Banana in Alias PowerAnimator and other findings

[Kumichou Gamer]

Hey, new to the forums. I got an SGI Octane2 a while ago and after finally figuring out how to install and get all the desired software working, I finally got to toy with Alias PowerAnimator. I've always been a fan of the Donkey Kong Country games and such as a kid, I really like the aesthetic that early CGI had, and it feels amazing to actually get to touch and use the very software that made it back then. Only issue is while I have quite the skills at modelling in modern software like Blender and ZBrush, antique software like Alias PowerAnimator 9, kind of hard to translate the skills into there. So upon this thread I'm going to post my findings and hopefully some of you can help me figure out what kind of actions I need to do to get myself more comfortable with using PA.

The banana is pretty messy yes, but I was amazed I could even make something like this, so I'll worry about making more polished work later. What I'd really like to have here is a concise and straight to the point guide that can help people translate their modelling skills from modern software into PA. I'm likely to forget since I don't use PA as much and it'd be good to have notes. Plus I feel like from what few tutorial videos I've found, they don't seem to show how to specifically translate existing modeling skills, more like someone showing themselves making a model from start to finish. What I need are fast notes on how to do specific actions.

My findings so far (much of this stands to be corrected or further explained)

Alias PowerAnimator is a really old 3D modelling software that was used to make the prerendered graphics of Donkey Kong Country and other N64 era games.
It’s very clunky to use in comparison to modern software like Blender. Here is my listing of my findings on how to at least somewhat use it.

Files can be transferred to modern systems using an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) I have used Filezilla for that. Make sure the SGi Computer is connected to the internet via an ethernet cable (wi-fi pretty much didn’t exist back then) and open Filezilla. Enter the credentials of the system and you should be able to drag and drop files back and forth.

The following instructions are written in the sense that you are already familiar with the pipeline of making 3D models in modern software like Blender and Maya, so don’t go trying to use ancient 3D modelling software without knowing the basics first! Can’t really teach you how to be artistic, but I can at least show you how to control the old software itself, so you can slowly figure out how to translate your skills into it.

Alias uses a 4 viewport system, Top, Side, Back, and Perspective by default. While most modern software can comfortably be used with a single perspective viewport, you kind of needed the other viewports back then for some precision placement. Just a quicker way instead of constantly cycling through views on the numpad like Blender given PA’s clunkiness. You can click an icon in the upper right corner of a viewport to expand it so it occupies the whole screen. I find moving the camera to be a bit stiff, so this isn’t the most recommended.

Alt + Shift is used to control the camera. Left is for dolly, middle is for pan, and right is for zoom.

Ctrl + Shift then dragging the mouse a bit brings up radial context menus for doing common actions. Left allows you to choose what can be picked, an object, component, control vertices, or… nothing. Middle allows you to switch between move, rotate, and scale. Left is X, middle is Y, and Right is Z axis respectively.

Models like primitives can be put in an edit mode similar to what Blender has by selecting on the top menu bar, ObjectDisplay and then Control.
Within DisplayTgls you can enable Shade, to turn viewport shading on and get out of wireframe view. The old hardware of an SGI computer can’t really keep things shaded in motion so well though in real time, so it’ll flick back to wireframe whilst moving.

Models here are made using NURBS instead of polygons by a technical standpoint, although polygons do exist here too, they are kind of treated differently. Think of NURBS as like any typical model you apply a subdivision surface modifier to.

Extruding can be done using the Extrude action found in the Surfaces tab on the left. You will need to make a line from the Curves tab because PA needs a path to be extruded on set up first. This is cumbersome but that’s the way it was back then.

Renders come out as seemingly useless so far SDL files, but it seems to create a separate PIX file which appears in a separate directory (so far /Desktop/Pix) which can be read by XNView. To launch XNView, just type “xnview” in the console and it should appear in a tiny window in the upper left corner. Simply open the PIX file and save it as a JPG, and you should be able to transfer it to a modern system.

To figure out

The following is a list of actions that I have yet to figure out how to perform in PA, they are actions I commonly use in modern software when making models, so I hope I can get some answers on how to do them.

Mirroring
Applying materials, and to specific parts such as faces of a model only
Make a face to seal off seams
Export a model in a format that can be read by modern systems
See if it is possible to get common movement, rotation, and scale gimbals to appear as something like that appears when a primitive is first placed.
Paths for making things like cables, chains, wires etc.
Loop cut
Remove doubles to clean up vertices that occupy the exact same space.
Merge CVs or vertices
Proportional editing (don’t know if this existed back then)
Fur particles
Join meshes and objects together to be counted as a single object
Cameras that you can place and jump to the view of

 

[kikems]

Hey, new to the forums. I got an SGI Octane2 a while ago and after finally figuring out how to install and get all the desired software working, I finally got to toy with Alias PowerAnimator ...

Alias was a very huge app for his time. Remember that Alias at start point was an industrial design app more near to a CAD system than a 3D artist/animation app. Alias born for help Industrial designers that need a CAD system with more creative tools, more intuitive and better interface and tools for model without restrictions of numeric CAD modeler and add some animation tools and better render engine for output good graphics of enginering models for presentations.
At the end of eighties Hollywood take Alias as main model system for CGI and Alias grow and adapt the app for the new requirements of Hollywood industries with Alias Power Animator series.
Alias can manage poligons but really was an app designed for model with curves, lines and profiles. The metodology for create models is more near to a CAD system. In 199x model with curves provide you an extra control and posibility to create a very complex models with very high resolution with relative small use of ram than other 3D apps based in poligons. For example in Alias you can model a dinosaur with curves and export it to different resolutions with poligons via tresellate options, this is the main reason because Hollywood adopt Alias as main modeler ( it's a similar thing that use vector graphics vs bitmap graphics ).

When Alias adapt the app for Hollywood work add a lot of features like simulations, dinamics, particles, fur , mocap, and a lot of features in render engine using shaders that other 3D apps simply not have or not dream. In the next years other 3D companies imitate features or ideas of Alias and integrate in their own apps. Some Hollywood movies use only Alias for all tasks ( like Terminator 2 and Abyss ) and other Hollywood productions use Alias for modeling, Softimage for animate and Renderman for render ( like Jumanji, Jurasic Park , etc... ).

SDL laguage of Alias scenes provide an easy way to use external render engine with custom shaders like Renderman.

Since Alias Power Animator 7.5 you can make custom interface with shelfs and tabs, work all with one view or quad view and lot of interface customizations ( icons, palettes, etc.. ).

When advance 3D console games arrives ( N64, PSX, ... ) Alias was one of the first 3D app to provide a compleat 3D solution for model , animate and export to development systems format used for PSX , N64 or Sega Saturn.

More or less all features that you are looking to find for model with Alias exist in the app but should be used or thinking in a different way that you do in Blender or 3DsMax ( for example ).

You can model in Alias and export to SAT, DXF, STL ( yes Alias can export to STL from version 1.0, was the main CAD/Design app for the first stereolitography 3D printer in 1988 from 3D Systems ), Wavefront OBJ ( first you need enable obj exporter plugin ), RIB, and other 3d model formats.



If you edit output settings ( Render Globals in Render menu ) you can change resolution of renders and format for images, you no need use alias image format ( .pix), you can use SGI, TIFF and other formats more populars. You can create animations in image sequences or in a movie file in Apple Quicktime format.



In Render Globals you can modify object resolution for render and you can obtain a better render for your banana.

 

[CRaven]

That's one thing I don't like in the old 3D software, too much centered around spline modeling instead of subdivision surfaces polygon modeling. Lightwave got it right from the start.