******************* CONTRAST / a TFL-TDV production (C)1994 ******************* - first shown on 31 october at the Wired Party 1994 - Mons/Belgium - 2nd place (wow!) Warning : This demo only works with 600Kb of conventional memory (using QEMM). If you're lucky, and you have enough memory, you should have a chance to see the final part of our demo : The Star Wars Scroller. If not, yeah, you'll see an all new and unique random star generator... (300Kb of precalculed tables) We're sorry about that ... (Launching the demo without the setup could help, using the batch file created by the setup for example). if the demo doesn't look nice with the default config : 386 SX16-20 : try with NO SOUND or GUS : contrast -w1 -s4 (or - s1 for GUS) 386 DX33-40 : try with SB 22khz or GUS : contrast -w1 -s5 -m22000 486 DX33-40 ISA : try with SB 22khz or GUS : contrast -w1 -s5 -m22000 486 VLB : the default config should be nice (try -w1 if your VGA accepts it) The DEMO needs EMS if you use an SB/PAS or WSS !!!!! (GUS has its own RAM :-) ) type contrast /? for help !!!! 1) TFL-TDV : The FLamoots - The Dark Vision -------------------------------------------- There are mainly two philosophies in our crew : first, we have The Dark Vision partisans... they are active during the night, and their favourite places are cemeteries...(You can recognize them by their black glasses and black T-shirts) Then, there are The FLamoots, partisans of self-derision... Their main rule : "Drink a beer as I do, and brush your teeth before going to bed :-) " Their favourite places are those where they can express their famous style of dancing.... (You can recognize them by the purple flowers on their shorts and their "Flamoot Inside" T-shirts) Fortunately, the 2 species have common interest for coding and moving on HardCore tekkkno !!!!! 2) History ----------- Hi ! Dis is Type One speaking , the main coder of TFL-TDV...... Okay let's go .... CONTRAST is the first common release by TFL-TDV ! There were before 2 independants crew : TFL (mine) and TDV All began at The Low Density party where I tested some beta-rotative-zoomers routs on Antares's PC .... (I wished to do an only Type One - intro, bigger than the kukoos and no specially for a BBS). I went there with some new guyz of my university (TDV members) and i told them i wanted to release a big intro in the summer hollydays..... Morflame/TDV told me that he was working on a powerful Virtual 3D engine and that interested me a lot (coz i never code 3D yet :-) ). That was the first point .... Then came the summer hollydays ..... during July and August, i coded like a "beast" (hey i had successed in my exams :-) !!!) and in middle august, i've heard about a new party in Belgium in end of october... So i took the phone, i called Morflame and proposed him to do a fusion between TFL and TDV (coz TDV has some excellent gfx men and TFL has a good musician) and to participate at the Wired (i had about 6 screens "ready"). And during the hollydays, i had dramaticaly optimised my Zoomers and Distorts, i've done some research about the VGA registers and set up my 160x100 hardware mode and other tricks i should use in a next prod. (ex. kukoo3, Wired95 :-) ) At the same time, i saw Earthquake/IGUANA at Morflame's house, and specially the famous waves screen.... I saw it during 5 minutes and thinked first about the projection system (i used a similar algorithm in an old PAS proggie i wrote 3 years ago....). So 2 days later,i had coded a real time projection map working in 160x30 which runned at 70 f/s on my 486 DX40. But the major problem was the liquid consistence : i never believed i could get the same effect ... I firstly coded some fire routs on the map, just to see how it looks (no really great), I adapted my Rot-zoomer on the map (not attractive too)... so i've put the screen temporaly in the "trash". Then i worked on the general demo system... i had to