Combustion is still in development at the Montreal office, so Discreet say, but from what I hear the development has been taken over by the Flame/Inferno team. Fair enough, but they're already busy with Flame & Inferno, and they unfamiliar with the Combustion source and probably Windows too.
More likely, IMHO, is that Combustion gets a few minor updates, then is quietly phased out in favour of Toxic, which Discreet is hard at work on.
BTW, if I may ask, where do you work? How are you reacting to the Shake situation? What about Shake do you find is important to your work?
If you don't have an alpha channel on the foreground, it's even easier - you ignore the background & just use the FG instead;-)
If you want transparency in the FG, you need an alpha channel. If you don't have one, you make one by keying or rotoscoping, or some other technique. That's all there is to it.
If you're panning/scaling/rotating the foreground, it does take more than a paragraph of source to get good subpixel precision (i.e. antia-aliased). Maybe a page. It's still not hard.
... except that Discreet recently closed their Venice & Chicago development offices, which included the Combustion development office. Developers were offered a position in Montreal instead. AFAIK, only one accepted.
The non-Apple compositing market is far from empty, even when you consider only sub-$50k products. I can think of at least 4, including our own Digital Fusion.
Compositing itself is really simple. I could write a routine that layers one image over another with perfect quality in less space than this paragraph. QuickTime already does this - OS/X already does this. Apple did not buy these companies just to put their "compositing techonology" into QuickTime. (The whole product is of course different - there's far more to a compositor package than just the bit that layers the images. Believe me, I know. But QuickTime is not a whole compositing package, and never will be.)
Keying is another matter. It's quite difficult to do good keying, even when the background is a nice, uniform, unique shade of colour, which it never is. You have noise, transparency, fringing and spillover to deal with. That's why Ultimatte etc devote their whole companies to the subject. Buying keying technology makes more sense, but you wouldn't pay many millions of dollars to buy a company that just licenced a keyer, you'd licence the keyer yourself, or you'd buy the keying company.
But to separate talent from background when there's no blue or green screen behind them is much harder still. You can do a difference key, if the background is completely still, but the results usually need manual cleanup. Otherwise, you have to rotoscope each frame - "cut out" the talent from the background by hand. It takes ages, but it's often the only way. Shake, Chalice, Digital Fusion etc, are good for doing this, but they don't do it for you, not by a long shot.
The "digital lifestyle" you describe has no relationship to this article. Not unless you want Granny to paint her computer room blue & build one of these into her iPod-camera, or hire a team of high-speed rotoscopers.
Actually, when we were demonstrating our compositing software on the DEC stand at NAB '97, the large red sign they put over our heads did in fact read "COMPOSTING".
Combustion, while still officially a going concern, recently closed down their Venice office, which is where all the Combustion development was done. Guess how many developers kept their jobs & moved to sunny Montreal?:-)
Alias|Wavefront had their Composer product for Irix, but that also died a few years ago.
However, there's still Digital Fusion by eyeon Software, at least on Windows. A Linux render node is on the way.
Actually, the primary use of Linux by studios is for render farms (both 3D and 2D). It makes a lot of sense there. But very few studios in my experience use Linux as a primary compositing platform - they use Windows & Irix primarily, with some use of After Effects on the Apple side for motion graphics.
Clearly, Apple wants to expand this particular market.
"Separating people from their backgrounds" is called "keying". Shake has no keying technology of its own, they licenced Primatte from Photron. I don't recall what RAYZ/Chalice used, but certainly keying was not the focus of that product.
Only if they're prepared to spend $X million on a company that makes $20,000 products and sell them for only 1/10 of what they're worth, in order to attract a relatively small proportion of the market.
How would they hope to make enough profit on this arrangement to get their money back? There just aren't enough people doing compositing out there to do it for marketshare alone.
Now, if they were to buy up 3D companies, THAT market is a lot bigger...
Actually, there's Digital Fusion and Combustion, both high-end compositing products running on Windows. Both are priced between After Effects and Shake/Rayz.
