Amiga Format 97/af097a.adf/ReadMe!

Text File | 1997-03-16 | 17KB | 417 lines

                    WELCOME TO SCALA 1.1!
                    =====================

We here at Digital Vision are proud to present version 1.1 of Scala.
With this version, we put emphasis on adding some useful features for
video use.

Also, we enhanced the overall speed and versatility of some of the
existing features, to make Scala the ideal choice for both video titling,
multimedia and presentations.

The 1.1 upgrade a free disk-only based upgrade.  Therefore, all new
features and enhancements are documented in this readme file.  The
next update of the software will have all these - and the
forthcoming features - documented in the manual.  Make sure your
registration card is mailed in, this is the only way we can notify
you of the continous development of Scala.  We intend to keep our
reputation of the fastest multimedia development for the Amiga, so
look out for more amazing features in the time to come!


A short overview of new features in the 1.1 version:
----------------------------------------------------

* RealTime antialiasing of text, brushes and colorfonts
* Continous credit scrolling transition
* Arexx support
* Canon Stillvideo control
* ANIM RealTime buffering
* Colorfont support
* Full support for outline fonts under WB 2.1
* Automatic remapping of brushes and colorfonts
* SuperImpose transition
* A-Z transition
* Show layout boxes function
* Full deadkey-support
* New controls for remapping, underline air and underline position
* The loading speed on the A3000 has been optimized, and is now
  about 5 times faster
* Automatic popularity buffering for interactive applications
* New function keys

How do you use these additions - and how do they work?
------------------------------------------------------

We suggest you read the manual and learn to use Scala before reading
this section.



RealTime antialiasing
---------------------
Anti-aliasing is a technique to simulate higher resolution on the
screen.  By adding pixels of a softer color around the edges of a
letter, the "jaggies" will disappear.  Other anti-aliasing schemes
for the Amiga are based on converting your fonts into a separate
format.  The disadvantages of this method is that you need special
fonts, you can't get antialiasing on brushes or outline fonts, and
it takes up over double space on your harddrive.  Therefore, we
invented the RealTime Antialiasing scheme, which antialiases as you
type.

To use the Antialiasing feature, simply go to the layout menu and
set your Antialias level.  Levels 0 through 3 are available, 0 being
no antialiasing, and the other levels indicate how many colors it
will use to soften the edges.  Therefore, 3 will be the best choice,
but it requres more colors "in between." The Antialias level can
also be set using the F8 key, it switches through the levels in a
0-3-2-1 fashion.

The color choice is very important when it comes to antialiasing.
The default palette for blank backgrounds have been changed as a
result of this.  It is important that the intermediate colors are
available in the palette, otherwise Scala can't do the antialiasing.
When antialiasing a white text, to a black background, for instance,
Scala will need 3 grey colors in order to do a level 3 antialiasing
on it.

In Scala 1.1, you can also set what color you want to antialiase to.
As a default, Scala uses the color 0 for this, but you may want to
alter this.  On the palette menu, there is a separate color button
for this.  You can freely change this color to any of the 4096
available, or you can copy one down from the palette strip.  Then,
make sure you have intermediate colors available between this
"antialiase to" color and your front or outline colors.  Note you
will need colors in between the front of the text and the outline,
as well as from the outline and to the "antialiase to" color.

The "Antialiase to" button on the palette menu will generate a
spread for you from the selected color and further on in the
palette.  Click on a color you will use for the front, click
"antialiase to", and then on a color two or three colors down the
palette row.  You will see that this functions very much like the
normal "spread" function, but it spreads to the "antialiase to"
color instead.

Scala antialiases the text lines when you play your scripts.  If you
want to improve the speed of this, you can save your background page
as an IFF picture and then include this in your script.  The "Save
IFF" button has been moved to the "Save" menu instead, to make this
more convenient.



Continous credit scrolling transition
-------------------------------------

In video production, credit scrolling is a common task.  We decided
to add this feature as a standard transition in Scala, to make it
easy to use.  Simply select this transition, which shows an A, a B
and an arrow on it's icon, to get contious scrolling titles - either
upwards or downwards.  You may also want to experiment with the
speeds, as this also can be set from page to page.

Continous scrolling takes so much out of the Amiga, however, that
only speed 1 is available for a plain, nonaccelerated A500 or A2000.
For maximum performance, we recommend accelerator boards from GVP or
other vendors, or the Amiga 3000.


Arexx support
-------------

This is documented further in the ARexx directory on this disk.  In
short, any of the VISUAL commands can now be called from an ARexx
script.  This gives the ARexx programmer a host of powerful
functions, such as ANIM, PICTURE, TEXT and so on.  Even BUTTONs can
be programmed from ARexx.  Note that you can use Scala to create the
"look" of the presentation, and then work on it as an ARexx script.


