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 25 Screens' Post mortem! (Read 4024 times)
ggn
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Screens' Post mortem!
27.11.09 at 16:55:18
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Okay, so you submitted a screen, it was included in the demo and everybody lived happily ever after.

But! What happened during development? What problems arose? How did you fix them? Did you have to leave something off? Make last minute changes?

That's what this thread is all about. It'd be nice if the people that contributed shared their stories. A "Making of..." thread if you will.

Of course it is a bit premature for anyone to post here. But it'd be nice in my opinion if we all share some stories about this demo here Smiley

Anyway, I'll be back to post mine. Hope to see other people's too!
  
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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #1 - 27.11.09 at 20:33:20
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I like this funny idea, ggn!

As soon as i will have time i can tell you some stories, too. Wink
  

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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #2 - 28.11.09 at 14:48:13
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Do you accept postmortem stories of people who did an STe demo but did not participate to the megademo Smiley
  
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ggn
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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #3 - 28.11.09 at 16:33:15
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Dbug wrote on 28.11.09 at 14:48:13:
Do you accept postmortem stories of people who did an STe demo but did not participate to the megademo Smiley


Well, since you originally meant your demo to be included in this megademo, I don't have any problems at all. Fire away!
  
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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #4 - 01.12.09 at 20:54:40
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I'm really looking forward to seeing everyones contributions Smiley
  

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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #5 - 01.12.09 at 21:45:01
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Save The Earth: The Post-Mortem, as seen from a Perforce point of view.
Depvpac crashes, broken optimizations, bad ideas, refactoring, hope, tears, satisfaction, and exhaustion, all neatly packed in one boring list of changes.
Have fun reading !

#374 on 2009/04/05 17:45:22

     First commit for the new Ste Demo for the 20th anniversary.
     Code is copy-pasted from the Creators intro source.

#375 on 2009/04/05 20:12:56

     Reworked the STE/MegaSTE detection code; and removed the code path for non overscan routines Smiley

#376 on 2009/04/05 20:20:23

     Removed the rest of the interrupt based code, plus the entire secondary codepath for non ST machines.

#377 on 2009/04/05 22:00:31

     Added the cinemascope binary logo, plus removed some more cruft from the old code (ie: Simplified scroller)

#378 on 2009/04/05 23:58:41

     Cinemascope logo is displayed:
     - Too large
     - Fullscreen rout is not efficient
     - No black borders

#379 on 2009/04/07 19:09:08

     Removed all the scroller code, added a 416x200 picture representing a city skyline by night. It will have to be displayed in overscan, with a nice background gradient, some mirrored reflection, and some moving objects (planes, helicopters, boats, cars), plus some blinking lights).
     If the picture was larger, I could also scroll it, with some cinema like effect.

#380 on 2009/04/07 20:02:25

     Started to split the source code by moving macros and other utility things in a separate file.

#381 on 2009/04/07 20:16:00

     Some more system split

#382 on 2009/04/07 21:42:57

     The city is now displayed, the black borders are kind of stabilized (but the code is horrible), now need to display the background gradient for the sky.

#383 on 2009/04/08 13:31:58

     Some more code has been split. Things related to gradients and palettes have been moved to 'palette.s', the screen buffers allocation is now in 'system.s'.
     Source code starts to make more sense now that things have been cleaned up a bit Smiley

#384 on 2009/04/08 18:06:59

     Now the cityscape has a (not very nice) gradient generated from a new routine (heavy usage of muls/divs, could probably use fixed point increment, not sure about accuracy).
     Some more cleaning, even more stuff was removed Smiley

#385 on 2009/04/08 19:12:58

     Moved some code to a "blitting.s" file, the display of the cinema-scope and night-city pictures is now done with an extended version of 'drawbloc' routine.
     Still need to handle correctly the double buffering, should not be mandatory...

#386 on 2009/04/08 21:59:34

     Replaced the old "optimized" pause macro by a new one using a jump to a table of nops in order to reduce the memory footprint of the routine.
     The drawback is that the new code needs a valid stack pointer, but on STE with the blitter we can survive with the missing adress register.

#387 on 2009/04/09 15:07:29

     The fullscren routine is now displayed using the timer-a (launched from the VBL)

#388 on 2009/04/11 17:41:55

     Added a defence force logo... which is unfortunately too large.
     The 416x276 resolution is cropped on the left by steem Sad

#389 on 2009/04/13 13:41:06

     Added some pseudo plasma code using blitter.
     Need colors now Smiley

#390 on 2009/04/19 19:21:15

     Something that looks like a (bloky) tunnel on screen, yeah !

#410 on 2009/05/01 18:23:42

     Split the code in many more modules, plus a specific one for the motherboard display animation (not yet coded)

#411 on 2009/05/01 21:31:34

     Some more code factoring (initialisation of timer based fullscreen)

#412 on 2009/05/01 23:25:12

     Some more code splitting

#413 on 2009/05/01 23:43:57

     Part of mobo are displayed, but apparently I have a bug in the code, things are not always displayed correctly

#414 on 2009/05/02 19:48:29

     Fixed an issue in EraseScreen (was using the current screen pointer and doing horible things with it)

#415 on 2009/05/02 21:29:33

     Managed to get the code for the motherboard scrolling working - modified the flipscreen routine to give an optional parameter disabling the actual flipping + added support for the vbaselo register on ste.

#416 on 2009/05/16 22:27:48

     Implemented hardware soft scroller - does not work nicely on the real machine...

#417 on 2009/05/17 17:08:04

     Fixed a problem with a missing texture for the tunnel effect, and a small comment fixed on the hardscroll setup

#422 on 2009/05/29 21:58:05

     Added a lot of "piracy is not a crime" files.

#425 on 2009/06/17 20:43:48

     Added a preliminary version of the credits using a font

#426 on 2009/06/17 20:45:43

     Forgot the font for the credits

#438 on 2009/06/30 22:01:03

     Added the first version of the tv snow effect.
     In the end version it will have to be in complete fullscreen (no 16/9) on that one, and with some white noise in the background.
     Will have to work on the code generator + sequencer before that, because it is starting to be a bit cumbersome to reuse the same routine for everything.

#439 on 2009/06/30 22:52:02

     Splitted the code base even more.

#441 on 2009/07/05 16:59:11

     The snow effect is working on ste, fails to work on the mste for some reason. Split the music part in a separate file, some fixes in the fullscreen code to avoid the color change.

#442 on 2009/07/05 18:00:37

     Implemented a very basic sequencer Smiley

#443 on 2009/07/05 18:22:08

     Improved the keyboard handling of the sequenced parts, also made sure that screen positions/offsets are correctly reset between parts.

#444 on 2009/07/05 19:08:28

     Moved a lot of code from effects to the main setup sequencer

#445 on 2009/07/05 22:01:30

     Removed some unused code
     Fixed the display code for the Defence-Force logo so it uses the same code as the Cinemascope one.
     Cleaned up a bit the logo itself.

#446 on 2009/07/06 22:12:08

     All the code now passes through the sequencer, with an Init, Play, and Terminate function. Does not much for the moment, but now the idea is to have the sequencer handle the keyboard for all the 'Play' parts.

#447 on 2009/07/06 23:35:19

     The sequencer is working, and handle the keyboard for all the parts. It is also possible to go backward and forward using the arrows keys, and space to quit.
     Note that the piracy part will have to be modified because it does not behave nicely when called multiple times (continues from where it was instead of reseting)

#451 on 2009/07/15 15:59:01

     Upgraded the data makefile to generate data compatible with PictConv 0.12, also added the missing pictures.

#453 on 2009/07/15 18:56:04

     Added the two pictures (panoramic office + insert disk on the atari), plus the ones changed due to the new pictconv generating slightly different palettes.

#454 on 2009/07/15 19:21:07

     Yeah, the insert floppy disk image is now displayed in it's total glory of 44 colors. Still some glitches on the display because I'm using move.l (an)+,(an)+, should use movem.l to change them faster.

#455 on 2009/07/15 19:42:03

     Glitches are gone, nothing like a cure of movem.l to solve all you small tight timings related issues.
     Found also that the motherboard part was not correctly initializing the type of overscan routine to call.
     Next step, the desktop panoramic picture Wink

#456 on 2009/07/15 23:03:58

     Improved a bit the color changes for the scrolling part, still a lot to go Undecided

#459 on 2009/07/16 20:39:47

     Improved fullscreen routine that changes some values at the start and end of the scanline to spread over the glitches.

#460 on 2009/07/17 18:24:27

     Replaced the overscan code to support panoramic/overscan formats.
     Still need to implement the top border version of the timer.

#461 on 2009/07/18 10:24:10

     We have a working top-border for the snow effect, now need to extend the display to 276 lines - including bottom border switch.

#462 on 2009/07/18 13:02:44

     Nearly fullscreen tvsnow effect.
     Modified the code to be able to enable/disable the color changes visualizing the sync, but for some reason there are still some visible colors on the top of the fullscreen screen.

#463 on 2009/07/18 14:47:51

     Added basic support for the subtitles buffer, makes the tvsnow effect to be artifact free.
     The next step is to enable the bottom border in cinemascope modes.

#464 on 2009/07/18 17:19:56

     Finally working subtitles, but now need to change the font, because that one kind of sucks (too large, not "movie subs" enough)

#465 on 2009/07/18 19:03:45

     Added a 24x24 font based on the MS Trebuchet, should be used for sub-titles, will require proportional spacing, else it will look terrible :p

#466 on 2009/07/18 19:15:16

     Fixed bad naming convention (8.3 sucks) and forgoten files...
     The subtitle buffer is now in the subtitle.s file
     Sub buffer is correctly cleared before each effect, to avoid residus from previous effects.

#467 on 2009/07/18 20:28:24

     Trying to find out why I have horrible color changes in my between parts... which is kind of hard considering the violent audio aggression currently in place at the party place Cheesy

#468 on 2009/07/18 21:12:13

     Added subtitles on every-part, for some reason devpac crashes if I enable everything at the same time.
     Looks like I reached some executable size limit Cry
     Anyway, everything is smooth and fancy!

#470 on 2009/07/18 21:52:56

     Fixed the "ping pong" code for the motherboard scroll.
     The whole demo seem to work on the real machine, except that for some reason the text of the subtitles is totally unreadable:
     - either I have bitplan shifting
     - or the fucking piece of garbage (Funai I hate you) striked again on the bottom lines.

#471 on 2009/07/18 22:24:55

     Split the DMA audio code from the PiracyScreen.

#472 on 2009/07/19 12:52:01

     Fixed a number of issues:
     - audio does not refer the adress of samples anymore (provided by the caller)
     - the motherboard scroller was not initializing everything correctly at startup (failing on multiple calls)
     - the subtitles for the piracy screen were not working (making the code to crash and burn)

#473 on 2009/08/09 00:21:58

     We have sprites !
     Ok, added a preliminary version of the Defence Force logo as drawn using sprites displayed using a blitter routine.
     Now I need to modify pictconv to be able to force some colors.

#475 on 2009/08/09 22:23:51

     Working blitter based sprite routine.
     Takes about 45 scanlines to display a 48x44 sprite, about 13 scanlines to restore the background, 18 to mask out the background, and 18 to OR the sprite data.
     Needs to do a lot of cleaning, and then figure out how to insert that in the fullscreen.
     Considering all the drawing is done in 4 bitplans, there is room for optimisation, note that by using 3 bitplans one could display some nice shadow effect by using two palettes of slightly different intensities.

#476 on 2009/08/10 22:06:39

     Managed to get the letters move from 0,0 to their final position, one by one, using some generic code and data definition tables.
     Now need to make sure they stay on the screen at the end of the display, and have a nice curve for their travel from the start position to the end one.

#477 on 2009/08/12 13:51:24

     Bezier code working entirelly in registers (data and address) is working, now need to link the points together to create a real curve.

#478 on 2009/08/12 19:02:36

     Managed to implement a nice soft curve using real time interpolation of curve parameters. Thanks wikipedia :p

#479 on 2009/08/12 20:31:45

     Managed to get the sprits embeded in the backbuffer cleanly, so we actually have now the logo forming letter by letter. Still have one frame flickering issue to solve, and have to add nice curves.

#480 on 2009/08/12 21:02:39

     Added a missing file (sprites), plus added code to compute bezier points

#481 on 2009/08/12 22:44:20

     Yeah, the Bezier curves is now working in real time Smiley

#482 on 2009/08/12 23:16:05

     The bezier interpolator is down to 28 instructions, unfortunately still 6 muls and 6 divs (that can be replaced by asr.l if one knows the size/speed/accuracy of the curve in advance)

#485 on 2009/08/15 00:41:10

     A routine to draw flat rectangles using the blitter, with generic parameter passing to define the bitplans to modify or not, and with which values.
     Should probably change x0,y0,x1,y1 to x,y,dx,dy, not sure how more readable the code would be.

#486 on 2009/08/15 21:31:35

     Implemented a DisplayList system to be able to change the screen adress for each line. May be a good idea to implement what Kåre did, by aligning the screen lines on multiple of 256 and then just change one byte to select a line instead of changing 4 bytes each time.
     Used it to display a blitter based rectangle using precomputed scanlines.

#487 on 2009/08/16 17:46:50

     Now have a working flat rotating polygon, which for some reasons seems to be turning somewhat out of its axis, but it is working anyway.

#488 on 2009/08/16 18:45:55

     Managed to divide by more than two the cpu time used to compute the rotating plan, still something wrong in the rotation, but well, will fix that some day.
     Now will try to change the color depending of the orientation Smiley

#489 on 2009/08/17 20:30:38

     Fixed the color fade problem (was a missusing of the ste/stf cluts), plus implemented a basic debug print system using macros displaying text in the lower border.
     Now should find out why the rotation is broken

#491 on 2009/08/29 19:40:14

     Finally implemented a decent keyboard manager, it is possible to test if a key is currently beeing pressed, has just been pressed, or has just been released.
     
     Also started the "out run with trucks" part, this one will require a vertical split, should be interesting...

#493 on 2009/08/30 17:54:06

     We have a outrun sequence mostly working.
     What remains to be done:
     - Have a nice gradient with more colors (using dithering + flickering should do it)
     - Display some mountain range in the background
     - Have the road turn
     - Display some cars or signalising elements

#494 on 2009/08/31 19:48:29

     Ok, a "nice" outrun with a truck and cool gradients for the road.
     Need something better for the background, like a Fuji mountain Smiley

#495 on 2009/09/03 11:37:47

     Some cleaning in the code, removed some useless defines and equates, and changed some compile order.
     Noted that there is a problem with red colors appearing in some effects or pictures, and corruption in the subtitle font. Looks like I broke something :S

#496 on 2009/09/03 17:49:42

     Rewrote the CreateBackgroundColor routine so it takes colors as parameters in data registers instead of pointers (more practical to use).
     Took the opportunity to optimize the routine further.
     Still some weird red pixels in the gradients Oo

#497 on 2009/09/03 21:38:17

     Found the damn palette bug, was caused by changing the order of inclusions, happens that the keyboard reading code was clearing 16 bytes too many, which happen to overwrite some bytes of the gradient computation table Undecided

#498 on 2009/09/03 22:10:22

     Fixed some more issues, including a broken palette in the nightcity, and the need for actual two pointers for the ste conversion tables... yeah, painful.
     Now on the sad side of things, I apparently have some memory overwrite in the defence force logo, because after it got displayed the font for subtitles got corrupted.

#499 on 2009/09/04 17:32:06

     The subtitles are now correctly displayed using proportional size computed at runtime.
     All the remains is to do the same for the credits font, add the apostrophe character, and possibly handle correctly the kerning for some of the bad combinations.

#500 on 2009/09/08 20:23:57

     Managed to get the credits display use the same code as the subtitles, and found out that the space character had a nasty color issue Smiley

#501 on 2009/09/08 21:11:46

     Managed to get a temporary display effect for the scrolling, also modified the message in the subtitle part.
     Not unhappy of the result, even if it still require quite a lot of work.

#502 on 2009/09/09 22:22:33

     We have some zooming effect with a C2P routine.
     Now need to handle a more gracefull scaling effect, and the vertical scaling as well.

