Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Bug_racer on February 28, 2007, 09:21:42 PM
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Id love a little list to be compiled on where the Amiga was used in its glory days . I'm always hearing Babylon 5 and sea quest . I did a quick search on Wiki and found a few but Im sure there are a lot more places where the Amiga dominated . Even if the only place was at your school , post it up Im curious to hear :)
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IIRC Amigas with Lightwave were only used for the pilot episode of B5.
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The Preview Channel was run on amigas. It was a blast when they would crash or reset. There were a few times when I went to the preview channel and all that was up was workbench with a cli window. I never saw it guru, man that would have been cool.
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I still use Amigas.
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IIRC Amigas with Lightwave were only used for the pilot episode of B5.
Afaik it was also partially used during rest of season 1 as well, while i think the pilot was pretty much entirelly rendered on amigas.
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AFAIK The Lawnmower Man was produced with miggies help.
I still use Amigas.
now that´s what I call famous :-D
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Those two you mentioned + these:
Star trek Amigas was used for ship modelling in star trek tng and ds9.
Jurassic park: I believe it was used for some simple overlay scenes.
There was also a pretty high rated french animation movie that was apparantly released last year, which was supposed to have been made on a amiga 4000. I sadly do not recall the name of this animation movie. The a4000 was even seen in the making of the movie, where you could clearly see that they used it for animating.
I also recall a funny part in late 90s.. "between 1996-1999 somehwere" They had a bunch of tv screens at our local airport showing information about airport and ads. One time i visited the airport it had a "software failure" and this was even on the huge projection tv as well as on all the other screens!
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What about this (http://web.telia.com/~u91022624/famoushtml/main.html)?
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Some weeks ago i watched Stay tuned! movie with some friends, and some fx scenes were very similar to other movies made with Amiga. I think that exist dozens of movies that used Amiga, but we don't have proofs. I have also a spanish book of Jurassic Park that appear an Amiga on a photo and they talk about Amiga.
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Oh yeah.. I also spotted an a500 in a porno flick when i accidentally swapped past tv1000 during the night ;)
The a500 was pretty much the main part of the plot.. It was hooked up to a virtual reality set, which enabled the user to have realistic sex in cyberworld using this a500.
And yes, the only reason i watched it was due to the fact that it had a Amiga in it. :-P
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LOL,
While I was working at Klasky-Csupo (early simpsons, rugrats, duckman....) doing commercials, I would walk past a cube in which there was an a3000 with a digitizer, looked like it was used for pencil test by animators up untill 2002 when I left there for another job. The 2D animators (I was 3d) hated computers, but would use the amiga.... makes me wonder, did they not consider that sation to be a computer or did they hate amiga also? that station may still be there. I have also seen stacks of old amiga's (2000's and 4000's) in the storage area of digital domain in 2003 -2004, looked like old toasters, so maybe it was even used on titanic (for on set work), who knows?
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In the UK, Rolf's Cartoon Club...
Jason
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what did rolf's cartoon club do?
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Tomas wrote:
IIRC Amigas with Lightwave were only used for the pilot episode of B5.
Afaik it was also partially used during rest of season 1 as well, while i think the pilot was pretty much entirelly rendered on amigas.
not only was an Amiga farm used for rendering in the first season, the effects won an Emmy!
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well lot's of PC where used also, All I know is a VFX sup I worked for had (has) a toaster card on his desk that he pulled from amblins farm, man those toasters there big lightwave dongles. According to him the PC was a god send as the amigas where hard to manage, esp the farms. The amiga where replaced ASAP.
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In 2004 there was an Amiga-run Information-screen above the escalators at Südbahnhof in Vienna, Austria.
Can anyone confirm that it is still there??
Spotting that screen was the highlight of my holiday that year...
