Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!milton!ogicse!pdxgate!parsely!percy!nosun!qiclab!baer From: baer@qiclab.uucp (Ken Baer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Imagine Summary: Organic means no chemicals or polygons! :-) Message-ID: <1990Dec23.072647.10987@qiclab.uucp> Date: 23 Dec 90 07:26:47 GMT References: <37016@cup.portal.com> <1990Dec19.004954.23577@qiclab.uucp> <37162@cup.portal.com> Organization: Animators Anonymous, Portland, OR. Lines: 88 In article <37162@cup.portal.com> amigan@cup.portal.com (R Michael Medwid) writes: >In a previous post Ken Baer states "Imagine concentrated more on logo and >mechanical object creation" (contrasting it with fluid character animation >abilities in Journeyman). ..I wish we had some of the folks from Impulse >posting here. I have to say that Imagine is hardly limited to being a >"flying logo" generator. Take for example their cycle editor..finally an >intuitive tool for creating hierarchical motion sequences. Then these >key-framed animated objects can be placed in another scene which is being >keyframe at another level..key frames within key frames. There is ample >opportunity here for an animator to show off plenty of character personality >given this kind of powerful tool. The character animation features of the two programs are quite different. Journeyman is designed primarily for character animation (which was my point in the previous message). It is our second character animation program, our first was Animation:Apprentice (which was the first 3D animation program for Amiga, it predated Videoscape). Apprentice used key frame based armature motion on characters, much the same way Imagine does. Our objects used a topological modeling method called Voxels, and we used stick figures for reference. We call the motion you put on a character, like a walk, a relative motion, and what direction he's walking an absolute motion. Apprentice had both. Journeyman takes a major leap beyond that. You have much finer control over the motion using channel graphs. You start by making the key frame poses, then you can go into the channel editor and change the transition with a spline curve over time. This gives the motion a much more natural feel that cannot be achieve with simple key framing. But beyond that, Journeyman has 2 other kinds of relative motion; muscle morphing and spine morphing. Muscle morphing allows you to the modify the object's spline control points (you can bend and stretch the curves that make up the object). You even have channel control over this (don't ask me how this works). Spine motion is my favorite, you can build a spine in the object, and then bend the spine on its control points and the rest of the object bends around it. It works just like a human spine. You couldn't do that with a polygon based system. I think you will see a big difference when you have both programs side by side. We've been doing character animation for 4 years now, and Journeyman is an attempt to fulfil our own personal (and out customer's) wish list. >Another word that seems to be getting a lot of use here in this thread is >"organic". Both folks from Impulse and Hash seem to make amplbe use of this >term. We've used this term from te beginning in 1987. What we mean by "organic" is natural, as one would find in nature, and non-mechanical. A dolphin is organic, and F-18 is mechanical. You CAN make organic shapes out of polygons, but, in my opinion, 8 cubic patches beat out 10,000 polygons anyday! Even with phong shading, polgonal objects have a faceted edge when you move the camera close. > At first it seemed to make sense..but as the discussion progresses >it seems to become more vague..kinda like "low calorie banana bread" (??). >Anyhow I raise the issue as Impulse claims easy "organic" object creation >with their forms editor. I've not seen any 3D editor like forms. Again >very powerful, very intuitive means for creating objects that you would >tend to find more in nature than off a cad system. You can also use it >to quickly create complex mechanical looking objects. Again, with polygons, you trade curves for object size and render time. Polygons by their nature are great for mechanical stuff and logos and a pain for natural organic shapes. >When I think of logo creation, I think of programs like Video Effects 3D >which focused only on this specialty. But to lump imagine in this >category of product..is wrong. Let me rephrase. I think it's closer to the mechanical and 3D logo world than the 3D character animation world, mainly because it's tools are geared more for that. >My house-mate is getting the Journeyman product soon and I am very >interested in seeing its capabilites. I look forward to hearing your impressions (please not Jimmy Cagney! :-) > So much software..so little time >.. So much programming, so little time! -- // -Ken Baer. Programmer/Animator, Hash Enterprises / Earthling \X/ Usenet: baer@qiclab.UUCP or PLink: KEN BAER "What?!? Sore again?" -- Bugs Bunny to Yosemity Sam