Colorfont support
-----------------

Scala now supports colorfonts, such as the Kara fonts.  You can
decide on what colors it should use, either the first colors in the
range or to use the colors in the palette that are closest to the
original range.  This is set on the layout menu, with the "Remap"
option.  1 is default and gives you a "best match" of colors.


Full support for outline fonts
------------------------------

With Workbench 2.1 outline fonts may be added to your system and
called from normal Amiga programs.  The operating system will then
generate any desired size for you on the fly.  To support this
fully, we added a control for setting the exact point size of any
outline font.  Incidentally, this also works with normal bitmap
fonts, but probably not with the same pleasing results.  Bitmap
fonts tend to get "jaggies" when scaled.



Canon Stillvideo control
------------------------

With stillvideo cameras, images are being recorded to disks rather
than on film.  The output from these devices are in video, which
makes stillvideo a good companion for an Amiga system with a
genlock.

The Canon stillvideo system consists of a small camera, called ION
in Europe and Xapshot in the US.  This camera can't be controlled
from a computer, so you need a playback unit, called RV-321 (RV-311
for NTSC).  This unit can be controlled from the Amiga's serial port
through a serial interface.  Utilitizing this, Scala can call up the
correct picture at the right time and use any photo as a background
page.  Over this, you may genlock graphics and text to create
unequalled presentations.

To setup the Canon ION system, add this to the s:Scala.config:

EXTERNAL Stillvideo
TYPE ion
END

After the next time you save the config file from Scala's system
menu, additional options will automatically be added to the file,
like what serial device to use etc.

In use, you just click on the "New page" button, and you will see a
"Stillvideo" button in the file requester.  After having decided
what screen format you want to use - and maybe a background page - a
"remote control" appears for you to select any of the 50 pictures
that can be fitted onto one stillvideo disk.  Then you can add text
to this like to any Scala background.

For further information about Canon Stillvideo Systems, contact your
country's Canon office.


SuperImpose transition
----------------------

The SuperImpose transition takes two pictures and blends them
together much like a video mixer does in a fade transition between
two video sources.  This technique gives a very impressive effect
when used with intro titles etc.  On the Amiga, this technique does
have some limitations, since it requires a lot of colors available.
Therefore, this effect can only be applyed to two pictures of a
lower number of colors.  Each picture's number of colors multiplyed
by each other should not be greater than the maximum number of
colors available in that resolution.  For instance, in hi-res or
med-res, the maximum combinations are 4 color to 4 color, or 2 color
to 8 color.  In lo-res or interlace, you can use 8 color to 4 color
pictures.  If your pictures have too many colors, Scala will simply
do a cut.



A-Z transition
--------------

This transition simply gives you all the different Scala transitions
one after another, from number one to seventy-some, and provides a
quick way of making a script to show all Scala's possibilities in
this regard.

Show layout boxes function
--------------------------

A problem with the 1.0 version was often that all the "empty" lines
around the page were invisible, and could be quite confusing.  By
turning on the "layout boxes" on the layout menu, boxes will be
drawn around each line, empty or not.  These boxes can be clicked in
to automatically position the cursor to the preset justification, or
moved around.  To delete a box, simply click in it and press the
backspace key.  The "layout boxes" can also be turned on or off
using the F9 key.

Full deadkey-support
--------------------

A "deadkey" is a key you press to get an "umlaut" or accent on the
following letter.  There are two "deadkeys" on the Amiga keyboard,
one for ä and ê type letters, and one for é and è accents.  With
these keys, any foreign letter can be reached from any other keymap.

New underline controls in layout menu
--------------------------------------

The underline size is still accessible from the layout menu, but we
added two extra controls for underlining.  This is "Underline air"
and "Underline position".  Underline Air decides how much room there
should be around "g"s, "j"s and other characters that go through the
underline, while "Underline position" decides on how far down to put
the underline.  With this control you can also acheive
"strike-through" by positioning the underline in the middle of the
line.

The loading speed and ANIM RealTime buffering:
----------------------------------------------

If you're using an A3000, you may notice quite a speed enhancement
in loading of pictures and animations.  It should now be about 5
times faster than in version 1.0.  For all users, the buffering of
the next page has become faster, since preparation of the next page
now starts as soon as the transtion to the previous page has started
(this was created to acheive continous credit scrolling).  Also, the
next picture or animation will be loaded and made ready while
playing back another animation.



