is now the machine it is being developed on.
It seems to me that the big problem was in Commodore's not sending some
kind of monster amiga to Eric to keep him working in Amigaland. Certainly
Commodore could afford that kind of investment. Anyway, apparently the
texture mapping and image mapping are in the works now, but the time frame
for release was sometime in the next year. I always get the impression that
Eric Graham is not getting (for whatever reason) enough help to keep the
project commercially competitive.
On the Centaur front, aren't they the ones who did Forms and Flight into
the ground? As I mentioned before, their last upgrade was a wasted attempt.
Instead of putting their time in improving the rendering, ease of use, and
documentation, they removed the intuition interface ( and any user
familiarity) and a few of the better features ( hidden line/surface
wireframe for one) and basically left the rendering alone. I suppose this
may not have been Centaur's fault though…
BTW, Rick, will Imagine be able to render an image that contains both
wireframe and solid modelled objects. That's something that can be put to
good use in commercial video animation, as I'm sure you're aware. I've seen
some pretty fonky `in camera' transitions between wireframe and solid modes
done by the big boys… Scott P.S. Good news on the AREXX! I hope
its a two way port though, the one way jobs don't quite make it. ( a la
DigiPaint 3…)
Gee, I'm sure I'd be more productive if Commodore sent me a monster Amiga
for development. Sculpt 4D is one of the most expensive programs in the
Amiga market, don't you think Byte by Byte could afford to buy him one,
instead of blaming Commodore for faults in Sculpt?
(APPLAUSE)
My sentiments exactly. If Commodore sent a monster machine to every
developer so that they could feel "more productive", then Commodore would
have less incentive to carry on with developing a line that they are giving
away.
In shorter terms, "Let the developers pay for theirs like the rest of
us!!". Starving artist excuses don't cut it anymore. *8>
While I'm here, is it true that the A3000 can have its RAM expanded up to
1.7 Gigabytes (1700 Megs)?!?!?!?! I could have one h*** of a RAD disk!
I have three #1 priorities over the next year:
1. Get an A3000!
2. Get Workbench 2.0!
3. Get Amiga Vision!
This doesn't mean I don't plan to get Imagine and the rest, but these three
are coming first! *8>
**** Vance ****
Darwin only knows where you'd _put_ those 1.7 gig.
Victor A. Wagner, Jr.
Knowing that the A3000 can have up to 1.7 Gigabytes of RAM has etched a
permanent smile on my face! *8>
I keep dreaming of all of the wonderful things I could do with that…
You'd think that with all of that ram, they'd have alot more chip ram to
run tons of applications… Ah well, one step at a time…
**** Vance ****
While I'm on the topic, and feel like sharing more of those insights into
Amiga developing that many people wouldn't normally hear… Every week or
two, we get a letter from a "company" that claims it's either doing an
Amiga tutorial video, or "evaluating" software for use at R.B.Hamsterlicker
Community College AV Department, or … And they want free software. It's
the ones doing the tutorial videos that kill me… they always promise
that it will be seen everywhere, that they'll do an unbiased review (but
only of the software that they get for free?) and that Commodore, Sony, IBM
and Apple are behind them 100 percent, and approval from the Holy Ghost is
expected next week. I always extend these people the same deal: we'll sell
you our stuff at dealer cost. Most of the time, they turn it down.
I agree with your stand on people trying to get freebees, 100%! I'm just
starting up an online store and I have no problem paying dealer price for
the software. Your policy is absolutely right and the best way to protect
yourself from losing profits.
The only time I would ask for freebees, would be if they were either
crippled demos or program sample results. Some of the larger companies
provide crippled software for the dealers to display, and sometimes supply
demos that are allowed to be uploaded to BBS's and other systems for user
perusal.
Shareware, I think, should also have functions like "SAVE" crippled, so
that users would be able to try out all of the functions, but would be
obligated to support the author to get the uncrippled version.
**** Vance ****
We do have a demo disk for InterChange and InterFont, and we do send those
to dealers when they ask for them, and sometimes when they don't… 🙂
We'll be moving into our new office on the 15th of June. I've contacted
Syndesis already, and have received the necessary information on your
products. Although I have heard alot about Interchange and Interfont, noone
locally has had any demos of them for me to see. If you could pass along
this request to the marketing department, that I would appreciate receiving
a demo disk of the products to have when we move.
Our old name was Pace MicroSystems Inc. Our new name is listed below with
our temporary mailing address:
OBERON MICROSYSTEMS INC. 9079 – 52 ST. EMONTON, ALBERTA T6B 1G1 CANADA.
Since I have your ear, I'd also like to know if you've begun update work on
your software for the 2.0 OS.
Talk to you later… **** Vance ****
Actually, it would be best if you dropped us a line about your store… if
your request arrives in the mail, it goes to teh right people and gets in
all the right databases, otherwise I have to hand-carry a little slip of
paper from my office to the Syndesis office and then make sure all the
right people see it… Our address is Syndesis Corp., N9353 Benson Road,
Brooklyn, WI 53521, phone (608) 455-1422.
Our software works fine under 2.0. We're always played by the rules, and
we've tested our stuff on the A3000, including TSSnet. Everything worked
fine, without modifications!
I see nothing wrong with people asking for free stuff as long as they are a
school or something. Our school just got a whole mess of free software for
our C programming class. We wrote Lattice and a number of other places and
they were more than happy to donate software as long as we wrote them an
artical on what we were doing. Remember, while there are some peopl ethat
will try to cheat you, most are honest and will live up to what they say
they will do.
