Eureka 3D

[veldeman]

Maxxedia doesn't look like it has a lot of 'real time' control. Too much fiddling around with the GUI - not much control from the console.

I spoke to a dude from Case - the guys who make it - who said that the old DMX spec was a problem for them. It was really designed to be run on the Case, which can only handle 28 parameters in a fixture or something. It was horrendous to write the library. Zillions of channels across several fixtures.


Hugh

For my 5 cents...

I had the chance to play with the Maxedia beta system in Februari on a Corporate show in Belgium, and I must say it has all the 'real time' control you need on the DMX part. Being able to see what you are doing in the GUI is very inspiring when you create something.
Compared with the Eureka3D this Maxedia system is much more then just an 'effects box for lighting guys'. The Video people loved what I could create with the original footage they gave me to play with for the show. They coun't believe what I could create in a few seconds. They said they have to render long time to make something similar. And it was created 'on-site' while we were programming the lightcues.

The Eureka3D had too many channels for the Case to handle yes. They divided the channels into several fixtures. But isn't that the case on other media servers systems? I see no difference in that... the VL system that I saw at Frankfurt goes up to 250 channels or something? They made 15 fixtures. The VL-system looks like a copy of the old Eureka3D system.

[samsc]

The VL-system looks like a copy of the old Eureka3D system.

so what is the difference between the maxedia and the Eureka 3d?

which are the features that one actually uses live-- as opposed to preprocessed?

[veldeman]

I'll try to explain a bit, but it's difficult to write down.

In fact both systems are more then a 'video server', since they do a lot of real-time effects with the used media.

The Eureka3D system had basically 2 layers, a background and a 3D object layer. The background and/or object could have a texture. BMP or Video file with basic color effects or sound effects. The camera view could be moved real-time in 3D and zoomed in etc...

The Maxedia goes much further. I looks like these guys in Belgium learned a lot from the previous system. Maybe that's why they changed the name of the product?
You have now 2 x 20 layers real-time in a A & B mixer.
On each layer you can modify the 3D camera, color, texture, effect, 3D object etc... and add real-time effects on them.
When you make something in the A or B mixer, you can then X-fade between them. Like you have 2 machines in one.
It's difficult to explain, you have to work with it before you realize how powerfull and smooth the images are.

The main difference in one sentence between Eureka3D and Maxedia:
Eureka3D was good for Clubs for effects, the Maxedia blows away even video pre-production companies.
I heard yesterday a story were a pre-production company in Germany lost it's deal for a TV-show this week.
Because the Maxedia did more artistic images then they did for a lot of money...

[samsc]

The main difference in one sentence between Eureka3D and Maxedia:
Eureka3D was good for Clubs for effects, the Maxedia blows away even video pre-production companies.

sounds quite good if it does what people need to do in the specific use they have for it.

[Spam Butterfly]

Hardware would look great with horns on it.
Kindof like using a sledgehammer instead of a nutcracker.

I mean the problem is no harder than a playstation....
And these guys need 350lbs of gear?

You can do this on a playstation/xbox.

What do they think the games industry is built on?

Its doing much better stuff than all these dodgy 'media servers' including catalyst.

The guys doing games are the geniuses.

This stuff is shite in comparison.

The playstation and X-Box are great examples of custom PC boards which use whizzy Open GL. However, these systems are designed with a certain amount of longevity - unlike the PC boards you buy off the shelf. Don't forget - these systems compete with current PC's - not bad when you consider that an X-Box is essentially a 733Mhz Celeron with a bit of extra cache and an custom Geforce 3 video chipset. The difference is that developers will code to use every ounce of power out of these things, in much the same way as developers used to in the Atari/ Amiga days (I was always an Amiga man - Atari's are for small girls.). Don't forget the Amiga, with it's custom graphics chipset, was the heart of the Video Toaster...

Hugh

[Spam Butterfly]

I'll try to explain a bit, but it's difficult to write down.

In fact both systems are more then a 'video server', since they do a lot of real-time effects with the used media.

The Eureka3D system had basically 2 layers, a background and a 3D object layer. The background and/or object could have a texture. BMP or Video file with basic color effects or sound effects. The camera view could be moved real-time in 3D and zoomed in etc...

The Maxedia goes much further. I looks like these guys in Belgium learned a lot from the previous system. Maybe that's why they changed the name of the product?
You have now 2 x 20 layers real-time in a A & B mixer.
On each layer you can modify the 3D camera, color, texture, effect, 3D object etc... and add real-time effects on them.
When you make something in the A or B mixer, you can then X-fade between them. Like you have 2 machines in one.
It's difficult to explain, you have to work with it before you realize how powerfull and smooth the images are.

The main difference in one sentence between Eureka3D and Maxedia:
Eureka3D was good for Clubs for effects, the Maxedia blows away even video pre-production companies.
I heard yesterday a story were a pre-production company in Germany lost it's deal for a TV-show this week.
Because the Maxedia did more artistic images then they did for a lot of money...

Firstly, it's not the media server that does the artistic images - it's the person who uses it and what they do with and the person who creates the content for it.

20 Layers - what does that mean? 20 Images? 20 movies? What?
The A/B Mix paradigm is difficult to map to a lighting console.

Essentially Maxedia works off a standard, although powerful PC, with a Radeon 9800 graphics card and a 7200 rpm hard disk. As we already know from Catalyst - there's a limit to how many SD movies you can actually run off a hard drive - particularly something as lowly as a 7200 rpm drive, and it's well below 20!

Hugh

[samsc]

20 Layers - what does that mean? 20 Images? 20 movies? What?
The A/B Mix paradigm is difficult to map to a lighting console.

Hugh

20 x 3d objects?
20 x images?

[veldeman]

Firstly, it's not the media server that does the artistic images - it's the person who uses it and what they do with and the person who creates the content for it.
Hugh

Right! But you need the tool to be able to do it.

20 Layers - what does that mean? 20 Images? 20 movies? What?
The A/B Mix paradigm is difficult to map to a lighting console.
Hugh

A layer can be:
- a video file (animated or not),
- or a BMP (animated or not),
- or a real-time effect like ribbons, real-time ocean, smoke etc...

Why would the the A/B system difficult to map?
It a 16-bit DMX channel and you make a transistion between two sets of layers.

Essentially Maxedia works off a standard, although powerful PC, with a Radeon 9800 graphics card and a 7200 rpm hard disk. As we already know from Catalyst - there's a limit to how many SD movies you can actually run off a hard drive - particularly something as lowly as a 7200 rpm drive, and it's well below 20!
Hugh

Of cource of you start running 20 video files from the S-ATA drives (150Mbyte/sec) then it starts dropping frames. Hey it's still a computer!
But since it does a lot of real-time stuff inside the graphic card they layers can go up without dropping the frame rates too low. I usually kept something like 60-70 fr/sec.

[samsc]

I usually kept something like 60-70 fr/sec.

SATA drives dont work anywhere near 150MB/s they are much much lower than that.
SATA drives dont work any faster than standard ATA drives - unless you use raptors.

You arent doing video at 70fr/s because 'video' playback is only 25fps.
No point in playing back any faster than that.
The refresh rate of the screen is not the playback rate.


Doing 3d objects is easy. Graphics cards can support millions of shaded triangles/second.
You should be able to do thousands of objects.
The problem is a control problem. And useability.
If you cant do anything useful - live - you are better off doing it in a different way.

[veldeman]

The problem is a control problem. And useability.
If you cant do anything useful - live - you are better off doing it in a different way.

And that's were the Maxedia succeeded in doing a good job...