This makes REALTIME video playback a snap - simply create a series
of ANIMs in a size small enough to keep both this ANIM and the next in
memory at the same time - which roughly will say the ANIMs should be
one-third the size of your memory size. Scala will then "link" these
animations together at runtime.

Automatic popularity buffering
------------------------------

While keeping pages in the memory buffer for quick access, Scala now
looks at the number of times this picture has been shown before
deciding on what pictures to throw out of memory.  Sine the most
frequently used pages automatically will be thrown out of the buffer
last, in a point-of-sale or information boot system the users will
actually decide on what pages should come up the fastest by popular
demand.

New function keys
-----------------

In version 1.0, you could go to next page in your presentation while
being in the text menu by pressing F2, F1 to go back one page.  F3
saves your current page and clears it, ready for you to make another
page.

In 1.1, we added Shift-F1 which goes to the first page in the
script, and Shift-F2, which goes to the last.  In addition, we added
F4, which makes a copy of the page you're working on.

With F8, you can turn the Antialias level from 0 to 3-2-1, and with
F9, you can turn the layout boxes on and off, to show all the lines
on a page, empty or not.

The F10 key redraws the page at any time.



The "After the manual was printed..." remarks for version 1.0:
--------------------------------------------------------------


Some added features:
--------------------

- To jump to any other page in your script while running, you may
  enter the number of page you want to go to on the keyboard followed
  by enter or return.

  ex: To go to page 19, simply press 19 and <enter>.

- We decided to put a small dot in place of the @ letter in all the fonts,
  to make it easier to set up "text bullets", like these:

        * Point number one
        * Point number two
        * Point number three

- 6 new page transitions and 9 new text transitions were added,
  all using the "ease in" technique.

- On the first font disk, we added a sample script which shows all
  the different fonts available in Scala.  Also, we added a number
  of "pictograms"; small symbols with trains, food and so forth.
  Finally, we added 2 types of arrows in 8 different directions, and
  35 different palettes which all work with all the Scala
  Backgrounds.


Some known quirks:
------------------

- Trying to use damaged IFF files (BAD FORM) will currently cause
a system crash. If you have problems with a particular file, try
loading and saving it again in your favourite paint package.

- While starting Scala from the CLI, you must be in the Scala
directory - or Scala will not be able to find it's dear and
necessary companion, ScalaPlayer.  Use the CD command for this.

- The 12 point GoudyB mentioned in the manual (and used in our
sample font script) did unfortunately not make it to the master
disk.

- Users of WB 2.0:  Use Kickstart 37.129 or later to get the best
performance.  Earlier version gave more jerky transitions etc.



- Memory requirements:  Scala needs 1MB of chip memory for working
with hi-res 16 colors, like the Scala background library.  If you
only have 512K chip, you should work with lower resolutions and
fewer colors.


Problems with Workbench 1.2/1.3:
--------------------------------

- Under Kickstart 1.3 the lower 1/5th of your picture may disappear,
especially on overscan pictures and animations.  This is a bug in
the operating system - install the program "PatchMrg" in your
startup-sequence.  The "PatchMrg" program resides in the C directory
on the Scala Program Disk.

- When pressing the RUN!  button, the pointer tends to get stuck on
the screen, and the DEL button won't turn it off.  This is due to a
bug in the operating system (fixed in 2.0).  We have included a
program that should fix this most of the time called FixMouse, which
also is located in the C:  directory on this disk.  Include this
program in your startup-sequence, but if this gives no effect on
your system, you should press the DEL key, move the pointer up to
the middle of the screen and press DEL again.  Then, the pointer
should be gone.

- If you have problems with the machine booting in NTSC mode,
install the program PALonly (in the C directory of the Scala Program
Disk) as the first command of your startup-sequence.



Harddisk installation problems:
-------------------------------

- Working with a Commodore 2090 hard drive, you may not have
enough room on your system partition to install the Scala fonts.
Follow these steps for a solution to this problem:

1) Open a CLI or Shell. Type: "makedir work:fonts"
2) Type "ED boot:s/startup-sequence"
3) Change the line with "assign fonts: sys:fonts"
                   to   "assign fonts: work:fonts"
4) Press ESCape, "X" and then <Return>
5) Reboot the machine (Control-Amiga-Amiga)
6) Run ScalaInstall again.



The Scala BBS Service:
----------------------

If you are a modem user, why don't you call our Scala User Bulletin
Board System located at the MediaFoto BBS in Oslo, Norway.  If
you're a registered user, we will give you access to the conference
after your first logon.

The BBS service is set up for users to bring in suggestions for new
Scala features and the various experiences of your use of the
program.  New releases of the program will also be obtainable from
here.  The number is + 47 2 17 60 56.  Welcome!