Conference hydra::amiga_v1

You're right, there are a lot of design problems and bugs with 
the Aegis products.  The user interface for Images is not very 
good.  Deluxe Paint easily beats it for ease of use, although 
Images offers some additional functions.  I find that I use
both--using Images to do things like shaded fills and
antialiasing, and Deluxe Paint for everything else.  

The problem mentioned with fills seems to occur only when I try
to fill a very large area, usually when doing it with a pattern
fill.  You should be able to 'undo' a bad fill.  One nice feature
of DPaint is that you can stop a bad fill by hitting the space
bar. 

You can add the Images airbrush function to your list of 
complaints too.  With it, you can control the size of the output 
and the rate of spray--BUT, there is a big delay between mouse 
movements and what is happening on the screen, making this 
function almost useless.

Animator tips:  When clearing memory by clicking on New Script, 
always do this twice.  It seems that clearing it once does not 
always completely clear it.  Also, I've noticed that when 
starting a new script, often the tween timings from the old one 
are carried over. 

Always be careful when resizing polygons.  The program will 
ALWAYS crash if you increase a polygon by over 10X.  Always save 
your script before you try this.  Moving windows off the top of 
the screen usually causes crashes too.  I read a note in Byte by 
the designer of Animator that said that he is aware of the 
problem and is working on correcting it.  I find it a little hard 
to believe that they would have released the program with such an 
obvious bug.

The more 'tweens' you use to move an object, the better.  This 
helps create better movement of shapes.

Just like Images, Animator has a user interface that needs more 
work.  The quick menus are useless (I can never remember what all 
of the icons mean--there are too many, and their designs are not 
always clear) and the menu is always in the way.  The storyboard
functions are far to limited to be useful. 

Given all the complaints, (and I could add a few more) putting 
these Aegis products in the perspective of what else is 
available, they aren't bad.  Buggy as they are, there are not a 
lot of products available (at this time) that offer these 
capabilities for the price.  I was showing my system to a group 
of people who do video animation work on a Genigraphics system.  
When they saw the 'tweener' in action, I thought they were going 
to pass out.  The abiltiy to create an animation sequence, in 
perspective, in real time, with instantaneous playback, is 
something quite new.  I hope Aegis can finish the job they 
started--before Electronic Arts does it for them.

EA has several enhancements coming for DPaint.  Soon, I hope.

Randy

    I've confirmed the fact that saving the pallette doesn't save patterns
    defined as part of the pallette.  The only way to save patterns
    is to fill an area of a picture with them (I made a "picture" that
    consists only of a 16 rectangle grid for this purpose) and then
    save the picture.  Then you can open the picture, and "get" the
    patterns into the pallette.  This is a tedious process; it requires
    16 fills to save the patterns, and 16 gets to restore them.
    
    Another disappointment with Images patterns is they're of fixed
    size/repetition spacing, and the relative placement is fixed (i.e.,
    you can't fill two adjacent areas with the same pattern offset by
    a little.
    
    The manual claims you can change the number of sides to the polygon
    used to draw circles (they're not really circles, they're 16 sided
    polygons), but I can't find how to do this anywhere.
    
    Is there any way in Animator to animate rotation about a fixed point?
    Or do the same while translating? (E.g., to simulate the rotation
    of a wheel across a plane.)
    
    Yes, I had forgotten to mention the airbrush's "latency", which
    I discovered right away.  Very annoying.
    
    I have been able to undo bad fills, it's just the wait and the need
    to repair such things that grates.  The first time this happened
    Images went away so long that I rebooted.  I didn't discover it
    would come back if you waited long enough until I went to the bathroom
    after it "went away" and when I cam back it was back too!
    
    What's Aegis' policy about updates and bug fixes?
    
    len.
    

I was able to create a wheel-like disk that rolls along a plane 
and turns like a rolling coin around a stationary box.  First 
create the wheel.  I used a filled circle with a filled triangle 
laid on top.  Next Tween.  Select the two polygons.  Rotate both 
clockwise 1/2 turn in plane.  Then move both polygons to right.  
Next Tween.

Replay Tween:  you should have a wheel that rolls from left to 
right.

Now to make it turn a corner:

Start where you left off.  Again, rotate both polygons clockwise, 
1/4 turn.  Move both to the right, about half the distance of the 
last move.  Next Tween.  Rotate both polygons counter-clockwise 
1/4 turn.  Move them both to the left the same distance as the 
last move.  Next Tween.  Rotate both polygons counter-clockwise 
1/2 turn.  Move them both to the left to the starting position.  
Next Tween.

Now go back to "start where you left off"  Using Rotate on Y axis
(the vertical one) you can manipulate each existing tween to make
the wheel appear to turn the corner by squeezing it to a vertical
line and then pulling it back out.  This will take a lot of
practice. This should be used on the tweens where you make the
1/4 rotations. 

With luck, this actually works.  As always, there are problems 
maintaining the original shape of the wheel.  Using morph to make 
quick fixes to the wheel seems to make things worse in later 
tweens.  By using a lot of tweens, and several small steps, you 
can probably create a pretty good rolling coin effect (you know 
the kind that rolls around in circles, finally falling flat on 
the table.

Let me know how it turns out.

Randy

    Right.  I would have used the same approach, but I was looking for
    something a little more usable.  E.g., some way to constrain two
    circles to have the same center (a la "share" in Images).  Some
    way to guarantee that the circle rolled the proper circumference's
    worth.  Some way to guarantee that successive tweens used the
    same rotational centers.  Etc.  This is supposed to be an ANIMATOR,
    not a glorified Etch-a-Sketch.  Real circles, not lopsided 16-sided
    polygons.  Could you make the wheels on the Porsches in the Images
    examples turn?
    
    len.
    

    Tired of having your Animator bomb?
    
    I called Aegis Development to find out what the update policy is.
    They said to send in a copy of the registration card with the master
    disk.  They will send you an updated copy.
    
    Aegis Images is also available in Med-Res.  (The operator called
    it Hi-Res, so I'm not sure which it is...AmigaWorld refered to Med-Res,
    so that is probably what she meant)  Send $10.00 to Aegis, with
    a copy of your registration card.  The will send you the new version.
    She said it might take almost a month because they use 'surface'
    mail.
    
    I'm surprised that they haven't notified users about these policies.
    She said that there was an order card in newer boxes of Images that
    explained the 'offer' for the new version.
    
    I was interested to read the review of Images/Animator in the new
    AmigaWorld.  They compared them to DeluxePaint.  The review, as are
    most of the reviews in AmigaWorld, really glossed over the shortcomings
    of the products.  It made no mention of some of the most obvious
    drawbacks...as stated in this file.  It did point out this tip though:
    
    If you are having problems with smooth cycling of colors in Aegis
    Images, select a drawing tool (like rectangle) other than freehand 
    or single line. For some unknown reason, this will fix the problem.
                   
    I understand that at Comdex, EA and Aegis were both distributing
    flyers that proved that their paint software was better than the
    other guy's.  I still feel that DPaint is better, even with the
    added capabilities of Images.
    
    The bottom line:  I guess that one has to have BOTH of them, and
    transfer images back and forth between them to get the most out
    of them.
    

    What do you do if you've already sent in your registration card?
    
    len.
    

    I'm not sure.  She was asking for a copy of the stub that you tear
    off when you send in the card.  I think it has some kind of serial
    number on it.  As I remember, she said that you could just send
    a letter explaining what you want, but the registration number is
    important.
    
    Of course, you could call them and complain to them for not notifying
    you about update procedures or options.
    
    Randy