#503 on 2009/09/09 23:22:05

     Now with vertical zoom as well Smiley
     Remains to be done: centering the effect, make it faster, integrate nicely in the fullscreen

#504 on 2009/09/13 12:50:05

     Too many things in this commit:
     - New rescaling parameters to the cinemascope
     - Allocated 4 panoramic screen buffers by default, and changed the way the word alligned adress is computed in the defence force logo code.
     - Common bss data size optimisation (computes the largest necessary size of all demo parts and allocates that)
     - Changed the way the credits are displayed, but really need an actual scroll instead of just using the 4 screen lenght.

#505 on 2009/09/13 19:29:29

     Getting there:
     - Fixed some corruption due to the debug print macros not restoring correctly the font parameters
     - Changed the scroll routine to reuse the buffer (but still a glitch and a white line appearing when wrapping around the buffer size)

#506 on 2009/09/13 21:16:17

     The scrolling code is working!
     Was really a stupid bug... anyway, it is working, managed also to get adebug (reloaded 2.13) to working in place of monst, so everything is nice and cool Smiley

#507 on 2009/09/13 22:48:11

     Updated the credits list.
     Now ideally I should implement a "variable space" command for the scroller, one special escape byte followed by the number of pixels to skip.

#508 on 2009/09/14 00:11:54

     There is now a routine that can automatically split a text that does not fit in a given size. It will insert a cariage return where necessary to reduce the lenght. The routine also compute the number of 'variable spaces' to fill that later with some justification parameters.
     
     Also added three missing files from perforce... oops

#509 on 2009/09/14 21:27:55

     I now have a quite nice scrolling routine with centring, left and right allignment, seems to work nicelly even on reasonably long texts, so that's kind of cool.

#511 on 2009/09/15 22:35:34

     We now have a compressed "Insert Disk" image, 9020 bytes instead of 48000.
     Could not use directly Ray's compressor, so had to write my own. *Sigh*, at least FilePack packs better than both his LZ77 and LZ78 packers.

#512 on 2009/09/15 23:05:12

     And two more compressed pictures:
     - Ste Motherboard, 214576 -> 72883
     - Desktop office, 89600 -> 42552
     Next step, Piracy pictures.

#513 on 2009/09/16 20:59:28

     Packe all the pictures of the "piracy it's a crime" sequence.
     Packing ratio is not that impressive, but it could have been worse Smiley

#514 on 2009/09/16 21:30:54

     Most of "piracy" pictures are now packed, will have to:
     - optimize the depack buffers
     - optimize the depacker (3 seconds to depack, that's way too long)

#515 on 2009/09/16 22:06:26

     Did a micro-optimisation of the depacking code, gone from $81 to $7f VBLs to depack (that's 2.54 seconds).
     Next step is to unroll the copy loop

#516 on 2009/09/16 22:35:30

     Unrolled the copy loop, down from $7f to $70 vbls (2.24 seconds)

#517 on 2009/09/16 23:07:21

     From 1965206 to 1944872 bytes used
     From 1638 to 1296 ko on disk.
     Still quite a lot of work to do :p

#518 on 2009/09/17 21:26:07

     Continuying with the quest for memory reduction by packing more files. Also using the Listing functionallity ot Devpac to get a dump of symbols.

#519 on 2009/09/17 21:52:37

     All the fonts are now decompressed, same thing for the "copy this demo" and "night city" pictures.
     Total size: 1927868, on disk 1199k

#522 on 2009/09/19 20:01:27

     The CopyTrack.wav has finally been reduced in size using delta compression. This gives a 50% ratio, so we are down from 580550 to 290276, not awesome, but as a result the executable is now 914 k !

#523 on 2009/09/20 17:52:58

     Fixed a bug in the delta depacker (was depacking twice as much data), and implemented the first code generator for the tvsnow effect fullscreen based on a serie of templates.
     Interesting to see that the assembly time reduced from 111 to 86 seconds by not having to do REPT/ENDR !

#524 on 2009/09/20 18:14:33

     One more full routine converted to template (the panoramic one, without color changes).

#525 on 2009/09/20 18:32:49

     Converted another fullscreen routine (Panoramic with full palette change), complete demo now takes 857k on disk, and assembles in 63 seconds (started at 111 seconds with the REPT/ENDR), still some more to go.

#526 on 2009/09/20 19:22:10

     And one more, converted the single background color change routine used in mobo/nightcity. We are down to 839k on disk, and 43.5" of assembly time... and it now fits on a floppy when packed with UPX (down to 720k Cheesy)

#527 on 2009/09/20 19:39:08

     The final fullscreen routine has been converted from REPT/ENDR to generated code, we are down to 24" assembling time.

#528 on 2009/09/24 22:18:34

     New batch of pictures re-exported with the new pictconv that handles correctly the "locked "colors... but unfortunately fails to match the rest of colors properly. Will have to fix that.
     Anyway, got the "binary clock" code to work, the scrolling picture has nice desk/atari drawing (no more wild color changes).

#530 on 2009/09/26 00:27:07

     Got a switch with blinking lights, and a nice gradient in the background.
     Would be cool to have a parallax effect... both for the buildings in the background, and for the shape of the guy in front.
     And perhaps some blinking logos or something.
     Oh, and need to animate the Atari screen as well.

#531 on 2009/09/26 13:41:41

     I now have some 'demo effect' on the screen of the Atari. Some slow scrolling background rasters, and some bouncing ones on top.
     Now I need to add a scroll text, using the 8x8 font Smiley

#532 on 2009/09/26 21:07:24

     The office part is a lot better now:
     - Nice new color for the leds on the switch
     - A full demo effect with rasters and scroll text on the atari monitor
     - The floppy led is blinking
     - Improved somewhat the picture by doing some manual color reduction in order to help PictConv

#533 on 2009/09/26 23:16:29

     The "insert disk" floppy is now before the office screen.

#534 on 2009/09/27 22:21:57

     Now the cinemascope logo is actually zooming, that's nice.
     But need more steps, like twice as many, because it is a bit too choppy and fast.

#535 on 2009/09/27 23:30:03

     The zoomer now uses dynamically allocated memory - ie: computes with macros how much memory should be used for the big final buffer.
     Still wobly, guess I need to have ani additional table for blocks offsets, because the fix offset obviously propagates the error in a very noticable way :S

#536 on 2009/10/01 21:18:57

     Added the music for the effect

#537 on 2009/10/04 00:50:56

     The audio delta depacker is now slightly faster (but not good enough unfortunately), used it for the "boot disk" sound on the insert disk part, plus added an audio sequencer (I need to add a way to trigger callbacks for the user to do things).
     Also added a music (Renegade, by David Whittaker) during the desk office phase (should be started at the end of the loading on the previous sequence).
     The floppy disk LED also blinks during the loading.
     Still need to "insert" the disk.

#538 on 2009/10/04 15:08:54

     Fixed a number of issues:
     - Clearly distinguished between the display stride, and the blitting stride
     - New sequencer commands for the audio (can be used to temporize and run callbacks)
     - Insert disk screen now starts the music after the fake loading, and subtitles indicates what happens
     - Lot of fixes here and there Smiley

#539 on 2009/10/04 17:24:58

     Added the support for the LMC1992/Microwire, but of course none of the emulators supports that correctly, so I will push back the implementation and testing for later.
     At least I managed to implement the LED blinking correctly. It starts off, then lights during the loading, off during the depacking, and blinks madly during the music replay.

#540 on 2009/10/04 19:29:09

     The floppy now cleanly got inserted inside the floppy drive, and the eject button pops out.
     Still need an insert "schlock" sound, but that should do it for the moment Smiley

#541 on 2009/10/04 20:56:23

     Fixed issues with the lower border (tested on the real ste), was due to the adress change being done too late. By moving the black color change in the free nops in the border change, fixed the problem.

#542 on 2009/10/04 23:23:14

     Reimplemented the tvsnow effect using purely procedural code (noise generator + 2x2 blur + horizontal blur + chunky to plannar)
     Still some optimization to do, because it is not as fast as it could be. (The 2x2 blur could be way faster, by accessing less often the memory)

#543 on 2009/10/05 20:35:06

     Optimised the snow generator.

#544 on 2009/10/05 20:43:16

     Optimized the white noise generation by unrolling the loop

#545 on 2009/10/05 22:44:55

     Added a pre-sequence for letting people press a key to start the demo after a long floppy loading.
     Optimized the erasing routine !

#546 on 2009/10/05 22:55:48

     Replaced some more dedicated erasing loops by a calls to the optimized one.

#549 on 2009/10/06 20:59:29

     Added the ste side picture (resolution 416x100) to the demo.
     Need to add the code now.

#550 on 2009/10/06 21:12:01

     Fixed a stupid bug...

#551 on 2009/10/07 19:23:12

     Work in progress with the ste case scrolling sideways on top of the motherboard hardware scrolling using the 4 bytes full pixel adress trick Smiley
     Next step, add the palette pointer to the fast display list.

#552 on 2009/10/07 20:25:08

     Added support for full copper change, with both adress and palette (note: The first palette is not correct, have to change that)

#553 on 2009/10/07 22:08:53

     Now both the "ste motherboard" and the "side ste case" are displayed using multi-palette mode, the background rasters are back there as well.
     Demo now takes 2138864 bytes, 795k on disk, and 687k with UPX.
     Not sure for the memory usage, but for the disk we are good to go Smiley

#554 on 2009/10/08 22:06:29

     Added the chatroom picture.
     Not final, still a very first mockup, but it is getting there Smiley

#555 on 2009/10/08 23:02:20

     The IRC chatroom is now in the demo.
     Just need to make it work Smiley

#556 on 2009/10/10 15:39:05

     Added an improved version of the chatroom picture.
     Also reworked the BSS usage so no screen buffer is allocated by default, which made the final memory usage at this point to be 1985676 bytes, 808kb on disk, and 698kb packed with UPX Smiley
     So far so good.
     Please note, cinemascop, truckfrt and dfncfrce are still not compressed. But it still misses graphic data for the side truck, forklift and boxes.
     Will they fit ?

#557 on 2009/10/10 16:52:39

     Cinemascope logo is now packed.
     New size: 1973254/796/699

#558 on 2009/10/10 17:05:06

     The front facing truck picture is now compressed.
     Memory status: 1966130/789/699

#559 on 2009/10/10 17:57:28

     Reduced a bit the memory consumption.
     Found out also:
     - DefenceForce logo and sprites are both in memory, and not compressed
     - Need to get rid of A7 in the fullscreen so I can call the standard jsr based pause macro. This can be solved by reusing the adress/shift trick to get one more free register.

#560 on 2009/10/10 19:35:24

     Some more optimization in the fullscreen department, will try later to merge some of the displaylist code. Also need to simplify the polygon rotation code.
     Current memory status: 1936856/785/695

#561 on 2009/10/10 20:20:35

     Replaced all the possible JSR by BSR, not a problem now that the whole TEXT section is less than 32k.
     Memory usage: 1936448/784/696

#562 on 2009/10/10 20:34:58

     Even less memory used for the fullscreen generation.
     Net benefit is not as huge as expected, but I guess it is not that bad. Now I wish I could find which part uses the most bss !

#564 on 2009/10/11 11:52:26

     The 6x6 font is finally displayed correctly.
     Now the problem is that doing this display properly (pixel accurate placement and proportional handling) is going to be better with the generic routine, so I will reformat the picture to be on 16 bits entries... damned

#565 on 2009/10/11 14:02:18

     Improved the handling of text by passing a description bloc instead of a bunch of register values.
     6x6 font is now displayed correctly, but need to display it using some standard text routine now.

#566 on 2009/10/11 15:40:01

     Added the notion of "depack block" to clean up the source code a bit. Everything seems to be working fine, except for the 8x8 system font which happens to be totally broken.

#567 on 2009/10/11 16:29:32

     Found out that the 8x8 font was broken due to devpac aligning automatically the incbins, but unfortunately the label was not.

#568 on 2009/10/11 18:14:20

     Most of the crap text display code is gone.
     Added support for pixel accurate separation between characters; and the parameters like the width of the bitmap, size of space, etc... are all in the description bloc.
     As a result the small font is now correctly displayed using the generic routine Smiley

#569 on 2009/10/11 22:26:58

     Got a primitive chat window working.
     Still need to:
     - display the time stamp
     - the nickname
     - the 'real typing' effect
     - change the colors accordingly to who is typing

#570 on 2009/10/11 22:41:47

     Tweaked the 6x6 font so things look better.

#571 on 2009/10/11 23:33:33

     Extended the 6x6 font with the standard Atari characters (Fuji, arrows, bob, etc...)
     The chat now display the time stamps (had to reorganize the time management by moving part of the code to the System file).

#572 on 2009/10/12 23:23:10

     Lot of work done on the chatroom:
     - Changed the colors used for the realtime clock, now uses the two first colors (easier to patch/update)
     - Added some cool stupid random chat
     - Colors are now dependent of the nickname
     - Nicknames are displayed right alligned

#573 on 2009/10/13 21:58:41

     The segment based display of time is now working fine Smiley
     Will need to cleanup and optimize a bit, but at least it is working.

#574 on 2009/10/14 23:30:42

     The text box now correctly enter the text, with some random delay to make it more realistic.
     Now need to play some samples Smiley

#575 on 2009/10/15 23:19:39

     We have the keyclicks sounds.
     Also found out why the "copy" soundtrack was corrupted, I actually copy-pasted wrong code which was not depacking the correct amount of data.
     So anyway, 8 different click sounds, for a total of 4769 bytes packed, I can probably reduce by cleaning the sample anyway, there is some tweeting sounds here and there.
     Current memory usage: 1947452/789/694
     Not bad Smiley

#576 on 2009/10/17 12:24:01

     The tvsnow buffer is now being reused as 'static' noise, works great.
     Also modified the Audio replay so it returns the number of frames the sample will be played, for synchronization purpose.

#577 on 2009/10/17 17:38:23

     A bit too many changes in the same changelist, some non finished, this is bad:
     - extracted the sequencer part from audio.s to sequence.s
     - added a vbl callback for the parts
     - changed the implementation of the subtitle display (direct text instead of pointer)
     - started to reimplement the 'piracy' sequence with the generic sequencer instead of specialized one

#578 on 2009/10/17 18:43:09

     The Piracy part now entirelly uses the common sequencer, fixed some style issues and non compliant names. Working fine except the timings are all wrong, have to fix that.

#579 on 2009/10/17 20:33:41

     Fixed (improved?) some of the pictures

#580 on 2009/10/18 00:02:50

     Cleaned-up the fullscreen generator, and added a moon picture.
     Now need to replace the static nightcity picture by a scrolling one from the moon to the city, and some moving reflection with secondary blueish palette

#581 on 2009/10/18 10:25:29

     The sign correction for the samples is now done in the depacking routine itself at no cost, so I was able to remove the SampleChangeSign routine from audio.s
     This means that at some point I can start to depack per block instead of depacking everything upfront.

#582 on 2009/10/18 14:00:29

     Replaced most "incbin" by a FILE macro that correctly handles allignment and label adresses.
     Should solve the random bugs due to FilePack suddendly generating an odd long file :p

#583 on 2009/10/18 15:10:34

     New command in the sequencer to go to the next part.
     The nightcity sequence is also updated with a clean background, the moon, the rasters.
     All that remains to do is the mirroring of the city in the water.

#584 on 2009/10/18 15:28:03

     Removed one of the now unused fullscreen templates.
     Added a transition to next part on the piracy screen.

#585 on 2009/10/18 20:08:26

     We now have boxes that can beat your boxes.

#586 on 2009/10/20 23:27:29

     We are getting there.
     Need to optimize seriously the way I update the display lists, because it is not as fast is one may have wanted.
     Also need to solve the glitches.

#587 on 2009/10/21 20:10:41

     Fixed more of less the issue with the motherboard scrolling, had to remove the rasters, because well, they did not really work anymore.
     Memory: 1947110/789/690

#589 on 2009/10/21 21:38:12

     Updated stats

#590 on 2009/10/21 22:15:03

     Fixed the credits texts.
     Changed the background color of the motherboard

#591 on 2009/10/21 23:12:20

     Added new sequencer commands to set byte/word/long values (removed the set flag one), and fixed the code.
     Started to implement sequencing for the rotating defence force logo as well, but seems that the sprite sequence itself is fucked up *sigh* possibly a misconfigurated screen display.

