CompuServe Thread

#SILVER 3.0

6 messages in this thread
#10478From: Bob ShawJul 22, 1989 7:14 AM
The size of the animation (and the amount of memory required to play it back) is roughly determined by the sum total of all of the files in the FileName.Ani directory, not the size of your disk. I would recommend that you do the whole thing on the hard drive (for security reasons). Then, if you want to pass it around, copy the files on the FileName.Ani directory to a disk (or two), along with the FileName.Ani.info file, the Player utility and an 'execute' script file to tidy things up on the destination Amiga. There are a hundred little tricks (and pitfalls) that I have learned by visiting the guru or just running out of storage at a bad time. The power Turbo Silver gives you is excelled only by the opportunities to screw up that exist. Everything is a trade off. Great program, lousy manual. Good luck.
#10500From: paul wallaceJul 22, 1989 9:06 PM
About the eXternal command I found out that you have to save the Story command with the object, and every time you change the Story you have to resavethe obje ct under a new name. I'll get it figured out eventualy.
#10525From: Bob ShawJul 23, 1989 2:41 PM
Paul, Sounds like you're on the right track. Let me know how it turns out. Bob.
#10535From: Joseph C. PizzicaroliJul 23, 1989 9:43 PM
Bob, 'Scuse me for butting in here, but something you mentioned rang a bell. One of the pitfalls I've butted heads against many times in other 3D packages is that if your compressed anim file exceeds 880k (and you're not fortunate enough to possess a hard drive), it (oops, hit a line feed…) means back to the drawing board. Since TS creates its anim structure as a bunch of individual delta files, I've oft wondered if this means you can spill an animation across multiple disks and then load 'em up and play back (memory permitting, of course). I haven't tried this yet, but if you know the answer I'd appreciate the input. Regards, Joe Pizzicaroli
#10543From: Stan Kalisher (Impulse)Jul 23, 1989 10:41 PM
Yup, Joe, assuming you name all of your floppies the same, you can have a multi-disk animation with Turbo. –Rick
#10768From: Joseph C. PizzicaroliJul 31, 1989 8:49 PM
BLESS YOU, my son! Life without a hard drive is tough enough – I got plans for lots of animated sequences that'll be within my RAM capacity but, alas, greater than 880K (not hard to do!) You've given me new hope. Hmmm, was thinking while I was typing…that means I'll have to restrict myself to use of Silver's "ANIM" format if I want to use this trick. Oh, well, a small price to pay. Hey you programming whizzes out there – somebody come up with a way to spill ANIM format files across multiple floppies. PLEASE? (or maybe I'll just have to finally break down and go into hock for mass storage). Hey kids – Ray Tracing is an expensive habit to get into, 'specially when you want those pictures to MOVE!