Cool!By the way, you can expect me to join your forum in the near future
(actually I'm a bit surprised that I haven't registered any earlier).
viznut
Robotic Liberation
Hello! It seems that people have been expecting me :)
For starters, I'll perhaps need to explain the scanline renderer I used for some effects (such as the zoomer and the cubes in RL):
You can alter the position and width of the screen area (in 4- and 8-pixel steps, respectively) via $9000 and $9002. Also, you can put suitable characters in the first and last slot of each line to increase resolution.
Now, do this on every two scanlines (or even every scanline, if you find the rastertime). You may also want to change the colors ($900F and the color memory).
Have three arrays in memory: one for the left positions, one for the right positions and one for the colors.
Now, you can fill these arrays to make effects, pretty pictures, or just about anything, as long as you remember the obvious limitations.
Making a zooming circle should be quite easy - just use a variant of Bresenham's algorithm. Many other geometric shapes could also be drawn to the arrays with pretty simple algorithms (freely rotating ellipses, triangles, rectangles, you know, but not freely rotating stars).
I didn't use Bresenham for the circle zoomer, however. Instead, I implemented a zoomer for arbitrary "scanline pictures" because I use the same zoomer on many other things as well. The vertical dimension works as in an ordinary bitmap zoomer (constant stepping of y-coordinate), and the horizontal dimension basically needs one rude multiplication per x-coordinate (that is, an addition and an inverse logarithm look-up).
There you are :)
For starters, I'll perhaps need to explain the scanline renderer I used for some effects (such as the zoomer and the cubes in RL):
You can alter the position and width of the screen area (in 4- and 8-pixel steps, respectively) via $9000 and $9002. Also, you can put suitable characters in the first and last slot of each line to increase resolution.
Now, do this on every two scanlines (or even every scanline, if you find the rastertime). You may also want to change the colors ($900F and the color memory).
Have three arrays in memory: one for the left positions, one for the right positions and one for the colors.
Now, you can fill these arrays to make effects, pretty pictures, or just about anything, as long as you remember the obvious limitations.
Making a zooming circle should be quite easy - just use a variant of Bresenham's algorithm. Many other geometric shapes could also be drawn to the arrays with pretty simple algorithms (freely rotating ellipses, triangles, rectangles, you know, but not freely rotating stars).
I didn't use Bresenham for the circle zoomer, however. Instead, I implemented a zoomer for arbitrary "scanline pictures" because I use the same zoomer on many other things as well. The vertical dimension works as in an ordinary bitmap zoomer (constant stepping of y-coordinate), and the horizontal dimension basically needs one rude multiplication per x-coordinate (that is, an addition and an inverse logarithm look-up).
There you are :)
Indeed! Now that you're here I can say to your virtual face what I've been saying to anyone that would listen ever since I first saw Robotic Liberation and that is that your demo is fantastic and you're a hell of a programmer. I particularly like the music and I listen to the mp3s quite often (even in my car, if you can believe it). I can't put my finger on what it is I like so much about the music. I just do.viznut wrote:Hello! It seems that people have been expecting me
I tip my hat to you, sir.
In the end it will be as if nothing ever happened.
No problem. See the Robotic Liberation page for interesting information about the demo as well as links to the music in mp3 format, the lyrics, videos of the demo (in case you're not near a VIC or VIC emulator, shame on you) and the demo itself.Tepic wrote:How I'd love to have a copy of this for my Vic!
Hope that helps.
P.S. Spread the word about this demo. Everyone should see it.
In the end it will be as if nothing ever happened.
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It's nice to hear that you liked the demo! I've been planning on a new VIC demo that would show off some crazy new techniques and ideas that haven't been used yet. However, it's probably not going to be a sequel to the robot series (it's a bit too time-consuming to cleverly combine plot-driven stuff with extreme technical show-off).
One day I uploaded some of my demotunes to last.fm (google viznut last.fm) and yes, it's sometimes surprising to notice that some people like them so much that they actually listen to them. However the most astonishing thing of them all was a group of high school kids here in Finland who decided to make a rock cover of Robotic Liberation soundtrack. There's even a video of their performance at Google Video.
I don't think there's ever going to be an NTSC version of RL because I would have to rewrite all the raster stuff and there's too much of it. Some other demos (Robotic Warrior for example) may be much simpler to fix for NTSC.
If I have inspiration (and I manage to find the source code) I may release an emulator-compatible version of RL, as well as a RAM-based version (runnable without disk drive with a 16K+ expander), because these modifications probably need little more than small hacks to the loader.
One day I uploaded some of my demotunes to last.fm (google viznut last.fm) and yes, it's sometimes surprising to notice that some people like them so much that they actually listen to them. However the most astonishing thing of them all was a group of high school kids here in Finland who decided to make a rock cover of Robotic Liberation soundtrack. There's even a video of their performance at Google Video.
I don't think there's ever going to be an NTSC version of RL because I would have to rewrite all the raster stuff and there's too much of it. Some other demos (Robotic Warrior for example) may be much simpler to fix for NTSC.
If I have inspiration (and I manage to find the source code) I may release an emulator-compatible version of RL, as well as a RAM-based version (runnable without disk drive with a 16K+ expander), because these modifications probably need little more than small hacks to the loader.
Hello!
Here's an emulator-compatible RAM-only version of RL. 16K or 24K expansion, still PAL-only.
By the way, I also have a blog nowadays, and I tend to write a lot about 8-bit stuff etc. Check http://viznut.livejournal.com/ or http://www.pelulamu.net/viznut/blog/
Here's an emulator-compatible RAM-only version of RL. 16K or 24K expansion, still PAL-only.
By the way, I also have a blog nowadays, and I tend to write a lot about 8-bit stuff etc. Check http://viznut.livejournal.com/ or http://www.pelulamu.net/viznut/blog/
Please please see if NTSC is possible.