Amiga Format 125

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QuickFlix Rev 0.13 Copyright (c) 1987 Jeff Kunzelman, Rodney Iwashina, Takeshi Suganuma If you like this program please feel free to send a donation ($10.00) payable to: Rodney Iwashina 11333 Yolanda Ave. Northridge, Ca. 91326 You can make as many copies of this program as you like and give it to all your friends, on the condition that you abide by these guidelines: The copy(s) (including documentation) must remain unmodified and intact. The copy(s) cannot be sold for money or profit, except by the original authors. At the time of transfer, the new recipient(s) agree(s) to the above guidelines. Suggestions and comments of any kind can be sent to the above address, through CIS (76224,102) or Bix (riwashina). We hope you enjoy this! Introduction: QuickFlix is an IFF slideshow and cel animation program. It takes full advantage of the Amiga's multi-tasking operating system by creating multiple tasks to manage each of its resources, communicating via executive messages and ports, and sharing data in a common memory pool. QuickFlix supports the LO-RES, HI-RES, NON-INTERLACE, INTERLACE, HAM and OVERSCAN modes of the Amiga. QuickFlix can be run with internal timing or can be triggered by an external source. A stand-alone slideshow or animation sequence can be generated when QuickFlix is run with internal timing. External triggering allows a user to interactively control the slideshow or animation. QuickFlix implements a caching system that pre-loads pictures into memory. This feature allows QuickFlix to support the rapid frame rate necessary for cel animation. CLI Usage: QuickFlix [-t<tick rate>] [-l<log file>] <script file> ... <script file> is the name of the script file containing the names of the pictures, the special effects information, and the timing information. All timing information is expressed in number of ticks. Multiple script files may be chained together by specifying them on the command line. -t<tick rate> indicates the timer tick rate, where <tick rate> is a decimal integer from 0 to 60, corresponding to tick rates of 0 to 60 ticks per second. When the tick rate is set to 0, the external triggering is enabled. This option defaults to 30 tick per second. -l<log file> designates the file to log informational and error messages. If this option is not specified, no log file will be created. QuickFlix can be exited at any time by pressing the ESC key or <CTRL> C; holding the CTRL key down and pressing the C key. usage example: QuickFlix -t24 -lram:logfile script This example will read the script information from the file "script", the tick rate will be 24 ticks per second, and the log information will be written to the file "logfile" in ramdisk. Workbench Usage: QuickFlix can also be invoked from the Workbench. A single script can be invoked by double-clicking on the desired script file icon. A single script file can also be invoked by shift-clicking (holding the SHIFT key down and clicking on the the icon) the desired script file icon, then double-clicking on the QuickFlix icon. Multiple scripts can be invoked by shift-clicking all desired script file icons, then double-clicking on the QuickFlix icon. When multiple scripts are selected, the 'tool types' information from the first shift-selected script will be used for all subsequent scripts. Valid Tool Types: n=<anything> (no seperate fast memory cache) l=<log file name> t=<ticks per second> (t=0 = use joystick) All others will be ignored. Script Format: Entries in the script file must conform to the following format: s <picture file> - any IFF picture file (s is the mnemonic for (s)lide) n <ticks> - Switch to next picture in script in <ticks> ticks where <ticks> is a positive decimal integer. If the last picture in the script includes this entry, QuickFlix will exit when the switch occurs, otherwise the last picture will remain on the screen until QuickFlix is manually exited via an ESC or <CTRL> C. (n is the mnemonic for (n)ext) i <start ticks> <end ticks> <interval ticks> <red> <green> <blue> - Fade in the current picture starting at <start ticks> ticks after the picture is switched in, end fade at <end ticks> ticks after the picture is switched in, fade at intervals of <interval ticks> ticks, and fade in from color <red>, <green>, <blue> where all tick values are positive decimal integers and all colors are hexidecimal values from 0 to f. (i is the mnemonic for fade (i)n) o <start ticks> <end ticks> <interval ticks> <red> <green> <blue> - Fade out the current picture starting at <start ticks> ticks after the picture is switched in, end fade at <end ticks> ticks after the picture is switched in, fade at intervals of <interval ticks> ticks, and fade out to color <red>, <green>, <blue> where all tick values are positive decimal integers and all colors are hexidecimal values from 0 to f. (o is the mnemonic for fade (o)ut) c <start ticks> <end ticks> <delay factor> - Cycle color ranges starting at <start ticks> ticks after the picture is switched in, end cycling at <end ticks> ticks after the picture is swithced in, with a delay factor of <delay factor> applied to the color cycle rate where all values are positive decimal integers. The color cycle ranges and rates are read from the IFF file. (c is the mnemonic for (c)ycle) script example: s picture1 n 40 i 0 0 1 0 0 0 o 20 0 1 f f f s picture2 n 60 i 0 0 2 f f f o 30 0 2 0 0 0 s picture3 n 80 i 0 0 1 0 0 f o 60 0 1 0 0 f c 0 0 1 This example will show three pictures. The first picture is "picture1". It will be shown for 40 ticks, fade in from black when it is switched in, and fade out to white 