Real 3D - From coverdisk to a 3D career!

[diablothe2nd]

From a young lad I was always blown away by Pixar's creations.

I had visions of going to Bournemouth Uni (the only uni at the time doing 3D graphics courses) and getting on the Pixar bandwagon.

One day I cycled down to the local Newsagents, with my £5 per month pocket money ready to eye up the Amiga stands.... and i find a full retail version of Real3D on the cover!!! I think is was CU Amiga, or maybe Amiga Format. I forget. Though I remember how dazed, shocked, excited etc etc i was and immediately purchased it, raced home on my bmx and booted my Amiga 600.

Somehow the guys at this magazine company managed to crunch 4 disks into one. i recall having to dig out save game disks, and coverdisks i didn't care for and format them to expand Real 3D into. I didn't care though, i just wanted it to work! woooohoooooo!

while waiting for the disks to decrunch and copy, I skimmed the mini manual that came with the disks and mag and familiarised myself with the program.

first thing i did was load the candlescene, enter wireframe mode to position the camera, and go straight to render! 5 gruelling hours later a greyscale, badly lit image appeared! SO EXCITING! . by now it was past my bedtime so i restarted the render on full colour, proper lighting but no antialiasing... woke up in the morning, had my breakfast and rushed back to see what my lil 600 miggy had produced in around 12 hours. it barely got past the candle flame. cue heartbreak!!! my poor lil miggy was so slow, if i made anything remotely complex i'd have to wait weeks, and weeks for the image to render. absolutely gutted!

but it didn't stop me seeing what i'd made in greyscale with basic lighting was good enough for me to make a chess set as per the tutorial in the book, and doss around with booleans (which often crashed it lol). I loved every minute. oh and hated everytime the power cut midway through a render! lol

later in life and moving onto a pentium 133 with windows 95 and 16mb ram, I failed my double GCSE course in IT that teaches you how to use word, excel, powerpoint, publisher and databases with absolutely no coding or advanced graphics, or even hardware education??!?!? seriously?!?! needless to say i got bored and flunked it from lack of interest. my luck also struck out on my Art GCSE 3d animation as the examiner had never seen a computer animation and how it's done before, so couldn't mark me up for fear of setting precedence!!!!! so bang went the two key things i needed for A level and then Bournemouth!

decided to try my luck at 16 with only a handful of mediocre qualifications and fluked an apprentice position for an engineering firm where my 2d cad career kicked off. then moved to technical drawings and coordination, then onto visualisation and walk throughs etc for various housebuilders. so i sort of made it!, but it's not pixar and its certainly not creative enough to keep me.

anyway.... the moment of pure reminiscence... i found the very coverdisk and manual that pretty much laid the stepping stones for my future recently. the overwhelming sense of nostalgia was strong... and of course that disk went straight into DF0: and yes, i found myself scrounging and recycling disks all over again

but this time.... THIS TIME ... hehe, the candlescene only takes 10 mins to render on highest settings with my 1260. the warm fuzzy feeling inside is back

[MrCheese]

That is fab!

[Peter]

Amazing story! Great read, thanks for sharing that... I must take a look at that cover disk!

[mikele]

Epic win! What was the year you bought this coverdisk?

[diablothe2nd]

it was this one

http://amigahistory.co.uk/af/af077.html

[khph_re]

@diablothe2nd

Bizarre, not only are you in the same town as me, but you followed a similar career path!

I went from imagine (2?) cover disks, to a job as an artist in the video gamers industry using 3D studio.

[diablothe2nd]

:O

small world indeed!

i've always wanted to get a job in the video game industry. But I HATE (with a passion!) 3D studio. it's too clunky for me. which kinda throws a curveball as it's industry standard.

Having spent roughly 14 years using autocad with only keyboard commands (usually i run fullscreen mode with no buttons at all) i always disliked the counter intuitive menuing system requiring mouse clicks. so blender with all it's key shortcuts has me in my happy place I guess that's why I've always favoured Real3D over Lightwave et al too, for the key shortcuts. So i dont have to take my mouse off the target so to speak. makes for much, MUCH faster creation

I've been using Blender since early 2003 (merely months from it being open sourced), could never do without it

and finally, I could go without saying this, but, GIZ A JOB! :P

[Amiga1992]

Great story man.
I am on a related field (motion graphics design) and I did take my first steps in both music production and design with the Amiga. I was also a dabbler on Real3D with my A600 and suffered in pain while rendering those scenes crappily. My best thing to do with it was an X-Wing fighter which looked absolutely crap since I couldn't afford doing complex textures or anything like that!

