1 - Commodore Is Awesome

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A NDREW POWELLill
'My biggest current project is a fully animated feature called
'Magic'. This film will be a comedy medieval fantasy, with
overtones of some of my favourite authors, like Terry
Pratchett, JRR Tolkien, and Monty Python. The story is mostly
serious, but also has scenes where we just HAD to have a little
fun.
*Co-author of the script, and personal friend of mine, Bob
Milne, came up with a scene where the main characters
encounter a troop of Vikings on a portage.
What I'd REALLY like to do is get Terry Pratchett's perrnission
to work on a cartoon version of his Disc World novels.
That would really sell!'
Amiga hardware and software used: use Disney
Animation Studio for Pencil Test animation, Deluxe Paint 5,
Brilliance 2.0, Photogenics 1.25 NTSC for clean-up and
colourisation, and MainActor Pro for final production and
editing.
'I know Disney Animation Studio is getting more than a little
obsolete these days, but it is totally geared for animators
who recognise the tools it offers. I use it to get the line animation
done, and then I can move my work to a more
advanced program.
"DPaint and Brilliance have always been the most popular
packages, but Photogenics is a total MUST-HAVE for serious
artists. For Hardware I use a Tabby Graphics Tablet and the
trusty GVP G-Lock genlock. Both are great because of their
affordabilibi,
UHE CREATION 11111111
11
The Amiga is an excellent creative platform and many
famous artists have benefited from the machine.
Arguably the most famous was Andy Warhol, who
1111
once commented, "The thing I like most about doing
this kind of art on the Amiga is that it looks like my
work". Others include Dave Gibbons, the man behind
1the
Watchmen comics, and the Aardman Animations
team. Andrew Powell offers his views on why he
11 thinks the Amiga has a winning formula:
"The bottom line would be the price of equipment
and ease of use. I would need to use a Pentium 130
11.
with an Mpeg board and 100 Mb of RAM to get the
same results I get with my A4000/040 with 113 Mb
RAM. The fact that the Amiga is so geared for video
11111
makes it the most cost effective choice amongst all the
machines out there. It's also a whole production stu-
111 dio in-a-box, where I can get 66 Frames Per Second
(NTSC video) in two to 256 colours on-screen, in High-
Resolution.
- Can you give us an idea of how the Amiga helps
your work?
41110-
AMIGA COMPUTING
OCTOBER 199c
OOLS OF THE TRADE
For a budding artist there are many options
available for the Amiga which will help you
achieve your desired effect. These vary
from the basic paint packages to rendering
and animation. There are plenty available
of good quality, but your choice will
depend on what you want to do with it.
TVPaint has always proved very popular as
a professional option, and with a Wacom
graphics tablet you have an excellent art
environment in which to produce your
masterpieces.
Although expensive in price, the latest
version, 3.0, proves a desirable option for
the serious computer user because of the
many features it offers. These include the
Big Edit option, which is invaluable to commercial
artists as it takes away the problem
of resolution demanding huge amounts of
memory. This works by defining the size of
the project, then selecting a scaled area to
work on. Another aspect which impressed
was the layers function, which lets you
view multiple 24-bit images on the same
1screen whilst still being able to edit them
independently. You can view layers A, B, or
C, work on them and view them together.
TV Paint does require a graphics card to
work, though.
One of the older but still superior
options is Deluxe Paint. It is now up to version
five and has still kept up with the best
of them. Deluxe Paint offers the user the
ability to create pictures and animate. On
the pictures side it offers realism in that the
media you wish to paint on can be chosen
from various oil canvasses to wire mesh.
The brush types, however, are limited to
watercolour, felt tip, oil and chalk, For
Deluxe Paint 5, the airbrush feature was
completely overhauled and the animation
option improved to allow you to enter your
key animation frame at both the beginning
"I mainly use paper and pencil to get most of the character
animation done in rough. Let's face it, sketching
with a pencil and paper is a LOT quicker that trying to
do the same thing with a mouse or a graphics tablet,
When the drawings are done, I can scan them using a
flat-bed scanner, and use the computer for the final
line and adding colour.
'Doing animation the traditional way requires
reams of paper, coloured pencils and acetate sheets,
not to mention a peg-bar, hi-8 camera, lights, film.. I
could go on... Really!
'The Amiga takes the place of some of the really
expensive stuff and lets me get on with my work without
totally blowing my budget. Plus, it speeds up the
process so much that I can do the jobs that would normally
require three or four other maniacs working
alongside me.
"And lets face it, using the Amiga to do artwork is
actually fun and enjoyable. It's a medium that
allows an artist to make sharing their work as easy
as copying a file or dicking a link."
2
and end points of your sequence. ..
Brilliance 2 is also worth mentioning.
difficult to get hold of these days, but if
faster than DPaint and has a proper 24version
with fast HAM-8 display.
Almathera's Photogenics is also a hi
regarded product which provides both
painting package and image process
Version two, complete with an overhati
and new features, was released only
month. Almathera decided to put this sec
ond version on CD, making installation ve
quick and also allowing more room
example files and a tutorial. To paint it
Photogenics, you work on an invisible la
sort of like a protective film over your a
inal image. This means you can draw Mai
to your hearts content, and if you're not
happy with it, you can wipe it without da
aging the original image. Version two a
provides plug-ins called Effects, whicli
allow you to apply an effect in three different
ways rather than just being able to add
it to the paint layer. It also has a virtual
image function which allows you to cut o
an area of the larger picture and paint on
separately.
Image FX has been mentioned in this
article previously - for many artists, along
with ADPro, it is the essential image
processor for the Amiga. Image AC it stil
being developed for the Amiga and has
recently received a major new update
Version 2.6 has many new features, including
a fire generator, bubble effects and a
film grain facility.
If you're feeling inspired after all this,
simply turn to this month's coverdisk for a
demo of a new 24-bit art package
called Art
Effect.
ISM
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