find a decent modplayer: i took MIDAS and a datafile maker: i took PDFIK.... i worked on the interrupts system (double/triple/no buffering), on the VGA setup lib. I had to duplicate the Distort and Zoom algos becoz of incompatibility of some VESA/VLB cards with 160x100 (cards which ignore the clock doubling in mode 13h !!!!! :-( ) Well finaly, 2 weeks before the Wired, i saw some equations posted by ARM/Iguana talking about the liquid consistence !!!!! WOW great !!!!! I d/l the doc and tried to understand .... (ow, the explanations were no really easy for a guy who had no idea about fluid mecanic :-( ... hey, i am in Computer science not Engineering !!!! so, the equations had strange syntax for me..... but fortunately, ARM put some lines in spanish at the end of the doc, and that was clear for me.... So i began to code about 5-6 algos until it worked (1 day of full work) and then i phoned crasy to Morflame !!!!! I CAN DO IT!!! I CAN DO IT!!!! then during the week, i played with the effects (i just had no time to implement some rotations :-( becoz we had to integrate all the parts of the different coders and implement the synchro flags) Well, so you now know that I didn't debug Earthquake to do the effect :-) and I even don't have that demo at home .... (I promise i will copy it :-) ) 3) General Infos ----------------- - 2 months of hard work (with some routs already operational) !!! - about an HALF-MEG of pure ASM source code - 21ko C source code (just to call the parts with tune-synchros parameters and to link with MIDAS) - supports GUS, SB/SBPro/SB16, Audio Spectrum, Windoze Sound System (works on SB16 and AWE32 becoz of new midas.32c patch !!!) - use MIDAS Sound System v32c - use PDFIK datafile maker/Psychose - needs a 386 compatible machine - needs a 100% VGA compatible card for better performance (VLB better!) (warning TRIDENT 9400CX, S3 and some other VESA/VLB cards are only 99% reg. compatible !!!!!) --> i've put a switch : -w0 by default (works on all cards even on 99% reg compatible, but my zoomers/distorts are slower :-( ) -w1 for boosting your VGA !!! (use it on ISA boards) rem: on 386 SX-20 ISA with -w1 and without muzak (or GUS), my rot-zoomers and distorts are working at 70 f/s !!!!!!!! (no 4x4 pixels !!!!!) (i can even adapt the algo for 286 !) - there are some magic keys : +/- : enable/disable CPU time (some ugly rasters :-) ) Spacebar: skip to the next part !!! Esc: skip the demo :-( !!!! In WolfenStein part, try F10-F11 for low/high detail - type /? at the command line to see the differents options when running the demo (there is a usefull -gxx switch to get into the part of your choice) 4) Who has done what ? ----------------------- The muzak : tracked by Fred (with Protracker 2.0/Octalyser - Atari 1040 STe) 4 voices - 31 samples - 465Kb Main.C +extras: by Type One (BC++ 4.0 + TASM 3.1) General SetUp : by SAM (TP7) We have used BP/TP7 and GFA BASIC 4.00 for creating our tables 0. Warning!! Only ASM .... CODE by Type One (MASM 6.0) GFX ripped from Ultimate GFA demo/OVR - Atari ST 1. Shadelines CODE by Bismarck (MASM 6.11) 2. Title "CONTRAST" CODE by Type One (MASM 6.0) GFX by Zoltan (DP IIe) and Fred (Degas Elite - Atari ST) 3. MultiFire CODE by Type One 4. Rotative Zoomer CODE by Type One (MASM 6.0) GFX by Type One (hey, dis is my head :-) ) (DALI 3.1G AtariST + DP IIe) 5. Sinus Distorter CODE by Type One (MASM 6.0) GFX by Zoltan (Photo Styler) 6. Double Plasma CODE by Type One (MASM 6.0) 7. Unlimited ripped sprites CODE by Sam (MASM 6.0) GFX by ID Software :-) 8. Elephant CODE by Type One (MASM 6.0) GFX by Fred (Degas Elite - ST) 9. Dots morph CODE by GOPI (MASM 6.1) 10. Waves CODE by Type One (MASM 6.0) GFX by Zoltan (Photo Styler) 11. WolfenStein CODE by Morflame (MASM 6.1) GFX by Zoltan (DP IIe) 12. Snul Flash - "Ik heb een ovni gezien" CODE by Type One (MASM 6.0) Scan by Aldo (TFL-TDV's friend :-) ) 13. Plasma CODE by Type One (MASM 6.0) GFX by FractTint :-) 14. Transformer CODE by Type One (MASM 6.0) GFX by Zoltan (Photo Styler) 15. Eyes effect CODE by KARMA (MASM 6.?) Scan in DP IIe pack 16. Snake CODE by Type One (MASM 6.0) GFX by Fred (Degas Elite - ST) 17. StarWars scroller CODE by Bismarck (MASM 6.1) Font from ????? 