Rise & Fall (v1.0) : By Joshua Paul (Shine) : Release Notes
General Introduction: To begin with, since, for most of you reading this, you have just been introduced to the New and Improved MacAMP (v1.0 named Radiation), Welcome. You will find an absolutely remarkable change in the look and feel of the redesigned MacAMP. The last shreds WinAmp have finally been thrown off, and what is left, of course, is a superior program (for the Superior Platform). Because this is so new, there are few plugins and few skins right now. Fortunately, from what I╒ve seen, there is a remarkable number of people willing to give their creativity and time to developing plugins and skins for macamp.
Rise & Fall, the project to which I have been dedicated to the last couple weeks, is, in fact, a set of plugins. For those of you who have heard the ╘crazy╒ terms being used (BLR, DSP, Visual, Skin, AmpOS, etc) but are unclear about the meaning, let me attempt to clear things up for you (skip next if you know whats down in the new MacAMP).
Plugin: A generic ╘plugin╒ is something that alters or appends MacAMP's visual appearance or sound. For MacAMP PR1 (what you have), plugins come in 2 separate flavors, each being different and non-interchangable.
Visual Plugin: the visual plugin is the standard plugin. For those of you who used the old MacAMP, every plugin you had was visual. These plugins simply make their own window, and using sound data, draw whatever they want. If there are settings for these plugins, they can be located in the ╘Visualization╒ menu and the settings submenu.
BLR Plugin: these plugins are whats so hip about the new MacAMP. BLR stands for Base Layer Rendering, and basicly, these plugins take their place inside the actual MacAMP player window. Besides being responsible for drawing pretty pictures, these plugins are also responsible for drawing the time, and current status symbols (repeat, random, etc) These plugins dim slightly when such things as volume control appear, giving them a ╘background╒ appearance. A BLR plugin should also ╘take a hint╒ from the current ╘skin╒ (see below) and draw itself in like colors to that skin. If there are settings for a BLR plugin, they can often be referenced by clicking the BLR window with a modifier key held down, or sometimes clicking in a certain region of the BLR.
Engine: Not exactly a plugin, an engine is the part of MacAMP responsible for converting the file on your disk drive to music in your speakers. MacAMP is extremely well-versed as far as interchangable parts, and the engine architecture is proof. As you may know there are many many ways of encoding/decoding mp3s and other type of sounds (AIFF, WAV, MOD, MIDI, XM, etc) and if a new and improved method of decoding is found, the engine architecture allows you to simply replace the old engine with the new, so you dont have to redownload the entire MacAMP package every time a small improvement is made.
Skin: The best way to understand skins is to see them, but heres my best try at explaining. A skin is simply a covering for macamp that has new colors, new pictures, and new shapes. A skin file defines where each element of macamp belongs and also how each element should look. Because of this extreme flexibility, MacAMP can take any shape or size. Best of all, skinmaking involves no programming and is easily accessible to anyone with an idea. See the other included docs on skinmaking and get started on your own!
AmpOS: this term, because of its confusing nature, seem to be growing less and less common. However, in case it does get mentioned, heres an explanation. Just as the MacOS is a link between whats going on inside of your computer and you (by allowing you to open files and run applications), AmpOS is a link between whats going on inside MacAMP and you. The input devices for the AmpOS are the buttons in the player and playlist window, and the output is what you see in the BLR section of the window, and also, of course, what you hear.
With that out of the way, I will move back to my own set of plugins, called Rise & Fall. I will try to explain any intricacies I can think of, but, fortunately for you and me, there aren╒t many.
Rise & Fall Visual Plugin (v1.0): There is little to say about this one. To access the plugin, make sure the file ╥Rise & Fall (Vis 1.0)╙ is in the plugins folder in the MacAMP folder, and go into the ╘Visualization╒ Menu. It should be towards the bottom of the menu. When you do this, the window will be created and, the first time its opened, MacAMP standard colors will begin to shuffle around the window in the form of little squares (which I will call Balls). After a second, they settle down and sit on the bottom. Try playing an MP3. Bars shoot up and hit the balls into the sky. The balls kinda change color on the way up and down. This is what the plugin does. Nothing more. But it makes for a nice little picture, doesn╒t it? If you are on any computer other than a Performa 6400/200 (which is what I have), you probably notice that the onscreen action is a little too fast. Ideally for myself, the balls should drop at about the rate that anything drops due to gravity, and I imagine that is close to your own preferences as well. The reason for the speed discrepancy between my computer and yours is that fact that, for this plugin, the balls acceleration is described in units of Pixels/Frame/Frame (a step off of classical physics), and faster computers manage more frames/second than slower computers.
Fortunately, there are settings so you can customize the speed and flavor of Rise & Fall. The settings can be brought up by going into the ╘Visualization╒ menu and then into the ╘Settings╒ submenu, where Rise & Fall should be listed. When you first see the settings box, you may be a bit confused. Heres how it works. The sliders at the top of the settings window each represent one place value (ie 10╒s, 1╒s, tenths and hundreths). The sliders are marked with their place value. Also, there is a collection of radio buttons, each with a number written underneath. These are the various values you can define using the sliders. To change a value, click on its radio box and drag the appropriate slider. If you cannot drag a slider, or you can╒t drag it as far as you want, there is a reason. Rise & Fall doesn╒t behave well (or just looks really bad) under some conditions so I╒ve tried to limit that from happening. Fairly simple once you see how it works. The colors that you see can be changed by clicking in the colored box. Now that you know how to change the settings, heres a description of what each setting is, and how it affects Rise & Fall.
Constant Settings:
Gravity Acceleration: This is how strong gravity is. It is, in case you are wondering, measure in pixels/frame/frame, so each time that a new frame is revealed, the downward velocity of the ball has increased by the amount specified as Gravity Acceleration. For this reason, less gravity means that the balls will pick up speed slowly. It also means that they will travel farther upwards. If your computer is on the faster side, I would recommend a lower Gravity Acceleration, while if your computer is slower, a higher Gravity Acceleration would be more appropriate.
Bar Inertia: Dont let the name scare you, this one is simple. The method that I used for calculating the the balls upwards velocity when it is hit is simply taking the change in bar height and giving the ball and upwards velocity equal to that change. Unfortuantely, if gravity is very low, this upwards velocity may be WAY too much (you may not see the ball again for a minute or more ;) ), and so, to balance out the gravity, I implement Bar Inertia, which is simply a value which I multiply by the change in bar height to get the upwards velocity. Physically, it is how much ╘oomph╒ each bar has when it hits the ball. What this all means is, if you turn gravity down and you dont want high-flying balls, turn Bar Inertia down too, and vice versa.
Boucniness: This is a simple feature. We all know that when you throw some objects onto the ground, they bounce back up a bit. Bouciness is a numerical description of that feature. Physically, in fact, the number that you can edit is what percentage (divided by 100) of the velocity that the ball pops back up with. This is added to the velocity given by bar inertia. Quick Physics: if a ball pops back up with 50% of its velocity (Bounciness = .5), it doesnt go 50% of the way back up!! It goes 50% * 50% = 25% of the way!!
Frame Delay: You can create some nice effects with this one, but I suspect it won╒t be used much. Simply, frame delay is how long (in frames), after it is hit, a ball remains in its place before assuming the velocity it has taken by the hit. It is a very good idea to turn Bar Inertia and Bounciness both to 0.00 when using frame delay (so the balls don╒t stop for a second and then pop up). Try it out, for me. Its fun.
Color Settings:
Bar Color: This is the color of the bars. Duh.
Lower Ball and Upper Ball: These two colors are the colors of the ball at the bottom of the window and at the top, respectively. The balls fade colors (the shortest path) between these two colors as they move in between. Pick two wildly different colors to see what I mean.
BG Color: The background color (as in the area behind the bars and balls).
Buttons:
Save: Save your changes and exit
Cancel: Dont save changes and exit
Default: Return to ╘factory╒ settings (useful if you really mess things up).
