Some of you guys seem to know Eric Graham in person, or are in contact with him. Do you think you could ask him to release the model data, so we could re-render this milestone of computer graphics history in today's (and tomorrow's) screen resolutions? I think the model should scale very well, and although we could of course try to guess the model proportions, it would be a neat thing to really render it with the exact original proportions, colors, light source position/angle/intensity etc. etc.
I'm sure he has an email somewhere but I wonder what the data woudl be like? This was done in a renderer that could only display spheres, no polygons, so I imagine the data would just be a bunch of XYZ centerpoints and a radius for each one.
XYZ center points and radii would be just fine as model data. The hard part will be to get the colors, lighting and shading right. If Mr. Graham still has the Sculpt 3D model of the Juggler, one might even consider trying to hack the Sculpt 3D Amiga code to make it render in true color and higher resolutions. (Or, if that should prove too hard to do: tile, zoom, render and collate.)
Sculpt3D had a "RAW" mode that rendered 24-bit color so no need to hack that.
But "The Juggler" wasn't in Sculpt3D. Like I said, it was a one-off thing that predated Sculpt3D. Aside from both doing ray-tracing, they were rather different approaches to rendering and describing geometry.
Also, I recall he put the essential ray tracing code in an AMIGAWORLD article at the time so if you just dug that up it would be fairly clear how he was handling color and light.
@Zarchimedes If the scenefile still exists, you could extract ALL data (Lightpositions, Direction, Colors, Cameraposition, etc. etc. But to be honest you could also recreate it just from this animation. Put the animation as an imageplane into any 3d Program and and match it, not terribly hard.
Oh, I have no idea how to acquire the original modeling data. Perhaps you could seek out Eric Graham, but I imagine this is ancient history for him and not worth the bother that would be.
I remember being about 8 and seeing this demo playing in a computer shop and nagged my parents till they bought me the A500. Eric Graham made Sculpt Animate 4D if I'm correct, which I used every day for... a long time!
I was older than 8 when i saw this but I still had to have it. I got "Sculpt 3D" which technically didn't animate but it had a secret back door that would let you render series of frames.
That required a lot of computation for a PC at the time because the landscape had to be reflected in each of the glass spheres, plus it had to recalculated for each frame because of the movement.
Actually it was. Eric Graham, the guy who made this wrote one of first 3d modeling and rendering program for personal computers a few months after this animation was released. Eric actually was the first person to write a ray tracing program back in 1966, but he doesn't get credit for it because it wasn't published.
I still have the issue of Amiga World that had this juggler on the cover
archon808 1 year ago
You should see the "Monarch" demo that was also done by xanth in the 80s.
Sanosuke004 1 year ago
This is epic. But, i always thought, since a kid, "THIS IS SCARY!"
ciolamorta 1 year ago
by god i haven't seen this for 20 years! blew my mind back in the day and actually it still looks pretty cool.
kenneld 1 year ago
Xanth made this demo way back in the 80s.. I even have their not well known shiny balls demo and the fuji boink demo as well.
Sanosuke004 2 years ago
lol
vegunited06 2 years ago
Some of you guys seem to know Eric Graham in person, or are in contact with him. Do you think you could ask him to release the model data, so we could re-render this milestone of computer graphics history in today's (and tomorrow's) screen resolutions? I think the model should scale very well, and although we could of course try to guess the model proportions, it would be a neat thing to really render it with the exact original proportions, colors, light source position/angle/intensity etc. etc.
Zarchimedes 2 years ago
I'm sure he has an email somewhere but I wonder what the data woudl be like? This was done in a renderer that could only display spheres, no polygons, so I imagine the data would just be a bunch of XYZ centerpoints and a radius for each one.
robcat2075 2 years ago
XYZ center points and radii would be just fine as model data. The hard part will be to get the colors, lighting and shading right. If Mr. Graham still has the Sculpt 3D model of the Juggler, one might even consider trying to hack the Sculpt 3D Amiga code to make it render in true color and higher resolutions. (Or, if that should prove too hard to do: tile, zoom, render and collate.)
Zarchimedes 2 years ago
Sculpt3D had a "RAW" mode that rendered 24-bit color so no need to hack that.
But "The Juggler" wasn't in Sculpt3D. Like I said, it was a one-off thing that predated Sculpt3D. Aside from both doing ray-tracing, they were rather different approaches to rendering and describing geometry.
robcat2075 2 years ago
Also, I recall he put the essential ray tracing code in an AMIGAWORLD article at the time so if you just dug that up it would be fairly clear how he was handling color and light.
robcat2075 2 years ago
@Zarchimedes If the scenefile still exists, you could extract ALL data (Lightpositions, Direction, Colors, Cameraposition, etc. etc. But to be honest you could also recreate it just from this animation. Put the animation as an imageplane into any 3d Program and and match it, not terribly hard.
ChristianMiersch 1 year ago
@robcat2075
thats more then enough to recreate it manually if need be, its not like its 1000s of spheres :D
It like to recreate the scene in 3ds max and render it with some global illumination, caustics and dispersion on the glass material etc, just for fun.
So if you could obtain the needed info on how to recreate the scene, it would be greatly appreciated.
Capeau 1 year ago
@Capeau
Oh, I have no idea how to acquire the original modeling data. Perhaps you could seek out Eric Graham, but I imagine this is ancient history for him and not worth the bother that would be.
My suggestion would be to eyeball it.
robcat2075 1 year ago
@Capeau There is an email address for Eric Graham at his new company, Google for Direct Algorithms and look at the contact info for that company.
vapourmile 1 year ago
Wow, I forgot how entrancing this is. I could go for a 10-minute version of this. It's trippy.
nebby6 2 years ago
This is mezmorizing...
Cloaytonem2 2 years ago
you been hip-mo-tized!
robcat2075 2 years ago
Anyone seen the ST version? lol
tondaloona2009 2 years ago
love this one! all the time!
NeoSpirit 2 years ago
This also appears in Tom Petty's "Jammin' Me" music video
RaggedTiger70 3 years ago 2
Yeah, I think I recall Eric Graham mentioning they had used it without asking in advance. They paid him about $100 IFRC.
robcat2075 3 years ago
@RaggedTiger70 As does the Amiga computer and the "Marble Madness" game.
Orlor 1 year ago
I remember being about 8 and seeing this demo playing in a computer shop and nagged my parents till they bought me the A500. Eric Graham made Sculpt Animate 4D if I'm correct, which I used every day for... a long time!
TeleCumber 3 years ago
I was older than 8 when i saw this but I still had to have it. I got "Sculpt 3D" which technically didn't animate but it had a secret back door that would let you render series of frames.
robcat2075 2 years ago
That required a lot of computation for a PC at the time because the landscape had to be reflected in each of the glass spheres, plus it had to recalculated for each frame because of the movement.
magicianspirit 3 years ago
You know, this is quite a big achievement for 1986. This seems like the early development of professional animation we have today.
crd86 4 years ago 6
Actually it was. Eric Graham, the guy who made this wrote one of first 3d modeling and rendering program for personal computers a few months after this animation was released. Eric actually was the first person to write a ray tracing program back in 1966, but he doesn't get credit for it because it wasn't published.
deltaray3 3 years ago 2
Wasn't this the Imagine demo for the Amiga? Or was it NewTek's?
electrosavant 4 years ago
neither. The Juggler came before Imagine and Now Tek. Eric Graham went on to make Sculpt 3D
robcat2075 4 years ago
Did u make this, because I saw someone else with the same video
Abbruzzesi 5 years ago
See info at upper right: "...by Eric Graham"
robcat2075 5 years ago