18. ANSI PA BBS CODE by Type One (MASM 6.0) ANSI by Green Kawa (TheDraw) We couldn't put in time the following screens: - Virtual 3D World engine by Morflame :-( - multi Copper bars/rasters by Type One :-( - Members photos zoom by Bismarck :-( - "Timeless" look by Type One :-( Well, by seeing dis, you surely think: hey, Type One has coded 80% of the demo, so he's better than the other coders .... but it isn't exact becoz, Morflame worked as much as me for his Virtual 3D engine (editor,many routs) but it was not enough finished to put in the demo :-( (hey see our next prod :-) ) KARMA, for example, joined the crew only 2 weeks before Wired !!!!! So we could put only one part from him !!! Sam is a DOS utilities expert and he worked on the setup and made his part as a bonus !!! GOPI and Bismarck has done their first steps in ASM, and i think they've done a big progress !!!!! Finally, Fred and Zoltan have done a really great job !!!! Congratulations guyz! 5) Bugs fixed since the projection at Wired94 ---------------------------------------------- The GODS were with us during the projection !!!!!!! :-) - Wolfenstein part poped the music synchro parameters in a wrong STACK !!!!! (so if it poped 00 00, the part could be skipped immediately !!!!!!) - Wolfenstein part didn't wait the signal (music synchro) to begin. I spend half a day during the party to find the bug.... We did'nt find it there.... Back home, i saw that the wait-rout was in COMMENT !!!!!! :-( - Shadelines was destroying the StarWars scroller (so we couldn't put it for the projection :-( ) ...That's why the demo was stopping abruptly after the snake :-( !!!!! In fact, the Shadelines rout used a random number generator which stored some numbers in the CS segment !!!!! (in OUR codes !!!!) Fortunately, it did only alter the Fade routine (you saw some ugly black dots when fading... ) Shadelines were also storing vars in a wrong DATA segment .... wich also caused some alterations in the Fade rout :-( !!! - Dots morphing forgot to push/pop some registers, causing some imprevisible crashes..... It forgot also to reset the Fade rout at the end of the part, causing crashes on slower machines :-( - I think I've used a wrong version of MIDAS player (GUS and SB16 bugged) - I (Type One) forgot to remove old delays counters in my parts, so for example the Waves screen started with all his effects ON :-( (no sync on the 1st wave) - nothing to do with the END ANSI becoz Trident 9400 CX does not support raster bars in Text mode !!!!! (VGA registers incompatility !!!) So, don't buy Trident 9400CX :-) !!!!!! Here is Morflame explaining some additional stress : - One hour before the wired deadline, Type One's compiler didn't want to compile anymore (his old' harddisk was too hot!?). So, we transfered all the engine on my pc ... and we spent half an hour trying to compile the demo. Ten minutes before the 18h00 deadline (we didn't know that it would be reported to 21h00!!!!), nothing wanted to compile !!!!! Then a real MIRACLE's happened! The super michflag (one byte used only for sam's code, Sam = Michel --> MichFlag, understood ?) was the solution (who knows how Sam found that ?!). But that was not sufficient ! Type One was in a despairing coma, and all the crew was in real stress (except karma and zoltan (playing with his awe-32)). I (Morflame) was trying some hasardous tricks .... Inversing the order of the obj files make the whole thing work !!! If sometimes, somebody will explain me why ???? I think it's related to the Bismarck self-patching code (with his random table in the code segment). The final compilation was