Famous Amiga uses

[Ross1]

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.

[guru-666]

@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?

[ajlwalker]

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.

[benJamin]

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!"

[deBrun]

Up to year 2000 US Army South Korea to render topographical battle maps for simulated war scenarios.  Amiga 2000.

[cecilia]

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.

[motorollin]

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?

--
moto

[Raffaele]

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).


-----


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).


-----


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".



In english speaking countries you could had spotted it with the title of "Lucky and Zorba".



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".



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:



Winx Club:



Tommy and Oscar:




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.

[jbuonacc]

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

[jkirk]

can't find anything to back this up but i think this  movie used amigas in production as well.

also there is a list in the Amiga wiki

[cecilia]

jkirk wrote:
can't find anything to back this up but i think this  movie 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

[jkirk]

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.

[Framiga]

Raffaele

X-DVE was by ClassX, an italian company still active on titling, FX and more (often bundled with Matrox NLE systems)

ClassX Development

[cecilia]

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.

[Raffaele]

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

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.

[Bug_racer]

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