20 ticks from the time it is switched in. The second picture is "picture2". I will be shwon for 60 ticks, fade in from white when it is switched in, and fade out to black 30 ticks from the time it is switched in. The third picture is "picture3". It will be shown for 80 ticks, fade in from blue when the picture is switched in, fade out to blue 60 ticks from the time it is switched in, and will color cycle the cycle ranges with a delay factor of 1. QuickFlix will exit after showing this picture since it is the last one in the script and it specifies a switch. Cell Animation: Given the architecture of the system, cel animation becomes a simple exercise of script manipulation. The pictures that make up the animation can be entered to be shown for a short nubmer of ticks, and the tick rate can be adjusted to a reasonable rate for animation. The cache allows rapid switching of pictures as long as the pictures are in the cache, otherwise the pictures have to be read from the disk. The cache will hold about 5 320x200x5 (typical DeluxePaint) pictures on a 512K Amiga, about 40 on a 2.5M Amiga. These numbers will vary depending on the resolution, interlace, and number of bit planes, because the cache is memory dependent. The more memory, the better, but if the display rate exceeds the cache fill rate, the cache will eventually get behind, causing a pause in the animation. There are a number of things you can do to optimize animations. Additional memory will result in a larger cache and therefore a higher cache hit rate. A hard disk will increase the transfer rate of pictures from disk to cache. Pictures with fewer bit planes will decrease the amount of memory needed for each picture. Repeating short sequences of pictures in the script will allow a higher cache hit rate. Color cycling can be used to simulate animation. External Triggering: External triggering allows a user to interactively control the slideshow or animation. A joystick connected to port 2 of the Amiga can be used for interactive control. The joystick can increase or decrease the tick rate by pushing the joystick up or pulling it back. Pressing the joystick button at any time will enable the single-step mode. In this mode, each button press will cause a timer tick to occur. Continuous timer tick mode is re-enabled by moving the joystick up or down. Moving the joystick to the right will switch to the next picture in the script. Known Problems: The picture switching rate does not keep up with the tick rate at tick rates exceeding about 24 frames per second. Fades and color cycling effects do not work on HAM pictures. Future Enhancements: We are continuously trying to improve our product. Suggestions and comments are more than welcome. We would like to know what type of application you are using QuickFlix for and any enhancements that you would like to see incorporated into it. Our current list of enhancements follow. Repeat and reverse for script. External device synchronization. Additional special effects. IFF ANIM support. We are currently testing a version which works real-time with MIDI!! Notes: What is the logfile for? The logfile output option is extremly handy to determine problems. QuickFlix is very quiet about runtime problems. This allows QuickFlix to be used in 'live' situations where a silently skipped frame is preferable to the audience seeing requesters, flashes, and bells, because a file couldn't be found. The logfile option causes the creation of a logfile which will contain a trace of the general operation of the QuickFlix system. Information will include cache statistics and errors. The errors will indicate various nasties such as bad IFF files, missing files, memory resource problems, etc. A good place to put the logfile is in the ram disk (i.e. -l ram:logfile). The log file will not be created with an icon so it must be accessed from the CLI. More info on effects: In color cycle effects an end time of 0 indicates: cycle until next slide. In fade effects an end time of 0 indicates: fade until you reach the target color. Color cycling can be used to slow sequences down while still giving the screen an 'animated' look. This will allow the caches to refill allowing long uninterrupted sequences in a small amount of memory. Also remember that QuickFlix implements real caches. This means reusing pictures in sequences will improve the chances that the specified picture is already loaded in the cache and will not be reloaded off the disk. QuickFlix allows multiple effects to be active at once. You can fade and color cycle simultaneously! A note about Caches: Since QuickFlix does its own caching it is recommended that you do not use Facc, AddBuffers or a ramdisk. QuickFlix will allocate as much memory possible to cache the specified pictures. Since QuickFlix knows the order in which the pictures will be displayed it can more effectively cache the picture data than either Facc or AddBuffers. When run from the WorkBench: When QuickFlix is run from the WorkBench it will change its working directory into the directory which contains the currently being processed script. This allows scripts to contain 'relative' picture filenames if the IFF files reside in the directory with the script. Bug fixes: Since Ver 0.12: Color cycling no longer goes into 'turbo' mode when color cycling is present on the last slide. The caches are correctly managed even if available FAST memory contigious space is less than available CHIP memory contigious space. (This caused Ver 0.12 to NOT use FAST memory as cache space in many cases) Really! We are looking for comments about this program, so drop us a note and tell us what you think.