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From: ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Aegis Videoscape 3D
Message-ID: <3627@well.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 25-Jul-87 20:22:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: well.3627
Posted: Sat Jul 25 20:22:14 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 26-Jul-87 04:54:43 EDT
References: <344@io.UUCP>
Reply-To: ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab)
Distribution: world
Organization: Amiga.  The Genesis of a Whole New Breed of Computers.
Lines: 128
Keywords: Guru city

In article <344@io.UUCP> carlos (Carlos Smith) writes about VideoScape 3D:

	For someone who wasn't terribly impressed with the product, I've
been using it an AWFUL lot over the past 48 hours.  I can only assume my
review hasn't made it back east yet.  I think I can respond to Carlos's
difficulties.

>Anyway, I wanted to run it through its paces before buying it. I examined the
>manual, and then tried to load an object, its motion path, and the camera
>motion, and then preview the animation. After 3 crashes when the camera motion
>requester came up, we decided that the disk we were using must be bad (it was
>stamped "Demo"). So we opened a fresh box and tried that. We loaded a simple
>object and its motion path (paperairplane and flypaperairplane) that appeared
>on the objects disk provided, and what appeared to be the corresponding camera
>motions (viewpaperairplane). Then, begin animation, which, according to the
>manual should preview the animation a frame at a time.  [ ... ]

	This is an interesting little crock.  In order to see those
animations correctly, you have to load the "settings" file.  Click on Load
Settings at the bottom of the screen, and pick the paper airplane.  Then run
the animation.  You should see a wireframe plane fly around for a few
seconds (and when it's through, the whole schmeer gets FLUSHED!).

	Settings files contain all the information describing a full
animated scene.

>Needless to say, I didn't shell out the $200.  [ ... ]

	$200?  Yow! I thought it was $99.95.  Good thing my boss loaned my
his copy (no, I haven't copied it).

>My own conclusion is that this package, like too many Amiga
>programs, was never QA'ed by the publisher before shipping. Again, conceding
>the possibility that we did something wrong, it shouldn't just CRASH all the 
>time. Quality software doesn't do that.  [ ... ]

	Odd.  I've had minimal crashes.

>And again... It appears 
>to me that Aegis never had anyone without previous exposure to the program
>try it fresh out of the box with the provided documentation only.
>
	I did.  I had very little trouble, though I was flabberghasted at
how many shorcomings there were (see my review of a few days ago).  Remember
that, up until recently, only Allen Hastings ever used the program to any
real extent.

>So, I recommend that anyone interested in this package TRY before you BUY.
>
	I concur.  It's a very odd program, and is, in my estimation, For
Hackers Only With Powerful Text Editors And Experience In 3D Graphics and
Visualization.

>Also provided is a
>version of Rot that originally appeared on Fish disk 71. This seems to be the
>only visual graphic interface provided. It is a VERY simple 3D editor, and it
>is excellent for free on a Fish disk, but is not what you would expect as the
>only graphic editor in a $200 3D animation program.
>
	I agree.  I tried using it once to define a screwy object.  It won't
take fractional coordinates, and appears to have a limit of 6 points per
polygon.  I don't touch it anymore; I write quick C programs to crank out
unusual objects and connectivity lists.

>First, I should temper this report by stating that
>all of our attempts to use it were on one machine (A1000), with 2Meg expansion
>memory (Starboard). It is POSSIBLE there is something wrong with the machine,
>
	Based on your description, I would say that the hardware was flakey.
I've had minimal crashes with both systems I've used it on (A1000's with
2Meg ASDG racks (stop snickering, Perry :-) )).

--------

	For those of you who are going to brave the storm and get VS3D, may
I relate some of my experiences over the past two days?  Good...

	EGG is the provided tool I use the most (at least for the object
I've been trying to model).  You must remember to specify the Y coordinate
sequence from topmost to bottommost.  Otherwise your object will appear
inside-out.  EGG-provided cylinders are very inefficient; it's better to ask
for a surface of revolution, and cap the ends by hand with 'vi' (or EMACS,
or ED, or EDLIN, or DiskEd, or whatever you like to use).

	OCT has also seen a lot of use from me.  Something you should watch
out for:  If you apply a rotation to an object, all rotations seem to happen
"at once", not in a sequence.  That is, if you ask for both heading and
pitch rotation, the pitch rotation will not happen after the heading
rotation; it will happen "before" it.  It's kinda goofy.  Also, be careful
of negative scaling.  Oct doesn't check polygon consistency after the scale,
so if you scale negatively, your final object may look inside-out.

	ROT got used for a total of about five minutes.  The guy who wrote
this should have his goldfish confiscated.  The coordinate display string
gadgets show a fractional coordinate (i.e. "0.0", "4.0", etc.).  However, if
you try to enter a fractional coordinate, ROT throws away the fractional
part.  I tried entering 0.5.  ROT called it 0.0.  "Fine, I'll edit the
output file," I thought.  I then tried defining a polygon with eight sides.
ROT only took six, then silently ignored further attempts to add more sides.
I gave up after that.

	You *NEED* two megs.  At least.  The way I've been working, I "run"
VideoScape, and load EGG and OCT when I need them.  I run out of Perry's
Sooper Dooper VD0:, and keep progressive object files in it, updating to
floppy when they're done.  VS3D works nicely out of VD0:.  I also keep my C
compiler environment around (I boot with my Aztec development disk).  This
way, I can write quick C programs to generate coordinate and connectivity
lists, which can then be tried out very quickly by using VS3D as a
previewer.

	Interesting side note:  Steven Levy (I think) has been showing off a
new solid modeller from Byte-By-Byte called Sculpt-3D.  I've watched it
working up close.  This is *orders of magnitude* better than ROT.  And the
Sculpt-3D file format will be documented, so you'll be able to write a
program to move objects back and forth.

	Imagine:  Sculpt-3D for modelling, VideoScape for animation (at
least for the near term).  This is what multi-tasking is for!

	As I said in my last message, be prepared to put in a LOT of work if
you're going to do anything with VideoScape.  I have.  I hope I'm finished
by SIGGRAPH....

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
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")
"Work FOR?  I don't work FOR anybody!  I'm just having fun."  -- The Doctor