Though, truth be told, Discreet did recently shut down their entire Combustion development office...
"It's also supposed to play any DVD, regardless of region."
Actually, that's incorrect. According to the table here, and similar info elsewhere, it will reset the region code that the DVD dongle writes to your Xbox, but you still require dongles from different regions to play import DVDs. Playback of any region DVDs may require modding the dongle, not just the Xbox itself.
However, the mod will of course allow you to play import games (great for me - if I move back to Australia, I'd prefer to take my Xbox & games with me, rather than selling the lot & buying it all over again in a new region).
Even more interesting, it will allow the Xbox to run unsigned code. This opens up the box completely to developers - for example, an ISO has already been released to switch the Xbox between PAL & NTSC (excellent:-) and the Enigmah-X group are rumoured to be working on a DivX player. Add an Ethernet-streaming MP3 player to that & you have a very versatile entertainment appliance. Not to mention that it'll give the Xbox Linux Project a huge boost, and may even make that old MAME port useful:-)
This could give Xbox sales a significant boost. I'm sure Microsoft would be delighted - if they were actually making money on each sale.
(OK, there are exceptions, but e.g. try playing a DVD & Counterstrike at the same time. This became important to me at about the time I gained a wife, and even more so with the kids. Besides, dedicated components are cheaper & often better at what they do - my stand-alone CD player is a 300 disc jukebox.)
ATI have promised a dongle that connects to the DVI port on the AIW 8500DV and gives you component video. This would be ideal for best-quality HTPC output.
However, it's not available yet. Promised for "2002". I'm still waiting...
Let me recommend the X10 MouseRemote (US$49) instead of the ATI remote.
I have both the ATI AIW 8500DV with its included RF Remote, and the MouseRemote, to control my PC in the next room. The MouseRemote I have almost no trouble with; the ATI remote frequently makes me want to hurl it across the room in frustration (I haven't yet). Let me list a few pros & cons:
X10 MouseRemote
- Pressure-sensitive directional pad (the ATI remote is 8-way fixed speed), which makes it much easier to click on small buttons. This feature alone makes it worth buying.
- Left & right mouse buttons placed on the back side of the remote, which makes them quite a bit easier to use.
- All buttons fully programmable via MaX10 software that can send macros, hotkeys, window messages, launch apps and a lot more (the ATI has a few "programmable" buttons that let you select a function from a fixed list - no arbitrary hotkeys, no app launching, no macros). This is the other deal-maker feature.
- More buttons for controlling a range of devices, programs etc.
- Doubles as a universal pre-programmed IR remote (ATI is RF only).
- Doubles as an X10 controller.
ATI RF Remote
- Comes free with the ATI 8500DV (US$49 separately).
- Already set up for controlling the ATI apps.
I bought the MouseRemote first, back when it was only US$25, which was a no-brainer. I got the 8500DV later (for its other features), but quickly discovered the MouseRemote was considerably more useful.
"War On Terror Not Over Yet", Emperor Declares
on
The Case for the Empire
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
CORUSCANT -- Presiding over a memorial service commemorating the victims of the attack on the Death Star, the Emperor declared that while recent victories over the Rebel Alliance were "encouraging, the War on Terror is
not over yet."
"We will continue to fight these terrorists, and the rogue governments who harbor them, until the universe is safe, once and for all, and the security of the Neo-New Cosmik Order ensured."
It was one year ago today that the Death Star, perhaps the greatest symbol of the Empire's might, was destroyed in an attack by fanatic Rebels, who used small, single-person crafts to infiltrate seemingly impenetrable defenses. Thousands of mourners were on hand to remember and pay tribute to the victims and their families.
"We lost our innocence that day," reflected one mourner. "I guess we thought we were immune from the kind of violence that happens in other galaxies. We were wrong." "I lost hundreds of buddies that day," said one teary-eyed
Stormtrooper. "Guys whose only crime was trying make the Universe a safer place."
