PC Imagine?
19 messages in this thread
I'm kinda new to CompuServe so I'm not sure that my messages are getting to
where I'm sending them so here's a repeat of one I already sent and wasn't
marked as a new message.
My fiance and me are looking into getting a computer animation setup and
we're trying to decide whether to go with the amiga or a PC. I'd feel more
comfortable with a PC but there currently aren't the products available for
it that compare with the Amiga. I'd left a similar message in the NewTek
section and got a reply saying that you were planning on releasing a PC
version of Imagine. My fiance uses Imagine at school (School of the Museum
of Fine Arts, Boston) and quite likes it. If the rumor is true how do I get
any information on this.
Limey
John,
Impulse will probably be making some sort of announcement
soon, their last newsletter mentioned the PC version and seemed to suggest
it was a couple months away from delivery. Versions are supposed to be
functionaly identical and priceing is probably about the same as the amiga
version, amiga imagine users supposedly can purchase the pc version for
about $100.00 or so, at least that's what was discussed in the last
newsletter. Choice of platform is tough, used to be if you wanted graphics
and animation the amiga was it, but 486 pc's are getting cheeper and some
nice stuff is begining to be developed for that market. Of course the
amiga enviroment still has a bit of an edge, and there's unbelievable
bargans in what you get for what you pay in software on the amiga, so that
helps a little. Best advice is to check out all the available software for
both platforms and see what you feel best about. Good luck.
David
Thanks for the info. Do you know how I might be able to get the
newsletter? I've basically narrowed my choices down to either the A3000
tower or a 24bit 486 EISA machine. Both of them cost about the same. As
far as software goes you can get some pretty good stuff at reasonable
prices. This list price and the actual street price seem to have little in
common, especially when it comes to "competitve upgrades". I use PCs at
work running Windows 3.1 and am quite happy with them. By the way was it
mentioned whether Imagine was going to run under windows or not.
Limey
John,
Impulse's newsletter is available on an irregular basis for
registered Imagine owners, though if you called they'd probably send you a
copy. I don't have their new phone number handy, but they're located in
Minneapolis, so getting connected shouldn't be too difficult. As far as I
know, Imagine for DOS is not a Windows product, which is probably a plus as
Windows apps usually carry a perfomance penalty. 486 prices are dropping
like rocks, pretty tempting, eh? I use 486's at work, just installed
Windows 3.1, (not a bad upgrade, hated 3.0 but 3.1 is almost fun to work
with) so I understand the quandry. With a 25MH 030, a 33MH 486 might have
a slight edge in performance, and with the 50MH internal clock speed 486's
coming out, there's some potential there as a graphics powerhouse,
especially with imagine. Also Martin Hash's Journyman I think is going to
be available on the 486, so things could get interesting. On the other
hand, having worked on Sparcstations, 486's, Mac's and Amiga's, I find I
prefer the Amiga. The windowing environment is terrificaly flexable and
completely integrated with the operating system, it has a sophisticated
command line structure, still handles multitasking better than Windows, and
I've never had to mess with device drivers, odd memory management schemes,
and "config.sys" files. And AREXX allows interprocess communication in a
way that I think we'll have to wait for Windows NT to even come close to.
Also there's supposedly a new bridgeboard card coming out from commodore
based around a (I think) 386SX that rumour has it may be actually priced
sensibly. The nice thing about the amiga is having your cake and eating it
too, environment-wise. Again, good luck on whatever you decide.
-David
\I was wondering if you could tell me what Journyman is. Is it an animation
program? I'm kinda new to this and I've only heard about Sculpt, Imagine,
Lightwave and Autodesk's studio 3D (about $3000 from what I hear).
Limey
John–
Journeyman is a program that specializes in character animation – like
cartoon characters. It is unique in that it uses splines for building
objects, instead of points and vectors.
I used the program once, and was up and running quickly. Everything
except for rendering was great; the rendering ability looked weak. However,
from what I saw at the WOA show, this has been fixed.
Look for the PC version pretty soon. The first PC version will be
cheap, and crippled – only do 300×200 256 color VGA. They will follow up
with a 'pro' version some months later, if the original is successful
enough.
jonathan
– via Whap!
John,
Jonathan sums it up pretty clearly, Journeyman is a spline-based
package as compared to polygon based modelers we're more familar with.
High end programs that run on Silicon Graphics machines generaly are sline
based. The advantage is that objects are built around "control splines"
that allow objects to be squashed, streatched, or deformed and still keep
the basic integraty of the form intact. A practical example would be the
flapping of a birds wing, which would be able to flex and bend in a more
natural way than with polygon based modelers and be easier to generate.