#592 on 2009/10/24 13:05:52

     Replaced most of the 16 colors pictures for piracy by display list based multi-color pictures.
     Took the opportunity to clean up the DisplayList setup as well.
     Has to replace the display code by real effects for shaking and rewinding.

#593 on 2009/10/24 17:13:34

     Merged even more palette/display list code.
     Now have to find why I have some purple color between some of the effects.

#594 on 2009/10/25 20:16:26

     The "would you" parts are working again, had to use a small table to handle the adress computation more efficiently, but now have to replace in the rest of the code.

#595 on 2009/10/25 21:21:49

     No much changes.
     Now need to get the rotation transition to work between cinemascope and defence force logo.

#596 on 2009/10/25 21:50:28

     Removed one of the redudant fullscreen routines, cinemascope and defence force logo are now using the standard display list routine

#597 on 2009/10/25 22:11:24

     Added the sequencer to the cinemascope sequence

#599 on 2009/10/26 21:23:44

     Renamed some of the blitter functions to be consistant in the naming, finally replaced my old defines with french comments by decent ones in english using a structure definition, repaired the sprites display as well.
     Problem: Bezier + big sprites = kaboom.
     I should now try the sprites from crem

#600 on 2009/10/26 22:44:56

     Replaced the sprites by the new ones, does not look too bad; but still work to do. Oh, and the erasing is not done at the correct location Undecided

#603 on 2009/10/27 21:58:09

     Fixed the bugs in the sprite display, replaced the complicated logic by a state machine, so much simpler, works better, faster as well.
     Wish I had done that before Undecided
     Memory status: 1999830/789/716

#604 on 2009/10/28 00:40:06

     The city is finally reflected and ripples as well.
     Now I need to #the palette to have something darker and blueish as well.

#605 on 2009/10/28 21:57:17

     Did an optimisation pass on the code, added all these missing 's' and 'q' all over the place Smiley

#606 on 2009/10/28 22:22:46

     The "Any" in the Press Any Key is now working.
     Made the keyboard handler replacable, so in practice the loading done part just overides that and restores it after.

#607 on 2009/10/28 22:35:41

     Renamed some stuff to get consistant in the naming conventions, moved the grey palette from the snow to the palette file.
     Found out that enabling the insertdisk part actually is responsible for the black line in the rasters in the next part Oo

#608 on 2009/10/28 23:11:34

     Replaced the fullscreen routine in the insertdisk part by the displaylist based one.

#609 on 2009/10/29 20:40:21

     Replaced the fullscreen routine of the credits by the display list one.

#610 on 2009/10/29 20:52:47

     The chatroom is now using the displaylist routine as well.

#611 on 2009/10/29 21:37:08

     Outrun was converted to use the display list routine.
     Remains only one, the Office, still using the old one.
     Found out that the InsertDisk is the routine that corrupts data (responsible for both the black line in rasters and the purple palette corruption)

#612 on 2009/10/29 21:56:12

     Finally replaced the last part to use the display lists...
     Need to find why the InsertDisk part corrupts data, probably something stupid.

#613 on 2009/10/29 22:12:57

     Fixed the purple issue (was due to the IRQ callback still being called).
     Still have corruption on the gradient on the atari.

#614 on 2009/10/29 22:39:22

     Version as sent to XiA today.
     The end credits now exit cleanly at the end of the text.

#615 on 2009/10/31 18:02:17

     Removed some more unused stuff (rests from old test routines), changed the order of parts (different story, but more coherent and dynamic), modified the texts accordingly.
     Memory report: 1911310/786/716

#616 on 2009/11/01 17:08:09

     Did some cleanup in the setup of the overscan routine.
     Be carefully with optimizing the seting of the timer A, it breaks the top border...

#617 on 2009/11/01 18:07:51

     Did a lot of cleanup in the setup of overscan, now one call and it is done correctly.
     Also reduced the size taken by the subtitles font, both on disk and in memory.
     Thanks to GGN for signaling --ultra-brute flag on UPX, improved significantly the packing efficiency.
     Memory status: 1892460/784/710

#618 on 2009/11/01 18:16:11

     Removed unused parts on the OCR font, even more free memory:
     1891310/783/710

#619 on 2009/11/01 18:35:25

     Reduced the size taken by the 8x8 font, moved the gradient buffer to the only part using it (office).
     1875482/781/709

#620 on 2009/11/01 19:33:42

     Just updated the size of each part.

#621 on 2009/11/01 23:03:48

     The piracy pictures are not displayed as a font.
     Some glitches when changing the pictures, but it takes a lot less room:
     1746384/749/685

#622 on 2009/11/02 20:10:04

     Fixed the display of texts in the piracy part.
     The glitch was due to the blitter call fucking up the vbl.

#623 on 2009/11/02 22:38:47

     Some more changes in the piracy section, now with a distortion plus interlacing effect.

#624 on 2009/11/03 23:06:05

     Added a new effect with the 5 pictures interleaved.

#625 on 2009/11/05 21:16:20

     Integrated XiA code in the intro.
     Managed to seriously optimize it (even if it was pointless, not like a scanline of difference changes anything)

#626 on 2009/11/08 14:13:30

     Fixed the fade-out of the snow effect.

#627 on 2009/11/08 18:27:58

     Sequenced the office sequence, fixed the problem with the background color (for some reason was apparently the evaluation of macros in devpac depending of what else has happened before Cry )
     Memory status: 1719292/722/638

#628 on 2009/11/08 18:56:17

     Tried to optimize a bit the desktop sequence, for some reason the vbl code is not very nice when interacting with the sequencer.
     Obvious fix would be to have the sequencer handle the 'play' routine itself during the vbl waits.

#629 on 2009/11/08 22:30:11

     Added a new "squish" effect on the Cinemascope logo, that uses the precalc table of scanlines, which hopefully will be usable by the rotation one.
     Will have to solve the issue of glitches in the office section (moving all the code in the vbl handler was a bad idea)

#630 on 2009/11/14 15:00:15

     Added some effects on the defence force logo, some glitches when fading, but otherwise kind of ok.
     Memory status: 1772528/725/638

#631 on 2009/11/14 16:20:31

     The sprites are now compressed.

#632 on 2009/11/14 18:16:42

     The missing truck picture is there:
     1796750/741/656

#633 on 2009/11/15 18:16:13

     New sequencing of XiA music with synchronized effects.
     The effect-sequencer is now cleanly integrated in the main part sequencer.
     Music player with the new music from XiA is there as well, but using the music makes most effect to crash due to the VBL being too long - have to fix that.
     Memory status: 1792062/737/654

#634 on 2009/11/15 21:38:17

     Trying to crunch cpu time usage to get the music play well with the rest of the demo.
     
     Managed to get it to work, but then the effects are not displayed when texts are shown... kind of suck.

#635 on 2009/11/15 23:56:36

     Still optimizing... *sigh*

#636 on 2009/11/16 12:34:27

     Some more tweaks.
     At this points problems are:
     - sprites flickering
     - scrolltext font broken
     - fadepalette killed by the music

#637 on 2009/11/16 13:30:56

     Managed to fix most of the bugs, now what remains is text tweaking, and a final big atari logo.
     Memory status: 1816718/761/659

#638 on 2009/11/16 15:12:16

     Number of small tweaks, text duration, message changes, etc...
     Unfortunately the scroller font corruption is back.

#639 on 2009/11/16 17:39:58

     Fixed the scroller glitch, and adapted timings in the intro sequence so the texts are readable.
     New picture with Al Gore movie instead of horror movie.

#640 on 2009/11/16 18:49:35

     The TVSnow sound is now less violent.
     Nice picture for the "copy it"

#641 on 2009/11/16 23:06:21

     Some more stuff:
     - Changed the "copy this demo" to an ecological themed picture
     - Added an end picture with an Atari logo
     - Fixed glitches in the sprites

#642 on 2009/11/17 00:30:50

     Added the "wobbling" on the atari building sequence.

#643 on 2009/11/17 13:08:40

     Some timing tweaks, changed the atari end picture a bit, added flickering lights on the real floppy drive, and faded out the audio as well.

#644 on 2009/11/17 13:22:26

     Added a missing fade to white in the defence force logo sequence, fixed the audio glitch in the piracy end picture.

#645 on 2009/11/17 16:33:13

     Some more tweaks:
     - Removed the final text in the office sequence, so the next music starts at the right moment
     - Improved the transition from rotating plane to defence force logo

#646 on 2009/11/17 21:58:47

     Changed XiA's name in the credits, and worked on two pictures to remove palette #artefacts.

#647 on 2009/11/17 22:13:14

     Nothing special

#648 on 2009/11/18 21:33:05

     Found the white glitch bug, was just a missing nop Cry

#649 on 2009/11/18 22:37:12

     Version 1.0 of the demo!
     Sent to Evl, PRG is 672k, could have been smaller but I'm tired and want to be done with it.

#650 on 2009/11/20 00:46:59

     Did some cleanup, removed commented out lines and sequencer tweaks, but also changed the end effect, and added few names in the greetings.


#651 on 2009/11/20 12:16:27

     Some more cleaning, plus:
     - added the missing scanlines on the snow effect
     - removed the stabilizer from the fullscreen as well
     - removed some more commented out lines
     - fixed a small problem in the audio sequencer

  
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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #6 - 02.12.09 at 08:20:52
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Wow, that is a detailed development log. I can't wait to see the result  Cheesy

Robert
« Last Edit: 02.12.09 at 08:21:17 by robert2098 »  

Better 8 hours at work than no sleep at all.
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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #7 - 02.12.09 at 08:51:50
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robert2098 wrote on 02.12.09 at 08:20:52:
Wow, that is a detailed development log. I can't wait to see the result  Cheesy

Robert


Here it is: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=54106
  
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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #8 - 03.12.09 at 09:23:27
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Stories for the end... (29/11/2009)
Credit screen by Zorro 2 finished today between 6 PM and 9 PM (large rasters-blitter)
Final testing in a real STE at 21h45 !!! Email at 21h55 !
Tomchi finished a second version of the - megatiser - music today at midnight.
Mister.A are giving the last gfx (eye green screen and credits) at 5 PM today !
  

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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #9 - 04.12.09 at 07:47:00
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So, this is the story of my screen.

It was going to be branded under the Reboot label, but for various reasons (among which sh3 wasn't available for drawing some pretty gfx) I decided to release it under KÜA software productions label.

People involved are me, Excellence in art, Ukko/Live! and Havoc/Lineout.


The oldest of the fx here is the scroller with moving background, which was intended to be included in Oxygene's Nostalgic-o demo (written in early 1999)! Unfortunately, my STE's floppy drive got damaged while I was coding this and finding a replacement proved difficult (I was a poor student back then etc etc), so it got delayed. Couple that with the face that Leonard totally filled the demo disk to the brim, so it was finally left out. I remember that I finished because Leonard had expressed the desire to do a "never ending demo" with expansion disks etc, but that never saw the light. So that screen was left in a closet to rot, until I would find a suitable reason to release it. (it came close to being included in one of the D-Bug menus, where we were toying with the idea of including a different menu for the ST, STE and Falcon, but we scrapped that idea too).

Most of the rest of the stuff was intended to be included in my collaboration with RG and Sector One, that is known as "Faery Land Adventures". They were written in 2002/3. Mr Pink was happily coding away the main game and I was doing some support routines, the credits screen (the parallax screen with text on top), the pause screen (the tangram letters forming of their fundamental shapes) and some menu transitions (the appearing effect of the first pic). Sadly Mr Pink lost interest in the game (it's still rotting on our hard drives Wink), so these screens were left unused too.

Enter 2009 and Paradox announced this Megademo. Feeling very guilty that I missed out completely on the 20 years ST megademo (to my defence I was pretty much idling the year it came out) I committed myself to submitting a screen for this demo (and hey, the STE was my first 16/32 after all!).

During the summer I got involved in the creation of a Jaguar game called Project One (more info here), so my idea was to make a small game as my entry to the demo. However, progress was very slow, and I didn't just want to put a game in there with no fx. So as time progressed I remembered that I could use some of the old screens to spice things up, but I was unwilling to go and code the game. So, 2 weeks before the deadline I decided that if I were to submit something, I'd have to ditch the idea of the game.

But then what? Just give the screens as-is with some music thrown in? That would look really lame and would seem like a diskfiller. Then, one week before the deadline, an idea struck me: In the game I was supposed to use the ending of the 1812 overture as soundtrack (because the game which I was trying to code was a port of an 8-bit game with that tune). So what if I threw in all the effects and changed them in sync with the cymbal hits? At least a) it would only last one minute so people wouldn't get bored and b) it seemed fun to do!

Hooray! I finally had a nice concept! With 7 days to implement it! Holy shit! The final week of the deadline I was a bit busy with some chores etc so that didn't help either.

Initially I thought about downsampling and cutting the .ogg tune from wikimedia, but it turned out to be too big for the 160k limit and I didn't have enough time to experiment with adpcm encoding (plus I was afraid that the result would sound shit - compressed orchestral music usually sounds pretty unimpressive). So I asked very shyly on IRC if someone would like to help and almost immediately Excellence in Art responded positively Smiley. I quickly explained him my idea for a screen, and he seemed very positive and eager to help. That meant that a) I'd get my tune after all (I was going to use any leftover/unreleased track by him or Dubmood at that point), b) not only me thought that this screen was going to turn out fine!

Xia worked very quickly on the musical front, and I got the final version of the tune about 2 days after I asked! So I quickly wrote some code to use the sync byte and then it was time to bring it all together. At this point, it was Friday, and the Deadline was on Sunday night! Oooops!

Actually a part inside of me didn't want to touch 10 year old code, which was written for various reasons and God knows how much stuff was hardcoded. I dived straight in, merging all the sources in one big source file, just like Turbo Assembler likes it, and went in for the toughest part: the scroller. After quite some fiddling, I managed to make it re-entrant per VBL (which up to that point wasn't - not a pretty sight) and integrate it with the frame-based demo system the rest of the screens used. If I'm not mistaken this took the largest part of Friday and I was quite relieved when I got that up and running: it meant that most of my worries were over! XiA was mostly online and provided massive moral support (I've sent him some stand-alone versions of the screens so he'd know the material). Ukko came on IRC too, asking if someone needed any gfx help and I immediately PMed him, and he promised me that I'd have an intro pic before the end of the deadline! Neat!

Saturday was spent tweaking around the screens, removing any bugs that I could see and syncing a couple of effects partially to see if it's worth it (me and XiA liked it at least Smiley). XiA also pestered me to use the appearing effects on Ukko's screen. One small piece of trivia: that effect has 2184 different ways to compose the screen! Well, probably a bit less because there are some duplicate fx, but they're a lot anyway. In the end I left them all in because we couldn't decide on a particular fx (and it would be hard to spot a single one, they all looked nice), so each time the screen is run the pic is shown with a different effect. I also had this idea that in the end I'd show a big chunky 1-col Atari logo that would disappear as I would fade in some static. The plans slightly changed when XiA gave me that stonking logo with "STE" drawn in the background in a light gray. Maybe there would be a way to disintegrate that into static as well, but I was too tired to think of how to do it. So instead I just drew some static and changed some palettes around while fading down. Not too bad I guess. Up to this point, the demo was quite compact (around 40k compressed). I was going to use some noise generated from the code itself, but XiA wasn't 100% satisfied with the quality, so he sent me some pics with gaussian distributed noise, which is practically uncompressible, so the size was bumped up to about 140k! Havoc drew in a quick pic of Kabouter Wesley as well, after I joked with him on IRC that I would like to include a pic like that. This was supposed to be faded in at the very start, but XiA (rightfully) pointed out that it would look better at the very end. (part of why I wanted it at the start was because of any potential bugs I might encounter if I included it at the end, but in the end I obliged Wink ). The last item I wanted to address was the logo for the main menu. I sketched something very quick and sent it to XiA, and I remember sending me back exactly what I had in mind, only prettier, and drawn very quickly! Also, he had the main idea of the screen's name (I can't remember if I had any idea at that point, but his sounded clever so I went along!)

