Who wants to create a new graphics demo? I have some ideas...

[kiwilove]

I think I'm past working on programs, etc now. To actually do them...

However I'm still keen to input ideas, so that someone else can go ahead, and execute some of the ideas I have to offer --- because I still think there are so few - Sock it to me - awesome graphics demos around...

For example - What are the most spectacular graphics demo/animations ever for the Atari Home Computers? 8-bit..?

eg.

My ranking thus far (that I know of)

Atari Robot demo walking and spaceship

Lucasfilms Fractalus disk loader demo

Atari Boink - the one with grid screen, and does all manner of variations...

Atari Boink - the one that drops down then bounces all around..

Atari Swan - 130XE logo demo

 

And... End of game completion animations ... How many games have these?

I am biased.. because I'd volunteer

HawkQuest

Laser Hawk

 

For still pictures/graphics

The Technicolour Dream samples slideshow, showing original graphics, etc - Landscapes, Toothpaste, etc

 

This is off the top of my head, with a hazy memory ... I'll edit it, if I come up with more?

 

When people respond - I'll start inputting some ideas..

 

Harvey

[Heaven/TQA]

Hello Harvey,

 

your examples are little "outdated"... aren't they? they are all classics but still from 80s... maybe you should check out what happened since then...

[Rybags]

All that stuff was "old hat" and far exceeded by the mid 1990s.

 

Check Fandal's demo downloads http://atari.fandal.cz/demos.php

 

Most have pictures - if they look good to you, then download and try on the emulator.

[carmel_andrews]

The Numen Demo IS the benchmark now for ALL A8 Demo's...If it isn't upto the 'Numen' standard, you might as well put it out on a speccy/zx81 etc

[ac.tomo]

I think I'm past working on programs, etc now. To actually do them...

However I'm still keen to input ideas, so that someone else can go ahead, and execute some of the ideas I have to offer --- because I still think there are so few - Sock it to me - awesome graphics demos around...

For example - What are the most spectacular graphics demo/animations ever for the Atari Home Computers? 8-bit..?

eg.

My ranking thus far (that I know of)

Atari Robot demo walking and spaceship

Lucasfilms Fractalus disk loader demo

Atari Boink - the one with grid screen, and does all manner of variations...

Atari Boink - the one that drops down then bounces all around..

Atari Swan - 130XE logo demo

 

And... End of game completion animations ... How many games have these?

I am biased.. because I'd volunteer

HawkQuest

Laser Hawk

 

For still pictures/graphics

The Technicolour Dream samples slideshow, showing original graphics, etc - Landscapes, Toothpaste, etc

 

This is off the top of my head, with a hazy memory ... I'll edit it, if I come up with more?

 

When people respond - I'll start inputting some ideas..

 

Harvey

I'm currently in the middle of writing a demo and would welcome any ideas you may have kiwilove. Don't suggest anything gtia other than gtia 9, 10 or 11 because I don't know (still) how to get the full colour photo gtia mode, perhaps someone would be kind enough to provide a small basic program with machine-code subroutine (if it needs one) for me to examine.

 

Only problem is, I can't feed my program into A8 yet because I don't have software to do it, I'm looking for a sector editor like diskey and a picture file to disk boot sectors converter if someone has them, any help much appreciated!

 

I've already written the code for one routine I'm including in the demo (when I'm eventually able to program it in) but I'm not telling what it does, that's a secret (he he he).

 

By the way... I tried loading numen demo into my atari800win emu, but couldn't get past the bit where it asks you to turn the disk over, I got both ATR files, but just how do you get the 2nd one to load after the 1st has? I wanted to see just what quality demo's have to be to be considered of any quality (knowing that mine won't reach it, ofcourse, obviously!). Anyhow, any help much appreciated...

Edited April 13, 2008 by ac.tomo

[Heaven/TQA]

re: numen

 

simply attach (don't boot) the second disc into disc drive one via the emulator menu (ALT+1) when the prompt appears and after mounting the disc 2 just press a key...

 

re: pic to disc

 

are you looking for writing your 62 sector (i assume that) to sectors on a 5,25 disc? this can be done by using the ROM routines for reading/writing sectors.

 

it's simple... look at $300ff. or 768 decimal.

