Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!pepper!cmcmanis
From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: 3d animation systems
Message-ID: <50957@sun.uucp>
Date: 26 Apr 88 22:18:50 GMT
References: <39845R38@PSUVM> <5785@well.UUCP> <1853@ut-emx.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis)
Distribution: na
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 24
Keywords: 3D Animation Length

In article <1853@ut-emx.UUCP> bph@emx.UUCP (hine  butler) writes:
>[look, ma, I'm flyin']
>
>I'm directing this at Leo, or anyone else that has had experience with
>more than one animation program.  Are all of them limited in the length
>of the sequence (in seconds) to the amount of memory you have?  

Well I haven't received VideoScape 2.0 yet so I can't say whether it
is or not, but version 1 is limitied to available memory for play back.
Note you can create an Anim file that is as big as your disk, it is
the playback that needs the ram. My experience (quite limited so far)
is that a 3 meg Amiga is looking at maybe 20 seconds of animation tops.
Fortunately you can cut your movie into several scenes. These you can
splice together on any VCR with a flying erase head (most camcorders are
equipped with such a head). These are *lots* cheaper than the single 
frame VCR's or writeable laser disks that go for 15,000 or so. Another
neat trick if you have a Genlock is 'matteing'. Basically you animate the
scene, then animate objects in that scene, then record the scene, rerecord
the scene thru the genlock while playing the objects. It helps get around
some of the limitations on the number of objects.

--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.