Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!sri-spam!mordor!lll-tis!ptsfa!well!ewhac From: ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Time to flame at Aegis.... Message-ID: <3377@well.UUCP> Date: Sun, 21-Jun-87 05:50:55 EDT Article-I.D.: well.3377 Posted: Sun Jun 21 05:50:55 1987 Date-Received: Mon, 22-Jun-87 06:47:30 EDT References: <764@gryphon.CTS.COM> <1607@cadovax.UUCP> Reply-To: ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) Organization: Hole Earth 'Lectronic Loss (or words to that effect) Lines: 127 Summary: Time to throw water on all this. In article <1607@cadovax.UUCP> keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle) writes: >I was at a semi-private show for "those of you who couldn't make it to Comdex" >yesterday (6/18) put on by the Southern Ca. Amiga reps. Aegis, Newtek, >CSA, First Byte, Prism, Brown Waugh, and Micro Illusions were all there, >along with unattended tables representing EA and Word Perfect. > >In the dealer's room, NewTek was demoing [Maxine Headroom], and was pretty >impressive at first, but after hearing it over and over and over and over >it became a form of Chinese water torture. [ ... ] >I only saw a small bit of DigiPaint in operation, they had put up a >filled circle and were using some fill feature to shade as if 3D. A control >approximately positions the 'light source'. However, there seemed to be >a rim around the edge of the circle where the shade effect never went, and >the more he played with it the less useful it seemed. [ ... ] > You'll never know until you play with it yourself. When was the last time you ever met a sales rep who was intimately familiar with the program he was supposed to be demoing? >Sonix was playing some stuff that was a full band with vocals. [ ... ] >Unfortunately, the choice of tunes was so much mainstream 'pop' that it >just seemed like someone had a tinny little A.M. radio going in the corner. >[ ... ] This stuff you might have figured was the hotel's muzak. You don't >need an Amiga to hear that. What would you prefer? Kraftwerk? Wendy Carlos? Tomita? >Still, I am kind of curious as to how they managed the voice track, >didn't have time to find out. > Mark Riley, author of Sonix, gave Gary Koffler, my boss, a copy of the tunes. About 80% of what your brain is registering is digitized loops ("Thriller" is almost entirely one loop). The remaining voices augment the loop to give it "depth". At least this is the case with "Thriller," haven't fiddled much with the others. Try turning off individual voices to see... er.. hear what's going on. >And I didn't pay much attention to Micro Illusions, can't get to excited about >games [ ... ] Give me a version of Spellunker or Montezuma's Revenge any >day. (or Necromancer wouldn't be bad either). > Give me a copy of the source; I'll see what I can do. ( 1/2 :-) ) >A computer artist, Merydythe Dee was their [sic] [and so was] Howard >Ganz, a computer artist from oceanside. [ ... ] I think there isn't >enough of this sort of thing going on at such get-togethers. > >Besides the dealers room, there were 3 scheduled 'meetings' on various >subjects: > >1) The Commodore rep showed us a video tape of two TV commercials [ ... ] >Looked pretty good I guess [ ... ] The rep then went on to show us the >Amiga 2000 [ ... ] here's the demos: robo-city, boing, mandrill, molly, say, >couldn't you pick some *older* demos to show us? [ ... ] Valid point. If someone would like to pay me a modicum of $$$, I could probably cook up something. How much $$$? Gee, I don't know; a CSA Turbo Rack would interest me... ( 1/2 :-) ) >2) Richard Lewis, production designer for the Max Headroom show was there, >[ ... ] Do not underestimate the power wielded by this individual. Whether he or anyone else realizes it, every move he makes in producing Max Headroom will be closely watched by the competition. Max Headroom was a runaway sensation; other production companies will want to duplicate the feat. The competition will analyze, and probably mimic, every move Lewis makes in the production of Max Headroom, including the decision to use the Amiga. This could easily be a major step in the "legitimization" of the Amiga. >3) Aegis CEO (don't remember his name, Volk wasn't even there I don't think) >Gave a big... peptalk. [ ... ] proceeds to show a video which is titled >'Desktop Video on the Amiga' or similar. Showed off Videoscape 3D from the >video. [ ... ] I'd say it would be a useful product if the object editor was >friendly and useful (which I'm beginning to have serious doubts about). >Dosen't hold a candle to CAD-3D (for Atari from Antic Software) in that >respect. > Creating solid modelling software is no piece of cake. You can easily invest several dozen man-years into a mere first-generation modeller. Creating one that can be understood and used by the casual consumer will probably be next to impossible. Solid modelling packages traditionally assume you have a background in fundamental computer graphics; that you will understand the effects of rotation around all three axes, translation, scaling, and all sorts of other mish-mash. I'm sure Aegis has realized that it can not invest the resources to create a solid modeller from scracth, so it has adopted one that is already written, and will try to improve on it. No doubt the Videoscape 3D manual will point to Foley/Van Dam's book. I hope Aegis releases the format of the object definition files. Someone who owns an Amiga and who also works for Pixar, Digital Effects et al, will cook up a "real" solid modeller for the rest of us. And if this mythical person follows suit, the program will be PD with source (hope, hope). General Comments On Message: Try not to get too excited, Keith :-). Seriously, were you in a bad mood that day? Or are you beginning to get a little jaded with all the current stuff? Your message seemed quite a downer, and I'm just wondering why. Personally, I'm glad to see that so many developers are still interested in the Amiga, and continue to invest in it despite all the problems Commodore has been having. Obviously, this computer has inspired people to innovate and do neato whiz-bang things no matter how hard the manufacturer tries to make it for them. These people would be doing all this work no matter what. However, making money off it is a nice side-effect. There's no real reason to be down on the Amiga or any of its developers. If Commodore were to go bankrupt tomorrow, we'd still have the machines we own. And even if they were orphaned (not necessarily), we've still learned a lot. The Amiga changed the way we look at and program computers, and has been a valuable experience to everyone involved. If you are, in fact, beginning to get jaded, fear not; many people are at work.... P.S: All above offers to write code are real. However, you'd have to talk to my employer about it. (They're great guys. Really.) _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape ihnp4!ptsfa -\ \_ -_ Bike shrunk by popular demand, dual ---> !{well,unicom}!ewhac O----^o But it's still the only way to fly. hplabs / (pronounced "AE-wack") UmeCorp and I mutually disclaim the existence of each other.