On Wednesday, March 18, 1992, Mike Halvorson of Impulse was a guest
at the online Chat on Portal, an online telecommunications service.
Here is a transcript of the questions asked and Mike's answers.
I have edited the text to remove the cruft like "Ok, your turn to ask"
and just leave the questions and answers themselves.
There were about 40 people participating.
Hope this is of interest...
-Steve
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Steve Worley spworley@athena.mit.edu
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Questions alternate with answers.... topics seperated by "---"
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The firecracker is a good display medium, but it could be better. Is a
deinterlaced firecracker (for people who don't need NTSC) or any other
display hardware currently in the works? Also, how about a Zorro III
firecracker mapped into 32 bit memory space with no wait states, or
some such, to make an excellent Multimedia platform?
Yep we already have a 31KHZ FC24 it is to spendy right now, 32 bit is
in the future but we are looking into it. we realize that there are
those who want the fc24 for print not video, so we are working on the
res issuea as well as the ise of Postscript
----
Do you currently have plans for an upgraded Firecracker? Something
with higher resolutions, and perhaps an onboard processor? Do you need
beta testers for a product like that? :-) I'm less concerned with
lotso colors and more with higher resolutions. Shoot, Steve sort of
toook my question. :-) Guess the omnboard processor is the thing.
Co-Processor,,,, Yes Intel I860
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Mike, I was wondering when the Impulse BBS mentioned in the
letter might come out. And what about new imagine Effects..
We have just installed our Network, I would hope by early summer
---
Might we in the future see real altitude mapping?
Dave if you have a different method than we use please let us know..
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When is the IBM version of Imagine coming out, and will the objects be
compatible with the Amiga version?
Imagine 3.0 for the PC and Amiga will probably ship late summer, and
yes the files will all be compatiable...
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Being from out in Cottage Grove, I am happy to see a great company
like Impulse here. Just generally, I am interested in how Impulse got
started...how many people at the start and now...where you see
yourself in 5 years... and I speak for all of us in saying thanks for
spending your time with us here tonite.
Wow, all that and a bag of chips, Thansk for having me here. We got
started... when like many others we realized animation was possible on
a computer.. that did not cost 40K, there are six of us at Impulse and
I have no idea where we will be infive years much less 5
weeks
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There are some things about Imagine that people find frustrating -
like it asking if you want to leave the detail editor whether there
are any unsaved changes or not. Is most of the work on Imagine going
into the renderer and effects, or is the interface going to get an
overhaul of sorts someday?
Each person who uses software finds things that they don't like, we
try and please as many people as we can. If you find something that
is just terrible, document it... send it to us in writing and we will
fix it. The software is in a continual state od change... We hope to
make it easier and faster and better and everthing that you want, and
all that for 3bucks and do it in 5 days....we appreciate crtical
review of what we do othewise we don't know. what you want, so please
let us know what you want and we will do our best to respond....
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How much do you think the Rendering Engine will cost?
You mean the rendering engine that was hinted at in the newsletter?
Nothing to say at this time, except we are working on making it
affordable...
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Imagine's Cycle editor is one of it's most powerful features... And I
love it dearly. However, as I'm sure you know, we get those annoying
edges when things bend making "smooth" curves that bend difficult. My
question: Will there be any provision for spline objects in future
versions of Imagine?
Splines as you might know them are very memory expensive, we are
working on a form of spline that will make what you want a snap, so
the answer is YES
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What Support will IMAGINE have for the SAGE/ or RESOLVER.. Also, will
IBM version support i860 (directly)?
When we see the products that have the Sage or Resolver features we
will be in a position to tell you the real stuff, right now I have not
seen these products and I hate like hell to make comment on something
that is not a real product. This is not to say that these guys from
DMI or PPI are fooling around but until we see the real thing any
comment I could make is just a bunch of bull hockey...
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I've read that ScapeMaker creates elevation based on RGB values of an
IFF pic... Also why can't the color requesters in Imagine be the same
ie check boxes an sliders?
I DON'T UNDERSTAND Dave can you remake your point?
The oject attributes requester has three sliders and several check
boxes to apply color to.... but texture color requesters are
different. Why?
We added the color boxes in the Textures area at the last minute
because Lou Markoya wanted us to. In the next version we intend to
have more continuity between such screens, Your input is noted
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Mike-any chance of an external FC24 for us 500 owners in the future?
Sorry but No, get a Bodega Bay it works fine
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Mike can you give a quick idea of what is added in Imagine 3.0?
NOPE !
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are you familiar with Metabols.. and could you discuss the object
recognition feature hinted at in the manual?