 

poke 768,48:rem diskdevice $30, cassette $60

poke 769,1:rem disk unit here drive #1

poke 770,80: rem disk command "P" write without verify, "R" = 82 = read sector

bufferhi=int(buffer/256):bufferlo=buffer-bufferhi*256

poke 772,bufferlo:poke 773,bufferhi

poke 776,128:poke777,0:rem 128 bytes per sector for single/medium discs

sectorhi=int(sector/256):sectorlo=sectorhi*256

poke 778,sectorlo:poke 779,sectorhi:rem which sector to write or read

 

so now we have written all parameters. now we need to jump to the desired OS routine via small subroutine

 

poke 1536,104:rem PLA

poke 1557,76:rem JMP

poke 1538,83:poke 1539,228: $e453 = JMP vector to OS routine for disc handling

 

now we can write the sector via A=usr(1536)

 

when done you must add +128 bytes to the buffer and +1 to the sector and write again the next sector until you have written all of the 62 sectors...

 

beware... its just written out of my head and not tested... and even written in atari basic not in turbo basic xl which i am a fan of...

 

so... the sector is written to the disc at the moment you are doing the USR...so be carefully and take care that you have the right disc into your drive...if you have a DOS formated disc into the drive the small program might damage the disc in terms of deleting important data (like f.e. the director or file areas) as it does not take care any file format.

 

i am not sure if you ment such a small thing but it might help...

Edited April 13, 2008 by Heaven/TQA

[ac.tomo]

re: numen

 

simply attach (don't boot) the second disc into disc drive one via the emulator menu (ALT+1) when the prompt appears and after mounting the disc 2 just press a key...

 

re: pic to disc

 

are you looking for writing your 62 sector (i assume that) to sectors on a 5,25 disc? this can be done by using the ROM routines for reading/writing sectors.

 

it's simple... look at $300ff. or 768 decimal.

 

poke 768,48:rem diskdevice $30, cassette $60

poke 769,1:rem disk unit here drive #1

poke 770,80: rem disk command "P" write without verify, "R" = 82 = read sector

bufferhi=int(buffer/256):bufferlo=buffer-bufferhi*256

poke 772,bufferlo:poke 773,bufferhi

poke 776,128:poke777,0:rem 128 bytes per sector for single/medium discs

sectorhi=int(sector/256):sectorlo=sectorhi*256

poke 778,sectorlo:poke 779,sectorhi:rem which sector to write or read

 

so now we have written all parameters. now we need to jump to the desired OS routine via small subroutine

 

poke 1536,104:rem PLA

poke 1557,76:rem JMP

poke 1538,83:poke 1539,228: $e453 = JMP vector to OS routine for disc handling

 

now we can write the sector via A=usr(1536)

 

when done you must add +128 bytes to the buffer and +1 to the sector and write again the next sector until you have written all of the 62 sectors...

 

beware... its just written out of my head and not tested... and even written in atari basic not in turbo basic xl which i am a fan of...

 

so... the sector is written to the disc at the moment you are doing the USR...so be carefully and take care that you have the right disc into your drive...if you have a DOS formated disc into the drive the small program might damage the disc in terms of deleting important data (like f.e. the director or file areas) as it does not take care any file format.

 

i am not sure if you ment such a small thing but it might help...

Thanks, I didn't think of using the sio, but the only problem is loading the files in. All I remember about dos format files is that they are 125 bytes long (not 128) and I'd need to load the binary picture file in before saving it to normal disk boot sectors. But then, I recently bought a copy of mapping the atari and I think the necessary information is in there is it not? Oh, but the hassle of writing my own program to do it when all I got to do is get a copy of a program to do it off some generous atarian. Huff! If I can't get the program sent to me, then I just might have to write my own. I do recall there being such a program utility, I think it was written by the mockingbird.

Anyhow, I'm still after a sector editor, any offers of help??

 

By the way, thanks for the help to load the numen demo, I worked it out myself after!, all I had to do is click on 'turn disk' from the file menu before pressing any key to continue loading. I didn't know what to make of the numen demo, at first when I seen it scrolling through the maze I didn't think it was very good, I thought it was a load of crap, to put it bluntly, but then the gtia pictures were brought on and then more impressively the rotating and flowing patterns and effects were put into action... very good... far above my ability, I haven't delved into designing any routines quite like that, or the vector plotting routines, though, the vector plotting routines were the next thing I was looking into... just how exactly do you calculate the z-co-ordinate? I might post this as a new topic soon... any ideas any one?

Edited April 13, 2008 by ac.tomo

[dwhyte]

re: numen

 

simply attach (don't boot) the second disc into disc drive one via the emulator menu (ALT+1) when the prompt appears and after mounting the disc 2 just press a key...

 

re: pic to disc

 

are you looking for writing your 62 sector (i assume that) to sectors on a 5,25 disc? this can be done by using the ROM routines for reading/writing sectors.

 

it's simple... look at $300ff. or 768 decimal.

