Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!tektronix!reed!percival!baer
From: baer@percival.UUCP (Ken Baer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: 3d animation systems
Message-ID: <1226@percival.UUCP>
Date: 27 Apr 88 17:50:02 GMT
References: <39845R38@PSUVM> <5785@well.UUCP>
Reply-To: baer@percival.UUCP (Ken Baer)
Organization: Funkytown Software (A Division of Hash Enterprises)
Lines: 73
Summary: Check out Animation:Apprentice

>In article <39845R38@PSUVM> R38@PSUVM.BITNET (aka Marc Rifkin) writes:
>>I am looking to do some serious 3d animations- not simple looping demos,
>>but something with a plot.  [ ... ]
>>However, I am not sure which system is the most
>>suitable- I need a system with alot of control over objects and camera. [ ... ]
>>Can someone with the knowledge help me make the decision?

I suggest you take a good look at some of the products from Hash Enterprises,
and this isn't just because I work there :-).  ALL of our products are
for animation.  And the overriding concern is to help the animator tell his
(or her) story.  We have a number of products that are already released
and many more on the way.  To give you a better idea, here's a quick
summary of what's available:

Animation:Apprentice - The flagship product.  Apprentice is a Full 3-D
character animation package, with shading and texture mapping.  The entire
package is designed around the concept of designing a character and making
actions for that character, putting a number of characters on a stage,
and moving your camera around while your characters are doing their thing
on stage.  Version 3.0 has just been released, and it adds many features
not mentioned in recently published reviews.  There is a LOT to this program,
which I can't touch on her

Animation:Stand - Take any IFF picture, and zoom in and pan across it.  Or
stretch, squeeze, and distort it, and save it all in an animation.  If you
need a panning background, this is the one.

Animation:Effects - Take an IFF brush and spin and flip it, with specular
reflection, and shading.  This one's for Video types, great for titling.

Animation:Flipper - take a bunch of IFF pictures and squeeze them down into
an anim file.

Animation:Multiplane - This one is very close to release (all of the above
are already out).  This one is VERY exciting.  This program acts as a 
Digital Compositer.  Take an animation, and superimpose another one on top.
Or fade an animated object into another animation.  Create transluscent
effects.  strober an object, or create the illustion of motion blur.  This
has so many features, I can't begin to touch on them, and there are many
I still don't even know about.

Animation:Editor - This is the one I'm working on.  It will allow you to
convert animation files from one format to another.  And it will allow you
to take animations and pieces of animations in a variety of formats and
combine them into one animation.  With this product, you can use products
from a number of different companies to make one animation.

All of the major 3D animation packages have their strengths.  Videoscape
is good for polygonal objects, and moving star fields.  Sculpt/Animate3D
is very good at spectacular ray-traced animations.  Animation:Apprentice
is the best for "organic", non-polygonalized character and object animations.
John Foust will have an Apprentice module for his Interchange package
in the very new future.  This, in combination with Animation:Editor, will
allow you to use virtually ALL animation packages for the Amiga in
conjunction to produce the best possible animations.  If you are serious
about animation on the Amiga, don't settle for just one package to do 
everything.  Expect to get a number of packages for specific elements of
you animation (this is analogous to buying a number of paint programs and
image processors to make IFF stills).

If you have any questions about Hash products, or just want to chat with
our friendly Customer Support guy, our number is (206) 693-7443.

ps - Hey Leo, we'd really like to see you play with Apprentice and some
of our other stuff.  I hope you'll at least consider it.  Consider this
a challenge :-).  Anyway, I may be modifying some of your animations when I'm
Beta-testing Multiplane.  Keep the good stuff coming.

-- 
	-Ken Baer.  					 
   //   Hash Enterprises: When the Going gets Weird, the Weird go Professional
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