Viewing programs/Springs
5 messages in this thread
Hello,
I was just wondering if any one would know of a program that would allow the
viewing of high resolution images in various formats, and high resolution
flics. I tried AAPLAYHI.EXE but finally gave up on it because of a mysterious
driver error message. None of the AutoDesk ADI, Panacea, or VESA display
drivers seem to work. AAPLAY is looking for a .DRV extension. The problem is
that the view point is "zoomed in too close" making it impossible to see the
whole image. I also tried AAWIN.EXE, the animation player for WINDOWS, but the
colors are way off and the help file won't open.
Also………….does any one know of a way to draw a coil spring in either
3D-Studio or ACAD?
-TIM
In 3ds you can make a coil spring by lofting a circle (or whatever)
along a helix path. (I have a hard time drawing lines in ACAD, so I
can't help you there.)
>>way to draw a coil spring in 3DS…
Tim,
I've been out of town and am just now catching up on messages, so pardon me if
you already got this answered and I missed it. You can create a spring easily
in 3DS by lofting a circle down a helical path. Beware that a long spring at
high detail can quickly create MANY thousands of faces. To simplify, keep
shape-steps low and loft with as few path-steps as you need for detail.
Regarding playing high-res flics, AAPLAYHI is the best I know of for DOS. What
exactly was the "mysterious driver error" message? Was it installed correctly
with the appropriate drivers in a ./RESOURCE directory?
Concerning the colors in AAWIN, are you using a 256 color Windows driver?
Where did you place the help file? If not in your windows or windows/system
directory or if it is in a subdirectory not on the path, the Working Directory
option in the Properties dialog must be set to that subdirectory. I use AAWIN
often and the colors are fine and the help file works.
JKJ
John,
I'll play with the spring some more in 3DS2. I've got it partially down, but
it still needs work. Right now it makes an interesting sculpture……so I
applied an AQUA GLAZE material and a color background and rendered it by
itself! Who knows, maybe it'll end up in an office or living room scene.
The driver error message in AAPLAYHI is the same one I mentioned before.
Something about "Can't querry module", "Driver not hex relocatable" "Driver not
found" etc. I don't know what to think. The \RESOURCE directory has a few
files in it with the .DRV extention. What is the program looking for? I
render at 1024 x 768 x 256 and when viewing images in AAPLAYHI i'm "in too
close" as I've already explained. I got the hi-res viewer directly from
AutoDesk on a floppy so I'm reluctant to waist almost an hour online
downloading the same program in hopes that something will be different. I was
hoping to send gif and small flc files along with the viewer to prospective
costomers or employers.
AAWIN has very bad colors……..you mentioned something about a windows driver
with 256 colors? I need more details. Specifically, what file should I be
looking for and how do I load or install it? You said that yours works
fine…………did you DL it from here?
Thanx for your help.
-TIM
Tim,
The 256-color Windows driver I mentioned is not related to AAWIN, but
to Windows directly: the primary display driver installed by the
Windows setup program. Rerun SETUP.EXE in your windows directory
from either DOS or Windows to check or change your driver. If you
don't already have a 256 color driver installed you may have to
follow the directions that came with your video card. With 1-meg of
memory on an SVGA board you can generally display 1024*768*256
colors. If your Windows video driver is set for 16 colors, I suspect
flics will look very bad. I think the I'm using the AAWIN that came
with AniPro.
I have no idea why your AAPLAYHI gives you fits. Did you try
reinstalling it? I run it using a VESA driver for my video board –
in my case I run VESAVGA.COM (with VESA.DRV in the resource
directory) before starting the player and pick the desired resolution
from the menu. It should do 1024*768*256 with no problem.
BTW, I think the best way to send pictures and flics to people is on video
tape, rather than as flic/gif with a player. This avoids the customers
frustration with all the nasty potential compatibility problems with the target
computer's memory, video board, etc., not to mention the megabytes of disk
space the flics take. If you don't have any way to go to tape you might try to
find someone to do it for you. I paid a local dealer for this service before I
got some video stuff.
J K J