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guru-666 wrote:
well lot's of PC where used also, All I know is a VFX sup I worked for had (has) a toaster card on his desk that he pulled from amblins farm, man those toasters there big lightwave dongles. According to him the PC was a god send as the amigas where hard to manage, esp the farms. The amiga where replaced ASAP.
of course. A similar situation happened in the effects house I worked at also.
the point is that the techniques were developed using Amigas First. People got their start - the businesses got their start using Amigas. And, generally, the main reason Amiga computers had to be replaced was because the company (commodore) wasn't their to support new HW, etc.
and in effects, the speed of rendering is a matter of competition. you lose money if you take too long to render your footage.
I still recall when Digital Domain was making tests for Titanic and it took an hour to render ONE frame. (and that wasn't on amigas).
However, the beginings were based on Amiga. the learning, the training, the foundation (no pun intended) of the work. Amiga is more than just HW. It's how you think about solving a problem. I owe a great deal to my Amiga roots.
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http://youtube.com/watch?v=jC6MKcmETWE (http://youtube.com/watch?v=jC6MKcmETWE)
:-D
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Are Amigas still used for the Guide cable channel anywhere? I assume they quit using them around the time it started getting called the "TVGuide" channel and the video quality turned blatantly peeceeish, obviously rendered in 800x600 and scaled (digitally) down to something less than 720x525. That was just a few years ago.
I remember back in the good old days when you could turn that channel on at 3:00AM and see someone turning the video on and manually starting the guide program, or if you were really lucky, you'd see a Guru.
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Interview with Ron Thornton (http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/making/thornton.html)
talking about Babylon 5 and mentioning using Amigas.
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There has been a list like this for a long time. Did you try typing "Famous Amiga Uses" in Google?
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Funny in the YouTube video that the Guru box surrounds the Prevue logo.
These aren't famous uses, but back when I worked for Famous Footwear, I suggested an in-store kiosk with an interactive interface for customers to query different shoes and brands, get technical information (similar to the documents we were shipped during promotions,) and even find out what we have in stock, and eventually place orders. I worked for two weeks on a prototype using my A1000 which never saw the light of day.
The word I heard was that someone up in the ranks believed that an interactive computer system like that would take away from the customer shopping experience, and produce lazy sales people.
Later when working at an apartment complex, I discovered that the in-house cable system had recently retired an A500 with a genlock in favor of some video titler to run the information channel. Never found the old Amiga equipment, though (I think) the cable guy did try his best.
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the only thing i know is that NASA used A4000's for aaahhhhh. errrrr space stuff..
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Long list to look through at that site.
Here's a bit about NASA
"The Secret in Hanger AE"
http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/~mheine/AEcastro.html
I recently picked up an Amiga 2000 which still had the software and data used for some public access channel. Before wiping it, I made a backup of the drives -- dunno why, really.
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The airport in Detroit, Michigan (USA) used Amigas for the video screens that displayed information above the security check points for many years. I suspected this was the case until I arrived for a flight one day and saw all 4 screens with guru meditation errors on them! This obviously removed all doubt as to the system in use. :-)
I would say that the airport didn't update these systems until sometime around 1999. Now they have nice new screens with better resolution all around the airport, but when I walked past one of them the other day there was a Windows Explorer screen up instead of the arrival/departure information. :lol:
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Amiga World magazine in 1994 or 1996 realized a whole two issues long article research about Amiga famous uses.
Two issues of the magazine. Very very big...
Sometimes I will realize a PDF of it...
mikrucio wrote:
the only thing i know is that NASA used A4000's for aaahhhhh. errrrr space stuff..
Unfortunately NASA dismissed last Amigas in 2005 and starting from november/december 2006 they were sold on E-Bay.
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Other famous Amiga Uses:
NASA; Uused Amigas for tracking launches of suborbital flights and for keeping traces of secondary satellites.
They used Amigas because it is the system more rsponsive on the market. I has high reliability, keeps multiple tracks as separate windows as amigas multitasking very well, and finally it reboot in a few seconds if crashes occurred or power went off...
