#ANTIC CIS Support
12 messages in this thread
Contrary to certain unknowledgeable opinions, Zoetrope is in no way, shape
or form, a page flipper. I would, however, like to confirm that Zoetrope
lacks overscan (its primary flaw). I'm afraid that its primary use (at the
current time) is as a sketchpad for animations or as a 2D animator (a
position it fills wonderfully). Zoetrope, like its counterpart on the
Atari ST (CyberPaint), was designed with the same basic ideas (thought to a
lesser extent) as the Quantel Paintbox.
On the ST, its main use is as an editor for 3D animations, but because
raytracing seems to be the primary focus of Amiga 3D animation, it is not
able to fill that capacity. On the other hand, Zoetrope has, I would
venture, the most powerful Cel animation tools of any software (from a
professional standpoint) on the Amiga and it is ridiculously easy to use.
It also excells at titling and digital video effects with a truly fine
rotoscoper (similar to A.D.O.) and color pallette manipulations. It may
not be useful to raytracers, but it has its strong points. (It is from Jim
Kent who wrote the Aegis Animator; and it has no similarity whatsoever to
his previous project (for the better).)
-Martin Doudoroff
Antic Cyber Support
76703,2000
I rather liked Aegis Animator… It's main weaknesses IMHO were the lack
of curve fitting between movable points, and somewhat weak 3D handling. But
the tweening of polygons was great, so far as it went… Does Zoetrope
have this kind of thing? In particular, the curve fitting, without which
you may as well draw each and every frame seperately… –>Steve Bennett
Zoetrope can duplicate most features of Aegis Animator, though it uses
totally different approaches. First of all, it will load STR files from
Aegis. Basically Zoetrope's tweened "APM" controller lets you take a clip
(anything you draw or whatever) and rotate (with perspective) in any of the
3 axis, stretch, and/or move it. You can move it along a path too, which
can be defined in a variety of ways (here's how you get your curves) with
the mouse.
I should have been more explicit about the 2D animation drawing techniques,
too because these features really set Zoetrope apart from Aegis. Basically
you can do Disney style cell animation with Zoetrope using Blueing and
other aides. There are a few professional animators I know of who are
doing just this with a graphics tablet (of course) and are getting some
great results. I will check into making some available.
I think you might have misunderstood what I meant by curves. I don't need
an object to be able to move in a curved path, I want to be able to create
an object by specifying a few points, and having it fit a curve to them. I
want to then be able to change the curve by moving those points…
Basically exactly what Aegis animator did with the polygons, except instead
of straight lines between points, I need curves. Sort of like having Adobe
Illustrator from the Mac, animated… <grin> –>Steve Bennett
Real time moving splines heh? Thou knowest what thou asketh for ???? If
you find someone who can code it he can get a job right now! <grin>
Actually, I'd even settle for something which generated it a frame at a
time, if it also allowed for zooming in and out and handling of very fine
details. (And also, preferrably, produced the final output by generating a
high res image and reducing by pixel averaging the resolution, thus
getting anti-aliasing and a better overall image…) But real time would be
nice too. <grin> –>Steve Bennett P.S. (And yes, I know what I ask for.
I've programmed splines. Not exactly quick to draw…)
Go take a look at IGDS on an InterGraph system. You can in fact do
real-time moving splines if you flip on the proper modes. It's not
instantaneous or even smooth, but it works. I've seen it. 'Course the
InterGraph system I'm speaking of ran on a Vax 11/750. Also 'course, a
stock Amiga can out compute an 11/750. Go fer it, Stan. 8)
I know it can be done on a VAX or an IRIS GT system, but on the Amiga ???
M'thinks it would be difficult within the current hardware design. <–Stan
<Shrug> Dunno, I'm not a math hound. I'm just remembering all those
benchmarks that came out when Ami was first released. As I recall a stock
1000 outran an 11/750 even on things like Savage, and a Turbo outran a 785
in many cases. Anyway, I'm busy working on my own little brand of
impossible here on MY Amiga, thank you very much. You get your real-time
splines working, I'll finish my project… and we'll see who gets more oohs
and ahhs. 😉
Aha. Like an amoeba? Nope, sorry. Actually, that effect is not difficult
to reproduce with bluing and changes histories…. in fact that is the same
basic effect needed in stretch & squash animation…. No, you still have
to draw it by hand, but Zoetrope does everything but draw it for you.
Whoops. I think only the ST version of Animator has "strips". That
feature wasn't ever in a release version of Animator for the Amiga. The
Amiga Animator has "ani" files, as I recall. However, Amiga Zoetrope
apparently loads the advanced strip files, too.
Oops. Sorry, it's been a long time since I've used Animator, and even
longer since I've used it on an Amiga. Bear with my ignorance until I
relearn this stuff.