Although the day was colored by sadness, the mourners found some relief in the news of a decisive victory over the Rebels. In an attack led by Darth Vader, Empire forces were able to rout hundreds of Rebels from a network of
caves underneath the surface of the planet Hoth. "We're not sure we got them all," says a Vader spokesman. "There are a lot of places to hide in those caves. But we've delivered a powerful blow to the terrorist's
infrastructure, that's for sure. Today, the Empire has struck back."
Initial reports are unclear as to the fate of Luke Skywalker, a hero among the Rebels, who is rumored to have delivered the fatal blow to the Death Star. Skywalker, a former desert-dweller from the planet Tattooine, became a part of the Rebellion after family members were killed. Skywalker was trained by a militant wing of the Rebels, known as "Jedi Knights." Fanatical
in their religious beliefs, the Jedi Knights claim to derive their power from the mystical "Force."
It's believed that Skywalker was specifically trained by infamous terrorist O bin Wankanobi. Wankanobi, occasionally called "Ben" and easily recognized by his bearded visage and long, flowing robes, achieved near-martyr status
among the Rebels after his death last year during a spy mission. His more fervent followers believe that Wan Kenobi lives on within them today, some even claiming to hear his voice during times of duress.
The attack on the Death Star came shortly after the Empire's destruction of Alderstaan, a planet whose government was known to harbor terrorists.
Responding to criticism over the total annihilation of the planet, Vader stated, "There is no middle ground in the War on Terror. Those who harbor terrorists are terrorists themselves. Alderaan was issued ample warning. The fight for continuing Freedom is often burdened by terrible cost."
The cost of this war can still be seen today in the continuing efforts to build a coalition government on Tattooine. Longstanding animosities among the planets various ethnic groups, including the Jawas, Tusken Raiders and
scattered human settlers, have been an impediment to the peace process. The Empire continues to maintain a small peace keeping force until a provisional government is finally in place.
Much of the difficulty in fighting the Rebel forces stems from their lack of a central organizing structure. "They don't play by the traditional rules of war," complained one spokesman. "They come in all shapes and sizes, united only by their single-minded desire to destroy the Empire before it destroys them."
The Emperor closed his comments today by stating that "the cowardly attack on the Death Star left a deep scar on the Empire. However, we will not stop fighting until every last evildoer has been brought to justice." He paused for several moments, wiping away a tear and then added with determination, "We will never forget."
"I wish we could all just get along," said one of the mourners. "But it's hard to offer an olive branch to a cult of religious fanatics whose main tool is violence and who insist on calling us the Dark Side."
(I posted this once before, but it seemed appropriate to post it again:-)
Nowhere does the DigiTimes article say Xbox 2 - that's just the Inquirer reading things into it.
What is far far far more likely is that this is just a new design for the current Xbox, using smaller motherboard, cheaper parts, trimmed-down design etc, as the rest of the DigiTimes article describes. No extra features. This is standard practice for console makers to reduce hardware costs, and more necessary than ever for MS after the price slash.
No, while it might be interesting to see a new and improved Xbox every year (could be done, so long as it was 100% backwards compatible), it'd take a major ongoing design effort, and would create confusion in the marketplace. Still, MS could likely pull it off more easily than any other console manufacturer, and many people do have a burning need to upgrade to the latest thing...
Well, most multi-monitor gfx vendors (including Matrox and nVidia) provide software to better manage your windows, dialogs etc - preventing them from popping up on the screen split, etc. I don't know if nVidia's nView (added to recent drivers) has all the features of Matrox's DualHead, but it seems to me that more space is still better:-)
Not sure which GF2MX you have, but the ones I've seen certainly supported up to 2048x1536 on the primary monitor at least. They have a 350 MHz DAC, IIRC. And different resolution screens should be possible too, at least under XP/Me.
I read somewhere (can't recall where now) that some programs (e.g. MSWord) crash in 10/10/10/2 mode. Does this imply that Windows will support this as a native desktop mode? That would be nice - our software would benefit from better colour representation.
Think I'll talk to my contact at Matrox to see if we can get ahold of one of these and support this mode.
