Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!gatech!mcnc!decvax!decwrl!pyramid!oliveb!sun!pepper!cmcmanis
From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Real time video animation
Message-ID: <38786@sun.uucp>
Date: 13 Jan 88 23:46:21 GMT
References: <159@abvax.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 51
Keywords: hard disk playback, run length, ANIMA II

In article <159@abvax.UUCP> gfs@abvax.UUCP (Greg F. Shay) writes:
>Does anyone know if there are systems/boards/companies for INEXPENSIVE 
>real-time video animation for, for example, the PC?
>	I am referring to the following type of scenario:
>	1) Cartoon-like images, large areas of similar color, not gradual
>shading.  This would allow large data reduction using run-length data 
>compression.
>	2) Frames built one at a time, recorded in sequence on hard disk,
>	3) Frames played back in real time, ready for Video tape recording.
>
>Given the data throughput of the hard disk, I theoretically calculate that
>animation done in two's (i.e. 15 fps for video) with moderately complex
>pictures is possible.

Currently, the best price performance for home animation is the Amiga 
computer. It can be configured for short animations, recordable on your
home VCR for about 1K. It also has very reasonably priced software available
and the animation formats are fairly well documented so adding your own 
routines is fairly easy. Animations on this machine are usually done in 
a non real time generation mode, followed by a real time playback mode.
Playback ranges from 20 - 30 fps and the duration is limited to what will
fit in memory. My experience has been about 20 seconds of animation for a 
1 Meg machine, up to about 4 minutes for an 8 meg machine. Current strategies
for reading animations in from disk while running them would boost that
time to several minutes. The animations are stored in a delta encoded 
double buffered frame stream, the less things change on the screen the 
more you can store. 

Advantages to the Amiga are :
	1) It has a up to 4096 colors available for the animations.
	2) Several packages exist *now* for animation, Videoscape-3d,
	   Animate-3d, The Director, Photon Video, and Animators Apprentice
	3) Directly recordable on a home video tape recorder. Longer 
	   animations can be spliced together when using an 8mm deck (or
	   really anything with a flying erase head.)
	4) Final cost is a lot lower than other systems. If you think you
	   will want lots of memory get an Amiga 2000 ($2K + slots) the
	   Amiga 500 is more expensive to expand, but costs less initially
	   ($1K + Expansion Chassis).
	5) It meets all your requirements + you can do ray traced animations
	   if you want to later.
	6) You can run another task to add sound effects.

>	What is thy wisdom, oh great and powerful net?

Just opinion. Like Lee said, "If you can find a better deal buy it!"


--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.