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Amiga Format CD 30
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Amiga Format AFCD30 (Sep 1998, Issue 114).iso
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mnu²
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mnu².doc
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Mnu²(1) USER MANUAL Mnu²(1)
NAME
Mnu² - manipulates realtime one or two animations on screen.
AUTHORS
Mnu² is written by Rob Haarsma, with valuable additions from
Harro Mantel. The animation display code is ripped from Olaf
'Olsen' Barthel's Mandelsquare² fractal exploration program.
The assembler animation unpack code is written by Jim Kent
(Dancing Flame).
VERSION
Version 2.5.1 of Mnu² completed 29 Januari 1998
Compiled on a Amiga 2000 with SAS/C Amiga Compiler 6.00,
while listening to Tackhead Power Inc. Volume 3 (Live).
PUBLISHER
© 1994-98 by TNCCI Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Distribution of Mnu² is NOT prohibited.
SYNOPSIS
Mnu² - activate icon from Workbench.
DESCRIPTION
Mnu² displays one (single) or two (mixed) ANIM-5 files on the
screen. While playing, the user can move the images realtime
with the mouse. The user can also modify the appearance of
the images with the use of several buttons on the keyboard.
There are many different combinations possible, play around to
get the best results. (Read the Quick Start chapter !)
RESTRICTIONS
Mnu² operates with 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 color animations that are
created with ie. DeluxePaint4.6 (or less). When you're working
with two animations, make sure that both size and number of
colors are the same. Needless to say that the best performance
is retreived by a minimum of colors.
If the ANIM-5 file contains AGA or 256 color information, Mnu²
will cause graphical artifacts that'll result in a system-crash.
The authors hope to solve this problem in a future version. For
now you can load and save the animation in DeluxePaint4.6 to get
rid of the AGA rubbish.
OPERATORS
Mouse motions
Scrolls the images over the screen. With two animations
the second animation will move the opposite way.
Z (default)
The scrolling motion is equal to the mousemovements.
X
The scrolling motion accelarates with the mousemovements.
C
The scrolling motion will continue forever.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, q, w, e, r, t, y
These buttons determine the mix mode of the animations.
They represent all sorts of logical operations to combine and
merge the bitplanes of the animations. Use them as you like.
With one animation 5 is default, with two 1 is the default.
TAB
Select a (one of ten) wipe pattern, only visible when F1 is
activated.
Backspace
Saves the on screen image as an IFF picture to ram disk.
Multiple savings are called mnusession.000, mnusession.001,
etc.
Arrow Keys
Move the complete screen.
Numeric Pad +
Increases the animation tempo.
Numeric Pad -
Decreases the animation tempo.
Numeric Pad 2, 4, 6, 8
Move the mouse 1 pixel.
Numeric Pad 0
Resets all modifiers. Favourite button for newcomers !
Escape
Quits Mnu².
MODIFIERS
All following buttons operate as toggles. Press once means ON,
press again and it's OFF.
Mousebuttons, Spacebar
Freezes the first animation.
f
Activates digital feedback when using two animations.
F1
Wipes the images when moving the mouse, according to the
selected wipe-pattern. (use TAB button to select pattern).
F2
Shears the images when moving the mouse.
F3
Displays a quarter of the screen 4 times.
F4
Performes a x and y mirroring of a quarter of the screen.
F5
Enlarges the upper halve of the screen.
F6
Performes a Y mirror.
F7
Performes a X Mirror. (slow due to binary restrictions)
F8
Performes a slow rotation of the mouse.
F9
Performes a fast rotation of the mouse.
F10
Swaps between the color palettes of the animations.
Del
Swaps automatically between palettes.
Help
Swaps automatically (without mixing) between animations.
Numeric Pad (
Locks x scrolling.
Numeric Pad )
Locks y scrolling.
BITPLANE OPERATORS
The following operators allow you to move the image's bitplanes
separately. Their functionality depends on the number of colors
of the animation(s).
'
Lock bitplane #1 (works with 2 or more color animations)
[
Unlock bitplane #1
;
Lock bitplane #2 (works with 4 or more color animations)
p
Unlock bitplane #2
l
Lock bitplane #3 (works with 8 or more color animations)
o
Unlock bitplane #3
k
Lock bitplane #4 (works with 16 or more color animations)
i
Unlock bitplane #4
j
Lock bitplane #5 (works with 32 color animations)
u
Unlock bitplane #5
ENVIRONMENT
Mnu² will hold the current animation filename in ram:mnu².fnc.
If this file is missing, it will use Work: as the current path.
QUICK START
Here are a few tricks to figure out how Mnu² really works...
- Load one animation, press F1, move the mouse a bit, and walk
through the 10 different wipe patterns by pressing TAB. Keep
moving the mouse to control the effect. Deactivate the wipe
by pressing F1 again.
- Load one animation, press C, move the mouse, press F4 and
watch Mnu² turn your animation into a interactive caleidoscope.
- To experience the digital feedback feature, load one animation,
press 3 or e and move the mouse. For digital feedback with two
animations; load two anims, press 3 or e (or 2,4,r,t, etc...)
and press f. Enhance the feedback effect by activating the
wipe patterns. You never saw this much garbage without crashing
your Amiga. PAD 0 (reset all) will help you to clean the mess.
- Obtain a realtime outline effect by loading the same animation
twice, press 2 (the image disappears), and press a few times
on the PAD (2,4,6 or 8) directional buttons.
- To see the effect of the bitplane operators, load an animation
that has more than two colors, don't move the mouse, freeze the
animation by pressing the mousebuttons or space bar, press ' to
lock bitplane #1 and move the mouse. Unlock the bitplane (#1) by
pressing [.
KNOWN BUGS
Sometimes when using Mnu², the filerequesters will seize to
appear due to an error with the asl.library. A fresh restart
will solve this problem.
HISTORY
The program was originally designed to scroll a huge animated
image over the screen. While writing, I got addicted to the
possibilities of the animation playback code, thus Mnu² was born.
Since then the program developed into an interactive graphic tool
that's capable of transforming simple animations into a variety
of different appearances.
Mnu² has been used by Captain Video during their VJ performances,
where animations were made 'on the fly' to become an intuitive
part of the live mixed imagery.
FUTURE
There are plans for a 3.0 version where I'd like to implement
AGA and ANIM7 support. I'm also playing with the idea to include
colorcycling and sampler code, so that the images will react to
music. Requests and suggestions are welcome !
VERSIONS
v1.0 Jun 95 buggy command-line version
v2.1 Jan 97 workbench version
v2.3 Feb 97 fully debugged version
v2.4e Oct 97 hi-res animations reimplemented
v2.4f Nov 97 speed optimised version
v2.4h Jan 98 code optimised version
v2.5.0 Jan 98 first public release at www.captainvideo.nl
v2.5.1 Jan 98 wipe patterns added, Mnu².doc extended
Jun 98 Mnu² uploaded to aminet (a bit late... sorry !)
CONTACT
Contact the authors at:
rob@captainvideo.nl (Rob Haarsma)
hmantel@cs.vu.nl (Harro Mantel)
Info-Mnu² Last change: 6 Jun 98 (v2.5.1) (1)