Sunday morning found me very relaxed and not too worried, even though I haven't synced anything up to that point: I simply had a full day to do it. Of course various bugs crept in during the sync which had to be addressed, and I had a few small arguments with XiA about how exactly it was going to be synced (he would rather see it that I changed screens at almost every cymbal hit, I thought it would be very epilepsy-inducing - in the end we agreed on something in-between that we both were pretty happy about). Ukko delivered his pic just in the nick of time, but I foolishly used XNview to convert the pic from PC1 to PI1, and it screwed up the palette. The demo screen was submitted about 25 mins before the deadline end, and when I sat down to relax a bit I got a PM from Ukko about the palette! I was so tired I couldn't figure out why it happened, and then it hit me: it was XNview. Well, this was very easy to fix, I just converted the pic using dpaint, and re-sent the screen to Ra exactly 1 minute before the deadline ended Cheesy.

So that's about it from me. As you see, XiA played a major role in the making of this screen, so I can't thank him enough! Ukko's and Havoc's help was also incredible and I'm proud to have included the pixels of such skilled artists (well, XiA drew some amazing stuff at phenomenal times, but I don't want to thank him twice - don't want to boost his ego too much Tongue)

I did promise for the full source and WIP assets, irc logs etc. I will release those when I clean them up and get permission from the other people involved. Maybe they'll present them on their own.
« Last Edit: 02.01.10 at 22:46:17 by ggn »  
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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #10 - 21.12.09 at 09:36:39
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Thanks. I didn't read it carefully and thought it was part of the upcoming 20th anniversary demo.

I finally watched the demo and it was very nice. Totally different than the usual ST demos as it is telling more a story with different screens. So it keeps your attention.
I like the split screens. That is one STE feature I didn't see much.

Robert


ggn wrote on 02.12.09 at 08:51:50:
robert2098 wrote on 02.12.09 at 08:20:52:
Wow, that is a detailed development log. I can't wait to see the result  Cheesy

Robert


Here it is: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=54106

  

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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #11 - 28.12.09 at 18:58:44
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I guess this was meant to be the coders only, but who cares anyway.... This is GRAFIX POST MORTEM:

Grafix for: Cubes, Ribbons and 3D Flybys by paranoid of pdx:
-----------------------------------------------------

Cubes - Screen:
-----------------
1.      The very first version of paranoidŽs Cubes screen i saw had the skyline of Frankfurt as a background.
2.      The background-size is 512*256 and had to be delievered in 4 PI1 pics. Considering the moves of the cubes i decided to do a fishpond as a background.
3.      The pencil sketches show the early stages of the logo. The actual logo took me some busy evenings. The rocks on the side of the screen were done in a rush and replaced the “glass”, which still remains on the bottom of the pond.

(neochrome, photoshop)
« Last Edit: 28.12.09 at 19:28:46 by dan »  

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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #12 - 28.12.09 at 19:02:12
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Ribbons-Screen:
-----------------
1.      Shows the first version of the ribbons screen. Has got nothing in common with the greetings screen as you know it by now (pic 3). One day paranoid might tell you the whole story of this piece of code.  Grin
2.      The “20 years 1-Plane-Ribbons Logo” was supposed to make a nice background to this screen, but everything changed when the paranoid decided to change the whole convept. You will recognize this I plane background on another spot in the demo. Wink
3.      The aerial concept (sky as background) was the paranoidŽs fresh concept for the old code. You can see an additional shape of his “bikini girl” (compare pic 4) on the left side of the pic. The soft integration of the “1 plane-ribbons-logo” into the clouds was done in neochrome (not photoshop). Hell lot of work for little visibility…  Shocked
4.      This picture was done by paranoid and features the nice idea of a bikini girl walking on the moon.

(neochrome, degas)
« Last Edit: 28.12.09 at 19:18:30 by dan »  

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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #13 - 28.12.09 at 19:06:29
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3D –flybys-Screen:
--------------------
1.      RA of pdx did the first version of a 360 degree view to the pillars.

2.      Looking for inspiration to the 360 background I browsed evilŽs wonderful archive of high-quality videos. Thanks, evil!

3.      The actual background is my first collaboration with zweckform of pdx.

4.      the final result
« Last Edit: 28.12.09 at 19:21:02 by dan »  

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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #14 - 28.12.09 at 19:23:49
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intro-pic for noextra:
-----------------------

1.      the work on this piece started with the sketch of the flying saucer. I had the covers of colourful vinyl records of the 70Žs early 80Žs in mind. A crappy title was a must: … back in the nick of time…
2.      With no idea for a logo for these guys I browsed the internet and found their website logo. I gave it a glance of white gold. I guess on the pic zorro will use, you wonŽt find the logo anymore. So here you get my idea of the “finished” pic.
3.      The planet, the ISSR and the mon are a rip.
4.      wip
5.      heavy use of rasters even in the flying saucer.

(neochrome Master, heavy use of rasters)
  

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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #15 - 01.01.10 at 12:50:18
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Excellent stuff there Dan! Any other artist/coder to share some stuff (I updated the post mortem of my screen btw Smiley)
  
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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #16 - 02.01.10 at 22:26:59
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WIP shots of Ukko's logo from my screen (last one = final)
  

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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #17 - 02.01.10 at 22:31:02
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The conceptual graphic I drew, which XiA turned into a proper logo for the main menu. It was my intention to list all crews involved, but it'd prolly not fit or it would look crap, so XiA took the liberty of changing the text a bit (also, I was way deep into the code to argue too much at that point so I took his word - after all, he's Excellence in Art, not me Wink)
« Last Edit: 02.01.10 at 22:35:40 by ggn »  

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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #18 - 02.01.10 at 22:48:26
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Here's the WIP tunes I got from XiA
  

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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #19 - 02.01.10 at 23:35:44
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And here comes some of the dialogue Per and I had during the production of the screen. Timestamps are GMT+2. I chopped some of the dialogue because it was either off topic, or emowank Smiley. The links left should work, so you you should be able to leech the previews of the individual screens too

Tuesday

--- Log opened Tue Nov 24 11:43:46 2009
11:43 -!- Irssi: Starting query in IRCnet with XiA
11:43 <XiA> Were you thinking of any particular style of music, or perhaps even a cover (those are easier to make)
11:44 <ggn> well, yesterday I had a weird thought
11:44 <XiA> Weird is good Cool
11:44 <ggn> use tchaikovsky's 1812 overture
11:44 <ggn> as a big sample
11:44 <ggn> and flip through the screens synced with the cymbals
11:44 <XiA> That. Is. So. Cool
11:44 <ggn> but I don't think I can fit a 1 min sample in there Smiley
11:45 <XiA> Might be a LIIIIITTLE tight Cool
11:45 <ggn> yeah I have like 4 screens leftover from =<10 years and I thought I'd throw them all in there
11:45 <ggn> yeah
11:45 <ggn> well you could use a cymbal sample in mym Smiley
11:45 <XiA> Exactly my thoughtg
11:46 <ggn> and well, the screens are a bit standard fare
11:46 <ggn> so I thought 1 min of them should be enough Smiley
11:46 <ggn> I can send you some prgs to check out
11:46 <XiA> However, if we trigger the cymbal sample outside of mym (using the sync command in mym), you could have it ADPCM:ed Cool
11:46 <ggn> hehe
11:47 <ggn> does mym have a space restriction for samples?
11:47 <XiA> Yup, 32K each, max 8 in all
11:47 <ggn> aha
11:47 <XiA> Not that a cymbal can't be good in 32K, but it feels like a bit of waste I guess Cool
11:47 <ggn> so, are you feeling up to it?
11:47 <ggn> yeah I get your point
11:47 <XiA> Listening to it now
11:47 <XiA> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1812_Overture
11:47 <ggn> last minute
11:48 <ggn> I mean the song's last minute
11:48 <ggn> and yes, that's the version I was thinking of using
11:48 <XiA> Near the bottom of the page are two samples, I'm listening to the top one
11:49 <XiA> So we're talking about the block starting at 15:35
11:49 <ggn> yep
11:49 <XiA> Ending at 15:47 or so
11:50 <XiA> Just that short bit is no problem to have looping tho
11:50 <ggn> oh sec
11:50 <ggn> need to check the timestamps Smiley
11:51 <ggn> yep, from 15:35, but goes all the way to the end
11:52 <ggn> I like it that the cymbals are happening irregurrarly
11:52 <ggn> you can do all kinds of weird sync shit with those Smiley
11:53 <XiA> So true
11:53 <XiA> So we're talking basically a one-minute demo
11:54 <XiA> God DAMN that ending is annoying Cool
11:55 <XiA> It's almost like that Dudley Moore piano concerto thing, that's like endings stapled on top of each other for 40 seconds Cool
11:55 <ggn> haha
11:56 <XiA> Checking the organ version, maybe that will give better clues to how to make a YM version
11:56 <XiA> Ah, crap, that's just a short section
11:56 <XiA> Let's see what Spotify has...
11:58 <XiA> Hehe, the Rhapsody In Rock version is pretty cool Cool
11:59 <XiA> It'd be cool to do this, but I think I'd like to make the ending just a little less annoying if that's ok with you Cool
12:00 <XiA> The big question is when you need it. Yesterday? Cool
12:02 <ggn> ooops sorry was away for a bit
12:02 <ggn> as for creative freedom, I'm all up for it Smiley
12:03 <ggn> when I need it?
12:03 <ggn> hmm
12:03 <ggn> I guess I want so spend a couple days with the syncing
12:03 <ggn> so seeing that the deadline is monday, saturday latest?
12:04 <XiA> That's very generous of you. I'll try to have it done sooner
12:04 <XiA> Thinking about how fast I could have a quick sketch for you, so you could add it to see the "cymbal switching" in action.
12:04 <ggn> hey, I'm the one that's supposed to say that, since you're working and all Smiley
12:05 <XiA> I'm guessing we should add sync commands on all cymbal hits, so you could just poll those?
12:05 <ggn> let me gather the screens for you
12:05 <ggn> would be great
12:06 <XiA> I'm guessing the music would take 6-7% cpu, depending on if the optimized player gwEm gave Dbug for his demo can also play samples. If not you can just trigger those on the sync code I guess
12:07 <ggn> http://users.hol.gr/~ggn/LEO.PRG
12:07 <ggn> that's one
12:10 <ggn> http://users.hol.gr/~ggn/PARALLAX.PRG
12:10 <XiA> Let's see, how the hell do I make Firefox save these instead of displaying them...
12:11 <XiA> THere we go
12:12 <ggn> sorry for the stupid ISP hosting
12:13 <ggn> http://users.hol.gr/~ggn/FAERY_AP.PRG (use 4mb, as I have a hadrcoded screen address Smiley)
12:15 <ggn> http://users.hol.gr/~ggn/FAERY_FX.PRG
12:15 <ggn> that's all I got I think
12:16 <ggn> not so good on their own, but I think I can fill about 1 min with some syncing between them Smiley
12:18 <XiA> For some reason that last one won't download
12:21 <ggn> hm
12:21 <ggn> yes
12:21 <ggn> wrong filename :
12:21 <ggn> Smiley
12:21 <XiA> *hpew*
12:22 <XiA> *phew*, even
12:22 <ggn> http://users.hol.gr/~ggn/FAERYFX.PRG
12:24 <XiA> This is really cool stuff
12:24 <ggn> thanks
12:24 <XiA> How far away is that blitter mask transition bit from being able to run full framerate?
12:24 <ggn> I didn't get that?
12:25 <XiA> It's not always full framerate, it seems, would it be possible to get it to run full framerate?
12:25 <ggn> hm, which effect isn't full framerate to you?
12:25 <ggn> I coded them all on a ste, never noticed any slowdowns
12:25 <ggn> ah, the transitions you mean
12:25  * ggn stupid
12:26 <ggn> dunno, the transitions are software only
12:26 <ggn> and very cpu intensive
12:26 <XiA> Ah! Then they could prolly be full framerate using the blitter Cool
12:26 <ggn> I have a blitter version running at 25fps using halftones
12:26 <ggn> but then I don't have that flexibility
12:27 <ggn> because every 16x16 block has the same mask
12:27 <XiA> Yeah, you'd have to rewrite the blitter halftone mask
12:27 <ggn> while with this version every block can have an individual mask
12:27 <ggn> yeah and I don't think that'll be too quick
12:27 <XiA> MAN how much better it would be if the blitter would just use a pointer instead of us having to force data into it
12:27 <ggn> well I don't think I'll include the transitions
12:28 <XiA> Typical Atari solution.
12:28 <ggn> oh well Smiley
12:28 <XiA> It would be a nice effect to start and end with tho
12:28 <ggn> hmm
12:28 <XiA> Some of the transitions are very pretty
12:28 <ggn> well I can pick a specific fx and optimise it
12:28 <ggn> the routine is very generic
12:28 <XiA> Cool
12:29 <ggn> and btw, I know the gfx are hideous, but the gfx artist I was counting on is awol Smiley
12:29 <ggn> so I hope that with quick flip through the fx it won't look too bad Tongue
12:30 <XiA> Cool
12:30 <ggn> I'll try to make better palettes too
--- Log closed Tue Nov 24 12:35:57 2009
--- Log opened Tue Nov 24 12:45:59 2009
12:45 <XiA> Technical question.
12:46 <XiA> The sync flag is a value that I can set on different rows. Thing is, when I set it, it STAYS set, so if you trigger the sample of off it, it will re-trigger quite a bit Cool
12:47 <XiA> What I normally would do is to trigger the sample if the sync byte is CHANGED, *except* if it's changed to 0, that way I can just set it to 01, then back to 00 the next row, but if you have another suggestion, I'm all ears!
--- Log closed Tue Nov 24 12:52:57 2009
--- Log opened Tue Nov 24 13:24:27 2009
13:24 <ggn> sorry, was afk again
13:25 <ggn> well
13:25 <ggn> you can keep the sync state somewhere in the code
13:25 <ggn> and when you detect change, then trigger the sample?
13:25 <XiA> Exactly
13:25 <XiA> It's exposed at I think offset $80 into the .SND file
13:26 <XiA> Lemme look it up. I have a test song for you to play with
13:26 <ggn> thanks, I'll begin putting all the screens together in the afternoon
13:27 <XiA> Nope, offset $b8 it is
13:27 <XiA> Can I DCC you the file?
13:27 <ggn> haven't used that for ages
13:27 <ggn> can't hurt to try
13:27 <XiA> We'll try Cool
13:27 <ggn> it works with other people
[...]
13:27 <XiA> Looks to have worked fine
13:28 <ggn> yeah
13:28 <XiA> Whatever you do don't LISTEN to this, but at least it gives sync bytes (using the 01 for trigger, then 00)
[...]
13:28 <ggn> haha, too late Tongue
13:29 <XiA> What I meant is you should trigger when it changes FROM a 00 to something else, but not when it changes TO a 00
13:29 <ggn> yeh
13:29 <ggn> rising edge as it's called in electronics Smiley
13:29 <XiA> (two projects in head at once, lol)
13:29 <XiA> ExACTly!
13:30 <XiA> Since it's a whole byte, we could even use it to trigger WHICH screen to jump to, or other things Cool
13:30 <ggn> yeah that's what I had in mind too Smiley
13:31 <XiA> Problem is, if you edit the file, and I make changes here, we'll have a revision problem... Maybe that scripting should be left to your code Cool
13:31 <XiA> Could be an interesting sort of random demo Cool
13:32 <ggn> well a script list in the code will give me more flexibility
13:32 <ggn> hehe
13:32 <XiA> Exactly
[...]
--- Log closed Tue Nov 24 13:39:57 2009
--- Log opened Tue Nov 24 20:02:32 2009
20:02 <XiA> An idea strikes me... If you're around?
20:03 <XiA> ...but then yet ANOTHER idea strikes me, meaning I don't necessarily HAVE to discuss it with you, I can do some preliminary testing here without disturbing you Cool
20:03 <XiA> Go back to what you were doing Cool
--- Log closed Tue Nov 24 20:08:58 2009
--- Log opened Tue Nov 24 20:23:56 2009
20:23 <ggn> yep I'm here
20:24 <ggn> oh ok
--- Log closed Tue Nov 24 20:29:58 2009
--- Log opened Tue Nov 24 20:33:25 2009
20:33 <XiA> I was thinking about methods of having different volumes for the cymbal hits, but then I realized I can control the LMC from within mym Cool
[...]
20:38 <XiA> Damn, this orchestral cymbal sounds pretty fucking good in mym, at least in STeem and the EEE's speakers
20:38 <ggn> good enough for me Tongue
[...]
21:02 <XiA> New version of the 1812 coming up, just need you to listen (to the music this time) and see if you think it works. It's kind of hard to translate a full orchestra to 3 channels of square wave + a 26K sample Cool
[...]
21:02 <ggn> hehe
21:03 <ggn> I will in a bit
21:03 <XiA> np, take your time
21:03 <XiA> I'm a little surprised at how NOT annoying the cymbal is, considering it's played quite a lot Cool
21:04 <ggn> hah
21:04 <ggn> tchaikovsky ftw Sad
21:04 <ggn> oops
21:04 <ggn> Smiley
21:04 <XiA> Amazing guy
--- Log closed Tue Nov 24 21:09:59 2009
--- Log opened Tue Nov 24 21:23:56 2009
21:23 <ggn> just heard it Smiley
21:24 <XiA> Do you think it works?
21:24 <ggn> you mean the sample?
21:24 <XiA> The arrangement, those bars that are in it so far
21:24 <XiA> The whole thing, as short as it is
21:24 <ggn> yep
21:25 <ggn> my only worry is the tempo
21:25 <XiA> You want it faster?
21:25 <ggn> slower maybe
21:25 <ggn> well
21:25 <ggn> I don't have to change parts with each cybmal hit
21:25 <XiA> Personally, I'm leaning towards faster Cool But let's not make that decision until you've seen it switching screen, maybe it will be epileptic enough Cool
21:26 <ggn> yeah
21:26 <XiA> It's FAIRLY easy to change the tempo later, even if we do a "dithered" tempo
21:27 <ggn> also, a slow 10 secs intro without any cymbals, just to print some text or someting would be nice
21:27 <XiA> Yeah, I was thinking about that earlier too, shouldn't be a big problem!
21:27 <ggn> for showing maybe a fade effect
21:29 <XiA> Yeah, that's a good idea
--- Log closed Tue Nov 24 21:34:59 2009
--- Log opened Tue Nov 24 21:36:19 2009
21:36 <ggn> just killing the mallocs so I can try it on the scroller Smiley
21:38 <XiA> How many sprites in total are there in that screen?
21:38 <XiA> Are they sprites all the time, or do they go into some buffer when they end up in the scroller?
21:39 <ggn> yep, once it reaches the scroller, it's just a part of it
21:39 <ggn> so it's the full character set
21:39 <XiA> Very original, very clever.
21:39 <ggn> plus 32 sprites flying to the top right
21:39 <XiA> blitter sprites?
21:40 <ggn> yep
21:40 <ggn> of course i should have gone with software sprites
21:40 <ggn> but I only knew blitter back then
21:40 <XiA> Why's that? Don't you gain speed with the blitter?
21:41 <ggn> well, the original screen idea was to have h-disting of the whole screen
21:41 <XiA> *yay* Cool
21:42 <ggn> still got the code for that
21:42 <ggn> but I don't think there's time to change the screen now
[...]
--- Log closed Tue Nov 24 22:04:59 2009
--- Log opened Tue Nov 24 22:17:24 2009
22:17 <ggn> neat, the tune plays flawlessly with the scroller part
22:18 <XiA> That's nice! It uses about 6% CPU, according to gwEm's SNDH_CPU tool
22:22 <XiA> In my experience, it shouldn't ever go past 7%, since it doesn't use timers, and maybe with the optimized player it will be a little faster, but not all that much
--- Log closed Tue Nov 24 22:27:59 2009
--- Log opened Tue Nov 24 22:32:44 2009
22:32 <ggn> woohoo it works with the parallax thinghy screen Smiley
--- Log closed Tue Nov 24 22:37:59 2009
--- Log opened Tue Nov 24 23:31:39 2009
23:31 <XiA> One WIN after another Cool
--- Log closed Tue Nov 24 23:36:59 2009