The downside is that spline modelers are computationaly intensive, and even
a 68030 bogs down on the rendering. You'd need at least an '040, and I'm
not even sure that would produce acceptable rendering times. One of the
reasons that I hear Martin Hash developed the 486 version was to offload
the computation and use the 486 a straight rendering engine. The other
drawback, as Johnathan mentioned, is that compared to the image quality of
Lightwave or Imagine, Journeyman's looked weak. I had heard that the new
release would have a substantialy improved rendering, which I'm glad to
hear from Jonathan appears to be true. Martin's produced a phenominal
program in Journyman, it deserves a serious look. Unfortunetly it's not
that easy to come by, you have to order it direct from Hash Enterprises,
which I don't have an address for. Anyone? That's the nickel tour of
Journeyman, (in am Impulse forum yet- sorry guys), I'm sure it doesn't do
the program justice, if you can find someone with a copy check it out.
Dave
Dave–
Just to clarify–
Martin told me a while ago that he considered the Amiga a dead end,
although it was his favorite machine. He has pretty much abandoned the
machine, except for Journeyman…
Nothing was mentioned at WOA about being able to use a 486 as a
dedicated engine, while doing work on the Amiga. In fact, to reiterate,
the first version of PC Journeyman will not support anything beyond VGA
lo-res, which means 320x200x256…it is meant to compete with Autodesk
Animator, while the forthcoming "Pro" version will compete with Studio 3D.
It also appears that Martin has some *VERY* big investors behind his PC
effort.
Jonathan
– via Whap!
Johnathan,
A somewhat belated reply to your message (been off for a
while). Thanks for the clarification, I probably misunderstood what
information I was given, …too bad, technicaly I'm not sure if it's
feasable, but conceptualy (with the price of 486 motherboard's these days)
it seemed attractive. Martin's point of view, especially for a developer,
is understandable, even Apple is threatened by "the invasion of the DOS
clones", and Ami… well I don't know if there's life after the niche
market or fringe market or wherever Commodore is positioned these days,
without major new developments. Especially since I notice Sun just dropped
the price of a SparcStation IPC (Color monitor, 207 meg hard drive) under
$6000.00. True, you need to add the CD-Rom drive and the floppy drive, and
software for the beast ain't cheep, but it's an indication of where things
are headed. On the other hand, I hear WOA had some interesting products in
the high performance graphics catagory that may make things interesting for
a while. Thanks again.
-David
David,
Yeah, there were some interesting things at the WOA show, especially the
GVP booth. Their ECS graphics system was AMAZING. Additionally, I
understand that the IV-24 is about to get some Toaster-like abilities in
the near future…caught that in a trade mag…
GVP is going nuts!
Jonathan
David, You mentioned the Impulse newsletter. I have been Imagining since
February and haven't seen one. Is a call to Impulse needed to get them?
And to the person(s) deciding which platform to go with: I would urge you
toward Amiga because of all the graphic programs and abilities not
currently available on the PC. It won't be long before things even out
now, but the Amiga has quite the edge in graphics greation and presentation
abilities. Take that from a guy who uses both.
bil,
February was about the last newsletter I got, and impulse is
(generaly) pretty good about sending them out to registered users, but
they're not exactly on a regular schedule with these things, so you'll
probably get the next one they send out, whenever that may be. I'm always
a little torn when recommending hardware choices, like you I use both, and
love amiga's. And you're right, the best graphics software continues to
appear on the Amiga at prices that would cost you 3 – 4 times as much for
comparable products on any other platform. Not to mention products like
Imagemaster and VistaPro (or Scenery Animator) that you cant't find
anyplace else. But that's changing fast, and Commodore needs to start
making some MAJOR additions to the product line, or… Anyway, how are you
doing with Imagine? Great fun, no? Best
-David
David,
Perhaps I'll call Impulse for a copy of February's NL. I haven't even
gotten a price/product list on the other disks they sell, such as objects
and such.
Yes, the peecee graphics market is trying to close the gap, and I have
seen VistaPro out for the peecee! But even tho the cross over has begun,
there really are more graphics programs with more bang for the buck on
Amiga. I scan in logo images via ADPro, convert and extrude them for use
in Imagine with Pixel3D, render and animate and output to tape and still
film, but can't begin to touch these abilities with a peecee. Yes, Imagine
is great fun. I have started to collect objects with hopes of becoming a
sort of central exchange here in Columbus, OH. so that provides for some
fun in itself.
Gee, I wonder what kind of "central object exchange here in Columbus Ohio"
you'd have if not for regular infusions from a certain collector in Dayton
Ohio!
Hmph,
Karl
<grin>
– via Whap!
