Targa?
5 messages in this thread
I have a question about Imagemaster. After all of the good PR about the
product both here on CIS and in AmigaWorld, I decided its time to get it! I
already have ADPRO 2.1 and love it but need the ability to load TARGA files and
am not pleased that I have to spend another 100 bucks on an extra "module" for
ADPRO that allows loading of TARGA files.
My concern is that AmigaWorld indicated that they had problems with Imagemaster
when they tried to load TARGA pics. Is there a problem with Imagemaster and
TARGA? I am referring to page 32 in the May 1993
AmigaWorld.
The reason that I'm interested in TARGA images is that I use Playmation a lot.
The Amiga renderer for Playmation is miserably slow, while the Playmation MSDOS
renderer is quite speedy. I want to use a PC as a simple rendering engine.
The MSDOS Playmation renderer creates TARGA pics which I would then like to
send back to my Amiga and convert to IFF pics so that I can manipulate them and
dump to videotape.
Will Imagemaster read Playmation TARGA pics?
Thanks for your help!
AmigaWorld was very confused and inaccurate on the entire issue of file
formats – even a little befuddled on some other issues. They used a
non-current version of Imagemaster, and it would appear that they didn't
understand it very well (a not untypical situation for review… we just
can't get it thru the heads of the magazines that in order to be fair to
IM, which is THE most powerful image manipulation system on the Amiga, you
MUST have someone who is a regular user of the software… and we upgrade
IM so often they can't keep current with the huge delays a review has
before actually landing in your mailbox).
Here's the real scoop: Imagemaster has complete 24-bit Targa facilities.
They are in use in many sites; because of the variety of programs that
write such files (not just Targa, but image files in general) it is always
possible to run into a file that may not load. When and if this were to
happen to you, we ask that you send us the file. We in turn examine it and
if it's within spec OR the reader can be modified to load this "variation"
WITHOUT damaging the ability to load correctly to spec, then we update the
reader and get you the updated version. There are other issues about
formats, such as having enough memory to load a particular filetype and so
on.
So: If you find that IM canNOT read your playmation images, which I doubt,
but if that is the case, we'll see to it that the reader is modified so
that it can.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Thanks for the quick response!
Imagemaster loads TGA files just fine, and I oughta know. <g>
I have been using Imagemaster to load TGA files and have not run across any
problems. The syntax for calling the Imagemaster TGA loader/saver from ARexx
is screwy, but it does work.
The only time I have had problems reading/writing file formats was with a
Syquest cartridge. Both ADPro and Imagemaster were having problems with
corrupted files on the Syquest cartridge. May have been something like not
having the Syquest terminated. It only affected those two applications.
Everything else worked without a hitch. Weird.
-Jerry Thompson
Truevision Developer Marketing
Thanks, Jerry. :^)
–Ben
…via AutoPilot