Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!gatech!prism!mailer.cc.fsu.edu!sun13!murray
From: murray@sun13.scri.fsu.edu (John Murray)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Liquid TV ?  I'm hooked!
Message-ID: <3173@sun13.scri.fsu.edu>
Date: 6 Jun 91 19:03:53 GMT
References: <311@nos850.UUCP>
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University
Lines: 42

In article <311@nos850.UUCP> joem@nos850.UUCP (Joe Muller) writes:

>Also, if the guys who created
>that animation are out there, how about filling us in on what was used
>(in terms of computing power) to accomplish the feat ?

Well, they don't talk about the whole rendering process, but the authors
of the legged locomotion stuff used 4 minutes, per simulation timestep of
1/1200th second, on a 12 MIPS HP 9000 to do the math on the video's main
character.  They said they got real-time performance from their code by
reducing the degrees of freedom from 38 to 20.

The above is from "Dynamic Simulation of Autonomous Legged Locomotion"
by Michael McKenna and David Zeltzer of the Computer Graphics and Animation
Group, Media Lab, MIT. (ACM SIGGRAPH '90 Conference Proceedings).

"Grinning Evil Death" was pretty much done entirely by the Media Lab folks.
Strictly in fun, I wave my genitals in their general direction and say,
"You just wait!"

>Anybody know anything else about the show ?  When is it on regularly (my
>cable guide had something else listed on MTV at the time) ?  How long has
>it been on ?

That was the first episode of Liquid TV. It's supposed to be airing weekly,
same time, same MTV. A local newspaper article ran down the next month or
two of episodes, and animations range from purely computer-generated to
traditional cel stuff to live-action characters with still backgrounds.
The (ack, I hate this word) 'cyberpunk'-ish flavor is about the only
constant, according to the article.

Sure sounds like an interesting series. Too bad I don't watch TV.

>...uunet!coplex!nos850!joem .OR. jamull01@ulkyvx.bitnet

"Whatsa matter, kid? Scaaaared of a little... bug?"

-- 
*Standard Disclaimers Apply*|        ---Get Out Of HELL Free!---
John R. Murray              |The bearer of this card is entitled to forgive
murray@vsjrm.scri.fsu.edu   |Himself of all Sins, Errors and Transgressions.
Supercomputer Research Inst.|                                -- D. Owen Rowley