CompuServe Thread

New effects?

10 messages in this thread
#72971From: Mike HalvorsonJan 24, 1994 8:26 PM
Brad, What effects, Please expound to your hearts content, are you talking FX or Textures or what. While other software products are spending more time on making more effects, they spend no time making the software faster, and eaiser to use. I realize that this may be a hard pill to swallow but here is the deal. Impulse is going to make Imagine easier to use than any other product without sacraficing any speed or power. New toys are just that, of course we have new toys, but they do things that no sparkly effect will do no matter how good they are. So I have as you asked responded, your turn Mike
#73660From: Karl SparklinFeb 1, 1994 9:53 PM
Mike, I've been moving the last month or two and missed any announcements about your upgrade shipping. I did, however, find what I think may be the last newsletter – "Summer '93"? Is the offer form valid on the back? (I thought I remembered you guys moving too!) I need to generate a moving starfield for a local cable station, and someone said that 2.9 would do a nifty job of that. Time to upgrade! Thanks, Karl (Customer no. 812)
#73732From: Charles BlaquiereFeb 2, 1994 8:40 PM
Karl, "I need to generate a moving starfield" Just create a few large spheres and give them the new 2.9 confetti texture, with a small confetti size and a range of white-to-dark grey colors; it makes wonderful starfields. Place your camera at the center of the spheres and give them a slow rotation in Z, each sphere rotating at a different pace. Presto, instant depth-defying <g> starfield! Of course, if stars moving from left to right isn't your bag and you want the typical "screen saver" Star Wars-type effect, create some really long tubes instead, and have your camera point straight down them. Scale the tubes to different diameters and give them the aforementioned confetti texture. To eliminate the annoying flicker from far-away confetti specks, add global fog, set to black. It will have the nice side effect of removing stars from the center area of the image, where you'd presumably overlay a nice logo. The varying sizes will give the "stars" several layers of motion, and the confetti specks on the larger cylinders, being farther from the camera, will seem dimmer because of the fog. Blaq!
#73737From: Karl SparklinFeb 2, 1994 8:54 PM
Blaq-dude, Thanks for the great hints. That spheres-idea sounds like it should work nicely. I assume you meant that they are varying diameters? I can hardly wait to try it. (Unfortunately, I've lost track of this upgrade. I believe that Impulse has moved and the last newsletter I can find doesn't have a number for them. Hopefully, Mike will respond soon.) Thanks again! Karl
#74439From: Ross DavidsonFeb 12, 1994 9:09 AM
The nomber for Impulse is 1-800-328-0184 or 1-612-425-0557 also I find that v.2.9 has a problem with using the movie end. Good Luck! N.S. NightStalker
#74441From: Karl SparklinFeb 12, 1994 9:42 AM
Thanks for the note regarding "movie end". Can you describe this? Karl
#73786From: David HofmannFeb 3, 1994 2:29 PM
Hi Blaq, I tried this sphere stars in an animation I made for a customer, but it didn't work for me. Also it slows down redering a lot since you have to adjust the size (in globals) when you use trace mode (which I had to). If the Imagine star field would create stars with random size and color it would look better. -David
#73899From: Charles BlaquiereFeb 5, 1994 1:27 PM
David, animating in TRACE mode? Eeeek! I'd _never_ do that. Your customer must have very deep pockets; I couldn't possibly quote my client a price based on trace render times. Blaq!
#74009From: David HofmannFeb 7, 1994 11:07 AM
Render time isn't the important thing. I count the time *I'm* sitting on the 'puter doing the anim. I render at night. I had gold letters in this anim and they looked ok in scanline mode, but they looked really like gold in trace mode.
#73793From: Peter GreciFeb 3, 1994 4:13 PM
Cool trick Blaq! Thanx for the tip on Starfields. Tho I usually CHEAT and just do it with Dpaint and save as a series of pix used as a Backdrop in Imagine.