US NAVY they used Amigas to pilote undersea rovs, and keep data of oceanic buoys in a 3 or 5 years survey.
USGS Geographical Survey used Amigas to made first 3d Rrendered maps of USA with programs World Construction Set and Vista Pro.
NASA did the same with 3D rendered images of Mars.
US Academy of West Point used Amigas equpped with games Universal Military Simulator I and II to train the cadets.
And for example just rent these movies and tv serial and you can spot Amiga graphics:
- Max Headroom
- Star Trek IV Voyage Home.
See the beginning of the movie and look careful at the monitors of Spock Supercomputer of future. Yes. It is an Amiga Garnet font.
Then laugh at superstar Macintosh Plus which is a quaint computer!
Remember how pitiful was Mac+ and be proud that that Amigas will be used by Volcanians 400 years starting from now!
Unfortunately Mac Plus was a superstar because you all could spot it and remember it.
Trivia rumors said that the Star Trek Paramount production wanted an Amiga to perform as superstar, but Commodore wanted to be payed for it.
Apple gave their Mac + as free gift.
This was truly a bad gossip by people envy of Amiga, because the use of Amigas as SpecialFx in that movie proofs that Paramount already owe at least 3 Amigas platforms.
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Check also:
- Indiana Jones Chronicles
- Babylon five (obviously)
- Seaquest
- Star Trek Deep Space Nine (early modeling made by Lightwave Amiga)
- Tommyknockers TV Serial
- "Betrayed" movie by director Costa Gavras
- Jurassic Park
(Amigas were used to made 3D daily preview movies made by filled polygons right-on-the-set.
So the production could check that all movie was OK before sending the film to chemical development and to special effects made with silicon Graphics.
Amiga was the only equipment capable to made 3D filled objects (dinosaurs) at that time.
There is a little funny trivia about Amiga and Jurassic park.
Rumors said that there was a tropical storm on the place of the set of Jurassic Park.
After that storm, the only equipment found still running and alive was one Amiga which was left by a techinican performing pre-rendered genlocked 3D polygons images combined with live actors.). COOL!
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Thanks to programs like these Amigas were used in TVs all around the world:
The beautiful X-DVE
http://www.haage-partner.de/com/news/news_981025_d.htm
The Magnificent Amiga Scala Multimedia MM400
(http://www.hobby.nl/~commodore-gg/cpics/scala_multimedia.jpg)
(http://www.v-direct.org.uk/newpix/x-scala2.jpg)
http://www.hobby.nl/~commodore-gg/amiga_historie.htm
The good MoreFX
http://www.haage-partner.de/com/news/news_991103_e.htm
The big boss: Amiga Video Toaster with VT effects:
(http://www.discreetfx.com/FantasyFXImages/Sword.jpg)
(http://content.answers.com/main/content/img/CDE/_VIDTOST.GIF)
(http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/amiga2500/Image31.jpg)
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/amiga2500/index.html
The magnificent Amiga Video Toaster Flyer (Non Linear Editing)
http://www.rabayjr.com/video_toaster.htm
The SUPREME product for Amiga: VLAB MOTION
(http://amiga-hardware.com/download_photos/vlabmotion_5_big.jpg)
http://amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=303
It was capable to store a full motion movie 720x576 2 hours in less than 400 Megabyte of Hard Disk, because it stored it ANALOGICALLY (i.e.) with a very smart trick it stored the digital result of the video signal wave (if I remember wellthe method used).
The ULTIMATE CLASSIC AMIGA: THE ULTIMATE AMIGA CLONE!
DRACO Motion System:
(http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/draco2.gif)
http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/draco.html
(http://www.amiga-club.de/treffen/051kl.jpg)
http://www.amiga-club.de/bild02.html
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Does anyone know if Michael Jacksons Black and White film clip was done on an Amiga ?
