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Text File
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1992-09-03
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17KB
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394 lines
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|OOOOO| |OOOOO| |OOOOO| |O| |O| |O| |O|
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By Andrew Chilton (see address below for details)
ASG
stands for
AutoStereoGram
+---------------------+
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Contents of Archive
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+---------------------+
ASG_V1.1
ASG_V1.1.info
ASG.Doc
ASG.Doc.info
BaseBall.ASG -> You need ASG V2 to do this type.
BaseBall.ASG.info
Face.lbm -\ Rubbish pictures but that's
Face.lbm.info > because I can't draw.
BBC.lbm -/ These were my first attempts.
BBC.lbm.info
Football.lbm -\ I drew these three, and I think I
Football.lbm.info \ have the hang of it. So they're not
Cricket1.lbm - > brilliant but it just shows that even
Cricket1.lbm.info / though I can't draw, it's easy to copy
Cricket2.lbm -/ outlines of the players. Have a go.
Cricket2.lbm.info
(Not included in the archive is DiskFont.Library which is needed
for ASG to run so remember to have it in your Libs: assign).
(I added the 5 pics because when they are crunched to fit in the
archive, they take up so little space, so I put them in for you)
The contents in this archive must be present if spreading this
program, either on a PD disk or to upload onto bulletin boards
which you are welcome to do (since this is the shareware version).
Fred Fish (and his humungous library) is also welcome (and asked)
to place it in his collection.
+--------------+
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Introduction
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+--------------+
Welcome to the world of 3D pictures. Yes, these little blighters
have taken the publishing world by it's throat and jammed itself
down there! The pictures are of course 3D pictures, but they must
be viewed correctly to see the actual image (and not just the
pretty pattern).
+-------------------+
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Using the program
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+-------------------+
It is made of 4 sections 1. Project
2. Colour
3. Format
4. Messages
+---------+
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Project
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+---------+
Load : This will load your picture into the program. If the
picture does not correspond to the limits then an error
will be produced.
Save : Obviously to save the file after it has been rendered.
Go : This will start rendering the picture provided you have
loaded in a file
About?: Gives a little scrolling message about the program and my
good self (only a little bit about me though).
Quit : This will of course leave the program.
+--------+
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Colour
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+--------+
This part is made up of 3 buttons, but only 1 of them may be
selected at any one time
Custom : This will set the colours of the output picture to the
colours of the original picture.
Random : How can I explain this little mystery, errm, it picks
random colours. There that wasn`t so bad after all.
Grey : This gives the picture a range of greys from black
through to white (obvious really).
+--------+
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Format
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+--------+
At first this part is blank, but will show the characteristics of
the loaded picture.
1st line : This shows whether the picture is Lo-Res or Hi-Res
2nd line : This shows whether the picture is in Interlace or not
3rd line : This shows the dimensions of the picture
Since this is only version V1.1 of ASG, the pictures that can be
loaded are restricted to certain dimensions
Width - The picture must be 320 or 640
Height - The picture must be 256 or 512
Colours - The picture must have 16 colours
To make sure the picture works properly you must have it a certain
way. To see this (in 640x256) load up any of the #?.lbm pictures
into your paint program to see where you can and can't draw.
All of these pictures can be rendered straight away and also
show you the parts of the screen that can be drawn in. What
I usually do is clear the screen and draw a coloured rectangle 64
pixels wide on the far left, this shows me I can't draw there.
Have a look also at the BaseBall.ASG picture for an idea of what
ASG V2 can do. It uses a pattern instead of random (odnamr) dots.
+----------+
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Messages
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+----------+
This part of the screen will tell you what is happening.
These could be error messages, information or a progress bar.
+---------------------+
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Making a 3D picture
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+---------------------+
The picture must be the dimensions as stated above as well as
having 16 colours. As you may or may not know, the pictures are
made up of patterns of colours which when viewed correctly produce
a picture showing different apparent levels of view. These levels
depend on how far apart the repeated patterns are. The levels
again depend on the colour of the pixel underneath each part of
the picture.
The levels are thus : Furthest - Colour 0
Closest - Colour 15
with all the other levels in between.
This means that the levels do not depend on the colour of the
pixel but its number in the palette. If for example you wanted a
perspective view with the top being the furthest away and the
bottom the closest you would define a range of all the 16 colours
in the palette and draw a graduated fill from the top of the
screen to the bottom. The program would do the rest.
If you're not sure of what the devil I'm on about then have a look
at the five example pictures to see what to do. Remember if you
do render the picture, then the last part of the screen does not
have to be clear (you can leave the writing on if you want), since
the program clears it anyway. The Cricket1.lbm shows the depth of
the parts of the image since it is in greyscale (like when you see
a picture in the paper, they always show a greyscale of what it
should be).
