Targa Vista Questions
8 messages in this thread
AT&T's Targa board is a $2000+ graphics board intended for the PC
marketplace. Its claim to fame is that it displays 24 bit high-resolution
graphics, which gives you a palette if 16,000,000 colors instead of 4096.
To interface a Targa board to the Amiga you need a bridgeboard, as the
Targa wants to mate with a PC, not an Amy. Also, the Targa is incapable of
real time animation due to the huge amounts of memory that have to be
manipulated to produce an image (it has its own video RAM onboard). So
sending an image to a Targa board is sort of like printing it: you develop
the image on the Amiga with the Amiga resolution and (relatively) limited
palette, then "render" it on the Targa for final output. To animate, you'd
need a VCR with true single frame capability (the Sony 9850 3/4" SP deck
will do this, I believe, for somewhere in the neighborhood of $15K). There
are several software packages which permit transferring images from the
Amiga to the Targa.
In addition to the money issues, there is also the matter of time. I don't
own a Targa board (though I freelance at a cable company that does) so I'll
defer to someone who does for exact figures, but rendering to a Targa takes
a lot longer than rendering an Amiga image; also there's a lot of raw data
involved (a single image can contain more data than will fit on a single
floppy disk).
Pete, AT&T has nothing to do with Targa anylonger!! Its Truevision now.
Amiga World made this same mistake.
Well, AT&T does, in fact, still have something to do with TARGA. They have
a division called Graphics Software Labs (GSL) in Indianapolis
(317-644-4364) that markets high-end animation (TOPAS), stillframe (RIO),
and other graphics packages for the media industries. All of the software
is designed to run on the TARGA series (and usually the VISTA series as
well). You are, of course, correct in your allusion to AT7T's divesting of
interests in Truevision, which is now a standalone company, but AT&T, we
must all remember, is a BIG company.
Concerning TARGAs capability to provide realtime animation: You state that
it cannot. Fact is: elegant use of the board does indeed allow for
certain realtime effects. Noteably: AT&T GSL's TOPAS product produces a
"Flipbook" format that is highly adequate for many applications and
incorporates FULL 3D highly interactive capabilities. Granted: the list
price of $12K eliminates all but the most serious users, but I am simply
addressing the issue of seperating the BOARD's capabilities from that of
the SOFTWARE that runs on it. Seems like other applications that use
realtime could be developed.
Point well taken, though I might also point out that for $12K the user
could also get a single frame controller and software and have virtually
unlimited capabilities…..
Well, yes, I guess 4-5K would suffice to provide a good frame controller
and software, but I think the discussion centered around "real time" rather
than "leisure time" frame-editing-animation. The kind that loads up in ram
and or/ frame buffers. There is not, it is true, a lot of software that
runs real-time color processes on TARGA. And only recently has a program
been released that uses color lookup tables for a moderate realtime
cycle-color capability (often useful to mimic realtime animated effects, of
course)
As to "Render Times" being longer: there are certainly considerations, but
have you tried to render a "ray-traced" image on an Amiga lately? The
TARGA is not intended to run in an Amiga environment, though of course it
CAN. Most people install it on a minimum of a 386/12 MHz system with 2-4
Meg of RAM. Our facility uses the 25 MHz version of a Compaq 386 with 9
Meg EMS RAM. Average render times for images that involve texture mapping
with models of moderate complexity is 2-2.5 minutes. New render
accelerators based on the new Intel chip (I-360, I think) speed even these
times up by a factor of 3-5X. To be fair to the Amiga: ours has paid for
itself 30X over. REALLY. And we are still trying to break even on the
other system.
The level of finished work is ALL IMPORTANT, but you do not need a
mid-range or high-end system to make a good living. But I do NOT recommend
trying to make that living on an Amiga with a TARGA board installed unless
you are working in a specialized "stillframe" market like beautyparlors,
plastic surgery, law enforcement ID, etc. I am, as always, open on these
points to positive critique.