Also some great info there 8-)
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Amiga 4000's were used for years at many production studios including Paramount to do 3D rendering using Ligtwave although the platform has changed Lightwave remains one of the top three 3D software packages and we have the Amiga and Newtek to thank for that.
The Video Toatser and Flyer is still used today in many public television stations around north America for live switching and post production editing. ALthough being phased out as the newer PC based systems are getting better the Amiga still shines in this area due to the quality of video it will process. Newtek's propriatery video compression is second to non when it comes to standard definition video unfortunately D2 quality video is not good enough for Hi Definition broadcasts.
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@cecilia
I totaly agree, I know I got my start on the amiga. BTW it would apper that an hour per frame is actualy quite fast. On Monster House it took us 1 day per frame until we got things tuned, and then still to raytrace at the stuff took hours per frame. Amiga was huge but SGI also had some very interesting stuff going on. BTW where are you now?
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Not so interesting, but Virgin Megastores across the UK used Amiga 4000s to supply video and graphics to their instore media screens.
I recall seeing them still in use long after the demise of Commodore. At least until 1999/2000 I'd say.
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Australia, general:
In 2004, I spotted the Guru on a monitor displaying train arrival times on platform 2 at Central Station, Brisbane, confirming my suspicions. The machine reset (seemingly after a timeout, it was extremely quick) and was up again in /seconds/. Someone much later mentioned providing parts to keep them running and using PCMCIA cards instead of the super-fallible disk drives.
In the late 90s, Tabcorp (the Victorian totalizator) replaced their system of a central server with many outlying Amigas (generally 500s) for displaying odds and sending data on behalf of their betting entry machines, with a new system where all outliers were newer PCs. In an attempt to complete the roll-out for the Spring Carnival (and, particularly, the Melbourne Cup), they had a few drawbacks. An outlying PC crashed and took the whole system with it, radio news reports on the day of a one hour plus delay and at least three million dollars in (probable) lost revenue. When the Amiga outliers went down, you just used the Vulcan Nerve Pinch and the system was back up locally in under a minute, and never passed up the tree.
In the mid-nineties, I did some work experience for a computer service agent. Their main corporate client was Victorian Keno operator TabCorp (again) where they installed and serviced all Keno terminals and display systems in their section of Rural Victoria. Expectedly, these systems were the same combination as the tote machines, but were not replaced until much later (I cannot even guarantee they have been, but I am suspicious). The boss new I had a liking for Amigas, and pointed out a few hints over days before showing me the A500 sitting in a cupboard under a Keno entry machine. Keno in other states used the same system.
If you ever sat in front of a slot machine when the reels were replaced with a screen, you were likely sitting in front of an Amiga.
We can thank David Pleasance (former head of Commodore UK) for his long stay in Australia plugging the machines left, right and centre.
There are many other stories, Channel 7 weather, many jingles for ads (using B&P or JAM) for example, but I think I've typed enough for this morning.
jaminJay
"Now, to type more for some other purpose until the food van arrives!"
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Up to year 2000 US Army South Korea to render topographical battle maps for simulated war scenarios. Amiga 2000.
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guru-666 wrote:
@cecilia
I totaly agree, I know I got my start on the amiga. BTW it would apper that an hour per frame is actualy quite fast. On Monster House it took us 1 day per frame until we got things tuned, and then still to raytrace at the stuff took hours per frame. Amiga was huge but SGI also had some very interesting stuff going on. BTW where are you now?
the Digital Domain guy talking about this (at a Lightwave meeting) was "pleased" although he realized that it may have been fast for the time, it was still too slow.
I am in NY at the moment.
here's something I forgot: my friend Tim Wilson is the creator of "Humanoid", the first really useful and most natural looking model of the human body. Some years ago a person working on the (Jay Leno) Tonight Show using a Toaster made a graphic with the Humanoid model and it was broadcast on that show.
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Tomas wrote:
There was also a pretty high rated french animation movie that was apparantly released last year, which was supposed to have been made on a amiga 4000. I sadly do not recall the name of this animation movie. The a4000 was even seen in the making of the movie, where you could clearly see that they used it for animating.
