I remember that day I tried that floppy disk on my amiga500.
On the 3 1/2" was written with a pen Real3D.
At that time I was already working with "TurboSilver".
And later I worked a lot with character animation on "Imagine".
(ah that infamous keyframe editor).
That was the time when each module (modeling, freemodeling, animating, etc)
Was on a different disk that you had to switch from module to module.
And you had to save on another floppy.
The workflow was like that :
-Insert the modeling disk.
-Model
-Insert the save disk to save.
-Insert the animation disk.
-Insert the save disk to import your object.
-Work with your object.
-Save on that same disk.
-Imagine had 5 module so 5 disk + your 1 disk for saving your project.
Animating at that time wasn't like moving your object and keyframing.
You could never move your object directly.
You had to create a line path and assign the object to that path.
You had to go to another module to do the rotation.
But you were not able to move the object directly.
And remember after any modification you had to press a key to refresh the
screen because there was no realtime preview.
You had to generate (render) a wireframe preview to see your animation.
I also gave a try to "sculpt4D" and "Aladdin4D", it was interesting.
And many other I can't remember.
But the day I tried Real3D. It was a revelation.
It was almost realtime. It had material I had never seen (sort of a
displacement mapping). The preview and animation was almost realtime. And it
had only 2 module loading on the same disk. The main interface, and the
preview/render interface. The rendering was the fastest at that time. It was
easy to use.
And there was a broser for the object, a standard feature since then.
Today I still think that these software were still pretty much like today in
term of power. Working with them was simple.
I wonder what we could do today with the same software but on the 3ghz
machines with unlimited ram.
That was the time of fixed interface, you could not change the
userinterface. That made them much easier to learn.
I was lucky to have a amiga 1200 later with a hard drive.
With a floating point accelerator card. So instead of taking 30 minutes for
a reflective sphere in 640*480, it took only 15 minutes
A great frustration of my life can explain why I bought Realsoft4 :
I saw that great review of real3D 2.0 for amiga in a magazine.
Real3D 2 had all sorts of new innovation that make me salive.
Later I saw a boxed version of it at a retailer store.
I don't know how many times I watched that box, read it even if I didn't
understand a word of English at that time.
I read again and again that review in that French magazine.
Never got the money to buy it.
Even today I would like so much to try Real3D 2.0.
I have done many thing in my life but, never worked with Real3D 2.0.
Maybe one day...
--
We were very patient back then.
Ah things have change so fast.
I believe it was the good old time.
Everything was so new, we were pionner.
Note : I had a friend who was working for NewTek at that time.
He was 35 years old, I was 14 maybe. I assisted at a newtek conference for
the premier of the new VideoToaster with LightWave. It was the version with
the new mysterious new technology called bones (I almost died of excitement
that night). Although LightWave was a better software, I never liked it. I
still don't know why. Maybe because it was only sold with videotoaster with
it's 40 disk of installation and it was very pricy.
Thankyou real3D, impulse and the others for these great moments.
So Tell me your story.
I want to hear your stories about your first time with 3D.
What do you remember of that time?
Compared to that time do you think that today users are lazy and impatient?
Why do we always complain and are never satisfied with any software.
Are you like that?
Jean-Sebastien Perron
www.neuroworld.ca
