CompuServe Thread

I animatate quite alot with Imagine 2.0 it is also a pretty good Renderer and Also can Raytrace if needed.

Bruce, Imagine is a fairly complete rendering and animation program. It features 6 editors: the Detail editor, where you create objects; the Forms editor, which lets you push and pull a clay-like sphere to create organic shapes; the Cycle editor, where you can animate stick figures to create repetitive object movement, like a running woman or a flexing bodybuilder; the Stage editor, where you set up all objects, lights, camera moves and so on; the Action editor, which gives you a timeline view of your animation, allowing you to tweak or add special effects like Explode; and the Project editor, where you define directories and the image size/color depth/rendering method used, and where you generate stills and animations. Let's check out each editor. The current version of Imagine, 2.0, is polygon-based and has a wonderfully responsive modeller. Many Amiga owners use Imagine's Detail editor, even if they have other 3-D packages. 6 primitive geometric objects are a mouse click away, or you can create your own using these standard functions: extrude (along a path, too), replicate, spin/sweep, bend in a sphere-like, cylinder-like, or freeform path-like manner; skin, which connects slices to create a full object, and slice, which performs Boolean operations. Object attributes include the standards: color, reflectivity, transparency, specularity, shininess, roughness, Phong or faceted shading. All color-related values are 24-bit. Each object may have up to 4 procedural textures and 4 brushmap images. Procedurals are basic but complete: bricks, checks, dots, grid, linear (smooth 1-dimension fade), radial (smooth radial fade), angular (smooth fade between 6 colors), camo (blotches of 4 colors, like an army Jeep), pastella (smooth 4-color blotches), spots, waves and wood. Third-party packages, Essence I and II, offer about a hundred more, including geometrics and various fractal-based bumps, colors and boundaries. Brushmaps let you apply a two-dimensional image onto the object. You can do flat or [ MORE ]

[ continuation ] wrapped mapping on two axes, giving you effects such as a painting (flat-mapped onto a simple plane), a Coke can (wrapped on one axis onto a cylinder), or a planet (wrapped on both axes onto a sphere). Objects can be grouped, and objects/groups can be hierarchically linked. For example, a helicopter body can serve as parent to the rotor; the rotor can rotate independently, but is attached to the body and will follow it wherever it goes. Textures and brushmaps can be automatically applied to all children, breaking the 4-texture/4-map limit. The Forms editor starts you off with a sphere, which you stretch and deform into irregular, organic shapes like a nose or a boat hull. The Cycle editor lets you draw a hierarchy by attaching axes to each other. The result is a little stick figure, which you can bend and move into various keyframe poses by rotating "joints" and resizing "limbs". You then assign a regular object to each stick, such as a forearm or a thigh. The result is a fully articulated, compound object, which you can then use in your amination. Before you assign objects, you can save the "naked" stick figure, allowing you to build a library of motions which can be reused. (Popsicle stick man! Skeleton-man! Rubber ball man!) The Stage editor shows the familiar orthogonal tri-view, plus a perspective view which can be toggled into Camera View. You can interactively position, scale, rotate and move the various elements of your animation. You can do a quick render of the current frame, or a quick 1/4-frame preview in 2-color wireframe or solid-line mode. The Action editor lets you exert additional control, such as assigning a spline motion path to an object; having an object track another; or adding special effects like Explode or Ripple. This is a good time to mention that Imagine will interpolate from anything to anything: any number, be it a transparency, a texture parameter, a rotation, anything, can smoothly change over time. There is a lot to do in Imagine! [ MORE ]

[ continuation ] Finally, the Project editor lets you specify image size, up to 8192 by 8192; color depth, up to 24-bit; file format; rendering method, including scanline and ray-tracing; and animation method. The current version of Imagine PC requires a math coprocessor. It runs under DOS, so Windows slowdowns are of no concern. The program itself takes up 800K, and all the textures, effects and sample scenes, plus the program, are contained on two measly floppies! A PC friend of mine was astounded at Imagine's compact size when taking into account its impressive functionality. If you're the kind of person who buys their software rather than steal it, Imagine at $495 retail is a much better buy than Autodesk 3-D Studio at $3000 retail. Blaq!