Wednesday

--- Log opened Wed Nov 25 10:14:41 2009
10:14 -!- XiA [~me@c83-254-144-228.bredband.comhem.se] has quit [""]
--- Log closed Wed Nov 25 10:20:02 2009
--- Log opened Wed Nov 25 21:46:32 2009
[...]
21:47 -!- Irssi: Starting query in IRCnet with XiA
21:47 <XiA> New version, now with intro and some more dynamics in the cymbals. Hopefully you'll have a complete version tomorrow.
21:47 <XiA> (DCC:ed)
--- Log closed Wed Nov 25 21:53:04 2009
--- Log opened Wed Nov 25 23:12:29 2009
23:12 <ggn> *got*
23:14 <ggn> didn't work at all on the screen today... been busy/lazy :/
--- Log closed Wed Nov 25 23:20:05 2009
--- Log opened Wed Nov 25 23:37:31 2009
23:37 <ggn> the start now reminds like a band tuning their instruments - I like Smiley
23:38 <XiA> It's actually the wikipedia version, starting at around 15:20 or so Cool
23:38 <ggn> oh ok Smiley
23:38 <ggn> does the original version hit the cymbals so often?
23:39 <XiA> Hell yeah Cool
23:39 <ggn> I'm getting used to the fast pace
23:39 <ggn> I'll use the tangram letters a lot
23:40 <ggn> it's a fast effect after all
23:41 <ggn> how do you feel about the concept? you think it'll work?
23:42 <ggn> I can also change the zoom factor of the letters, should look better
23:42 <ggn> oh well, pardon my ramblings
23:43 <XiA> I think this will be really crazy and fun Cool
23:43 <XiA> (installing new laptop for wife, semi-here, semi-there Cool  )
23:43 <ggn> np Smiley
23:44 <ggn> <more moan>why the FUCK do I get all the good ideas just some days of hours before the deadline? why? WHY???
23:44 <ggn> </more moan>
23:45 <XiA> Cool Poor you
23:45 <XiA> Just be lucky you HAVE ideas Cool
23:46 <ggn> yup, but I always miss the parties because I have to code them last minute Smiley
23:47 <XiA> Cool You need a slave coder that can do the ground work for you, so you can just sit there and think up ideas Cool
[...]
--- Log closed Thu Nov 26 00:11:05 2009

Thursday

--- Log opened Thu Nov 26 00:54:43 2009
00:54 -!- XiA [~me@c83-254-144-228.bredband.comhem.se] has quit [Ping timeout]
--- Log closed Thu Nov 26 01:00:05 2009
--- Log opened Thu Nov 26 23:13:05 2009
[...]
23:13 -!- Irssi: Starting query in IRCnet with XiA
23:13 <XiA> The tune is 52 seconds now, but we could easily make it a bit longer by simply doubling the first section if you feel you need it
23:14 <ggn> just heard it
23:14 <ggn> it's supercool Smiley
23:15 <XiA> Yeah, it's pretty fucking crazy Cool
23:15 <ggn> well, that's my point of view when coding
23:15 <ggn> use old ideas, with a slightly different way
23:15 <XiA> Weirdest thing I've done on the ST, and with those effects, this demo could be really wicked Cool
23:15 <ggn> glad I have your vote of confidence Smiley
23:16 <ggn> tomorrow I'll spend all day on it
23:16 <ggn> no rasters, no fullscreen, just hard sync
23:16 <XiA> I thought the prg's you sent me were great, and combined with the constant screen switching, those that don't die from epileptic attacks will feel like they've been run over by a truck Cool
23:16 <ggn> STE IN YOUR FACE Smiley
23:16 <XiA> Exactly Cool
[...]
23:28 <XiA> Now for the scary part, testing the song for CPU usage... Let me know if you need the optimized player, it could save you some RAM
23:30 <ggn> hehe
23:30 <XiA> Ok, it maxes out at 7% with the standard player, I hope that's not a problem for your code
23:30 <ggn> don't think it is
23:31 <ggn> does it consume more than the previous versions?
23:31 <XiA> The previous never spiked at 7% if I remember correctly, but a difference of 1% in SNDH_CPU isn't super reliable, it might be just a few cycles
23:32 <ggn> ok, we should be fine then
23:32 <ggn> will tell you tomorrow Wink
23:32 <XiA> Let's hope it works, if it doesn't well try the optimized player he gave Dbug for his demo
23:32 <ggn> okey
23:33 <XiA> Cool, looking forward to seeing the demo when it's done Cool
[...]
23:39 <ggn> back in a bit
--- Log closed Thu Nov 26 23:45:11 2009

Friday

--- Log opened Fri Nov 27 11:42:11 2009
11:42 <XiA> If you need any other help to finish the screen in time, please let me know, I'm available all day, as it seems. Maybe a start screen? Logo?
11:43 <ggn> I already asked ukko to draw a start screen
11:43 <XiA> Ah, great!
11:43 <ggn> as for logo, I dunno yet - if you have any ideas, you're free to draw one Smiley
11:43 <XiA> What's the name of the production?
11:44 <ggn> umm
11:44 <ggn> I thought I was going to call it "the drawer"
11:44 <ggn> how's that sound?
11:44 <ggn> or "the vault"
11:44 <XiA> As in the furniture?
11:44 <ggn> something that shows that this is old code I'm getting rid of Smiley
11:45 <XiA> "20 years of code in under a minute of demo"
11:45 <ggn> yeah, that sounds nice too Smiley
11:45 <XiA> "20 years condensed into a minute" Cool
11:45 <XiA> "20 years of work, and all I could make was a one-minute demo" Cool
11:46 <XiA> "Two decades - One minute"
11:46 <XiA> Getting shorter Cool
11:46 <ggn> abstraction Smiley
11:46 <XiA> Yup
11:46 <ggn> 20 years - 60 secs
11:47 <XiA> Better make sure it's EXACTLY 60 seconds long then Cool
11:47 <XiA> Maybe that's too silly?
11:47 <XiA> It's your demo, it's your choice Cool
11:48 <ggn> how long is your tune?
11:48 <XiA> Around 52 seconds
11:48 <ggn> can pad 8 seconds with an end screen then
11:49 <ggn> I think I counted 54 here
11:49 <ggn> can you remind me again where's the sync byte at?
11:53 <XiA> @b8
11:53 <XiA> $b8
11:53 <ggn> thanks
11:54 <XiA> I could pad the music out to exactly 60 secs to if you wnat
11:54 <XiA> want*
11:59 <ggn> yeah it would be nice
--- Log closed Fri Nov 27 12:05:14 2009
--- Log opened Fri Nov 27 12:06:38 2009
12:06 <ggn> woohoo, I merged the scroller with the rest of the parts in a single source Smiley
12:06 <ggn> I only need to make that re-entrant now
12:06 <ggn> (the main loop)
12:07 <ggn> (already fixed the bit where it assumed the screen to be at multiples of $10000)
12:07 <XiA> *yay*
12:07 <ggn> music works ok with that too
12:08 <ggn> anyway, I must take a break now - mum wants to go shopping
12:08 <ggn> but I'm REALLY pumped up now Smiley
12:08 <ggn> my hands tremble from excitement Smiley
12:09 <ggn> at least it's not going to be a boring screen
12:10 <ggn> and btw if you want to write some words on the scrolltext, feel free to
12:10 <ggn> dunno how much I can show there though Wink
12:10 <XiA> Cool, thanks
12:10 <ggn> anyway, back in an hour or so
12:10 <XiA> Later
--- Log closed Fri Nov 27 12:16:14 2009
--- Log opened Fri Nov 27 12:48:25 2009
[...]
12:48 <XiA> New version, pretty exactly 1:02 long, hope that's ok. To my ears, this longer version is better, makes more sense.
12:52 <XiA> Adjusted the volume levels between the DMA and YM sound too, had forgotten to do that before
--- Log closed Fri Nov 27 12:58:14 2009
--- Log opened Fri Nov 27 13:16:18 2009
13:16 <ggn> will check now, thanks Smiley
13:19 <ggn> it's excellent
13:20 <ggn> and I don't think anyone will count it with a stopwatch Tongue
13:20 <XiA> Nah Cool
--- Log closed Fri Nov 27 13:26:14 2009
--- Log opened Fri Nov 27 16:13:20 2009
16:13 <ggn> man, if the silents hadn't used that name already, I'd name it "hardwired demo" Wink
16:13 <XiA> Cool
--- Log closed Fri Nov 27 16:19:15 2009
--- Log opened Fri Nov 27 16:44:20 2009
16:44 <ggn> okay, *finally* managed to make the scroller re-entrant *phew*
16:44 <ggn> small break to cool my mind now Smiley
--- Log closed Fri Nov 27 16:50:15 2009
[...]
--- Log opened Fri Nov 27 19:24:26 2009
19:24 <ggn> don't worry about titles, I still have lots of stuff I either haven't coded or in the drawer Smiley
19:24 <XiA> Cool
--- Log closed Fri Nov 27 19:30:16 2009
--- Log opened Fri Nov 27 21:43:38 2009
21:43 <XiA> How's it going? Don't hesitate to send over a preview, if it's not too much extra work, I'm really curious Cool
21:43 <ggn> well it's all coming together slowly
21:44 <ggn> can't send you anything concrete atm
21:44 <XiA> That's ok.
--- Log closed Fri Nov 27 21:50:16 2009
--- Log opened Fri Nov 27 21:59:58 2009
21:59 <ggn> ah, a film on tv played the overture Smiley
22:03 <XiA> LOL!
22:03 <XiA> I have it on my mind too. I especially like the middle bit, between the "theme bit" that everyone knows and the end, very cleverly written. I'm a little worried I might have a note or two wrong in that passage, but it sounds ok to me anyway
22:04 <ggn> well, only classic music buffs will notice
22:04 <ggn> and who gives a crap about them? Smiley
22:04 <XiA> Exactly, fuck 'em Cool
--- Log closed Fri Nov 27 22:10:16 2009
--- Log opened Fri Nov 27 23:18:52 2009
23:18 <ggn> phew
23:19 <ggn> I'm startin to get the hand of my own code Tongue
23:20 <XiA> Cool Busy day, huh?
23:20 <ggn> yeah Smiley
23:20 <ggn> I wrote this code back in 99 and 2001-02
23:21 <XiA> Hehe, that's like ten years Cool
23:21 <ggn> yup
23:21 <XiA> Have you been coding 68K continually since then, or have you had down periods too?
--- Log closed Fri Nov 27 23:27:17 2009

