dcoteles@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (David Domenick Cotelessa) (06/17/91)
Like many people, I too am dissatisfied with trhe Amiga gl viewer... Although I do enjou its function to extract pictures from a gl, I would much rather prefer a GL viewer that: *Displays text *uses HAM or some sort of AMIGA format that will display the full spectrum of color used on these gls (For the most part, it doesn't seem like it would take up a lot more memory than these 16 color deals that the current gl viwer does (Mmmm...The first Dynamic HiRes anim...hmm....nah)) In fact it could be eaiser if there could be a program that would just split the gl into its individual frames in HAM mode and let the user convert and compress to create the anim.....All opinion and speculation, mind you, but if people are whining and moaning over an AMIGA gl viewer, create a better one (" Creating a better mousetrap" so to speak...) All speculation......Don't hate for me for my ignorance **A friendly word from*********************.-.******************************* .--. .-..-. .-..--..-.-, .--..--. / / a.k.a. Dave Cotelessa / O) / O|| D)/ O)| O| \'/ / __)| O| / / <dcoteles@bonnie.ics.uci.edu> / /|| / ||_// O)`--' // / (_ )`--' `-' `-' `'`-^--' `----' `' `.___.' () "GET WILD AND TOUGH!" --City Hunter *****************************************************************************
jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz (John Bickers) (06/17/91)
Quoted from <285C616F.14491@ics.uci.edu> by dcoteles@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (David Domenick Cotelessa): > *uses HAM or some sort of AMIGA format that will display the full spectrum > of color used on these gls (For the most part, it doesn't seem like it > would take up a lot more memory than these 16 color deals that the current > gl viwer does (Mmmm...The first Dynamic HiRes anim...hmm....nah)) But it would take a while to convert each frame into a HAM picture, so the thing would play quite slowly. Would you be happy with that? Or would you rather it was a two pass process - the first pass converts all the imagery etc to HAM or something, and the 2nd pass actually plays the animation? The current code (for mine - is there another one?) _could_ do with a rewrite though, so it double-buffered and used the blitter to put the data to the screen. Try sending the author some colorful animations - the best .GL anims I've seen so far have the primary frames in grayscale. Memory isn't much of a problem. We aren't on PClones... :) As for the full range of colors - HAM has problems, as those who convert .GIFs probably know - but some chap once said he was going to look into writing a player that supported the Colorburst. I'll write a more complete player to support one of the 1280x1024 8-bit boards, if you want to finance the operation... :) > In fact it could be eaiser if there could be a program that would just > split the gl into its individual frames in HAM mode and let the user Well, you _can_ do that, sort of. Use glsplit to extract the .PIC files, pictor to extract them to 8-bit data, then HamLab or similar to convert the 8-bit pictures to HAM. I did it once, so it's possible. Just a pain getting the delta animation programs to put the frames back together. If you've got the specs for the MoviePlayer program, or whatever the Director uses, perhaps the delta animation thing can be avoided altogether. > mind you, but if people are whining and moaning over an AMIGA gl viewer, > create a better one (" Creating a better mousetrap" so to speak...) Are people whining and moaning? Are there even more than two or three people using a GL player on the Ami? The docs I used are from the documention for a program called "xgrasp". If you get that you should have enough info. For that matter, is there any interest in Autodesk Animator animations (.FLIs) being converted to IFF? These face similar problems re speed and grayscale being more convenient than HAM, etc. > .--. .-..-. .-..--..-.-, .--..--. / / a.k.a. Dave Cotelessa -- *** John Bickers, TAP, NZAmigaUG. jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz *** *** "Endless variations, make it all seem new" - Devo. ***