I too believe that the amiga is a dead-end machine despite it
capabilites. I was in London over Christmas where as far as I could
tell over half the Commodore computers being displayed were
Commodore's own PC clones. The 68000 chip line itself seems to be
headed for the grave yard. Apple is planning to use the Motorola/IBM
Power PC chip in their future Macs (this weeks PC Week). So I know
that I am buying a dying breed of computer, and were I buying a
computer for any other purpose other than video and 3D computer
animation I would not even consider an Amiga. As far as I can see,
however, there is currently nothing comparable for video and
animation. Not only is it a very capable computer but it also seems
to have an overwhelming share of this market developed over the years
when PC's did not have the graphic capabilites and Macs were
overpriced. However, a 50Mhz 486 with 8M RAM, a 150M hard drive, 24
bit graphics, an audio card, and Windows 3.1 cost about the same as
an A3000 tower and is a capable of doing anything the Amiga does
except that there isn't the software available for animation and
video. But with the rise of multimedia on the PC all of these tools
will be needed by the users and provided by those who wish to make
money. But how long will that be and more importantly, how long will
the developers of Amiga software like Impulse continue to support the
Amiga market? How long will the installed base of Amiga video users
be able to sustain that market. What I don't want to happen is that
a year after I buy an Amiga I find that Impulse has decided to stop
developing software for the Amiga and have put all of their effort
into the PC/Windows market. Many PC developers have done a similar
thing by all but abandoning the DOS market in favor of Windows even
though Windows is currently only a small fraction of the PC world. So
having rambled on for a screen and a half what do I do? I have a
feeling I won't know even after I've done it but thanks for
everyone's thoughts and I hope you keep sending them.
You bring up very good points and I agree with most of them. I, too, have a
hard time recommending the Amiga for general purpose home computing these
days, when I know that the potential owner is thinking of it as a five-year
investment, regardless of my explanations as to the finite length of
computer lifespans. Amigas were revolutionary at first, and indeed through
the next 5 years. Their capabilities were FAR beyond IBM's at first, then
less so if you were willing to throw a bunch of money and add-ons into
them, until price was the only difference. Now that's eroding too. I still
feel that you have to get a fast 486 to rival animation and multimedia
speeds on the Amiga, and get irritated with people who compare such 486
machines with a 500 instead of a 3000, but as the prices keep dropping,
that's inevitable, I suppose. I was into computers long before I bought my
Amiga. I saw the PC and just laughed; I refused to buy such a lousy
operating system, and the graphics power was rediculous. I have never
regreted my decision for an instant. A 486 is just faster garbage to my
eyes. But I'm well aware that others don't feel the same. People to whom
compatibility is much more important. People who want to use the same
software at home as they do at work. And yes, people who simply expect to
steal such software for this purpose.
I feel for you in making this decision. I think it's going to be a while
before you see Amiga-video-quality-softare on the IBM's or Mac's, though
they are indeed starting. The software prices seem overly steep for
capability on IBM/Macs too.
I suspect your decision will come down to timing. Can you put off doing
your projects easily for awhile as you make the "safe" decision. Or can you
justify buying the Amiga setup NOW, do the work you need to do, and simply
decide to reevaluate later and see if you need to start over, painful as
that may be. And don't let price of the hardware make your decision. If
it's work you have to do, decide if the application does what you want on
the various
[ MORE ]
[ continuation ]
platforms.
Me? I'm happy as a clam with my Amiga and expect to be for some time.
I've got enough software piled up here that I haven't played with fully, or
learned, that if CBM blew up today, I'd be happy for years. And using a
wonderful operating system to boot. I'm frustrated that the Amiga hasn't
become more popular, but for what I do, it's perfect.
Oh, I see my Imagine rendering is finished.
Good luck to you, sir.
Karl
– via Whap!
We have a 486-33Mhz, Vista Pro 24 bit board, Sharp JX-450 (11 * 17 24 bit
scanner), 20" diamond scan monitor, TSENG based 1 meg SVGA card, 8 megs of
ram, 250 meg hard drive, CD-ROM drive. We use it as our main art machine at
work. Some of the software we have for it:
Image In Color AutoDesk Animator Pro AutoDesk 3D studio PhotoFinish Tempra
And more…
We always have memory configuration problems, and have to reboot different
setups to run some things (like all the AutoDesk stuff). Image In color
runs under Windows, and crashes a few times each day. So, to try and fix
our problems we tried OS/2 2.0. What a joke… The AutoDesk stuff refuses
to work in a DOS box (AutoDesk has no current plans to fix it), as does
some of the other software.
To be honest, when it comes to graphics, not only can I do what the
486 does with my Amiga, I can do it better and faster! Until the PC
world grabs a real OS (It could be OS/2 if it worked properly with
DOS software), they will continue to have these problems. By the way,
our Art setup cost us almost 20k!
Karl, You know you are too good to me for me to mention it here, lest the
gang get the wrong idea of our relationship. Sorry for the delay getting
my list out to you but the track is open now so I am doing my videography
thing at night. RE: Your newsletter images…try some brightness increase,
a little contrast up, and a moderate dose of gamma. Unfortunatly you can't
nail it down into specific settings to apply to all images as each images
needs vary. BTW, when we going to the AFB museum?