Saturday

--- Log opened Sat Nov 28 13:17:46 2009
13:17 <ggn> btw, I turned on the web server from opera, so you can have a peek in the source folder if you like
[...]
13:18 <XiA> Haha, clever!!
13:18 <XiA> I can even DOWNLOAD files, that's pretty damn nice!
13:18 <XiA> I could make a remix of the demo Cool
13:19 <ggn> yup Smiley
13:19 <ggn> I counted 57 sync points
13:19 <XiA> Yeah, that sounds about right.
13:20 <ggn> just coded the positive edge detect thingy
13:20 <ggn> ukko gave me a preview of his pic btw
13:20 <ggn> pic8.png
13:20 <XiA> "positive edge detect"? Are you making cel shading? Cool
13:21 <XiA> Holy shit, that's one good looking picture!
13:21 <ggn> I assure you I know squat about 3d
13:21 <ggn> so I must be either talking electronics or the gwem driver Cheesy
[...]
13:21 <XiA> Ah, right, the sync byte trigger Cool
[...]
13:28 <XiA> It's unfair for us musicians, it's often not many hours work to throw together a song, but for a graphics artist, no matter how good and fast you are, you can rarely make anything god in less than a couple of hours
13:28 <XiA> I mean musicians have it easy Cool
13:29 <ggn> hehe
13:30 <ggn> coders have it easy too
13:30 <ggn> hide bugs behind other stuff Smiley
13:30 <ggn> with a 50fps framerate, who can observe every little detail on screen? Smiley
13:31 <XiA> Well, sometimes it goes that way, other times you end up spending 15 hours on something that's on the screen for less than a second Cool
13:31 <ggn> like in my case Smiley
13:31 <ggn> well, 60 seconds
13:31 <XiA> Especially in this demo
--- Log closed Sat Nov 28 13:37:20 2009
--- Log opened Sat Nov 28 13:42:24 2009
13:42 <XiA> Is everything going to plan?
13:43 <ggn> well I'm just testing that I can call every part at every given change
13:43 <ggn> after that it's just timing & resources
13:44 <XiA> Cool! *pats back*
13:44 <XiA> Lemme know if there's anything else I can help out with
13:44 <ggn> okay
13:48 <ggn> hmm
13:48 <ggn> the parallax part has to know beforehand how many vbls it's going to run
13:48 <ggn> have to make a delta table then
13:49 <XiA> There have been a couple of times when I wish had knew the data format for maxYMiser files, so I could do stuff like that in preprocessing
13:49 <ggn> yeah it would be handy
13:49 <ggn> maybe gwem can release the pattern format
13:50 <ggn> anyway, since my current main loop code is vbl-count based, a table is the easiest way out
13:51 <XiA> I've been asking him about exposing inner data, so we could do stuff like loop a songposition over and over until for example a disk loading sequence is over
13:52 <ggn> well, do you have the source for the optimised player?
13:52 <ggn> or just a binary file?
13:52 <XiA> Sorry, just a binary
13:53 <ggn> ah ok
[...]
--- Log closed Sat Nov 28 13:59:21 2009
--- Log opened Sat Nov 28 14:07:08 2009
14:07 <ggn> well it's that time in the development process again...
14:07 <ggn> this doesn't look good...
14:07 <ggn> it's going to suck...
14:07 <ggn> is there any point continuing this?....
14:07 <XiA> Cool Of course there is
14:07 <XiA> I think it's going to be fun
14:08 <ggn> fortunately I know that feeling now and I can say to it "shut the hell up" Smiley
14:08 <XiA> I giggle just thinking about it Cool
14:08 <ggn> hehe
14:08 <ggn> okay, the pic fader is going to run at double speed
14:08 <XiA> This is an even fresher idea than Dbug's IRC screen, I can't recall having seen anything like this before
14:08 <ggn> as it's not going to do cross-fading
14:09 <ggn> I think I've seen an irc screen before
14:09 <ggn> but that's no problem it's original
14:09 <XiA> On the ST?
14:09 <ggn> yeah, I *think* so at least
--- Log closed Sat Nov 28 14:15:21 2009
--- Log opened Sat Nov 28 14:24:52 2009
14:24 <ggn> I can't decide which appear fx to put
14:24 <ggn> so I'll include them all
14:25 <ggn> I got some space left!
14:25 <XiA> *yay*
14:25 <ggn> right now the prg is 150k unpacked
14:25 <ggn> including debugging symbols Smiley
14:25 <XiA> UNpacked?!?!?!?
14:25 <XiA> But the music alone is like 70K?
14:26 <ggn> yep it is
14:26 <XiA> What you need is a .MOD mate Cool
14:26 <ggn> haha
14:26 <XiA> What does it end up with UPX then?
14:26 <ggn> let's see
14:26 <ggn> 52k
14:26 <XiA> LOL
14:27 <ggn> but that's not including ukko's pic then
14:27 <XiA> Could prolly shave 5-10K off it by using the non-editor version of the song
14:27 <XiA> How's it going to end? Might aswell include a "the end" picture too
14:28 <ggn> I was thikning
14:28 <ggn> put our names in the end
14:28 <ggn> flash them with hits
14:28 <XiA> Good idea
14:28 <ggn> and put an atari ste logo there
14:29 <ggn> like the end of fr-08
14:29 <ggn> only crappier Smiley
14:29 <XiA> Nono, more "old-school" Cool
14:29 <XiA> That's what we call it when we do stuff badly Cool
14:29 <ggn> what's more old school than flashing some pics Smiley
14:30 <XiA> That's all I ever do in my demos, people call it new-school anyway Cool
14:30 <ggn> oh shit Tongue
14:30 <ggn> I can flash the floppy led drive Tongue
14:30 <ggn> now THAT's oldschool Smiley
14:30 <XiA> Good idea!
[...]
14:31 <ggn> so can you rip/draw an atari fuji logo with "atari ste" below it?
14:31 <ggn> absolutely not
14:32 <XiA> I have Atari's current, modernized logo as a vector file here, but it doesn't say "STE". But I could just draw in STE using some other font, making it a little more artsy. Do you need it in 3bpl?
14:32 <ggn> whatever meets your fancy
14:32 <ggn> hell, you can even throw in random noise at it
14:32 <ggn> so it won't compress at all
14:32 <ggn> and we're still prolly ok for space Smiley
14:33 <XiA> 4bpl would look better, so if you're not going to add anything on top...
14:33 <ggn> hmm
14:33 <ggn> how about that
14:33 <ggn> *ding*
14:33 <XiA> Cool *awaits brilliant idea*
14:33 <ggn> ok, here's my idea
14:33 <ggn> let's say you draw it in 8 cols
14:34 <ggn> and you have another 7 to spare
14:34 <ggn> well, lets say 7+7 spare
14:34 <ggn> you use the other 7 cols to mirror the palette of the first 7
14:34 <XiA> I always make everything in 24-bit, then convert it down to whatever's needed Cool
14:34 <XiA> Yup
14:35 <ggn> then you use a spray to paint over the other 7 cols
14:35 <ggn> so if we change the palette it'll look like random noise
14:35 <ggn> but if you set all cols to the same values it'll look like a solid image
14:35 <ggn> is any of this making sense? Smiley
14:35 <XiA> Will that really work?
14:35 <ggn> dunno Smiley
14:36 <ggn> let me do a quick test in crackart
14:36 <XiA> So 3bpl pic with 1bpl noise, basically?
14:36 <ggn> yeah
14:36 <ggn> kinda sounds lame eh?
14:36 <XiA> That would work, yeah
14:36 <ggn> oh
14:36 <XiA> If you flash it fast enough it'll look good, I think
14:37 <ggn> my idea is start showing the pic from white, and gradually mess the palette so you introduce the noise
14:37 <XiA> Yup
14:37 <ggn> so in the end the whole pic will become a big noisy mess
14:38 <XiA> In a way I bet it'd be more effective to just have a 4bpl-pic and plot shitloads of random pixels on top of it
14:38 <ggn> maybe
14:39 <ggn> something like that popped into my mind
14:39 <XiA> I don't think it'll look good to slowly fade to a 1bpl noise pic, but if we had like 4 or 5 1bpl noise pics... That could work
14:39 <ggn> just haven't figured out the best way to implement it yet Smiley
14:39 <XiA> Generating those at run time is no biggie
14:39 <ggn> yeah,just use the prg code Smiley
14:40 <XiA> Ok, so I'll just make a 3bpl logo then. Thank god for something else to do than fucking CSS troubles Cool
14:41 <ggn> hehe
--- Log closed Sat Nov 28 14:46:21 2009
--- Log opened Sat Nov 28 15:09:56 2009
15:09 <ggn> ukko's pic in - 64356 bytes compressed
15:10 <XiA> Err... that's bigger than even an uncompressed Spectrum512?
15:10 <XiA> Oh, you mean the entire .PRG 8-9
15:10 <XiA> Cool
--- Log closed Sat Nov 28 15:16:21 2009
--- Log opened Sat Nov 28 15:35:46 2009
15:35 <XiA> Would you prefer the STE logo on dark or light background, considering the rest of the demo?
15:37 <ggn> well let's make it whit
15:37 <ggn> break the monotony
15:38 <XiA> Okidokes!
--- Log closed Sat Nov 28 15:43:21 2009
--- Log opened Sat Nov 28 16:16:58 2009
16:16 <ggn> hahaha
16:17 <ggn> wanna get a very buggy version for some cheap laughs? Smiley
16:17 <XiA> Hell yeah Cool
16:18 <XiA> I suspect the noise effect we were discussing for the STE logo might look better if the 3bpl-pic has noise over it too, don't you think?
16:19 <ggn> yes
16:19 <ggn> not sure how to implement that
16:19 <ggn> again with the 4th plane?
16:19 <ggn> and palette stuff?
[...]
16:20 <ggn> this is cool - I'm never going to upload another file to ftp for sharing Smiley
16:21 <XiA> I think I have a pretty clear idea on how to code it
16:23 <XiA> Hehe, some of the time that bugged out version actually looks pretty good Cool
16:24 <ggn> yeah hehe
16:24 <ggn> I should keep that so we can release a remixed screen Smiley
16:24 <XiA> Cool
16:26 <XiA> The more 1bpl noise screens you can create and use, the better... It would be a nice feature to create more such screens if the demo is run on a machine with more RAM Cool
16:27 <XiA> More than 100 prolly won't make a difference tho
16:27 <XiA> (hehehe)
16:27 <ggn> Smiley
16:27 <XiA> Wonder how long it'll take to calculate a single one tho...
16:28 <XiA> I'm thinking you'll prolly want to plot at least 20000 pixels 8-(
16:28 <XiA> Well, maybe 15000 is enough, but prolly not much less
16:28 <XiA> (just guesstimating)
16:29 <ggn> well, plenty of stuff to do till that
16:29 <ggn> let's worry one thing at a time
16:29 <XiA> Cool
16:30 <XiA> Sorry, just caught up in that part since I'm photoshopping the 3bpl pic now Cool
16:30 <ggn> that's ok
16:31 <XiA> Damn, just a SINGLE percent change in the opacity of the noise layer makes a HUUUGE difference when I convert it to the STE palette 8-( This is a little tricky Cool
--- Log closed Sat Nov 28 16:37:21 2009
--- Log opened Sat Nov 28 16:40:06 2009
[...]
16:40 <XiA> 3bpl logo
16:41 <ggn> ok
16:42 <XiA> It's not very imaginative, but I think it could look really cool with the flashing noise
16:43 <XiA> If you want, I could prepare a couple of palettes for it
16:43 <ggn> well if you don't have anything better to do Smiley
16:44 <XiA> I have lots of better things to do, but they're all boring, and I'd like to see this demo finished Cool
16:44 <ggn> lol
16:46 <ggn> neat!
16:46 <ggn> that uses 7 cols?
16:49 <XiA> Yup
16:49 <XiA> Or, well, background + 7, so first 3 bpls
16:49 <ggn> coolio
--- Log closed Sat Nov 28 16:55:21 2009
--- Log opened Sat Nov 28 16:56:28 2009
[...]
16:56 <ggn> sync is random Smiley
[...]
17:00 <XiA> Is it supposed to change between different effects? It seems to just be the scroller, then something goes wrong with line offsets or something like that Cool
17:00 <XiA> Sent you some palettes, I think you choosing randomly among them should be fine, if I'm thinking correctly about it
17:03 <ggn> will give it a go when I can
17:04 <ggn> oh?
17:04 <ggn> here it shows the pic, then the scroller
17:05 <XiA> Yeah, pic, then scroller
17:05 <XiA> then tilt Cool
17:05 <ggn> ah
17:05 <ggn> haven't gone that far yet Smiley
17:06 <XiA> In that case it's all cool 8
17:06 <XiA> Cool
--- Log closed Sat Nov 28 17:11:21 2009
--- Log opened Sat Nov 28 17:41:08 2009
17:41 <ggn> FUCK YEAH!
17:41 <XiA> Cool
17:41 <XiA> Progress?
17:41 <ggn> changed from the scroller to the parallax screen
17:41 <ggn> only hscroll/linewid needs to be reset it seems
17:43 <XiA> Those are always messing stuff up Cool
17:43 <ggn> yeah
[...]
17:43 <XiA> For a while during the first month of TalkTalk2 I thought I was fucking up bitplanes or something when I exited, and then I realized it was the hscroll not being restored Cool
17:44 <ggn> it's funny how the fade in of the scroller background coincides with the first cymbal Smiley
17:44 <ggn> heh
17:44 <XiA> It's a coincidence?
17:44 <ggn> yes!
17:44 <XiA> LOL!
17:44 <XiA> I *love* it when stuff like that happens!
17:44 <ggn> also, bugaboo restores hscroll/linewid properly
17:44 <ggn> oh, you won't believe how lucky I am in syncing Smiley
17:44 <XiA> Ah, nice of it! I thought it was older than the STE
17:45 <ggn> well it was developed on a tt
17:45 <XiA> Ah, right, the TT came before the STE... How much longer before?
17:45 <ggn> don't have exact dates atm
17:45 <ggn> I think tt came out in 90
17:46 <ggn> btw, turboass still assembles a 6671 line source with a few incbins in under 2 secs
17:47 <XiA> Holy shit. It assembles in the background during editing, right?
17:47 <ggn> anyway, going to celebrate this with an afternoon snack (left over pasta, mmmmm)
17:47 <ggn> yes
17:47 <ggn> each time you change a line it assembles it
17:47 <ggn> anyway, be back in 10'
17:47 <XiA> Have a nice snack Cool
17:48 <XiA> It seems the TT was actually released AFTER the STE, according to wikipedia. Still, developers might have had access to TT's before the STE anyway, who knows
--- Log closed Sat Nov 28 17:54:22 2009
--- Log opened Sat Nov 28 18:04:39 2009
18:04 <ggn> tts were huge in germany
[...]
18:28 <ggn> new pic version by ukko
--- Log closed Sat Nov 28 18:34:22 2009
--- Log opened Sat Nov 28 19:40:29 2009
19:40 <ggn> ok per, can I abuse your artistic talent once more?
19:41 <XiA> Sure, what do you need?
19:41 <ggn> well I had a thought about the logo for the main menu
19:42 <ggn> a stopwatch
19:42 <ggn> you know, counting to 60 secs
19:43 <XiA> So an animation?
19:43 <ggn> you think you could squeeze that in 256x38
19:43 <ggn> no
19:43 <ggn> the hand can be at a random radius
19:44 <XiA> There's a main menu, btw? Do I have to take a specific palette into account?
19:44 <ggn> yeah
19:44 <ggn> http://forum.dbug-automation.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1237842015
19:44 <ggn> and if you scroll to the bottom, he messed up one colour
19:46 <XiA> ah, right, for the main menu of the megademo
19:46 <XiA> Sorry, a little tired here Cool
19:46 <XiA> Ok, so there are only three colors in the palette I *can't* change, all the others are "free to use"?
19:47 <ggn> yeah
19:47 <ggn> and, well, you don't have to Smiley
19:47 <XiA> When do you need it? Would it be ok if you get it tomorrow?
19:48 <ggn> no probs really
19:48 <ggn> it's for paradox' main menu
19:48 <XiA> Ok, cool, and you have no other thoughts than that it should contain a stopwatch? Any other info? Like group name, production name etc?
19:49 <ggn> well
19:49 <ggn> you could add 60"
19:49 <ggn> then
19:49 <XiA> 60 inches? Cool
19:49 <XiA> My wife would be so happy. Cool
19:49 <ggn> YES \o/
19:50 <ggn> then we could add our group's names
19:50 <ggn> KUA/XIA/LIVE!
19:50 <XiA> Need to spend time with her tonight, please mail me all info about it: [...]
19:50 <ggn> (U with an umlaut)
19:50 <ggn> ok mate
19:50 <ggn> have fun Smiley
19:50 <ggn> sorry to have hogged your free day Smiley
--- Log closed Sat Nov 28 19:56:22 2009
--- Log opened Sat Nov 28 23:04:31 2009
23:04 <ggn> [...] <- my gfx skills suck!
23:05 <XiA> Fucking nice image of a stopwatch tho
23:05 <XiA> I'll use it, if that's ok with you Cool
23:06 <ggn> well, it's one of the first hit in google images
23:06 <ggn> so I don't really mind Smiley
23:06 <XiA> Cool
23:06 <ggn> anyway, this can wait a bit
23:07 <ggn> I still don't know if any other artists will contribute a pic Smiley
23:07 <XiA> I'll start making one anyway (if we're still talking about the menu pic)
23:07 <ggn> yeah, that's the idea
23:08 <ggn> oh btw, the ? character is a U with umlaut
23:08 <XiA> Gotcha
23:08 <XiA> BTW, I can't make sense of that stuff in the thread about the palette
23:08 <ggn> hm
23:09 <ggn> let me read that
23:09 <XiA> Color 4 (the fifth color) should be AE0?
23:09 <XiA> Color 0 is 000, color 15 is FFF
23:09 <XiA> Is that how you understand it too?
23:09 <ggn> and btw, why are you not spending time with your wife? Wink
23:10 <XiA> She's 5 inches away from me, playing Farmville on her new wicked laptop Cool
23:10 <ggn> hehe
23:10 <ggn> let's see
23:10 <ggn> col0=000
23:10 <ggn> col4=ae0
23:10 <ggn> col15=fff
23:10 <ggn> rest are user definable
23:11 <XiA> Good, then we'll just make them change it if that's not correct Cool
23:11 <ggn> yeah
23:11 <ggn> remap in dpaint Smiley
23:12 <XiA> Yeah, no biggie
23:13 <XiA> I still have a problem with 60" - To my eyes, that's 60 inches, not 60 seconds
23:14 <ggn> hmm
23:14 <ggn> well
23:14 <ggn> any other way to symbolise it?
23:14 <XiA> Hehe, "from 0 to 20 in 60 seconds" Cool
23:14 <ggn> maybe a mark on the watch at 60 secs?
23:15 <ggn> that could work too
23:15 <XiA> It's at 60 seconds, actually, but it's also at 0 Cool
23:15 <ggn> yes, that's ambiguous
23:16 <XiA> I'm thinking of making KάA bigger than Excellence In Art and Live!, after all, it's your production
23:16 <XiA> That makes sense, doesn't it?
23:16 <ggn> well, I'm shy Smiley
23:16 <XiA> I'll give it a go with "From 0 to 20 in 60 seconds", we can always change it later
23:16 <XiA> Or maybe "0-20: 60 seconds"
23:17 <ggn> sure
23:17 <ggn> whatever fits
23:17 <XiA> Cool
--- Log closed Sat Nov 28 23:22:23 2009
--- Log opened Sat Nov 28 23:36:40 2009
23:36 <XiA> Time to hit the sack here, DCC:ing you a file first
[...]
23:36 <XiA> See you tomorrow! Sleep well!
23:37 <ggn> you too Smiley
23:38 <ggn> fuck, that's awesome!
--- Log closed Sat Nov 28 23:43:23 2009

