g-force by Pygmy Projects
Hello there Amiga freaks!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is the final version of our intro G-Force. The compoversion that has
been spread is not a totally ready version, due to the killing time limit.
Also, Assembly rules didn't allow usage of disk libraries, so I couldn't
make the compoversion use my own compatibility library, backstab.
There have been some rumours about the intro being precalculation, or some
sort of fuzzied chunky2planar-implementation. It really is 2x2 resolution,
with 1x2 accurate (rastered -- or 'dithered') shading in 16 colors (meaning
that the edges of polygons are in 2-pix rez and the shading inside polygons
is in 1-pix rez).
To show that the routine really _is_ realtime, there is a 'free-flight'
version in the package. This version is AGA only, because making an OCS
version of this too would have been an overkill :). Please understand that
pretabling is _not_ the same as precalculation, because pretabling doesn't
create any limitations to the routine. (Besides, if I could precalc in 8
seconds, I could make it realtime instead :=)
Even though the compoversion requires AGA, it only uses it for palettes
and fetchmode (which makes the intro run a 'bit' faster). In the package you
will also find a version for any Amiga, that runs on 68020 or better.
Unfortunately a version for 68000/010 would require so much retyping of
the code (not to mention deoptimizing everything) that I don't consider
it worth it. And besides, how many A500/A600/A2000 owners there are with
'000/'010, 2 megs chip and 4 megs fast??
Sorry about the dirty OCS colors, we used palettes that had "small
scale" instead of full valour from dark to bright, so some colors
in the palette are doubled etc.. Palettes have been rescaled, so they
are using colors in much bigger range to cover for the lack of shades.
It would have been possible to improve these palettes a great deal,
but I didn't consider it worth the trouble.. *duck*
There are still some "deadline bugs" left in the intro, I didn't want
to invest energy in fixing "bugs" in sorting the face and so on. These
could have been done relatively easily, though.. The other 'flicks' that
look like bugs.. well, I know why they are there, but fixing it in
this particular routine would need a largeish rewrite (the actual vector
routine was coded in a big hurry :)
A problem with the music with a4000/040 is due to some special feature
in '040 that we weren't able to track down (copper interrupt..). The version
in the package _should_ be free of this problem, even though we haven't
tested it on an a4000.
External info on the intro:
Most of the complex objects are designed by Branch (on paper!), and
some minor objects + Pygmy sun was designed by me (Silver Eagle). Three
objects (SGI logo, spring and the spiky ball) were imported from a
Silicon Graphics's demo 'Newton', with a permission from SGI.
Tune "Canberra, Australia" was composed by Papaija, size 42302 bytes.
Coding by me (Silver Eagle), except for the modplayer, which was coded
by Flame.
Special thanks to Christer Ericson whose =very= fast realtime longword SQRT
routine I used, I didn't have time to do one myself (I got to know about
"no disk libraries" - rule a few weeks before the party, shocked :).
Special greets to Andreas Björck, and all the IRC people on #amigascne (and
amiga scene :-).
Have fun!
Silver Eagle / Pygmy Projects
To contact me:
snail-mail
Sami Vaarala
Sotkapolku 4
96910 Rovaniemi
Finland
e-mail
silvere@freenet.hut.fi
It's Flame writing... Hope you enjoy this package. I would like to send some
greetz to (if you are missing, nuke me 8):
reward, jugi, zuikkis, nose, dr. skull, intruder, dr. wacko, sbt,
stelios, dweezil, andreas björck, destop, legend, astro, taipan,
celebrandil (mode :), saviour, scope, python, jester, chaos, diddle
and all #amigascne people and x2ftp.oulu.fi users.
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