Those learnings with Real3D (a pirated copy so no manual - harsh!) led me to introduce myself to 3D Studio Max years later, and this is too why I don't like Imagine or Maya I don't like the newer versions but the ones I started with reminded me a lot of Real3D. Why you hate it so much? Curious.


Basically, I owe my career to the Amiga in quite a big extent. I always say this. I guess it's another reason why I try to keep using it in my work today.

[wilshy]

Great story. One than many of us can probably share to some degree.

I wish I'd have used the Amiga more as a springboard into the music world rather than bemoaning it's limits at the time and the desire to work in a package more industry standard. Looking back I could have easily worked around the limitations more creatively.

Just think of the amount of careers kickstarted by the Amiga, not to mention the C64 and Spectrum. I think the Raspberry Pi (http://www.raspberrypi.org/) crew are trying to do much the same with their new venture, recreate that back bedroom culture that's lacking now.

[diablothe2nd]

Originally Posted by Akira

Those learnings with Real3D (a pirated copy so no manual - harsh!) led me to introduce myself to 3D Studio Max years later, and this is too why I don't like Imagine or Maya I don't like the newer versions but the ones I started with reminded me a lot of Real3D. Why you hate it so much? Curious.

For reasons as stated above regarding it's clunky interface

I think the Raspberry Pi (http://www.raspberrypi.org/) crew are trying to do much the same with their new venture, recreate that back bedroom culture that's lacking now.

I'm following that with HUGE interest. mainly as a cheap video streamer as my modded xbox original with XBMC is no longer updated and getting old. Also, seeing the press etc keeps making me want to play Elite II :P

Love this story

I found this thread because I wanted to find out when the Real 3D cover disk was released. Right now (Literally these last few days & right now), I'm in the process of salvaging & converting my DPaint, Vista, Real 3D, Cinema 4D, PPaint & Photogenics creations from my younger years. These start from something like the age of 12 or 13.

I've even (Already done this part) managed to playback my spectrum tapes into an emulator & save my Artist II creations from the depths of history. Getting that to work blew my mind. These very old cassettes tucked away in a box in the loft could have faded forever & i literally jumped out of my seat as I could see the image drawing while it loaded. These pics are from around the age of 11.

Looking over my pics & anims make me wish I'd sent them to game developers. Who knows where they may have lead.

[amiman99]

Originally Posted by RussDCA

Love this story

I found this thread because I wanted to find out when the Real 3D cover disk was released. Right now (Literally these last few days & right now)...

I have this this disk in my hand, it was Amiga Format Disk 77a.
"Complete version 1.4 Four disks in one"
I also have the little book that it came with.

[Nobby_UK]

£5 per month pocket money in November 1995 ?!?!

[d4rk3lf]

Sorry to bump this thread, but this story very remind me of my story.

First steps - Real 3D , but I had a bit more luck then you guys (Akira and diablothe2nd), I did it with A1200, not A600 (though, in 1997, perhaps much later then you).
I remember (my first animation), I have created some weird blobby mesh, animated it from point A to B to C (and of course, some (cheap looking) rotation on local axis ), then I went to some of my first drinking party. After I got home (drunk), looked at it, and thought "Wow... so this is how is done"?
The world is mine!
Then I've tried with letters... created few more renders... when I created animation of letters came into a screen (this time, in a little bit more cool way), that got me a job at a first local TV station.
In an unfortunate switch from PC to Amiga, a switched from Real 3D to 3DS Max, and it didn't hurted much. Although, 3DS Max is getting worse every year (different subject).

So, right now, I am doing an vfx with Max, After... etc... but all started with Amiga 1200, Real 3D, and one of my first drinking days.

[LuMan]

This is a great thread. So many great stories of how people's careers spawned from a coverdisk! From small acorns great oak trees grow.

I remember Amiga Format magazine giving away Imagine on a coverdisk (53a, if you're interested) and I was so blown away that I took the offer to upgrade to Imagine 2, then 3, then 4 (which was also included on a CU Amiga Super CD I think).

I borrowed my mate's unused A500 (he was at university) and bought a 2nd hand A600 to compliment my expanded A500 and set up a render farm, creating 3D graphics and stings for local photographers and videomakers. The output wasn't broadcast standard, but it was good enough - particularly for the price I was asking!! I did that for nearly a year - until PCs just started doing it better... and quicker. But it funded my A1200!

Now I'm an ITIL Incident Manager and nothing to do with computer graphics at all. My side-line as a musician involves Cubase on a Mac, although, I could always find a way of incroporating Octamed somewhere...