This? (http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=627=38)
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moto
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One TV for all in the world:
Here is a german regional TV showing their use of Amiga and Scala:
http://selica.ch/twelve/content/view/56/103/
Site has been modified last time October 2005 (less than two years ago).
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Very important!
Regarding uses of Amiga on broadcast TV worldwide, I want to signal you one example for all:
I remember CNN has used Amigas in a vaste number of programs, and some years ago you could spot Amigas various times a day, because it was also used in CNN Weather Report (upto 3 or 5 years ago).
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Also here in Italy there are many animation studios using Amigas.
For example the Lanterna Magica Studio. They made italian animation beautiful movie "La gabbianella e il gatto" (Little girl seagull and Cat) from a tale of Luis Sepulveda famous writer from chile.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Sepúlveda
Original title of the tale is "Historia de una gaviota y del gato que le enseñó a volar" (1966), or in English: "the Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly".
(http://www.fattocentro.it/gabianella%20e%20il%20gatto.jpg)
In english speaking countries you could had spotted it with the title of "Lucky and Zorba".
(http://www.antoniogenna.net/doppiaggio/film/lagabbianellaeilgatto.jpg)
Animations stages were made by hands and then rendered and colorized with Amiga and then passed to other computers for color final touch, and recording on professional tapes.
The Lanterna Magica Studio, made various movies, all aided with Amiga scenes and amiations "the freccia azzurra" ("the blue arrow"), "Opopomoz", "Momo and the conquest of time".
(http://www.bibliopolis.org/graficos/pantalla/momo.jpg)
Also one of the biggest animation studios in Italy (very little if compared with american studios) the Studio Rainbow uses Amigas.
They are famous for the cartoons of the "Pimpa" (by italian comics-maker Altan), "Winx Club", "Tommy and Oscar".
Pimpa:
(http://www.stinchidisanto.it/pimpa.jpg)
Winx Club:
(http://www.dicinema.it/mediapict/winx200.jpg)
Tommy and Oscar:
(http://tv.rtvextremadura.com/modulos/core_media/pub/imagemagic.php/media/files/232canalex.jpg)
Here is the line of production for Tommy and Oscar:
http://www.lafolla.it/lfst.php?id=lf29rainbow
Divisione dei compiti
Pre-produzione, sviluppo dei personaggi, degli story-board e delle sceneggiature, ripulitura dei personaggi, degli sfondi e lay-out: queste mansioni sono svolte da talenti italiani per mantenere un livello alto di qualità.
Realizzazione delle tavole di intercalazione e la pulitura dei disegni sono compiti affidati a strutture straniere.
Le attrezzature tecniche
N. 2 workstations Silicon Graphics Indigo 2 con Software Power Animation.
N. 1 workstations Maya con Software per la modellazione e le animazioni tridimensionali.
N. 8 postazioni di lavoro Animo 3 per l'animazione bidimensionale, la colorazione ed il montaggio digitale, completo di 2 scannerB/N 1 a colori.
N. 8 postazioni Windows con Software vario (Photoshop, ecc) per la colorazione dei fondi e per lavorazioni accessorie.
N. 2 sistemi Video Hollywood per uscita in digitale.
N. 2 Betacam SP 1400.
N. 2 sistemi Video Velocità, sony BVW 70, per montaggi video
N. 2 Digital Betacam
N. 2 Betacam Broadcast
N. 2 Monitor 20'' Grado 1
N. 2 Amiga 3000 con video camera ad uso Line Test.
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http://youtube.com/watch?v=B11xJZmXx-I
http://youtube.com/watch?v=dJl2YvQ0Op0
http://youtube.com/watch?v=GR_kjdr7e0Y
http://youtube.com/watch?v=79WOWjezU0Y
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IG8X72ZBtJA
http://youtube.com/watch?v=OdPoG0eWH3c
:-D
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can't find anything to back this up but i think this movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109661/) used amigas in production as well.
also there is a list in the Amiga wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga)
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jkirk wrote:
can't find anything to back this up but i think this movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109661/) used amigas in production as well.
i'm not getting this page - what is the name of the film so I can do a search
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Dragonworld 1994
it was a looow budget movie with decent special effects. very campy but i liked it.
strange it is coming up here. it may be a cache issue i'll try it when i get home.