Their edge-AA functionality would lend itself well to font rendering. It's debatable whether it'll help the speed or even quality of current Windows font rendering, but so long as you're not forced to use it, it can't hurt. The hardware gamma correction is good, and it does "de-gamma" the background before blending in the text (which should be done with linear data).
My question is, does it correctly support hinting? It's not much use unless it does.
The problem is that, while the two internal DACs are 400 MHz, and each are capable of 2048 x 1536 x 32 @ 85 Hz, the third external DAC is (in standard Matrox style) only 230 MHz.
Which means, if you want to run all monitors at the same res (required for "Surround Gaming", really), you're limited to the resolution of the external DAC, which probably struggles to do 1280 x 1024.
It's nothing to do with the driver, and you can always add a second PCI gfx card for more monitors to get all the area you need. Try 5 x nVidia Quadro4 400NVS cards, each with 4 monitor outputs capable of 2048 x 1536, for a total of 61 million pixels - 16 times what you have now:-)
Slashdot Mirror
More likely, IMHO, is that Combustion gets a few minor updates, then is quietly phased out in favour of Toxic, which Discreet is hard at work on.
BTW, if I may ask, where do you work? How are you reacting to the Shake situation? What about Shake do you find is important to your work?
So their web page design is copyrighted by Apple. That still doesn't mean Apple bought the whole company.
If you want transparency in the FG, you need an alpha channel. If you don't have one, you make one by keying or rotoscoping, or some other technique. That's all there is to it.
If you're panning/scaling/rotating the foreground, it does take more than a paragraph of source to get good subpixel precision (i.e. antia-aliased). Maybe a page. It's still not hard.
The non-Apple compositing market is far from empty, even when you consider only sub-$50k products. I can think of at least 4, including our own Digital Fusion.
Keying is another matter. It's quite difficult to do good keying, even when the background is a nice, uniform, unique shade of colour, which it never is. You have noise, transparency, fringing and spillover to deal with. That's why Ultimatte etc devote their whole companies to the subject. Buying keying technology makes more sense, but you wouldn't pay many millions of dollars to buy a company that just licenced a keyer, you'd licence the keyer yourself, or you'd buy the keying company.
But to separate talent from background when there's no blue or green screen behind them is much harder still. You can do a difference key, if the background is completely still, but the results usually need manual cleanup. Otherwise, you have to rotoscope each frame - "cut out" the talent from the background by hand. It takes ages, but it's often the only way. Shake, Chalice, Digital Fusion etc, are good for doing this, but they don't do it for you, not by a long shot.
The "digital lifestyle" you describe has no relationship to this article. Not unless you want Granny to paint her computer room blue & build one of these into her iPod-camera, or hire a team of high-speed rotoscopers.
Open Source's time to thoroughly test all ramifications of the above-mentioned patch, under all hardware configurations: 0 days.
Troll me if you must, but there's a reason companies don't release things the day after the patch is done. We did that - once.
They changed it before the show started :-)
Alias|Wavefront had their Composer product for Irix, but that also died a few years ago.
However, there's still Digital Fusion by eyeon Software, at least on Windows. A Linux render node is on the way.
Actually, the primary use of Linux by studios is for render farms (both 3D and 2D). It makes a lot of sense there. But very few studios in my experience use Linux as a primary compositing platform - they use Windows & Irix primarily, with some use of After Effects on the Apple side for motion graphics.
Clearly, Apple wants to expand this particular market.
"Separating people from their backgrounds" is called "keying". Shake has no keying technology of its own, they licenced Primatte from Photron. I don't recall what RAYZ/Chalice used, but certainly keying was not the focus of that product.
If they wanted keying technology, they'd buy Photron themselves, or Ultimatte or Zbig (too late) or maybe even a compositor with its own keyer.
How would they hope to make enough profit on this arrangement to get their money back? There just aren't enough people doing compositing out there to do it for marketshare alone.
Now, if they were to buy up 3D companies, THAT market is a lot bigger...
"Apple has acquired technologies from Silicon Grail"
They don't list the technologies, but they do include RAYZ and Chalice. They don't mention the Cineon technology.