nearly unique ... We projected on the demo screen a self-modifying demo ... with random synchronisations ......... So, i hope you didn't get a Projection version of our demo, coz it really sux ! - Bug fixed 2 hours before official upload :-) !!!!! Hey Morflame !!!!! Don't forget to free your logo next time !!!!!!! You've stolen 64kb of Bismarck's memory !!!! (Now the demo works even with QEMM + Norton + Setup !!!! :-) ) 6) Future ---------- - I've released the source code of my VGA SetUp yet (160x100 hard) :-) so D/L it on our WHQ/Dists : PA BBS, TetSuo, Genesis(?) - You can already find our contributions for Wired94 GFX competitions: - Tarzan / FRED - Robot / YOUVI (3rd place!) - You can also find last_min.mod (tune that Fred should have presented if he had not crashed his HD at the Wired :-) ) - A spread release of the tune used in CONTRAST demo - CONTRAST SOURCE codes will be released in a few weeks (days?) ... we have just to add some coments :-) - I (Type One) want to work on kukoo3 intro in February .... - A TFL-TDV music disk by Fred/Green Kawa/(Type One) - Maybe some other intros/tunes/gfx from our members during the year - Another contribution for Wired95 7) Past -------- - anitouni.zip: MOD 4 channels by Type One - at_mix.zip : MOD 4 channels by Type One - populair.zip: MOD 4 channels by Type One - bboys92.zip : MOD 4 channels by Type One - brosseur.zip: MOD 4 channels by Type One - autobus.zip : MOD 4 channels by Type One - abdelmix.zip: MOD 6 channels by Type One - raster9.zip : first try by Type One in Intel ASM + SOURCE - intro5.zip : third try by Type One in Intel ASM + SOURCE - kukoo.zip : kukoo intro by Type One for Pleasure Access BBS with SOURCE - kukoo2.zip : kukoo2 intro by Type One for P.A. BBS - kuk2src.zip : kukoo2 SOURCE - flamoot.zip : Flamoot VGA SetUp =SOURCE by Type One (used in CONTRAST/Wired94) - direxe.zip : nice util done by Sam + SOURCE - time!.zip : TSR clock + SOURCE by SAM - runexe.zip : direxe + exec by SAM + SOURCE - tsr_xmpl.zip: TSR maker + SOURCE by SAM - glutzen.zip : MOD 4 channels by Fred BEURK - karate.zip : MOD 4 channels by Fred BUARK - lastmin.zip : MOD 4 channels by Fred (Wired94) - tarzan.zip : Pic by Fred (Wired94) - robot.zip : Pic by Youvi (Wired94) - zoltaaan.zip: MOD 4 channels by Zoltan 8) Wanted ---------- We are looking for dist sites !!!!!!! contact us !!!! (we have enough for Brussels) We are looking for more GFX men and Muzak makers !!!!! We don't refuse high level coders (and nice girls, by the way :-) ) !!!! PS: we all live in Brussels, mostly in Uccle.... so it would be better if you also live there or if you're studiing at the ULB or VUB !!!! 9) Special Greets ------------------ I greet all guyz i know or i met at the Wired: specially Pom,Mesh,Nic,LEM / Split + Sinew Shy / TRB Wizard and Darkness / IMPCDA guyz from ANTARES guyz from OUTLAWS PC DEMO SECTION All my friends and guyz from my section : Nikopol and NemRod / Channel 38 Khi_2, Yvan des patates, William, MrGUN, FLY, GLU, Recu, Greg Seront, Fred Huygens, ....... (text written by Type One) PS: yeah, i know my english suxx as my dutch :-) STOMEKLUUT !!! (Fred said that !) I'm sure Morflame want to greet some other people, isn't it ???? Yeah, I want to greetz Torlock (I'm sure he's asking if this demo really exists ?!) for his great board Hysteria (It was the coolest of Belgium, I think, real elite = cool guyz, not fuckin' assuming lamers) and specially Whitesnake Mephisto (You're welcome in our group!) Shade (The perfect tourist) and these cools groups : Channel 38 NFF all my ULB friends and the organizer of the wired party (I hope next time the prices shall be useful for demo-making ... One paradox for windoz and one personal budget software ... huh ... he ... don't kidding!) Top Gun / Gordon Sumway / ...I'm sure I forget more cool guyz .... sorry for that, you know who you are! The ascii table doesn't contain japenese chars. ZORGLUB.