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Raffaele
X-DVE was by ClassX, an italian company still active on titling, FX and more (often bundled with Matrox NLE systems)
ClassX Development (http://www.classx.it/i_main.html)
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jkirk wrote:
Dragonworld 1994
it was a looow budget movie with decent special effects. very campy but i liked it.
just checked the crew list and found the name of my friend and colleague Michael F. Hoover.
He obviously was doing this before we did "From the Earth to the Moon", but more importantly before we did "Hologram Man".
"Hologram Man" was done entirely on Amigas. AT AI Effects it was three Amigas, A 2000, a 3000, and a 4000.
I'm not sure what Mike was using - he always does his work in his studio at his home. He certainly started out using Amigas with Lightwave. By the time we did "From the Earth to the Moon" we rendered using PC's but we used the one Amiga left in the studio (the 4000) to put together LW frames (that were rendered on the PC's) into DCTV anims. And those were saved on VHS tape. These are known as "Animatics". (Animated storyboards) And they helped the director/editor/and others figure out the best moves for the capsule.
I can certainly ask Mike what he did for Dragonworld 1994.
No exageration here: I have always found Mike to be one of THE most talented people I ever worked with. Not to mention a snappy dresser and a gentleman.
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Framiga wrote:
Raffaele
X-DVE was by ClassX, an italian company still active on titling, FX and more (often bundled with Matrox NLE systems)
ClassX Development (http://www.classx.it/i_main.html)
Yes. Thanks to their work there were literally dozens of TV in Europe, mainly in Italy ad Germany using X-DVE because it was cheaper than Scala.
Also a very large amount of professionals in video productions preferred X-DVE approach because it was really simple.
I contacted them for last Pianeta Amiga (Nov. 2006), to check if they could be present.
Unfortunately they were enlisted to another exhibit dedicated only to video productions which was held in the same period, so they couldn't attend to Pianeta Amiga.
But speaking with them they seemed to me enthusiast that there are still persons involved with Amiga, and curious about new PPC machines.
They said me they hope could be present in next Pianeta Amiga 2007.
Also I contacted Libero Moschella from ACube-Samantha asking him if ACube could financing re-issue of some good Amiga software like X-DVE.
Libero said ACube is interested in creating a suite of Amiga software to be sold to enhance new Amigas, and that they had had contacted ClassX in the future.
In these days ACube announced that they contacted author of ST-FAX and give him enough funds funds to build another (and modern) version of ST-FAX for PPC Amigas.
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Huge thumbs up to all that posted . Even the little ones that seem to include train stations are fascinating to read about .
Just out of curiosity did the Amiga have anything to do with the Duran Duran music clip Wild Boys ? Does anyone else remember other music clips that used the Amiga . Im sure Pet shop boys used the Amiga :-P
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@Raffaele
i met Michele Puccini at a show in Milan some years ago (that was around the first issue of Bitplane magazine) but beeing all theyrs products JAVA based, it would be hard to sse them ported on Amiga.
Anyway it would be better to make a correction to your post about the URL of X-DVE. Thanks :-)
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I still have a "Prevue" edition 2000 complete with the special cards, genlock, decals, and the original "Prevue" floppy disk that contains the software. The 2000 also came with a 2 meg memory expansion card. The software, similar to a special version of Scala I think, won't run without the genlock and memory board installed.
The whole system actually booted and ran from 1 floppy! Too bad there isn't a way to send listing information to the machine. Some of the old monthly Cable Company laser discs from the period would be cool also.