Silicon Grail is now an empty company. What's Ray going to do next? And what does happen to the Cineon stuff?
Though, truth be told, Discreet did recently shut down their entire Combustion development office...
#include "ShamelessPlug.h"
More info on Digital Fusion here: www.eyeonline.com
"Insightful"? Hee hee :-)
Actually, that's incorrect. According to the table here, and similar info elsewhere, it will reset the region code that the DVD dongle writes to your Xbox, but you still require dongles from different regions to play import DVDs. Playback of any region DVDs may require modding the dongle, not just the Xbox itself.
However, the mod will of course allow you to play import games (great for me - if I move back to Australia, I'd prefer to take my Xbox & games with me, rather than selling the lot & buying it all over again in a new region).
Even more interesting, it will allow the Xbox to run unsigned code. This opens up the box completely to developers - for example, an ISO has already been released to switch the Xbox between PAL & NTSC (excellent :-) and the Enigmah-X group are rumoured to be working on a DivX player. Add an Ethernet-streaming MP3 player to that & you have a very versatile entertainment appliance. Not to mention that it'll give the Xbox Linux Project a huge boost, and may even make that old MAME port useful :-)
This could give Xbox sales a significant boost. I'm sure Microsoft would be delighted - if they were actually making money on each sale.
- Does everything.
Disdvantages of a PC-based entertainment system:
- Only does one thing at a time.
(OK, there are exceptions, but e.g. try playing a DVD & Counterstrike at the same time. This became important to me at about the time I gained a wife, and even more so with the kids. Besides, dedicated components are cheaper & often better at what they do - my stand-alone CD player is a 300 disc jukebox.)
However, it's not available yet. Promised for "2002". I'm still waiting...
I have both the ATI AIW 8500DV with its included RF Remote, and the MouseRemote, to control my PC in the next room. The MouseRemote I have almost no trouble with; the ATI remote frequently makes me want to hurl it across the room in frustration (I haven't yet). Let me list a few pros & cons:
X10 MouseRemote
- Pressure-sensitive directional pad (the ATI remote is 8-way fixed speed), which makes it much easier to click on small buttons. This feature alone makes it worth buying.
- Left & right mouse buttons placed on the back side of the remote, which makes them quite a bit easier to use.
- All buttons fully programmable via MaX10 software that can send macros, hotkeys, window messages, launch apps and a lot more (the ATI has a few "programmable" buttons that let you select a function from a fixed list - no arbitrary hotkeys, no app launching, no macros). This is the other deal-maker feature.
- More buttons for controlling a range of devices, programs etc.
- Doubles as a universal pre-programmed IR remote (ATI is RF only).
- Doubles as an X10 controller.
ATI RF Remote
- Comes free with the ATI 8500DV (US$49 separately).
- Already set up for controlling the ATI apps.
I bought the MouseRemote first, back when it was only US$25, which was a no-brainer. I got the 8500DV later (for its other features), but quickly discovered the MouseRemote was considerably more useful.
"We will continue to fight these terrorists, and the rogue governments who harbor them, until the universe is safe, once and for all, and the security of the Neo-New Cosmik Order ensured."
It was one year ago today that the Death Star, perhaps the greatest symbol of the Empire's might, was destroyed in an attack by fanatic Rebels, who used small, single-person crafts to infiltrate seemingly impenetrable defenses. Thousands of mourners were on hand to remember and pay tribute to the victims and their families.
"We lost our innocence that day," reflected one mourner. "I guess we thought we were immune from the kind of violence that happens in other galaxies. We were wrong." "I lost hundreds of buddies that day," said one teary-eyed Stormtrooper. "Guys whose only crime was trying make the Universe a safer place."
Although the day was colored by sadness, the mourners found some relief in the news of a decisive victory over the Rebels. In an attack led by Darth Vader, Empire forces were able to rout hundreds of Rebels from a network of caves underneath the surface of the planet Hoth. "We're not sure we got them all," says a Vader spokesman. "There are a lot of places to hide in those caves. But we've delivered a powerful blow to the terrorist's infrastructure, that's for sure. Today, the Empire has struck back."
