A different way to make shows: Improvements in 3D rendering

[Pangolin]

Had a look at the 4D blue program and it's very cool. It has a similar ease-of-use and look as 3d studio max (although slower)

If memory serves, the version found on the web site is a "debug build" -- with no optimizations enabled. I am sure you know that these are much slower than "release" build. But if it was your intention to imply that our program must be slow, I will show it at the next PL gathering and people can judge for themselves.

Regarding "ease of use", as far as I can tell most people find 3D Studio MAX to be not very easy to use... Also, the version of 4D Blue you see on the web site is really old, and much more based on the ideas of MAYA (most people claim to be the hardest to use of them all).

The latest version is far different from what you see in the earlier versions. We believe the latest version to be one of the easiest -- perhaps easier than Cinema 4D, which is a program most people agree is easy to use.

but he was releasing 'alpha' versions for free! With his current ties, however I wonder if there will be any further development on that program that will be posted on his site.

In fact our recent discussion veered in just that very direction. It could very well be that all of the funding and technology development that we have put into this software winds up being in the hands of the general 3D graphics population -- FOR FREE!! Now would that make you happy Dr. Lava?

While we're talking about free 3D software packages, Blender certainly deserves a mention as a fully featured 3D enviroment ripe for use as a laser show creation tool (TL is working on a plugin for producing ILDA), although blender has not nearly as intuitive a user interface, in fact it was downright frustrating to try to dive into and I usually go easy on free software.

Before getting into 4D Blue we looked very briefly at Blender. We have a lot of users, so we have an idea of what ordinary users can do and stand for in terms of usability. In my opinion, Blender is not a program for ordinary users...

For the record, legal, original, second-hand versions of 3D Studio Max, where the original owner has completely removed the software from their computers, come up for sale occasionally for $100-$300. These older versions are perfectly suited and capable for lasershow use as the advanced raytracing renderers and many of the new features of the latest versions are not needed.

I thank you for pointing this out, and I am sure others will thank you as well. However, I am not familiar enough with the license agreement of the software providers to know if this is really "legal" or not. Pangolin's license agreement is easily transferrable. We made it that way purposely. I am not so sure about the license agreement of other software. My impression is that it is not all that flexible, but I could be wrong.

You could also say that once a creative individual gathers and learns the tools well enough to produce great shows, they typically then want to sell them (becoming a professional) or do an equal trade. It's a matter of perspective.

Well I was only giving my own observation. Pangolin has been in the business for 23 years, and we have seen (and also not seen) a lot.

This forum is full of opinions -- I have posted my own. People can agree or disagree. People are certainly welcome to their own opinion. But as for me, I tend to respect the opinion of an "old dude" whenever I have a chance to listen...

History will certainly prove who's opinions were the most valuable...

From my side it looks like Bill actualy worries about a small amateur side project.

I don't worry about anything Dr. Laser .

I only got involved because Dr. Lava posted that he believed he had created something that was a first for laser. He also sent me a private message, with overtures of wanting to sell it to me . Since he apparently was not aware of our developments (and possibly others as well) I posted some information to clarify that it wasn't the first, and in fact, had been around for a while. After that, the forum thread took on a life of it's own, including some "Format 3" BS...

By the way, I don't see you criticizing James for hi-jacking this thread and taking it off message... Also, by the way I find a great hypocrisy here on the part of some people. Dr. Lava posted something interesting to the forum and You and James found it to ba amazing ... until you found out that we had in fact already had it and had done it years ago. If you want to celebrate something exciting for laser display, why does it matter exactly who created it?

(and if you think this is cool, wait 'til you see what else we have up our sleeves )


Best regards,

William Benner

[drlava]

First off, I'm very glad we got some more meat on this thread after the thrashing it received earlier, thanks for that and a little bit of background of some of your software endeavors.

If memory serves, the version found on the web site is a "debug build" -- with no optimizations enabled. I am sure you know that these are much slower than "release" build. But if it was your intention to imply that our program must be slow, I will show it at the next PL gathering and people can judge for themselves.

That is not what I'm implying in fact it's likely that's one of the things that was improved with Pango's help. I was pointing that out because it makes the free version on the site, as it stands, less useful.

I found 3D studio relatively easy to pick up and use, it has a very orderly way about it, especially the early versions with less features to lose yourself in Anyone who can learn photoshop and its layers and modification stack and who can understand keyframes can pick up 3D studio in a basic sort of way.