Jeff
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Well, Purno de Purno, a Dutch kids serie has been made with the use of Amiga's, AFAIK.
(http://www.vpro.nl/data/projecten/purno_de_purno/beeld/puranim.gif)
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Well there are so many things doing with the Amigas.
I remember an image of a TV program showing in Bilbao
(North Spain) an image of some computers with the ROM 3.1
loaded on the screen,they seem to be Amigas.
It was on a Sex-Shop around 1999-2000 and I suppose it was
for showing the images on the sex-cabinets they were there.
They were on separate cabinets so I suppose to do some work
with the videos showed.
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Aardman Animation (Wallace and Grommit, Creature Comforts etc) used to use Amigas in their studio.
They used to use big box Amigas fitted with DPS PAR cards to preview the current frame before commiting it to film.
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Framiga wrote:
@Raffaele
i met Michele Puccini at a show in Milan some years ago (that was around the first issue of Bitplane magazine) but beeing all theyrs products JAVA based, it would be hard to sse them ported on Amiga.
A bit of patience to have java on Amiga.
Anyway it would be better to make a correction to your post about the URL of X-DVE. Thanks :-)
I linked to Haage & Partner page of selling X-DVE packages, because it gives quickly some informations about characteristics of this program.
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Dick VanDyke is a Famous Amiga VT/Lightwave user. artical (http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2004/08/11/443.aspx)
Years ago a friend of mine purchased a used Amiga 1200, it came from VanDyke Studios. Inside the box there was a statement of purchase and a letter from Dick himself. I have the a1200 box with the studio address written on it. Don't have the letter or the a1200. Not sure if my friend has it any longer either.
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Thanks for this link about Dick Van Dyke. Nice read.
I still have a file with a lot of places where Amiga was used. A small snippet of this file is:
Awards
"Babylon 5", Warner Bros., 1993.
Emmy Award Winning Movie.
Cox Cable Productions, New Orleans, LA.
ACE Award nomination for Sports Productions.
"Get Real", Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin.
Emmy Award Winning Children's Broadcasting.
NewTek, Inc., of Topeka Kansas.
Emmy Award winner for developments in television engineering.
Creator of the Video Toaster and the Screamer.
"Panama Deception".
Oscar Award Winning "Best Documentary Film".
"Young Indiana Jones Chronicles".
Emmy Award, Special Visual Effects.
...
Commercial
3DO software development (publisher unknown).
Amiga 4000's shown on CNN story about 3DO development.
ABC, American Broadcasting Company.
American Cablevision.
Apple Computers.
Amiga 2000's used for video presentations at MacWorld.
Atari.
Lynx software development using Amiga 2000's.
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there is a show on nickelodeon called nick arcade.
it has kids playing in virtual games and stuff. all of the graphics are done on amiga 2000hd, 3000 and cdtvs. the programming on a lot of them was done by psgnosis.
in the end credits they state the machines used and credit psygnosis. i showed my son that because he like the show and he thought it was cool that i have the same computer even the genlock etc.
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Bug_racer wrote:
Im sure Pet shop boys used the Amiga :-P
(http://www.petshopboys.co.uk/psb_splash.jpg)
hm...
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At one time I heard that the US IRS used Amigas. Any truth to this?
I also found these via da goog. The speculation about the future of these machines is rather sad, in retrospect.
Amusing computer-related anecdote about local cable service
Wed, 11 May 94 14:22:21 PDT
TCI Cablevison of Washington often has a similar display with a Guru Error (Amiga) for days on end on the Public Info channels. Also, Cablevision of Terre Haute, IN used to have a Apple ][+ that would bomb out and draw random lines on the PI channel. Terre Haute First National Bank built a new building complete with 6 huge automated computer displays (light-bulb type) and they often got out of sync, triggering an alarm that would display a very distinct Commodore Basic prompt on all six signs all night.