Initial reports are unclear as to the fate of Luke Skywalker, a hero among the Rebels, who is rumored to have delivered the fatal blow to the Death Star. Skywalker, a former desert-dweller from the planet Tattooine, became a part of the Rebellion after family members were killed. Skywalker was trained by a militant wing of the Rebels, known as "Jedi Knights." Fanatical in their religious beliefs, the Jedi Knights claim to derive their power from the mystical "Force."
It's believed that Skywalker was specifically trained by infamous terrorist O bin Wankanobi. Wankanobi, occasionally called "Ben" and easily recognized by his bearded visage and long, flowing robes, achieved near-martyr status among the Rebels after his death last year during a spy mission. His more fervent followers believe that Wan Kenobi lives on within them today, some even claiming to hear his voice during times of duress.
The attack on the Death Star came shortly after the Empire's destruction of Alderstaan, a planet whose government was known to harbor terrorists. Responding to criticism over the total annihilation of the planet, Vader stated, "There is no middle ground in the War on Terror. Those who harbor terrorists are terrorists themselves. Alderaan was issued ample warning. The fight for continuing Freedom is often burdened by terrible cost."
The cost of this war can still be seen today in the continuing efforts to build a coalition government on Tattooine. Longstanding animosities among the planets various ethnic groups, including the Jawas, Tusken Raiders and scattered human settlers, have been an impediment to the peace process. The Empire continues to maintain a small peace keeping force until a provisional government is finally in place.
Much of the difficulty in fighting the Rebel forces stems from their lack of a central organizing structure. "They don't play by the traditional rules of war," complained one spokesman. "They come in all shapes and sizes, united only by their single-minded desire to destroy the Empire before it destroys them."
The Emperor closed his comments today by stating that "the cowardly attack on the Death Star left a deep scar on the Empire. However, we will not stop fighting until every last evildoer has been brought to justice." He paused for several moments, wiping away a tear and then added with determination, "We will never forget."
"I wish we could all just get along," said one of the mourners. "But it's hard to offer an olive branch to a cult of religious fanatics whose main tool is violence and who insist on calling us the Dark Side."
(I posted this once before, but it seemed appropriate to post it again :-)
What is far far far more likely is that this is just a new design for the current Xbox, using smaller motherboard, cheaper parts, trimmed-down design etc, as the rest of the DigiTimes article describes. No extra features. This is standard practice for console makers to reduce hardware costs, and more necessary than ever for MS after the price slash.
No, while it might be interesting to see a new and improved Xbox every year (could be done, so long as it was 100% backwards compatible), it'd take a major ongoing design effort, and would create confusion in the marketplace. Still, MS could likely pull it off more easily than any other console manufacturer, and many people do have a burning need to upgrade to the latest thing...
Not sure which GF2MX you have, but the ones I've seen certainly supported up to 2048x1536 on the primary monitor at least. They have a 350 MHz DAC, IIRC. And different resolution screens should be possible too, at least under XP/Me.
Think I'll talk to my contact at Matrox to see if we can get ahold of one of these and support this mode.
Their edge-AA functionality would lend itself well to font rendering. It's debatable whether it'll help the speed or even quality of current Windows font rendering, but so long as you're not forced to use it, it can't hurt. The hardware gamma correction is good, and it does "de-gamma" the background before blending in the text (which should be done with linear data).
My question is, does it correctly support hinting? It's not much use unless it does.
Which means, if you want to run all monitors at the same res (required for "Surround Gaming", really), you're limited to the resolution of the external DAC, which probably struggles to do 1280 x 1024.
It's nothing to do with the driver, and you can always add a second PCI gfx card for more monitors to get all the area you need. Try 5 x nVidia Quadro4 400NVS cards, each with 4 monitor outputs capable of 2048 x 1536, for a total of 61 million pixels - 16 times what you have now :-)
Everything on HOCP is available from Matrox directly here.