In fact our recent discussion vered in just that very direction. It could very well be that all of the funding and technology development that we have put into this software winds up being in the hands of the general 3D graphics population -- FOR FREE!! Now would that make you happy Dr. Lava?

That, my friend, would be truly unique, amazing and wonderful

I thank you for pointing this out, and I am sure others will thank you as well. However, I am not familiar enough with the license agreement of the software providers to know if this is really "legal" or not. Pangolin's license agreement is easily transferrable. We made it that way purposely. I am not so sure about the license agreement of other software. My impression is that it is not all that flexible, but I could be wrong.

This is another area of interest of mine, so let me point to this ruling:
http://ipcenter.bna.com/pic2/ip.nsf/...D?OpenDocument
So, despitewhat the eula says, it's still legal under the first sale doctrine. This is an important precedent. Until 'cloud computing' apps take over (hopefully they won't), we will still have the freedom to use, sell, or dispose of old but useful software. In general the software industry would prefer that one thinks of old software as useless, but this is far from true. You can see the trend as lately software is versioned according to year instead of significance of updates, to bring to mind more often it's age.

Well I was only giving my own observation. Pangolin has been in the business for 23 years, and we have seen (and also not seen) a lot.

This forum is full of opinions -- I have posted my own. People can agree or disagree. People are certainly welcome to their own opinion. But as for me, I tend to respect the opinion of an "old dude" whenever I have a chance to listen...

History will certainly prove who's opinions were the most valuable...

That's right, and this discussion has been great to flesh these concepts out into writing and even if some of us disagree on some things, the respect is still there.

[Pangolin]

Only one brief comment:

That, my friend, would be truly unique, amazing and wonderful

I am sure many on this forum will tell you, that's how (and why) we do things at Pangolin . (I mean funding projects for the benefit of the masses...)

Best regards,

William Benner

[carmangary]

Funding projects for the benefit of the masses == Getting an intern to work for room an board? LOL.

[Stuka]

Funding projects for the benefit of the masses == Getting an intern to work for room an board? LOL.

If you read Bill's post concerning that, you'll see that the person who did the internship apprached Pangolin, not vice-versa! On a similar note, we were fortunate to meet and spend time with Francesco, an intern working with Pangolin from the Netherlands, at this summer's SELEM. Though the details of a Pangolin internship weren't discussed, it appeared that Francesco appeared to be QUITE pleased with his internship arrangement!

I'm sure there are exceptions, but most of the interns I've met over the years were jumping at the opportunity to get the experience and develop a skill set they could use later in their careers, knowing that the paycheck payoff would come later.

[Zoof]

masses == Getting

LOL, spending too much time in C, C++ or C# ??

[Pangolin]

Funding projects for the benefit of the masses == Getting an intern to work for room an board? LOL.

No, funding the development of an advanced, 3D modeling, animation and rendering package is. I would GUARANTEE that this has cost more money than most of the folks here on PL make over the course of several years!!

And our interns are actually paid an hourly wage in addition to us paying essentially their whole way. And did anyone mention that we are located near downtown Disney? Hayden often muses that he wishes he was an intern...

[James Lehman]

Every time I try to get some real, straight, technically accurate discussion going about the ILDA file format, it turns into the well supported popular opinion that I am mentally ill and Bill Benner is a marvelous, philanthropic hero to the entire laser community.

People seem aghast that I have such audacity to question the pure and perfect wisdom of ILDA.

Who the hell am I anyway?

I'm tired of it.

I imagine that is exactly the desired effect.

It works!

The only direct conversation of any real value that I have ever had about the subject has been with Patrick Murphy. I know he gets it. Even though, he doesn't seem to want to take any action as the director of ILDA because he is willing to leave all that to the tech committee. He is still able to stay on the subject and offer completely meaningful observations.

With the rest of you, when I press the issue, in general, I get a bunch of nonsense. When I ask for specifics, I get told that I'm not worth the time it takes to explain it.

How much time has it taken to put me off for all of these years?

James.

[drlava]

James, we've talked about these formats and a lot of your technical reasoning for format 3 makes sense. Please start another thread, beginning with a laid out technical argument, try to put as little emotion into it as possible and peolpe can resond from there... this isn't the thread for it.

[soforene]

Or alternatively.......
"James, please start another thread.
On another forum.
No one gives a shit anymore and you have used up all remaining goodwill on this forum and your position has become untenable".

Just a thought.