Amusing anecdote about local cable svc.
Thu, 12 May 1994 16:54:23 EDT
... writes about the error he noticed on his local cable channel recently. Our local cable system and a couple of the surrounding ones use Commodore Amigas for such things as the on-line cable guide (The Preview Guide), local programming information screens, etc... My guess is that there is specialized software available to the cable operator from whatever company broadcasts The Preview Guide which is customizable by region, content or whatever (ad packages come to mind). A few years ago you could usually look forward to seeing the dreaded Amiga 'Guru Meditation Error' plastered on your cable guide screen whenever there was a big storm or over a long holiday weekend. It was amusing at first, but it soon became tiresome. Since it hasn't happened in the past couple of years I'm assuming they've invested in a battery backup or better equipment. One risk for them: Since Commodore has gone belly-up, what's going to happen to their equipment when it dies. Will they be relegated to searching the orphaned-computer parts bin at their local used computer store?
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Can I just clear up a common misconception...
Amigas were ONLY used for the pilot episode of Babylon 5.
They were NOT used for any other episode.
This information was posted by JMS himself (executive producer/main writer) on a B5 bulletin board.
There. I feel better having got that off my chest! :)
Also, I don't think this has been mentioned, but Amigas were used in the Bond movie "Goldeneye". Military jets flying past some radar dishes were rendered and added in by Amigas. There was a feature on it in an issue of Amiga Computing at the time.
Steve.
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Dick van Dyke sold his Amiga only a short time ago and became a PC Lightwave user. It's in the archives on this board somewhere.
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Tomas wrote:
Afaik it was also partially used during rest of season 1 as well, while i think the pilot was pretty much entirelly rendered on amigas.
I too heard that Amigas were used to render stuff throughout the first season of Babylon 5. I think the first few seasons of Star Trek TNG also had a good amount of Amiga graphics.
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persia wrote:
Dick van Dyke sold his Amiga only a short time ago and became a PC Lightwave user. It's in the archives on this board somewhere.
He didn't sell it himself if events are to be believed. Some guy came on here and claimed without substantiation that DVD gave it to him. Some may remember the Andy "Worhol" A1000 I was selling back around the same time.
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All special effects for Babylon 5 are computer generated. Foundation Imaging, headed by Ron Thornton, produced the special effects for the pilot movie and seasons one through three. Starting in season four, the special effects were moved in-house to Netter Digital Imaging, another subsidiary of the parent of B5's production company.
The B5 effects teams, both at Foundation and at NDI, use Lightwave 3D by NewTek and specialized software to design and render the visual effects. For the pilot, the effects were rendered on a network of Amiga computers; later, Foundation used 12 Pentium PCs and 5 DEC Alpha workstations for 3D rendering and design, and 3 Macintoshes for piecing together on-set computer displays. The NDI team uses a similar array of equipment; see George Johnsen's comments below.
CGI space scenes are clearer and have more realistic movement than model shots. Some interior shots such as docking bays are "virtual sets" combining live action with computer imagery. Computer-generated aliens make regular appearances on the show as well.
Babylon 5's makeup is put together by Optic Nerve Studios, which has done makeup work on such projects as Batman Returns and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, among others. On B5, they've made an attempt to break away from the minimalist approach often seen on weekly series, preferring full-head (and, in some cases, full-body) prosthetics rather than simple changes to the nose or forehead. Their work has paid off in the form of an Emmy award.
The Babylon 5 FTP archive's Pictures directory contains numerous examples of the show's special effects and makeup.
http://www.ntua.gr/lurk/making/effects.html
(http://adwoff.com/smilies/v/very_first_smiley.gif)
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Pretty cool.
Now one Wal-Mart PC is probably more powerful than the 12 Pentiums and 5 DEC machines.
And you could probably do the whole thing on one copy of Maya.
Can you imagine if we had Maya on OS4.1?!?! Then we'd be back in business. :pint: