*----------------------------------------------------------------------------* This file details the latest update to the image viewers supplied with the 'Apex Animator' graphics system on the Atari Falcon030 computer. Apex Animator (c) 1995 Black Scorpion Developments. *----------------------------------------------------------------------------* APEXTGA.GTP: Operation: * Allows Truevision TARGA format images to be viewed from the Desktop or from within third party shells by double-clicking on the image or by dragging the image onto the GTP file. * The image is rendered onto the screen using one of several methods depending on the model of computer you are using. * The best display method available for each machine will be chosen in order to represent the image as closely to the original image as physically possible, which involves increasing the (normally fixed) colour limit for that platform by at least several hundred percent (much more on Falcon machines). Support: * 16/24/32-bit compressed and uncompressed Truevision TARGAs. * Works on Falcon030, STE & standard ST machines. Colours: * Approx 16.7 million / 24-bit on Falcon030 machines. * Approx 32,768 / 15-bit on STE machines. * Approx 4096 / 12-bit on ST machines. Features: * 24-bit supersampling (smooth-filtered rescaling) is performed on images too big for the display, and allows huge images to be viewed without pixel deterioration on any monitor. * Mouse click or keypress to exit. Bugs: * A problem with older 14-inch VGA engines which resulted in reduced colour count and a somewhat erratic display has been successfully corrected using software trickery with this latest version of the viewer, although the hardware problem between the Falcon and these monitors remains mainly uncorrectable without some kind of hardware modification. Special: * Editing the (signed) longwords immediately following the ASCII tags 'xoff' & 'yoff' found at the start of the program will allow the user to offset the display both horizontally and vertically for televisions with unbalanced border sizes. Typical values are '16' for 'xoff' and '0' for 'yoff'. 'load' is a reserved parameter and is currently unused. *----------------------------------------------------------------------------* APEXJPG.GTP: Operation: * Allows any standard JPEG format images to be viewed from the Desktop or from within third party shells by double-clicking on the image or by dragging the image onto the GTP file. * The image is rendered onto the screen using an advanced 24-bit 'emulation' mode which uses software trickery to increase the Falcon's colour limit beyond 16-bits to a much smoother looking 24-bit display. Support: * Any standard YCbCR-IDCT-Huffman based JPEG format. * Works only on Falcon030 machines. Colours: * Approx 16.7 million / 24-bit. Features: * 24-bit supersampling (smooth-filtered rescaling) is performed on images too big for the display, and allows huge images to be viewed without pixel deterioration on any monitor. * DSP-based IDCT JPEG decoding. * Mouse click or keypress to exit. Bugs: * A problem with older 14-inch VGA engines which resulted in reduced colour count and a somewhat erratic display has been successfully corrected using software trickery with this latest version of the viewer, although the hardware problem between the Falcon and these monitors remains mainly uncorrectable without some kind of hardware modification. Special: * Editing the (signed) longwords immediately following the ASCII tags 'xoff' & 'yoff' found at the start of the program will allow the user to offset the display both horizontally and vertically for televisions with unbalanced border sizes. Typical values are '16' for 'xoff' and '0' for 'yoff'. 'load' is a reserved parameter and is currently unused. *----------------------------------------------------------------------------* APEXFLC.GTP: Operation: * Allows FLIC animations in a number of formats to be displayed directly from the Desktop at up to 70 frames/sec (or higher) by double-clicking on the FLIC or by dragging the FLIC onto the GTP file. Support: * All Autodesk 256 colour FLI & FLC animation formats, as well as the 16-bit truecolour FLH format. * Works only on Falcon030 machines. Colours: * 256 per animation (FLI). * 256 per frame (FLC). * 65536 per frame (FLH). Features: * Takes advantage of TV/RGB overscan for animations larger than 320 or 640 pixels wide, depending on nearest video resolution. * Can play animations from memory or direct-from-disk, frame-by- frame at high speeds. * Mouse click or keypress to exit. Special: * Editing the (signed) longwords immediately following the ASCII tags 'xoff' & 'yoff' found at the start of the program will allow the user to offset the display both horizontally and vertically for televisions with unbalanced border sizes. Typical values are '16' for 'xoff' and '0' for 'yoff'. The third field, 'load' is used to specify direct-from-disk or direct-from-memory playback. Memory playback ('load' = '-1') is faster, but can require a lot of ram and causes a delay while the file is loaded. Disk playback ('load' = '0') is instantaneous, but slower for higher-resolution sequences due to bandwidth restrictions of the drive. Under normal circumstances (bugs forgiving), memory playback will default to disk playback if available ram is insufficient for loading the whole animation. *----------------------------------------------------------------------------* APEXGIF.GTP: Operation: * Allows 256-colour GIF format images to be viewed from the Desktop or from within third party shells by double-clicking on the image or by dragging the image onto the GTP file. * The image is rendered onto the screen using an advanced 24-bit palette 'emulation' mode which uses software trickery to increase the Falcon's colour palette limit beyond 18-bits to a much smoother looking 24-bit display. Support: * Any standard GIF87 or GIF89 format (except interlaced GIFS). * Works only on Falcon030 machines. Colours: * 256 from a palette of approx 16.7 million / 24-bit. Features: * Mouse controlled scrolling with left-click or keypress to exit. * Uses DSP bytepixel -> bitplane conversion for speed. * Mouse click or keypress to exit. Bugs: * A problem with older 14-inch VGA engines which resulted in reduced colour count and a somewhat erratic display has been successfully corrected using software trickery with this latest version of the viewer, although the hardware problem between the Falcon and these monitors remains mainly uncorrectable without some kind of hardware modification. Special: * Editing the (signed) longwords immediately following the ASCII tags 'xoff' & 'yoff' found at the start of the program will allow the user to offset the display both horizontally and vertically for televisions with unbalanced border sizes. Typical values are '16' for 'xoff' and '0' for 'yoff'. 'load' is a reserved parameter and is currently unused. *----------------------------------------------------------------------------* For detailed information on the Apex package, please contact: Titan Designs, 6 Witherford Way, Selly Oak, Birmingham. B29 4AX Or: phone: 0121-693-6669 fax: 0121-414-1630