Thats just about it for the Rise & Fall Visual Plugin. All your settings are saved so that when you open MacAMP next time it╒ll be just like you left it. Enjoy.
Rise & Fall BLR Plugin (v1.0): The BLR plug is remarkably similar to the the Visual plug, so I will not repeat myself. Read the information above, then this information will append and modify it. Access the Rise & Fall BLr plugin by going into the ╘Visualization╒ Menu and then into ╘Base Layer Plugins.╒ When you select Rise & Fall, the first visible difference is, of course, that this plugin is not in its own window. Its in the MacAMP player window. Wow.
As far as skin-related issues with the plugin, the numbers and background and size that you see in the BLR section of the MainWindow are all derived from the current skin, and will switch if the skin is switched. Less obvious, some of the colors used by the BLR are derived from the skin as well. This leads to the settings, which are also remarkably similar to the Visual Plugin settings. The BLR settings, however, are accessed by clixing the the numbers that display the time in the song. This brings up a settings window, which looks exactly like the Vis settings window except that the BG Color color changer has been switched to a checkbox. Here we go:
Skin Defined: this refers to the colors above. If the Skin Defined checkbox is on, then the above color will be saved, but not used in showing the BLR; instead, the colors defined by the skin are used. It is a good idea to keep this on initially when switching to a new skin so an outrageous combination isn╒t invoked, but often, after seeing a skin, a better combination can be found for the colors, in which case, turn skin-defined off and set the colors to whatever you want.
Thats it for the Rise & Fall BLR. Again, your settings will be saved so you come back to the same MacAMP you left.
Thanks to You and to╔: To begin with my thank-yous, I╒d like to thank you for reading this, because it really is important information (I╒m sure you leared at least one thing as a result of reading this), and also, it gives me a chance to give you 2 more things to do. I provide Rise & Fall free of charge because its just a plugin, but nonetheless, I would REALLY appreciate if you emailed me to tell me if you like it or if you have any suggestions. My email addy is jpaul6@hotmail.com so feel free to drop me a line any time you wish (even for some help on making your own plugins). The second thing I would really appreciate is if you╒d just open up the Rise & Fall Visual plugin and go into AppleMenu>About Components>About Active Plugins. The about for Rise & Fall took me a good 6 hours to make and debug, so just watch the whole damn thing once, and if everyone does that, it╒ll be worthwhile. Tell your friends to watch too. ;) Again, thanks for taking interest in my work and I hope you enjoy the plugin.
Thats not all by a long shot. I╒ve got about a million people I just need to mention really quickly, but first, a quick explanation to a FAQ. Here we go:
Q: What the heck is up with BLR about for Rise & Fall...? Yo Yo, Re Re, Beep Beep, what what???
A: I guess you could call this my thanks to two who helped me very much along the way. If it were a joke, it would be an inside joke, but its not really a joke, so come on in. Yo Yo, thats me, because I say that a lot. Re Re, well thats drdistort (check out Spectro BLR), because he says that quite a bit. And Beep Beep, well thats rudy...beep beep is his favorite expression. At any rate, both of these guys helped me a good deal, both with ideas and with coding.
Thanks to Gawyn (|Rand|) at #macamp for being the most full of energy and most ready to play with all the in between alphas of R & F
Thanks to drdistort at #macamp for testing greatly and giving ideas and generally showing enthusiasm for Rise & Fall.
Thanks to rudy for providing coding support and doing some testing of R & F
Thanks to Rosyna, sneak, and all the others at #macamp for generally supporting R & F
Also, thanks to foobaz at #macdev who finally convinced me to get macsbug and who also helped me get my GWorlds straight.
Thanks to the rest of the crowd at #macdev for helping me help myself, and, on occasion, actually giving me a straight answer ;)
BIG SPECIAL THANKS TO SLAVA AND @SOFT FOR LETTING ME ALPHA TEST AND GIVING US ALL MACAMP!!!!
