#Jennison Speaks
16 messages in this thread
At the L.A. Toaster User Group, LeeStranahan introduced the smartest
toaster guy, Tim Jennison, who is the most sincere and brilliant speaker I
have heard in some time. Seems they were all in town shooting the followup
to the Revolution and stopped by our lil' ole Usergroup of 300 plus to
answer a few questions and demo Lightwave 3.5 which will ship this week in
two forms, with and without toasters. Briefly Jennison stated:
1: Blame Ali for the demise of Commodore. Absolutely a dolt.
2: Two camps…Samsung and a group with James Dionne are in the running.
He favors James as being his favorite.
3: The Trustees have stipulated the Amiga must go back in production.
4: Egglebert and remaining engineers are ready to do production support
for the victor and all realize that time is of the essence.
5. Hundreds of Amigas reamain stock both in Europe and Canada.
6. Toasters are selling at about the same rate as they were last year.
7. Flyers will use prehaps 2-3 specified hard drives. Seagate, Micropolis
and others have delivered stacks to Newtek to be tested. He mentioned that
differences between same models exist within Rom firmware. Beware.
8. 9 gig HD should be available soon for $3000. 9gig=1hour.
9. Smpte Timecode will be inbedded in croutons for reference.
10.Somebody is making a logging system where you put in a tape, mark the
spots you want to edit, and the system loads the stuff to the hard drive.
11. Flyer is smart. If you have a cut between two clipson one drive, the
Flyer can handle the cut. If it is a dissolve, the Flyer copies the clip
to the other drive automagicly.
12. Sound is handeled with an under-utilized DSP chip like Studio 16.
Sound is inbedded at 44.1 for now with no EQ or effects YET.
13. No EDL. This is an ONLINE SYSTEM.
14. "Busy Guy" Croutons make Lightwave Animwipes automagicly.
15. Composite out is here to stay…for now.
Had to leave(shucks) before the Lightwave demo by Lee. I am a soundman at
a local amphitheatre and the show must go on. Looks like the Amiga and
Toaster/Flyer will too.
Joe Clasen
Joe's DB&G
Joe,
An excellent summary of the User's Group Mtg. I was there also, and might
add some stuff about the new Lightwave upgrade ($99.95), Ver. 3.5. There
is a new feature call "MetaForm" (which used to be called "Conform to
Hull") which is kind of like Subdivide, but instead of just dividing
triangular polys into smaller ones, it also curves them. Ken and Lee
Stranahan gave a demo showing how you can use it to make some amazing
organic objects by just starting from a very simple, "childlike" shape and
performing Metaforms on it. Ken produced a very slick automobile body
(looked kind of like the new Mustang) by starting from a multi-segment
box. It's really quite amazing. For those who have FreeForm, it's similar
it it's ease creating organic shapes. (BTW, FreeForm is now at Ver. 1.7 –
send $5.00 to Fori to upgrade). Unfortunately, I had to bail out early
too. Anybody else have some input ?
You two have just about covered it…
After the meating had concluded Ken (Wilder) called every one back to
there seats because Lee had forgot to show Toaster Paint 4.0. Looked the
same as it did in Las Vegas at NAB but if you didn't see it there:
1) Vertualy the same program.
2) No more 1/4 screen scroll. Display is in Ham8 for 4000s
3) All New Interface. No more pull down menus.
4) Supports PostScript fonts.
5) Supports Brush rotation to any angle.
6) Real nice air brush and stincle features
7) Presure sensitive support. (I didn't hear this on saturday but Brad
told me at NAB).
I think every one will be impressed. To paraphrase Lee Tpaint is a realy
good program, I think the 1/4 screen thing bugs some people though, but
now it gone so I think people will start to use it more…
Brad Hayes
CG&A
It is assumed, but I have not seen it officially verified….
What kind of LW3D/Flyer features are going to be included.
I assume basic anim rendering, but will there be any editing
beyond going THROUGH the toaster board for animations?
Brain:
The Toaster 4.0 Software will be the same as the Flyer software with
out the ability to play or record full motion video. You will have full
sequencing capabilitys. Editing a Slide show will be a snap. And, though
it was not mentioned, I'm sure that if you have a 4000 you could include
an animation or two in your storyboard…
Brad Hayes
CG&A
What kind of non-AGA display does it use? HAM?
S.G. Bailey
Chicago
Toaster Paint for the non-AGA machines will still use ham. I don't know if
this will give you the ability to switch back and forth between 3/4 and
full screen, but since you can do it know I'm sure you still will. the
other thing is 3.5 Lightwave is fully retargetable. I'm realy hoping this
applies to TPaint too.
Brad Hayes
CG&A
Thanks, Brad, for the info on ToasterPaint. I must have missed the demo at
NAB.
Jim:
yeah the TPaint demo was going on around the side, between The Flyer
and The Raptor.
Brad Hayes
CG&A
Conform to Hull works best on quads thogh. No need to triple everything.
Use quads and then just check for non planars when through.
JG
Did they mention how many stereo or mono audio tracks are available?
Brian
6…two imbedded in each(2) video tracks and 2 freewheeling. Jennison
mentioned an option that you could use a "projecct" with just stereo audio
and add the video clips as needed. A relief to me as I like to edit to
sound if possible.
Joe Clasen
Joe's DB&G
Thanks for the info. Do you happen to know if it also would support a time code
interface to the Sunrize boards in case you need to do multiple track audio
work (sync the extra audio tracks 5,6 into and back out of Sunrize).
Brian
Brian, SunRize has been working with NewTek on this project. I don't know what
they came up with, but it is no coincedence that the Flyer is using the same
DSP chips as the SunRize cards. Gary
Thanx for the report on Tim Jennisions Visit Joe.