Paddy Hannon
Well, my comments were referring to the retail side of receiving freebees,
not to the educational market.
Although it is a nice thought to believe that every school should get
softare AU GRATIS, but impractical. You may have thought that Lattice was
giving you the software for nothing, but that is incorrect.
By requesting you to keep them posted on your applications of their
software, they are able to further promote their product by showing the
ways it is being applied in practical terms. So you can think of it as
advertising for them. So, as you can see, you are paying for the software,
only in a different fashion.
**** Vance ****
You're right. Paddy
Actually, Sculpt-3D on the Macintosh is over $1,000.00 in price!! Though,
compared to other 3-D ray-tracing type programs in the MAC world, $1,500.00
is considered normal.
So, one would think if he was really interested in continuing on the Amiga
line he would purchase one himself! (A couple of packages = same price of
an Amiga!)
We all must separate Dr. Graham, Sculpt's creator, from Byte by Byte, the
company will publishes Sculpt et. al. Pricing of these products in no way
reflects on Dr. Graham's compensation. Otherwise, Roman Ormandy of
Caligari would be the Donald Trump of the Amiga crowd. :^)
–Rick
I talked to both Centaur and Byte by Byte today. Centaur is merely the
distributor for Sculpt 4D and B-b-B is still the developer. A rep
reassured me that development for the Amiga will continue once their latest
Mac effort is complete. Commodore should not be blamed for its support (or
lack thereof) to Eric Graham. He was contracted by Byte by Byte and his
compensation springs from them. Similarly, Centaur had nothing to do with
Forms in Flight II. That version was created by the same programmer who
created the original. All changes were his. I don't believe Imagine will
do wireframe and solid objects at the same time. To achieve this effect,
simply do a video dissolve or wipe from one image to the other, or use a
paint package to create the dissolve one frame at a time. –Rick
Rick, will there be cast shadows or transparency in solid model mode of
Imagine? Do you think that would be an icebreaker to get the Amiga into
more high end commercial situations? These features are certainly not
critical, but to have to resort to ray trace and the associated rendering
times to get these effects makes it less appealing, particularly if
rendering large bitmap 24bit stuff. I realize that much of the time shadows
are done by DVE in high end commercial stuff( when it's time intensive
anyway), but these are some of the very few remaining gaps when compared to
stuff like Topas/Crystal-3D and other such programs. Of course, maybe
adding these into the solid model mode would bring their render times up
into the ray tracing range…
On the wireframe/solid in one scene, it would be nice to do A/B wipes or
dissolves here in the old home studio, but another player deck, the
necessary TBCstuff, and a switcher are a bit out of my range. For software
dissolves,Animation:Multiplane should do the job, but I find it often
screws
up the image when working with HAM images. It seems to add 3 pixel HAM
transitions to areas in the image where there weren't any in the original.
BTW, to all, I'm sorry I spouted off about B by B and Eric Graham. I'm
prone to emotional outburst about a subject dear to my existence…:)
Obviously, they're just doing what they have to, to stay in biz. I wonder
if Eric Graham was ever exposed to an optimal Amiga programming
environment,
though. How does the Mac compete with CygnusEd, AREXX etc. on a
multitasking computer? Scott
Scott, the first release of Imagine probably won't improve much on the
current rendering engine. Impulse's first goal was to improve object
creation and animation. The next step will be to make 24bit image creation
and single frame editing a seamless process with the Firecracker 24. Later
in the year, Impulse will go back and optimize the rendering for the
A3000's 32-bit architecture. –Rick
Although I am delighted with TSSV, I am becoming a bit more disappointed
with not having received the more recent flyers, announcing the Imagine,
for example. Are Canadian buyers no longer as important for support??
Until everyone started talking about it here, I hadn't even heard of the
Firecracker 24 before. Hopefully, I may yet get a flyer someday listing the
current products.
**** Vance ****
Vance, be sure to call the hotline and check that they've got you on the
mailing list. It's possible you were accidentally dropped of or something.
–Rick
Is the hotline the same # as the one you just gave to Phil Camp? If so, is
it a toll free # for Canadians? I already have a huge phone bill of which I
don't care to add to.
**** Vance ****
Vance, I live in Vancouver, B.C, and have always gotten my newsletters at
the same time as the US ( plus Canada Post's usual long time :), so don't
take offense on that… Scott
Well, I guess my address must have been lost in the pile then.
I'll just dig up the address and write IMPULSE a letter to get my name back
on the list.
Thanks for the info, Scott!
**** Vance ****
I experienced that feeling also in Ottawa, when I brought to Impulse's
attention Lo and Behold, a flyer appeared in my mailbox 3 weeks later. Not
to mention 7 months after I purchased TS 3.0.
Where in Canada do you hail from?
Bruno Kochan
76665,376
I hail from Edmonton, Alberta.
When I used to get the flyers, they were very prompt. So, I can only hope
that when they realize that one of their customers is missing (grin),
they'll send out their most recent flyer to me.
**** Vance ****
I'm sure they will since you brought it to their attention. How often do
they send out flyers, Bimonthly, Quarterly, etc..
Bruno Kochan
76665,376
Rick, that's great news about the 32 bit optimizing! I suppose this
optimization could well affect performance on '030 accelerator boards as
well… Scott