 

poke 768,48:rem diskdevice $30, cassette $60

poke 769,1:rem disk unit here drive #1

poke 770,80: rem disk command "P" write without verify, "R" = 82 = read sector

bufferhi=int(buffer/256):bufferlo=buffer-bufferhi*256

poke 772,bufferlo:poke 773,bufferhi

poke 776,128:poke777,0:rem 128 bytes per sector for single/medium discs

sectorhi=int(sector/256):sectorlo=sectorhi*256

poke 778,sectorlo:poke 779,sectorhi:rem which sector to write or read

 

so now we have written all parameters. now we need to jump to the desired OS routine via small subroutine

 

poke 1536,104:rem PLA

poke 1557,76:rem JMP

poke 1538,83:poke 1539,228: $e453 = JMP vector to OS routine for disc handling

 

now we can write the sector via A=usr(1536)

 

when done you must add +128 bytes to the buffer and +1 to the sector and write again the next sector until you have written all of the 62 sectors...

 

beware... its just written out of my head and not tested... and even written in atari basic not in turbo basic xl which i am a fan of...

 

so... the sector is written to the disc at the moment you are doing the USR...so be carefully and take care that you have the right disc into your drive...if you have a DOS formated disc into the drive the small program might damage the disc in terms of deleting important data (like f.e. the director or file areas) as it does not take care any file format.

 

i am not sure if you ment such a small thing but it might help...

 

Thanks Heaven/TQA!!! I've been trying to figure out sector read/write routines on my own as I want to move the game I'm working on away from DOS file based access and hopefully the final release will boot just like an 'ol commercial game used to... Now I kind of know how to do that... Cheers

[kiwilove]

Of course, I don't know what are the greatest demos of the 90s' - as I only tried a few via emulation -

(I only wish to know the 10 best demos? or 20? -- and not have to go through 100s to see which are the best?) and didn't see anything 'spectacular' to me.. But I'll certainly visit the sites mentioned, and will look at any video clips that shows the best of the best?

I only have conceptual ideas to suggest, and not technical help. I am no programmer.

Anyway I have 2 ideas - I hope democreators could work on? If they like them too?

I'll list them here...

(1) - Permutations and Combinations - how to get a demo not to do the same thing over and over again.

As an example - I'll use the Astrochase example - that you have a spaceship landing sequence.

Instead of running the same sequence that gets longer and longer, a linear demo.

You could try to have it not doing the same thing twice.

eg. Instead of a man getting out ( or appear to) you could have an alien 1, alien 2, etc - a woman, a child..

Instead of (it) walking away - it could run away, or jump away, or teleport away..

Instead of (it) raising an arm to say hello - it could shoot a raygun, raise a flag - do a rude gesture, wave...

Instead of the ship taking off it may - explode?

- zoom off

- do acrobatics

- teleport away

- break down

- shrink

Get the idea? It's a matter of designing an animation sequence that lends itself to making all kinds of

possibilities possible without using a lot of memory to do so. Maybe you can think up a better example,

which can be so very interchangeable?

 

(2)

This is a theme for a demo/animation sequence.

The theme is time, motion - distance, etc...

You want to encourage the sense of motion - through moving lights and shapes...

Remember the old viewscreen of the classic Star Trek - you can start with that, with the lights around it,

Zoom in on the viewscreen to show some lights moving.. You have a pattern of lights that suggest...

Motion horizontally to give the sense you are moving... or is it that the lights are moving?

Remember the turbo elevator? How you have the lights moving to suggest the elevator is moving horizontally,

then vertically. Then to fade to the sensation you are driving along at night - the streetlamps passing by,

with stars in the sky - if possible to start with the walking sensation, of slow gentle movement, then faster, like on a bicycle, faster still, like in a car, then a train, a plane, then the space shuttle...

This is so easy to write, with ideas, but extremely hard to put pen to paper to come up with the graphics to seamlessly transition you to faster and faster motion... It will be up to you, to see how to do it creatively with little use of graphics.

You might find a simple way that water effects can be done? Or use the railway tracks motif? Just think of all the different modes of transport, and how they can be simply respresented? You do know about car wheels or rather spoke wheels? How in real life, when going fast enough then slowing down, they seem to go backwards? You can do instead such visual motion tricks... or optical tricks - like with interference patterns, or those optical effects with simple graphics patterns which makes your eyes do strange things - yes - do an optical tricks demo - which takes you through all those weird and wonderful stuff, only problem though, that most will probably require a high resolution?

Harvey

Edited April 13, 2008 by kiwilove

[+Philsan]

I only wish to know the 10 best demos? or 20? -- and not have to go through 100s to see which are the best?

Have you tried to search the forum with words "best demos"?

Here is one thread:

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...t&p=1371560