New MSAgent

[Baerdric]

Povray is a whole different thing, and it's real strength is in rendering. It has a bunch of features that I will never use, radiosity, atmospheres and such. Sort of like using Photoshop to remove redeye... that's where I'm at.

The reason I use it is that you can script movement and such right into the scene using geometry and math, then walk away while it renders your series of images. There are probably better solutions now, but I've used it for about 12 years and I'm kinda used to it.

The script will be familiar to you beyond the actual objects, if/then/else etc. etc.

If you load up some of the "Basic scenes" and render them you can see most of it, although they do throw in all the options even when not used and make a unreadable mess of some of it.

[ramccoid]

It appears a very interesting application. I decided after opening it to read the more indepth desciption (it always helps), as I was expecting something different.
The images in the Hall of Fame are excellent, especially the one that took four and a half days to render. This is one application to become more familiar with.
There's plenty of stuff appearing now to fill my empty time with ... there will be no idle hands here to make work for the devil after all ... hahaha.

Roy.

[Baerdric]

I've been playing around with it, like I said, for a while. It's been a couple of years since I really used it so I'm having to refresh my skills again. As a result I have rendered many images without moving forward on my Agent at all.

I used to know a guy who did a lot of mech renderings, I should look him up.

[Baerdric]

6) I forgot my new interest in Mouse Breeding Genetics

http://www.fancymice.info/links2.htm

[ramccoid]

I used to breed hamsters when I was a kid and sell the excess youngers to the local pet shop.
I remember learning how to cross breed different species of rodent from the experience and books. I accomplished crossing a hamster with a rat.
It was done by taking one of the young from either the rat or the hamsters' litter and putting it into the other species nest with their young. Take away the parent from the nest your putting it into, before hand for a couple of hours so the inserted youngster would aquire the scent and then replace the mother to nurture it. She will bring it up as a hamster or a rat, depending on which litter you put it into.
When the young rat/hamster grew to maturity, it thought it was from that species so it mated, producing a cross species.
I've never done it with mice but I have heard of people crossing them with gerbols.

Roy.

[Art]

Other than for your individual use, I wouldn't focus on MS Agents as they will NOT be supported nor used in Windows 7 and any future versions of MS Windows.

WOT!

[ramccoid]

Hi Art,
It appears we have been side tracked a bit on this thread.

Thanks for the information on Windows 7. It's a shame, they've been a part of windows for so long but I rather have a good system than the agents, I suppose.

Roy.

[Baerdric]

Robert posted a link to a third party support system for MsAgent which works on Win7.

I'm glad that someone has taken this out of MS hands, it may not be the most useful technology, but it has features that other systems haven't implemented yet.

Besides, I really don't like the Haptek stuff I see. If it's not real enough to fool me I would just as soon look at a cartoon. And with cartoons you're only limited by your imagination.

[ramccoid]

quote:Besides, I really don't like the Haptek stuff I see

You're right, it's so limited and unsupported by it's creators.

Roy.

[wayneout]

I made a few agents a few years back using a tutorial on
the web, but it is gone. I was wanting to try again.
I use Poser to make my image. I was wondering if I use
the same background color in Poser and then export the
image as a gif, then open it up in PSP7 or PSP10, and
convert it to a 256 bit image, will this give me the
same background color (or pallette) each time?
I barely remember saving a pallette the last time I
made a agent.
Or anyone know of a good tutorial for this?
Thanks,
Bill

[spydaz]

quote:Originally posted by Art

Other than for your individual use, I wouldn't focus on MS Agents as they will NOT be supported nor used in Windows 7 and any future versions of MS Windows.

WOT!

MSAGENT doesnot really need support! As long as you have the MSAGENT files available to download, which microsoft still say they will keep available..... your fine

[Baerdric]

quote:Originally posted by ramccoid

quote:Besides, I really don't like the Haptek stuff I see

You're right, it's so limited and unsupported by it's creators.

Well, truthfully, all I can go by is what I see here. I know you can script movements but most of them seem blocky and they can't leave their box. And nothing compares to what you can do with cartoons as far as additional effects.

Maybe it's time for a fuller integration of AI and Graphics, so that Hal can tell the actor to move up to the exit button and push it or walk over to the Start Menu and click on the program you wanted, or display it's own window that has the information you asked for.

Maybe when Robert embeds Double Agent we will get some of that.
http://www.zabaware.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6815

[spydaz]

I like It Baerdric, Im an agent guy, Even after its death.....
Im looking into this double agent.... I will probably have to remove msagent on my main pc.... just to test it as im sure it only comes into action when msagent is not installed....

wayneout I think the background needs to be The normal HIGH CONTRAST PINK, as when windows has a problem with the agent(badly installed) it shows up as this color... it also seems to be the AGreed... transparency color in MOST Skinning Applications, although there are only 2 tempetures generally used the HIGH and the one BELOW IT in the pallet... (standard 256)

[Baerdric]

As far as I can tell, the palette needs to be the same color in every index location for every image frame (unless you like color shifting). The first indexed color is usually the background color and I've been using hot green with no ill effect, but any unused color will work.

There is a button for changing which indexed color you want to use for transparency. It goes by index number, not shade, so it has to be the same number in every frame. But you can change it to something other than "0" if you want.

[wayneout]

Thanks for all the help. I am working on it now to see
what happens.
Bill