Wavefront's The Advanced Visualizer (TAV): not as widely used as Softimage/Alias??

[MAME_IRIX]

Maybe it's a misconception on my part, but it doesn't seem to have been used nearly as much Softimage/Alias, and there seems to be very little information on this software compared to to other 3D software for IRIX. Was there as reason for this?


I was able to successfully install TAV 4.2.0 and use it on MAME, but with almost no documentation available the most that I can do with it is possibly import .obj files and do simple hierarchical/linked object animation and do basic still renders. Still pretty interesting to be able to use a (now) obscure software.

 

[bitpak]

It was popular during the late 80s/early 90s, but I guess it is rarely talked about now because there aren't many major productions associated with it. Of course it was widely used in commercials, movies and video games productions, but those were not as big names as those associated with Alias/Softimage.

Wavefront's original modules (Model, PreView, Image) were not as popular as later Composer, Dynamation and Kinemation. And by the time the last three came out, the world had already fallen in love with Alias and Softimage. Then the '95 A|W merger happened and TAV (with all of TDI remains) got rebranded into a generic 'MediaStudio' suite. Which, I guess, wasn't sounding as interesting as 'PowerAnimator'. Then Maya came along and TAV was abandoned forever. And all of this happened before the internet boom. So that's the main reasons why nowadays there's very little info about TAV (and Explore).


What version of MAME did you use to run TAV4.2?

 

[MAME_IRIX]

It was popular during the late 80s/early 90s, but I guess it is rarely talked about now because there aren't many major productions associated with it. Of course it was widely used in commercials, movies and video games productions, but those were not as big names as those associated with Alias/Softimage.

Wavefront's original modules (Model, PreView, Image) were not as popular as later Composer, Dynamation and Kinemation. And by the time the last three came out, the world had already fallen in love with Alias and Softimage. Then the '95 A|W merger happened and TAV (with all of TDI remains) got rebranded into a generic 'MediaStudio' suite. Which, I guess, wasn't sounding as interesting as 'PowerAnimator'. Then Maya came along and TAV was abandoned forever. And all of this happened before the internet boom. So that's the main reasons why nowadays there's very little info about TAV (and Explore).


What version of MAME did you use to run TAV4.2?

Thanks. IIRC the MAME version I used was 0.220 and with IRIX 5.3 Indy installed. It was very slow, I think around 20 to 30 percent speed and I have a fairly fast/modern computer. TAV definitely does not work in later versions (maybe it works in earlier versions?). I've tried many different later ones and they all freeze at the startup, but of course the later versions of MAME run at 70-80 percent speed, so for most other programs (other than TAV) MAME 0.268 - 0.280 should be used instead.

 

[ghost180sx]

It was popular during the late 80s/early 90s, but I guess it is rarely talked about now because there aren't many major productions associated with it. Of course it was widely used in commercials, movies and video games productions, but those were not as big names as those associated with Alias/Softimage.

Wavefront's original modules (Model, PreView, Image) were not as popular as later Composer, Dynamation and Kinemation. And by the time the last three came out, the world had already fallen in love with Alias and Softimage. Then the '95 A|W merger happened and TAV (with all of TDI remains) got rebranded into a generic 'MediaStudio' suite. Which, I guess, wasn't sounding as interesting as 'PowerAnimator'. Then Maya came along and TAV was abandoned forever. And all of this happened before the internet boom. So that's the main reasons why nowadays there's very little info about TAV (and Explore).

This is the history and fate of Wavefront's TAV and tool suite as I understand it also. I was going to type my own version of this when I realized he said it all