These are features that people want, we are working on these kinds of
things for the future, but I don't think its fair ro you to say that
we aregoing to release them at any certain time before we really have
them nailed down.. in truth we wnat to make the software easier to use
and make it more powerfull as well, we have to make the software
better be complexity. and the things that you suggest are very
complex indeed...ore we add on more weill get to them as we move
forward promise..
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Not to hurt your feelings Mike, but since Imagine has such steep
learning curve It would be nice to have a decent manual, A program is
worth the $100 upgrade only if one can operate the previous version.
Let Worley write the next one!
Thanks for your comment, However I am not sure that Mr. Worley could
do Imagine justise either, he writes great tutorials, but there is
more to the software than just a few things to do, there are too many
options for many people, Mind you that Steve has done a great job with
his recent book, we are still searching for someone who can do the
best job possible, and My feelings arent hurt, I just hope that we can
get the software to the state where we dontneed a manual, thats a
better idea, no matter what it costs.
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Are you aware that the cylindrical map doesn't repeate, as per my
letter? I got no written response to my written doc with the disk
update and the new version DID NOT fix the problem.
No Rick I was not, but I will look into it
BTW, in the interim until the manual free program...Steve's book is an
order of magnitude better than the new manual.
I dont know Rick.
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More of a comment/request than a question. I think the algorithmic
textures (ie CHECKS, etc) are great feature, and I would love to see
more of them. Also, how about releasing the format these are in so
users can write their own (and release them for other users)?
Great idea Steve but they are very hard to do and we arent prepared to
support alot of questions on how to do them, maybe in the future we
can open them up with AREXX and you guys can go crazy... HINT HINT ON
3.)
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Well, we've all seen morphing and particle systems and true
raytracing and neat stuff like that... So what's the next "NEATO"
computer effect that you're working on?
SOUND AND MUSIC TRACKING AND SYNCING
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two quick requests for you mike, which I hope you'll consider for the
next imagine.... (a) make projects more "portable" somehow.... that
is, lemme copy a project to another disk or urpload it... so the othe
guy who gets it can use it as-is, if possible and... (b) please
consider making your file requester larger.
OK just for you HarV
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Mike, the hot topic these days is morphing (a la "T2"). Do you see
Imagine growing in this area?... What about in the "character
animation system"? ... Will the two work togeather?
Yes Lee Morphing will get better and the Cycle Editor will be much
imporved in the future
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How has the response been to the Imagine School mentioned in last
NL...Will there be any?
we have had a bout 30 requestes and we are working on putting it
together
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Harv asked about making project portable, which is my main concern but
will you also be able to read DEM files in the future
OK someone tell me again what a DEM file is
Digital Elevation Model.
I think not, but you might look for a more cohesive interface between
Vista Pro and Imagine
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Mike - Are there any plans to implement a general morph algorithm
within Imagine, or should I continue working on my own in TTDDDLIB? By
"general morph", I mean one that does not rely on the geometry *or*
topology of the two objects. That is, the objects may have totally
different numbers of points, edges, and faces with different colors,
reflectivity, filter, etc.
We only have a problem with objects with unlike point counts, The
other stuff morphs fine. Yes we are going to fix the Morph problem as
well
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Could you discuss the "advanced users guide" and how it will differ
from the current and Steve's manual?
A more advanced tutorial document that will give detailed instructions
on building objects and lighting as well as camera use, it will be
very specific not general
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Is there a chance of getting a setting between Scanline and Trace with
just shadows but not reflection or refraction? I'd put all this into a
letter like you said, but I guess you don't get them.
The next version will have a feature just like you have suggested.
And more.
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Mike, two short ones - 1. Is techincal info available on the format
of the Action editor save file? 2. Any chance of a Pause/Resume
command fo the renderer?
NO YES
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I loc-ve the(love )the new fog objects..in the future can they accept
and cast shadows..
Fog objects are so wierd to do that I doubt it, but we have talked
about this as in TODAY when I wanted them to do just that, I dont
think the next version will address
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Mike-one small request-I use Camera Retrack quite a bit-is it
possible instead of typing the tracked object in each time to have the
previous retrack already in the requestor? It would save some time
Great Idea we will do it, why didn't I think of that, Oh well
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Is there any plans to add Vista landscape animations as backgrounds
in Imagine animations? EX. A scrolling mountain seen (VP generated)
with a Airplane (imagine generated).
You can do that now with vist pro output I just finished a 12000
frame anim uising VP2.0 --
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Are there any plans for an alpha channel in the FC?
Not in the present version, maybe in the future . Stay Tuned GA
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