Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!esosun!net1!sdcsvax!hp-sdd!nick From: nick@hp-sdd.HP.COM (Nick Flor) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Amiga news (genlock & lots more, *long* but juicy) Message-ID: <627@hp-sdd.HP.COM> Date: Thu, 11-Dec-86 11:43:43 EST Article-I.D.: hp-sdd.627 Posted: Thu Dec 11 11:43:43 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 15-Dec-86 02:45:01 EST References: <1272@zen.BERKELEY.EDU> Reply-To: nick@hp-sdd.UUCP (Nick Flor) Organization: Hewlett Packard, San Diego Lines: 34 In article <1272@zen.BERKELEY.EDU> hatcher@ingres.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Doug Merritt) writes: > >They also showed a *** 3-D ray-traced smooth-motion animation *** showing >a clown juggling 3 reflecting balls!!!!!! Extraordinary. The absolute best >by 2 orders of magnitude that anyone has yet seen on an Amiga. This >was done by one Eric Graham, and Commodore/Amiga apparently is *very* >interested in his work. This animation is a loop of 24 frames running >continuously, on a 512K machine with no disk accesses after the program >starts up and no other upgrade hardware. The frames were precomputed >but I don't know how he fit them all in 512K. There's that CCC >compression technique...hmmm...This demo will be available as a FAUG >public domain diskette next month. > But, did he cheat? Can you see the clown reflected in the balls? Was the clown rendered also? A lot of people don't seem to understand ray-tracing. (This is why you are so amazed that he could do this without any disk accesses, and smoothly at that) You can display just the rectangles that enclose the 3 spheres. You needn't display all n raster bit-planes. In my opinion, this is a simple demo (reflecting spheres are sooooo basic). (Sorry to sound so sarcastic, but after implementing my ray-tracer, I found that ray-tracing wasn't as big a deal as people on the net were making it out to be. Try implementing one. Have fun with the rounding errors though...) Nick -- + Disclaimer: The above opinions are my own, not necessarily my employers. / Nick V. Flor / ..hplabs!hp-sdd!nick / Hewlett Packard, San Diego Division * "What's going down in this world, you got no idea. Believe me." - The Comedian