Sunday

--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 10:15:51 2009
10:15 <XiA> Do you think the menu pic will work?
10:16 <XiA> (if you've seen it yet?)
10:17 <ggn> yep, definitely Smiley
10:18 <XiA> Ah, good
10:20 <ggn> btw havoc gave me a pic too
10:21 <XiA> Cool!
10:21 <ggn> so there's lineout in the group names now Smiley
10:21 <XiA> Damn Cool
10:21 <XiA> Maybe the menu pic should just say "KάA feat. #atariscne" Cool
[...]
10:22 <ggn> hehe
10:22 <ggn> I'll fade it in/out real quick when the screen starts
10:23 <XiA> LOL, that's beautiful
10:26 <ggn> if I had some more time spare, I'd put it up while the main program was depacked
10:26 <XiA> I think there's a point in having it up just a few frames
10:27 <ggn> yeah, right at the start
10:27 <ggn> even before the music starts
10:27 <ggn> sadly I don't precalculate anything Tongue
[...]
10:27 <XiA> That would be a good place, yeah
10:28 <ggn> Smiley
10:29 <XiA> I'll just make a .NEO of it too then?
10:29 <ggn> yup
[...]
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 11:00:26 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 11:08:15 2009
11:08 <ggn> bahahahaha
11:08 <ggn> ;
11:08 <ggn> ; Here's the main loop of the Tangram effect
11:08 <ggn> ; Some things to be set up on entry:
11:08 <ggn> ;
11:08 <ggn> ; messagepointer.l should contain the message to be displayed (look at the
11:08 <ggn> ;                  example for more info)
11:08 <ggn> ; tangramstep.w should be -1 the first time you call the routine!
11:08 <ggn> ;
11:08 <ggn> ; Init these values, then call this routine every vbl (or whenever you like,
11:08 <ggn> ; I don't care Smiley. Oh! Every letter takes 32 VBLs to show
11:08 <ggn> ;
11:08 <ggn> then I checked at the timings of the cymbals
11:08 <ggn>       DC.L      819,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32
11:08 <ggn>       DC.L      32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32
11:08 <ggn>       DC.L      32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32
11:08 <ggn>       DC.L      32,32,16,128,128,128,128,132,50,16
11:08 <ggn>       DC.L      17,16,17,16,30,30,30,30,120,30
11:08 <ggn>       DC.L      15,15,30,15,15,30,31,90,0,0
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 11:14:26 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 11:31:55 2009
11:31 <XiA> Nice Cool
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 11:37:26 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 11:43:05 2009
11:43 <ggn> 84k with havoc's pic in
11:43 <XiA> I see only one solution. Two copies of the file.
11:43 <ggn> I wish I could put a 60 secs sample in there Smiley
11:44 <ggn> maybe if I reduced tchaikovsky's original sample to 6.25khz/8 bits Smiley
11:44 <XiA> Maybe we should do a 4MB version later Cool
11:44 <ggn> don't tempt me Tongue
11:45 <XiA> Are you implying there maybe better things to do? Cool
[...]
11:58 <XiA> Anyway, how's the demo progressing?
[...]
11:58 <ggn> well, just wrote the code for the kabouter pic fade in/out
11:58 <XiA> (big difference)
11:58 <ggn> and I'm going for lunch
11:59 <ggn> and after lunch I'll start syncing stuff, assuming it all works
11:59 <ggn> (which I think it does)
11:59 <XiA> Can't wait to see it Cool
11:59 <ggn> back in a bit Smiley
11:59 <XiA> As always, let me know if I can do anything to help, except bug you about how it's going and tell you how eager I am to see it Cool
12:00 <XiA> Have a nice lunch, I'll prolly be out an hour or two to get me something to eat and run some errands. If you need me, e-mail to [...] - that's the e-mail to my cellphone
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 12:06:26 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 13:01:51 2009
[...]
13:01 <ggn> noisy Smiley
13:04 <XiA> I think the noise looks ok!
13:05 <ggn> like I said
13:05 <XiA> It would look better with gaussian distributed noise... I could make a couple of noise screens, if you feel like wasting the diskspace Cool
13:05 <ggn> I copy a code segment on that plane Smiley
13:05 <ggn> sure
13:05 <ggn> make a 16-col one
13:05 <ggn> and I'll copy bitplanes from it at random
13:06 <XiA> Would it be ok if I make 5-6 .NEO pictures using only color 0 and 1, I'm not sure how to combine it in a good way...
13:07 <XiA> Whatever's fastest for you, I want to waste as little of your time as possible
13:07 <ggn> sure, go ahead
13:08 <ggn> I'll extract the bitplanes
13:08 <XiA> Ok, back in a bit with some .NEO's
[...]
13:20 <ggn> I did an STE pattern last night for the parallax bit
13:20 <ggn> no other idea what to put there Smiley
13:20 <XiA> Cool
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 13:26:26 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 13:32:36 2009
[...]
13:32 <XiA> A dozen noise images Cool
13:32 <ggn> ooh danke Smiley
[...]
13:33 <ggn> rofl sync
13:33 <ggn> I just slapped in some values at random Smiley
13:36 <XiA> I suspect the "sprites flying in and forming letters" is a bit too slow to actually work, what do you think?
13:39 <XiA> Don't you think Havoc's pic would be better as an ending, btw? Just flash it past after the music's gone and the STE-noise is done. Always good to end on a laugh.
13:39 <ggn> hmm
13:39 <ggn> why not
13:39 <XiA> Your decision of course, just a suggestion Cool
13:39 <ggn> and about the tangram letters, I'll make the message smaller
13:39 <ggn> and maybe zoom the triangles
13:39 <XiA> It absolutely works in the beginning too, it would be more unexpected in the end Cool
13:40 <XiA> Nice idea!
13:40 <XiA> So it IS tangram, I suspected it, but wasn't sure Cool
13:40 <ggn> it's actually a 2-d poly filler
13:40 <ggn> I think I'll just make it write STE
13:40 <ggn> in big letters
13:40 <ggn> and outline it
13:42 <ggn> with all the noise bitplanes in, it's up to 140k now
13:43 -!- XiA [~me@c83-254-144-228.bredband.comhem.se] has quit [Ping timeout]
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 13:49:26 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 14:48:40 2009
14:48 <ggn> okay, now play_music will execute an illegal when it reaches the amount of cymbal hits I want
14:48 <ggn> so the sync will be simplified Smiley
14:49 <XiA> Cool
14:50 <ggn> that's the advantage of using a debugger
14:50 <ggn> you get it to crash or hit a breakpoint, and then you can poke around mem
14:50 <XiA> Yeah, that's clever as hell
14:50 <ggn> of course there's always steem debug
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 14:56:27 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 15:03:20 2009
15:03 <ggn> first proper transition is in
15:04 <XiA> *yay*
15:05 <ggn> the only thing I'd like to do is to have a 2nd graphic for the parallax screen
15:05 <ggn> maybe I'll use the busy bee icon zoomed
15:06 <XiA> That's always nice!
15:06 <ggn> also, I'm out of ideas for a 1bpp graphic Smiley
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 15:12:27 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 15:40:57 2009
15:40 <XiA> The menupic I sent your earlir had wrong palette, will make new one
15:41 <ggn> ok Smiley
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 15:46:27 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 16:00:04 2009
16:00 <ggn> ooh
16:00 <ggn> the busy bee looks neat!
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 16:05:27 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 17:34:39 2009
17:34 <XiA> Fixed menupix coming up....
[...]
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 17:40:27 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 17:46:11 2009
17:46 <ggn> thanks
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 17:51:27 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 18:04:24 2009
18:04 <ggn> phew
18:04 <ggn> AT LAST I fixed the outline thing
18:04 <ggn> I broke it for an hour Smiley
18:05 <ggn> btw, since it's one colour, can you suggest an rgb value for it?
18:05 <XiA> Ah, for the Tangram bit?
18:06 <ggn> yes
18:06 <ggn> I tried to apply a pattern in the background so it would become visible as the letters passed by
18:06 <ggn> but failed
18:06 <ggn> and I don't have the time right now
18:06 <ggn> oh well Smiley
18:06 <XiA> FD5, background 023
18:07 <XiA> I've always had a soft spot for that contrast
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 18:12:27 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 18:15:00 2009
18:15 <ggn> thanks Smiley
18:15 <ggn> neato Smiley
18:16 <XiA> Works ok?
18:16 <ggn> yes
18:16 <ggn> I'll prepare a prg with the sync so far
18:16 <XiA> *yay*
[...]
18:21 <XiA> The noise works really great
18:21 <XiA> But the general idea is still to switch screens every time there's a cymbal crash?
18:22 <XiA> It looks like there's one or two noise screens of code still, could that be right?
18:22 <ggn> well there should be about 8 screens in there
18:22 <ggn> but so far the offset I choose might end in the middle of a screen
18:23 <ggn> also it might be my random routine's fault
18:23 <ggn> do you want me to copy the noise from the start of each screen specifically?
18:23 <ggn> I can enforce that
18:24 <XiA> Nah, whatever's the easiest for you. It's great now, I just thought I saw some stuff that looked a little too regular. But I bet I'm the only one in the universe that would see it
[...]
18:27 <ggn> heh
18:28 <XiA> But seriously, I bet you have better things to spend these last hours on, leave it for now
18:28 <ggn> so, how do you like it so far?
18:29 <XiA> It sorts stands and falls on the whole switching screens fast as hell, so it's hard to say, but I have high hopes! Cool
18:30 <ggn> hehe fair enough
18:31 <XiA> The invididual fx are still really nice, and you're absolutely right about the bee, it looks GREAT
18:32 <ggn> well, I'm pretty crap as an artist, but at least I know what I like when I see it Smiley
18:33 <XiA> Then at least you can go be trial-and-error Cool
18:33 <XiA> go BY*
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 18:39:27 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 19:00:28 2009
19:00 -!- XiA [~me@c83-254-144-228.bredband.comhem.se] has quit [""]
19:02 <ggn> 23 seconds to go Wink
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 19:07:28 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 19:12:33 2009
19:12 <ggn> 23 seconds to go Wink
19:12 <XiA> Cool
19:13 <XiA> Back in a bit, need to install older UltraVNC on the DAW too
19:13 <ggn> ok :
19:13 <ggn> Smiley
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 19:19:28 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 19:27:12 2009
[...]
19:39 <ggn> np
19:41 <ggn> 12 seconds left Smiley
19:41 <XiA> Cool
[...]
19:57 -!- XiA [~me@c83-254-144-228.bredband.comhem.se] has quit [Ping timeout]
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 20:03:28 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 20:06:00 2009
20:06 <ggn> busy or can I send you a 50+ seconds version? Smiley
20:06 <XiA> [...] Nono, please send!
[...]
20:06 <ggn> I actually went "fuck yeah!"
20:07 <ggn> the quick syncing in the end is sweet Smiley
20:07  * XiA is warming to shout "fuck yeah" at the top of his lungs
20:07 <XiA> And I'm a singer, so I can shout pretty loud Cool
20:08 <ggn> hehe
20:08 <ggn> I don't have a loud voice
20:09 <XiA> And of course, now that I REALLY want to see it, STeem chooses to fuck up and not respond to mouse clicks Cool
20:09 <ggn> awwww
20:09 <XiA> *restarting STeem*
20:10 <XiA> Ran fine now
20:11 <XiA> Still not switching on every cymbal beat until near the end, is that how you want it?
20:14 <ggn> no that's not ready
20:15 <ggn> I just added the quick cymbal changes around the 50 second mark
20:15 <XiA> Ah, cool
20:16 <XiA> The intro is a bit long, and will be even longer if we move the first pic to the end... Maybe one more picture there, something like "KάA presents" or something like that?
20:18 <ggn> well I got 20k of packed space left
20:18 <XiA> Plenty of room Cool
20:22 <ggn> I think your endpic/noise fade out happens a bit too fast, don't you agree?
20:23 <XiA> Definitely
20:23 <XiA> It should time to the end of the music, I'm thinking. It depends on whether you move the fun pic to the end or not Cool
20:24 <ggn> I think I will
20:26 <XiA> I'm thinking the santa should appear on the last beat of the music, that would be fun
20:28 <ggn> hmm
20:28 <ggn> I was thinking of triggering the noise effect on the last hit
20:29 <ggn> and then as it fades out
20:29 <ggn> "ik haat atari ste"
20:29 <XiA> Yeah. why not
20:29 <ggn> ok
20:29 <ggn> let's put in those last 10 secs
20:29 <ggn> it feels good that I can discuss it with someone btw
20:30 <XiA> It's always good to have someone to bounce ideas off of Cool
20:30 <ggn> yep
[...]
20:40 <ggn> honest opinion, please Smiley
20:41 <ggn> I thikn it's missing some beats in the end
20:42 <XiA> Yeah, or maybe a couple are off. I'd prefer it if the noise bug could be removed
20:43 <ggn> ok
20:43 <ggn> I'll look into it
20:43 <ggn> otherwise?
20:43 <XiA> But it can't be high priority until all cymbals hits are done
20:43 <XiA> It's really hard to say anything until the cymbal hits=switches are all in place
20:43 <ggn> hehe ok
20:44 <ggn> fair enough
20:45 <XiA> Yeah, there's one beat missing, not in the VERY end, but let's wait until all the switches are in place to check it, I think
20:45 <ggn> yeah
20:46 <ggn> I think one is missing
20:46 <ggn> but critical one
20:46 <XiA> If I watch it a couple of times and find the one, how do I explain to you which one it is? Cool
20:47 <ggn> haha
20:47 <ggn> well let me try to find it first
20:47 <XiA> Cool Cool
20:47 <ggn> if it isn't, then you'll tell me
20:48 <ggn> aha
20:48 <ggn> I think I found the fucker Smiley
20:48 <XiA> *yay*
20:51 <ggn> hmm crap
20:51 <ggn> it loses sync
20:52 <XiA> STeem doesn't sync perfectly
20:54 <ggn> nah it's me
[...]
20:55 <ggn> did I get it? did I? did I?
20:56 <ggn> off to drink some water Smiley
20:58 <XiA> There are a couple missing starting from the point where you start following the cymbals
20:58 <ggn> I do that on purpose
20:58 <ggn> do you propose I follow all?
20:58 <XiA> Definitely, to my mind it looks weird when it doesn't follow them all
20:58 <ggn> okay
20:59 <ggn> you're the design meister Smiley
20:59 <ggn> btw, noise/fadeout part?
20:59 <ggn> improvement?
21:00 <XiA> Doesn't work here anymore
21:00 <XiA> LEmme reboot STeem and try it again
21:01 <ggn> weird
21:01 <XiA> Nope, just stands still here
21:02 <ggn> really????
21:02 <ggn> ok
21:02 <XiA> Yup
21:02 <ggn> just one more sync bit to go I think
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 21:08:28 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 21:12:51 2009
21:12 <ggn> okay
[...]
21:12 <ggn> I think it's missing just ONE now
21:13 <ggn> and the noise should be fixed
21:13 <ggn> it had a few bugs there Wink
21:16 <XiA> Hard to tell, getting a bit tired here, there's definitely one missing tho. Get back to me when you have switches on all the cymbal hits
21:16 <ggn> oh
21:16 <ggn> sorry for bugging you :/
21:16 <XiA> Nono, not a problem
21:17 <XiA> But there are lots of them missing before they start syncing, much easier to see which are missing when they're all in place
21:17 <XiA> That's all I mean Cool
21:17 <ggn> hmm
21:17 <ggn> okay
21:18 <ggn> it's true, I don't sync to all before the 50 sec marc
21:18 <ggn> maek
21:18 <ggn> mark
21:18 <ggn> gah!
21:18 <ggn> well, back to the old sync table Smiley
21:19 <XiA> *IF* that's what you want. It's your demo after all, maybe it's not a bad idea to not trigger at all the hit points until a bit into it. Epilepsy warning for real Cool
21:19 <ggn> yeah I know
21:19 <ggn> let me see it one more time from the beginning
21:19 <ggn> without ff
21:20 <ggn> well sorry mate
21:21 <ggn> I think it's alright in my eyes and ears
21:21 <XiA> Well, in that case we could just do a try and find the one that's missing in the middle of it and be done?
21:21 <ggn> middle of what?
21:22 <ggn> would it be difficult to count the hits from beginning and tell me which one?
21:23 <XiA> If I say "the bit where the melody starts high and goes down in small steps", do you know where in the song that is, it's just before the end
21:23 <ggn> yeah I think it's missing one there
21:23 <ggn> so if I add the you happy?
21:23 <XiA> The last one in the pattern JUST BEFORE that is missing, then I'm as happy as a pig on christmas eve Cool
21:24 <ggn> okay
21:24 <ggn> just for you
21:24 <XiA> Cool Thanks
21:28 <ggn> btw, I was joking with the "just for you"
21:29 <ggn> I want to have you happy as well
[...]
21:29 <ggn> try this pls Smiley
21:30 <XiA> Yup, hang on!
21:33 <XiA> It's REALLY close now, but the last one during the "fallings notes" pattern is a bit early
21:34 <XiA> Apart from that, *yay*
21:34 <ggn> ah I know what you mean
21:34 <ggn> how about the noise?
21:34 <ggn> is it fixed now?
21:34 <XiA> Looking great!
21:34 <ggn> \o/
21:34 <ggn> ok, let's fix that fucker outline hitting at the wrong moment
21:34 <ggn> (see? I know what it is Smiley)
21:35 <XiA> Hooray! 8-9
21:35 <XiA> Cool
21:35 <XiA> I just realized we could have used the maxYMiser editor file to communicate where a problem is, song position XX, pattern pos YY
21:36 <XiA> But we solved it anyway. Damn we're good Cool
21:36 <ggn> yeah, who gives a fuck Tongue:P:P
[...]
21:41 <ggn> with love
21:41 <ggn> Wink
21:41 <XiA> I assumed that's what you meant Cool
21:43 <XiA> THERE we go, great!
21:44 <XiA> In a way I can certainly see a point in not going into "epilepsy mode" until the end, it's not bad at all
21:45 <ggn> okay
21:45 <ggn> so
21:45 <ggn> are you honestly happy?
21:46 <XiA> Yup, it's not bad at all!
21:46 <ggn> yay
21:46 <ggn> so I'll move kabouter in the end
21:46 <ggn> write some scrolltext
21:46 <XiA> The end is just as crazy as I had hoped for Cool
21:46 <ggn> and send it on its way
21:46 <ggn> yeah Smiley
21:46 <ggn> that's what I saw when I envisioned it
21:46 <ggn> switch-switch-switch!
21:47 <XiA> There's one frame of palette crap when it leaves the scroll the first frame I think
21:47 <XiA> the first TIME*
21:47 <ggn> hmm
21:47 <ggn> let me see
21:48 <ggn> weird, I can's see it
21:48 <ggn> I'll single step
21:49 <ggn> nope, it honestly doesn't happen here :/
21:49 <ggn> the screen totally blanks out
21:50 -!- XiA [~me@c83-254-144-228.bredband.comhem.se] has quit [Ping timeout]
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 21:56:28 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 22:07:46 2009
22:07 <ggn> anyone you want to greet? Smiley
22:12 <XiA> back again, bloody ISP
22:12 <XiA> I was just going to say that if you credit me in the demo, and there's room, I prefer "Excellence in Art" over "XiA", if that's not a problem
22:15 <ggn> oops
22:15 <ggn> just wrote the scrolltext
22:15 <ggn> but what the hell Wink
22:16 <XiA> It's no biggie at all, leave it
22:16 <ggn> nope I insist
22:16 <XiA> Cool Suit yourself buddy
22:17 <ggn> there we go
22:18 <ggn> 127500 bytes final size
22:18 <XiA> Cool! Looking forward to see it in the finished demo
22:18 <ggn> I'll send you, havoc and ukko a copy each
22:18 <ggn> I'm off to test it on my ste before I send
22:18 <XiA> Good idea
22:18 <ggn> in any case THANKS A LOT PER!!!
22:19 <XiA> Hey, thanks yourself, this has been fun!
--- Log closed Sun Nov 29 22:24:28 2009
--- Log opened Sun Nov 29 22:25:37 2009
22:25 <XiA> Most challenging ST music I've ever done, I think, very good exercise Cool
22:28 <XiA> Fuck, I just though of a possibly nice way of starting the demo. Bit too close to the deadline tho Cool
22:29 <ggn> hehe
22:29 <ggn> tell it anyway
22:30 <ggn> and it works ok on the ste
22:30 <XiA> Your cool transitions in the beginning: First from blank to just first bitplane, then another from 1 bitplane to 2 bitplanes, all the way up to all 4
22:30 <XiA> Might actually look cool
22:30 <ggn> hmm I dunno
22:30 <XiA> It will look weird! Cool
22:30 <ggn> it depends highly on the palette I think
22:31 <ggn> let's keep that for the remixed version Wink
22:31 <XiA> ABsolutely, but remapping the palette is not much work in DPaint Cool Yup, I'm all for a remix version Cool
22:31 <XiA> The 4MB version with sample audio Cool
22:32 <ggn> yeah, let's put the original orchestra in there Smiley
22:32 <XiA> Or make a version with all electric guitar, or maybe all vocals Cool
22:32 <ggn> hehe
22:33 <ggn> what's your email btw?
22:33 <XiA> [...]
22:34 <ggn> nah, I'm just CCing you the final version
22:34 <XiA> Ah, nice, thanks!
22:34 <XiA> Making an electric guitar or vocal version would prolly take 2-3 days in the studio MINIMUM, but a piano version could be done in under a day... Cool
« Last Edit: 03.01.10 at 00:28:42 by ggn »  
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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #20 - 03.01.10 at 05:53:42
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Thanks for posting the wips, I'll have to finish the irc log another time tho, but its good to see the dev process in action, and its a bit of a coupe to do it all in 5 days before dealine and be recorded too

