pouët.net

4FX by Spreadpoint [web]

         ___________                              _ ________________
         \    _____/_________ _ _______________________________.   \
          \____   \   _     /_________    _     /\       \     |    \
         _/   |    \__/    /    _    /    _)___/  \___    \    |     \_
         \________________/    _/  _/     \    \    _/     \__________/
                 |____|  /     \    \___________\   \_______/
                 .    ._/      |\____/sc    \_______|
                 |    |\_______|               ________
                 |    |___________  _ _______ |       /
                 |    _     /     \_____.    \|  ____/______
                 |  __/    /  __   \    |     \  \__    ___/
                 |  \_____/   \     \_  |    \     |    |
                 |____|  \___________/  |____|\___/|    |
                                   |____|          |____|

                                    presents

                                     4 F X

                        Brought to you in 50 FPS by mcCoy

                          Release date   October 5, 2024
                         Release party   Deadline

                            Production   Demo (200 KB)

           Music (Schmoddermann [cut])   Virgill
                           Inspiration   MnemoTroN
                          Code and GFX   Depeche

               "The Ladd Company" data   Daniel Hansen
                                 ASCII   Shapechanger
                    Cruncher (Cranker)   Bifat/TEK
                    Music player (LSP)   Leonard/Oxygene

                                System   Amiga (PAL)
                  Minimum requirements   Motorola 68000 CPU
                                         Original chip set (OCS)
                                         512 KB RAM

________________________________________________________________________________

                        Some words and notes from Depeche
________________________________________________________________________________

At a cozy dinner with Zodiac (https://demozoo.org/sceners/18618) we talked about
careers unrelated to tech. I wanted to jokingly encourage him to become a
forester. There would certainly be nice B-trees and Lindenmayer systems in his
forest. With a smile he then said that there would certainly be a lot of bugs
too. This is how the idea for a demo called "Zodiac’s Forest" came about. In the
end there was only a single tree and only a few or hopefully no bugs. So I
changed the name to 4FX.
________________________________________________________________________________

mcCoy's The Ladd Company logo intro (Blade Runner edition)

After Depeche's Mode Demo, 4FX again starts with a surprise for my friend mcCoy
(https://x.com/mibosshard). He's probably the biggest Blade Runner fan I know
and he'll be happy about this intro.

I took the graphic data of the tree from Daniel Hansen's Apple II HGR2 Grid
project. https://github.com/DanielHansen-IMD/apple-ii-hgr-grid

And I copied the animated image structure from the original opening sequence.
https://youtu.be/36Wc-E1HEls

During the intro some things are pre-calculated for the following effects.
________________________________________________________________________________

Effect 1: LMS (Lindenmayer system)

A simple rotating tree based on the "classic" axiom F[+F]F[-F][F] with red
"cosmic rain" flowing down from time to time.
https://gist.github.com/roger-wetzel/53a72d69dcaba124f74336e38e567250
________________________________________________________________________________

Effect 2: TXT (Text)

I've always wanted to create an effect that is reflected in all directions. Only
the top left quadrant is drawn/blitted with pre-calculated text blocks. With the
help of a small lookup table, the quadrant at the top right is mirrored byte for
byte. The lower part is a cheap mirroring of the upper two quadrants with
negative bitplane modulos.

For color cycling, 4 bitplanes with 15 filled rings are precalculated. I came up
with this idea while reading through Losso's blog post You're breaking my balls!
where the circle equation is mentioned.
https://heckmeck.de/blog/you-re-breaking-my-balls
________________________________________________________________________________

Effect 3: SRF

This effect imitates a jingle from Swiss television SRF zwei.
https://youtu.be/1Gz4LND7GIc
As with the LMS effect, some played instruments trigger the movements. I was
amazed at how few lines need to be drawn for this effect. Think about how you
would do it for a moment.
________________________________________________________________________________

Effect 4: MTN (MnemoTroN)

The idea for this great effect came from MnemoTroN
(https://demozoo.org/sceners/67808).

He programmed a PoC that showed the structure of a Spreadpoint lettering. That
looked great. With his permission (well, I had annoyed him for a long time) I
was then allowed to implement the effect for the Amiga.

I copied the timing for the "neon flickering" at the end from Warner Bros.
https://youtu.be/w_PwrnhbKO0
________________________________________________________________________________

Last but not least: The music

Virgill sent me the track Schmoddermann, which was later heard in Teo's
PT Weekender VIII (Atlantis Calling) DJ set. https://youtu.be/9oIWkqqej_s?t=2448
I liked it straight away and asked what would happen to the track. Virgill then
left the track to us. It's a perfect fit for 4FX. Thank you very much Virgill.
________________________________________________________________________________

Thanks to Dipswitch for pointing us to Shapechanger's colly with the
Spreadpoint ASCII we are using in this NFO file.
________________________________________________________________________________

                           Visit www.spreadpoint.net

                             WE ARE INTERGALACTIC
                                JOIN THE POWER
                                   (C) 2024