SGI: Computer Graphics

I used it and loved it, I hated when UPS showed up with Houdini 1,

I wish I still had it, it was great!!!

Responding to this post a few months late, but i have wondered about Prisms as well, for quite some time. It's very difficult to find any info on Prisms, it's hard to even find a mention of it. I have an obsession with old 3D apps (i'd kill for an IRIX copy of Animation Master / Playmation). If my memory serves me right, a lot of the stuff that was considered new when 3DSMax came out back in '96 actually came from concepts already in use with Prisms.

If anyone has any information regarding Prisms at all, there are a few of us who would genuinely like to hear about it.

eMGee, would you (or anyone else here) happen to know the "operating" years of Prisms (i.e. when was it first released and what was the date of the last release)?

Many Thanks

eMGee wrote: Don't get me wrong SI|3D was a great program also ( Sumatra/XSI lesser in my opinion; they totally butchered some strong points of SI|3D , simply things like NURBS ).

I know a lot of the old players think so too, but I must disagree, I think XSI (when they worked out the kinks) was a lot better than Softimage 3D ever was. When you get used to XSI, it has a better "flow" to it, in lack of better words.

But as always, your mileage may wary

Whished I had a version of XSI on my Silicon Graphics hardware, but from what I have heard, it is pretty slow and cumbersome on those machines, maybe thats where it got it's bad reputation?

But regarding Prisms, I have never seen that program at play, actually, I have never before heard anything about it before visiting these forums. Kinda sad, sounds like a really nice program.

/Jonas

SPAM alert!

Archive.org saves us a bit in this situation.

Sidefx site from 97 has some text about prims -

http://web.archive.org/web/199702050949 ... risms.html

Sydney Vislab has some "hands on" stuff about it -

http://web.archive.org/web/200406011054 ... index.html

History of sidefx, which includes prims also -

http://web.archive.org/web/200008152013 ... y/history/

http://download.sidefx.com/images/stori ... al_600.mov

But what happens when archive.org goes extinct? All this wonderfully nice information is lost forever---

Wow, thanks.

The feature set of Prisms as of -96 was really impressive.

/Jonas

i used prisms on an indigo2 with an r4400.
it ran better than any version of xsi on any machine

well what else was interesting?
the composer was a separate app and called ice.
the version i had still had the old irix binary format.
the workflow was somewhat between lightwave and houdini.
the renderer was clear and nice. better results than alias imo but not as sharp as lightwave.
...

maybe i remember more tomorrow

foetz wrote: i used prisms on an indigo2 with an r4400.
it ran better than any version of xsi on any machine

Hehe I guess I'll have to take your word on that, since I have never used it myself.
I have used following programs in the past and now:

Lightwave
Softimage 3D
Xsi
Modo and some Maya.

I have tried out Houdini, and it's interesting with it's node based workflow, and I guess it is incredibly powerful if you can wrap your head around it.

foetz wrote: the workflow was somewhat between lightwave and houdini.
the renderer was clear and nice. better results than alias imo but not as sharp as lightwave.

Oh, ok. I have been using Lightwave since it first was seperated from the Video toaster from Newtek on the Amiga. So I know that program inside and out. I used to love it, but it just feel so old and slow today. I used to like it's render output too, with some work can look very good today too. But there are so much more easier programs to use today anyway in that regard Imo.

foetz wrote: maybe i remember more tomorrow

Looking forward to it, this is very interesting.


/Jonas

sgtprobe wrote: Looking forward to it, this is very interesting.

yeah, well, what can i add?
since my version still was the old binary format (coff) it's been some time ago so my memory might not be totally correct.

the interface was mostly green and gray.
i'm not sure which version i got. but i wasn't the last cause it had coff binaries.
the licensing was kinda weird. completely different compared to most other apps.
it had a renderman interface already.
the renderer was called mantra just like houdini.
it had its own install script. it did not use inst.
it had a morphing module called mojo.

i'll add more in case i happen to recall more

please continue there: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=16729450