Thanks for the work you guys (and gals?) put in to the demo, especially to D-Bug for all those months of work, dedications dude, I can see why you were tired by the end Smiley

Thanks for the thread idea too GGN, its post like these which can help a person out when no one is around Smiley

PW
« Last Edit: 03.01.10 at 05:57:17 by PW »  
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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #21 - 03.01.10 at 11:41:55
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PW wrote on 03.01.10 at 05:53:42:
I'll have to finish the irc log another time tho


Actually I was trying to top Dbug's boring perforce logs by pasting a boring irc log Tongue
  
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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #22 - 05.01.10 at 20:25:30
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Nice thread Smiley

So i guess it's my turn to bore everyone to death with a few notes about Cubes, Ribbons & 3D Flybys.

Prologue:
You guessed it, the idea was born after talking to Havoc, Chris, ggn, DBug and a few other people during some obscure PC demo compo being watched via live stream, presumable Assembly or Breakpoint or both. Slightly bored by about 10 entries showing cubes, 8 entries showing ribbons and 4 showing 3D flybys, RA and I decided to have a go at these effects on the STE. When RA decided to collect and assemble all screens for the megademo, it was fairly obvious that my contribution would be a screen consisting of cubes, ribbons and 3D flybys.

3D Flybys:
This was actually the first effect to be finished. The 3 pillars use 16 x 32 entry offset tables, 32 x 32 pixel textures and alpha layers. Each pillar has a top left coordinate in 3D space and a size which are being translated, rotated and projected like any other 3D object would be. Each pillar is then rendered to a temporary buffer before the BLiTTER brings each pillar to screen. Each pillar is only 3 bitplanes wide because then it's not required to generate a mask. First, i wanted each pillar to cast a shadow but didn't really know how to make that efficiently. After a weekend at RA's place and talking it over with RA and Zweckform, we decided to make a reflection instead and i figured that i could use the "other" 8 colours without having to generate a mask either - It works, but the reflections need to be clipped. RA rendered the first background picture for me and i optimised the restoring of the background according to the height of the background and a lot of time went into getting the raster half-way stable because of the BLiTTER arrangement and a music replayer that runs in Timer D, just because i wanted the screen to be Falcon compatible Wink
However, RA's background was oversized so that background needed to be redrawn occassionally and even though RA has a fairly ingenious way of doing that effeciently, i just couldn't get it to work with all the sprite coordinates and all that stuff. I wasted a couple of weeks on this before Dan joined us and agreed to generate a new background that doesn't require to be redrawn occassionally - Saved my life!
The second offset table for the middle bowl was added, coordinate generation for the alpha layer, background to rotation angle coupling and finally, the fire routine, which, by the way, runs upside down because it's being brought to screen using the reflection routine.
505 then had the idea of fading the scene up, moving it a bit and then fading it down again multiply, which i considered a nice idea and implemented it that way - A good week after deadline, by the way Wink
All in all, this screen is my first 3D BLiTTER sprite screen that actually works ...

Cubes:
This was engaged after my 3D experiments had reached a level of maturity in which they generated something else than errors, overflows and misplaced pixels. The gouraud routine itself is fairly straight forward but i'm a bit proud of not using an edge buffer, which took me a while. Again, the concept was pretty straight forward, draw cubes using hires c2p in 3 bitplanes, then use the BLiTTER to bring them to screen, 32 x 32 pixels in size and fully masked, of course. Due to the fact that only 8 colours could be used, i needed a dither algorithm which has been implemented in the c2p algorithm costing absolutely no additional CPU time in the innerloop and only 2 extra EXG instructions after converting a line.
Then, i spent quite some time on the movement tables. Every cube (there's 16) has its own movement table being generated by its displacement from the center and they're slightly delayed to make sure they don't all cross the center at the same time. Like Dan said, until then, the background was a skyline of Frankfurt, but Dan had the much better idea of putting the cubes "under water" by drawing the aquarium. He then asked whether it would be possible to make the cubes cause "bubbles" every now and then, which is a simple single pixel CPU sprite and was fairly easy to implement. Dan also proposed that each cubes "splashes" into the water when it appears, but due to the cube management, i found that terribly hard and due to the deadline i needed to make them simply "pop up" instead. However, i wanted to have them pop up synchronous to the music which required a completely new cube display management and was written 2 or 3 days after the deadline. Dan then also proposed to switch palettes occassionally and sent me some - Neat idea.
Added the scrolling and the screen was done.
Summary: 16 gouraud shaded cubes in 20 frames per second that's 3840 polygons per second on an 8MHz 68000 - Now go and beat this Wink

Ribbons:
That screen definetly costed me a few years of my life and caused some grey hair. The initial idea was to use a real 3D object to draw the "ribbon(s)" and i already had the fundamental routine, generating a light-sourced cube in 14 colours, expanded to 21 using a brother of the dithering routine implemented for the cubes screen. The background was meant to use merely 2 colours so that i could cycle the other 14 that make up the ribbon to simulate a moving light source. In Dan's log above where he describes all the graphics, you can still see the initial implementation using the 3D object. However, there was basically no way of getting the light sourcing to work well with all rotation angles and the ribbons being drawn always had ugly edges and pixels where single pixels of polygons not really meant to be seen shone through. It was a mess and all my attempts to save it failed, even though i had already written a bezier routine to support the movement of the 3D object. After Dan had a few ideas of fixing the screen that didn't really work out to our satisfaction either, we decided to go for plan B and use a simple "shade bob" instead. The shade bob is actually being moved in a 3D space but that is basically not being used at all - my bad, i ran into overflow/underflow problems when designing the movement patterns and because of the deadline left out the usage of rotation/z-coordinate modification (My bad). Dan then drew the beautiful background picture and sent me some palettes for switching. The greetings are faded up/down in realtime and could even overlay the ribbon, but it looks ugly because it results in being far too bright.
Summary: The weakest screen of them all, using only hardware scrolling of the STE features. But for displaying greetings, it does its job.

Title picture:
I actually drew most of that before Dan joined us, Dan added the moon surface then.

Music:
Like i said, i have wasted a lot of time on the Ribbons screen and the scroll routine of the 3D flyby so that i stopped sending preview screens to my crewmates which 505 accidentally misinterpreted as "giving up". When i then mailed him 2 weeks before the deadline, asking for a soundtrack, he was very surprised and, of course, not really amused of now having to make a soundtrack with virtually no background information about how the final demo will look like (style, sync etc). Nevertheless, he spent a funky weekend in front of his STE (ehem), sent me 2 music files the other day and that saved our contribution for the STE megademo.
Summary: MaxYMiser and 505 is a hard to beat combination!

I guess that's all there is to say about Cubes, Ribbons and 3D Flybys. I am quite happy with the result even though especially the Ribbons turned out different than i had in mind.

Epilogue:
After november 29th, RA was terribly busy putting it all together and i virtually donated my MegaSTE for testing, so RA kept sending me versions of his intro and we could get it to work cleanly on christmas eve at around 6 p.m. While i was doing christmas preparations, he was revising his code, while i was testing his code, he was doing christmas preparations. So the 24th and a bit of the 25th of December were spent in front of the STE indeed - Now that's dedication, isn't it ?

And that's my story behind the 20 years STE megademo.


The Paranoid of Paradox
Alive on a dead machine - That's Paradox!
  
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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #23 - 17.01.10 at 09:29:38
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Quote:
Quote:
Actually I was trying to top Dbug's boring perforce logs by pasting a boring irc log.


I think you managed quite well, congratulation for your achievement Cheesy


And I return the favour of answering on Pouet by answering here: thanks!
  
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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #24 - 29.01.10 at 19:31:17
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The point of answering on pouet was to have one more comment on pouet, appearing in "last comments", to trigger impulsive clicks from other people so they can see the demo Smiley
  
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Re: Screens' Post mortem!
Reply #25 - 02.03.10 at 19:15:58
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Okay, it's apparent that I won't sit down and make the source look better than what it is, so I'll just post it as-is.


Turbo Assembler format, all the files that are incbined are on the same dir as the source, the folders contain support stuff and converters. I won't be held liable if this source turns your hair gray or anything else for this matter!
  

60secs_src.rar ( 349 KB | Downloads )
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