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LASooner

Posted Thu Dec 27, 2018 4:57 am

Hello,

I'm a longtime Amiga user, bought my first in '91 an Amiga 500 from the Army PX at Fort Campbell. Shortly after I purchased Bodega Bay expansion with Hard drive and 8 megs of Ram, with the idea that I may one day get an A2000 that I could move those over to. Ultimately I had that all through the 90's, I added Microbiotics VXL-30 somewhere along the way. After I got out of the Army, I moved back to California and in 1995 around the same time I started working at Interplay as a game tester, I got an Amiga 2000 (the one I still own).

I was a tester on Out of this World (AKA. Another World) and Dungeon Master II, these were the last Amiga games Interplay shipped. They decided to toss out all their Amiga gear shortly thereafter and my supervisor allowed me to rescue a few. I rescued an Amiga 1200, 600 and CD-32. All of which I still have. My biggest regret was not rescuing the A1000, but at the time it seemed so under powered. I recently rectified that this last year, when I purchased one. It's actually the 1000 that led me here as I googled the Rejuvenator and stumbled across the posts about resurrecting it. (Hopefully that's still a thing)

I've been a 3D artist in the game industry since 1996, still churning them out for Activision. But I started this career on the Amiga using Lightwave 3D.

I honestly can't remember what became of my A500, I think I might have given it to a friend, so I don't know where that Bodega Bay ended up, kinda regret that move now too.

I still have A600, A1000, A2000, CD-32 NTSC

I was running Christmas demos on a bunch of my old computers the other day including the 1000, the 2000 and 1000 are the only ones I've been messing with lately.

Image

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Thu Dec 27, 2018 9:36 am

@LASooner what an amazing story and incredible collection! Thanks so much for joining and becoming part of the AmigaLove family.
It's actually the 1000 that led me here as I googled the Rejuvenator and stumbled across the posts about resurrecting it. (Hopefully that's still a thing)
It is indeed still a thing. I have not made an official update for the project in over two months so I know things are very quiet on that front, causing some mild concern here and there. I can tell you this: the schematics are done and we only have one key stage left before we print boards and assemble some prototypes. The two people that are going to work on this final stage have been off for the holidays, and one was on a job search - life got in the way, in other words. But the plan is to heat things back up in early to mid January and go for the final push.

Stay tuned!

Assuming the project is successful, getting your A1000 to 1MB Chip will be a total snap. With no alterations to the original Rejuvenator, getting to 2MB is more challenging. You'll have to source a pretty rare Agnus. We hope to change that to a "more common" 2mb version, but that's going to be the key challenge for anyone wanting to get to 2mb - sourcing the proper Agnus chips.

So keeping an eye out for those in the meantime is the best advice I can give right now.

Out of curiosity - what are some of the games you've worked on? Are you primarily a 3D modeler? Animator?

I went to art school for 3D animation a million years ago after getting out of the air force. I loved that work, but the market had crashed right when I graduated and found myself in the midst of the original dot-com boom and went that route. No regrets, it's been good to me. But I am very curious about your work.

Here is a video I did during my 2nd stint at art school 10 years after the first one. It took me 6 months to complete on my own. Modeling, animation, rigging, compositing. My 3D magnum opus. 30 shots across 1 minute. I used Sam Raimi's "Army of Darkness" and re-edited a favorite scene, recreating everything. It's a shame how YouTube compressed the video as you lose a lot of the detail and everything is so much darker. Had I stayed in LA I would have stayed in the business, but we moved up to the Bay Area and the job market was entirely different up there. Oh well...

Good times! And once more, Welcome!

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oldbull

Posted Thu Dec 27, 2018 4:08 pm

Welcome to Hotel Amigafornia. Nice 99/4a in the picture.

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LASooner

Posted Thu Dec 27, 2018 4:49 pm

Glad to hear the Rejuvenator project is still going, it'll be nice to do more with my 1000.

I have been primarily a 3D modeler/rigger for a while now. But back in the old days, you kind of had to do it all, so I did modeling, animating, lighting, FX, the whole shebang.

At Interplay I only ever shipped one game as an artist. Of Light and Darkness, kind of a Myst-like puzzle game.I had a run of bad luck working on some games that were cancelled. A Drew Carey typing tutor game, a Timothy Leary edutainment CDROM, and the much more infamous Star Trek: Secret of Vulcan Fury. In that trailer, I modeled, animated, composited and did VFX for all the enterprise shots. Now a days 12 different people would work on those shots. The only thing I didn't do was model the characters or do the facial animation.

After we were laid off, I did film and TV work for a few years bouncing around from studio to studio, working at mostly Foundation Imaging, but I also worked at Digital Domain and Eden FX, with a short stint at Black Ops Entertainment to work on Knockout Kings 2001. During my time in the wilderness I worked on Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles, Max Steel, The pilot for Firefly, Dawson's Creek, Providence, Star Trek: DS9, Star Trek: Enterprise, Dan Dare, Captain Scarlet.

In 2002, I started working at Treyarch, and have been with them for going on 17 years now.

Minority Report
Dead Rush (Cancelled)
Amazing Spiderman
Spiderman 3
Sleeping Dogs aka. Black Lotus (Cancelled, sold to different studio)
Call of Duty: World at War
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4

I did level building in 3DS Max until I got on Call of Duty, since then I make the vehicles in Maya 3D, rig them to be driveable and destructible. In the latest one I made the ATV and the Mantis Robot.

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piper_flatline

Posted Thu Dec 27, 2018 8:52 pm

LASooner wrote:I've been a 3D artist in the game industry since 1996, still churning them out for Activision. But I started this career on the Amiga using Lightwave 3D.
Welcome, LASooner! Nice to meet fellow game devs. :) I'm a 2D/3D artist (then added audio then added programming) in the game industry myself, since 1994. Started at EA after showing them work I'd done in Lightwave, so we had a similar start! Good to have you here on the forum, and thanks for your comments on my Genesis controller thread.
intric8 wrote:Here is a video I did during my 2nd stint at art school 10 years after the first one.
Hey, nice work, @intric8!

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Mr.Toast
Roseville, CA

Posted Fri Dec 28, 2018 9:47 am

That's an awesome saga! Sounds like we were on similar career trajectories from an Amiga starting with service of Uncle Sam.

That's a gorgeous collection you've got!

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Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Sun Dec 30, 2018 4:12 pm

Welcome and that was a great read. I don't remember ever hearing anything about the unreleased Star trek game, glad you posted the info. I loved the 2 interplay Star Trek games, 25th anniversary and Judgement Rites. Too bad they never made it.

Thanks for sharing your story.





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