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Cubase Magazine 5
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Issue #05.iso
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2-SOFTWARE
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2-SHAREWARE
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WINAMP
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VIS FUNKY
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README.TXT
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1998-07-27
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Funky FX Plugin for WinAmp
v0.01
--------------------------
26 July 1998
Inroduction
-----------
This archive contains the Funky FX FireWork plugin. This is version 0.01 -
which means that it works, but I've not tested it extensively. And as it's
taken me a grand total of 24 hours to write, you can be that there are "one
or two" bugs hidden away somewhere.
The FireWork plugin displays some nice fireworks in time to whatever music
WinAmp is currently playing. Red fireworks represent the bass, green
fireworks represent the mid tones and blue fireworks represent the high
tones.
Parts of this plugin (i.e. the window managent code) are based on the
source code I obtained for the NolrS Speakers (vis_spk.dll) by Alex Black.
You can try looking at http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/students/speakers/ for
more information. Any bugs in this plugin are without doubt due to me
however.
Disclaimer
----------
This software comes with no warranty - use it at your own risk (or as Sun
Microsystems would say):
"THIS SOFTWARE IS NOT DESIGNED OR INTENDED FOR USE OR RESALE AS ON-LINE
CONTROL EQUIPMENT IN HAZARDOUS ENVIRONMENTS REQUIRING FAIL-SAFE
PERFORMANCE, SUCH AS IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT
NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL, DIRECT LIFE
SUPPORT MACHINES, OR WEAPONS SYSTEMS, IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF THE SOFTWARE
COULD LEAD DIRECTLY TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR
ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE ("HIGH RISK ACTIVITIES")."
So don't try and use it to control atomic toasters or anything.
Requirements
------------
This plugin should work with most hardware / software. Obviously it won't
look particularly exciting on a 486, but a mid to high end Pentium should
be fine. Having said that, I've only tested the plugin on a PII 266 and it
slows down loads when lots is going on. You can fiddle with the
configuration options below to speed it up (increase the culling rate,
decrease the # particles released etc).
Installation
------------
Copy "vis_funkyfx.dll" to your WinAmp plugins directory (usually C:\Program
Files\WinAmp\Plugins\).
Configuration
-------------
There are various options that you can fiddle with to get the plugin
working more to your taste or just to speed it up:
Sensitivity - the sensitivty of the individual channels. Slide the sliders
to the right to make more fireworks appear.
Fire On Peak - doesn't actually seem to do much, but try it anyway - you
might like it.
Spectrum Analyzer - Turn on/off a cheesy looking spectrum analyzer. Best
turned off.
Particle Size - Turn this down to speed things up slightly.
Particles Per Explosion - Set how many particles are emitted in each
explosion. This ranges from about 10 to 200. Turn this down if things slow
down a bit.
Particle Cull Rate - Determines how quickly particles disappear from the
screen. Increase this to speed things up a bit.
Only Fire Up - When used with gravity, this makes things look nicer. Just
trust me.
Gravity - Enable or disable gravity.
Jitter - Turn this on to make the particles wibble about as they fly off.
This gives a more natural looking explosion effect. Really.
Known Bugs
----------
The plugin doesn't want to work in double size mode. Not only does it not
display correctly, but it's cripplingly slow. Should be fixed in the next
release.
I've no idea if it frees all the memory that it allocates. It allocates
memory every time it creates a particle. It may or may not always free this
memory :-)
Please report any obvious bugs to paulh@javigate.com
Future Plans
------------
I've got a few ideas on how to improve the plugin. You probably have to -
let me know at paulh@javigate.com. Ta.
FireWorks
~~~~~~~~~
Make double size mode work, and add a full screen (DirectDraw) option.
Allow further configuration of the particle sources - i.e. colour; number;
range of frequencies over which they are sensitive; individual controls for
# particles, culling rate etc.
Improve the spectrum analyzer or remove it completely (it's only in there
so that I can test the frequency response etc). Might replace it with a
nice bezier curve or something.
Make it faster.
Funky FX
~~~~~~~~
I'm considering porting some of the demo code I've written to work as a
plugin. Watch out for lens, fire, water and atomic blob things. And bump
mapping too.
May do some kind of sound processing module too...
Source Code
-----------
I will get around to releasing the source code for anyone who fancies
nosing around, but I want to clean it up first - it's the software
equivalent of my bedroom at the moment (safe, but you wouldn't want your
mum to see it).
Version History
---------------
26 Jul 1998 - v0.01 - Initial Release
Credits Etc
-----------
Based on original source code by Alex Black - adblack@novice.uwaterloo.ca
Everything else written and Copyright by Paul Holden (paulh@javigate.com).
WinAmp (http://www.winamp.com/) is produced by Nullsoft
(http://www.nullsoft.com/). It's probably copyrighted, trademarked and so
on by them too.
Hellos to Stevey-Boy, Chris and Fiwl.
Contact
-------
The homepage for this plugin is at http://www.javigate.com/FunkyFX/
There's some other fun stuff at Javigate.com too - try out
http://www.javigate.com/TVAP/
I can be contacted at paulh@javigate.com, or if that fails,
paulh@irsoft.demon.co.uk. My rather mediocre home page is at
http://www.javigate.com/paulh/
Paul Holden
York, UK
26 July 1998