+----------------------+
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Registration Version
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+----------------------+
This version is V1.1, and if you register you will be sent an
upgraded much improved version V2. This has loads more features
and improved versatility :-
1. Load any dimension picture (width and height) as long as you
have the memory
2. Load 16, 32 or 64 colour pictures for more levels and greater
depth
3. Choose between random or pattern for output (so you can draw
your own patterns, which look nicer and slightly improve the
viewing of the pictures). An example of the new patterns
feature is the BaseBall.asg picture (which you can`t do with
the unregistered spreadable version)
4. Choose colours from Random, Custom or Pattern
5. Improved user interface showing more information
6. You also get a game of my very own as well (AMOS and Blitz 2)
7. Source code for ASG in Blitz 2
8. Your very own virtual £1,376,180.56½ courtesy of me
9. A load more pictures to render, patterns to use (for the
updated version) and some more 3D pictures
10. I can't give you any more otherwise I'd have nothing left
myself (apart from the clothes I'm wearing)
+----------------+
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Hints and Tips
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+----------------+
Tip 1. When doing your pictures, base your levels around colour 8
in the palette. If you were going to have 5 levels, this
could be how it works out (see the given pictures) -
+-----------+----------------+-------------+-------------+
| No. level | Level | Colour eg 1 | Colour eg 2 |
+-----------+----------------+-------------+-------------+
| 1 | Background | 6 | 5 |
| 2 | Bckgrnd object | 7 | 7 |
| 3 | Other 1 level | 8 | 9 |
| 4 | Other 2 level | 9 | 10 |
| 5 | Front level | 10 | 11 |
+-----------+----------------+-------------+-------------+
This helps keep the picture look better and the levels are
easier to focus on rather than having a background of
colour 0 and just one foreground of colour 15 (it would be
hard to see the other level when focusing on one of them).
Tip 2. Register and get version 2 (oh, go on, splash out)!
Tip 3. Always get 9 hrs sleep every night
Tip 4. If not, 6¼ hrs will do
Tip 5. Look left AND right before crossing roads
Tip 6. Never go into a jewellers with a large baguette under your
coat (it looks like a shot gun)
Tip 7. Before writing the number of another tip down, make sure
you know what you're going to write
Tip 8. Don`t read these tips the're all rather stupid
Tip 9. Go and make yourself a nice cup of coffee, sit in front of
the tele and put a good old vintage episode of Blackadder
or Fawlty Towers on. Anything's better than reading this
trash
Tip 10. Are you still reading, if you are you better see a
psychiatrist because there must be something wrong if you
can't pull yourself away from this. That was my last and
most important tip, never again will I write another tip
Tip 11. Never trust someone who writes stuff like this, they could
be lying
Tip 12. Oh, by the way, the program can be opened on any intuition
screen. Just doulbe (not doulbe, I mean double) click the
icon and place your screen to the front and it will open
on that (I have now got ASG open on the TranWrite screen,
but it doesn`t work on the DPaint & PPaint screen. Use
screens that themselves use windows eg Final Copy,
PageStream etc because these programs refresh their
windows unlike most paint programs). I still like it open
on the good old WorkBench (it looks nice there).
Tip 13.
Tip 14. Don't be like me and be superstitious
Tip 15. Please switch this thing off
Tip 16. No don't, I`ve got my address and other details below
Tip 17. While waiting the minute or so for a picture to render,
it could be a good idea to read these tips again
Tip 18. I think the best dimensions for your picture are 640
x 256, since the quality depends on the horizontal
resolution. This gives the best picture quality for a
smaller file size (than 640 x 512). I usually draw
my pics in 320 x 256 then change them to 640 x 256.
Tip 19. What I do before drawing my pictures is to draw the out
of bounds area on the right so I know where I can draw
up to.
Tip 20. Another tip is not to draw within about 20-30 pixels on
either side (apart from a gradient like in the
Cricket1.lbm picture, where you have to draw to the ends
so that the gradient works).
Tip 21. I always name my picture #?.lbm, #?.bsh or #?.iff but
when I save from ASG I name them #?.ASG so that I know
which pictures are which. It also shows which pictures
have been rendered so that they aren't done again (then
they don't look right).
+---------------------------------+
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Where do I get the full version
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+---------------------------------+
When registering, if possible send me a cheque, otherwise I'll
work out how to do Postal Orders. If this program gets abroad
somewhere, send me an international money order (they are the best
aren't they), or whatever I can cash.
Just send the vast sum of £3 to
+--------------------+
|
Andrew Chilton
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|
90a Claremont Ave
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|
Maghull
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Merseyside
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L31 8AL
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<- Cut out and keep
+--------------------+
Just a little (serious?) note. If you are sending AFTER SEPTEMBER
'94, then I should be at university (depending on exam results),
so I won't be able to send back to you straightaway, it would
probably be at Christmas or Easter (so send for it then). This is
because I am not taking the Amiga to university and I couldn't
trust my family to do such complex things as copying disks and
sending them back.
That is all I have to say, but I bet you're glad you've got to the
end of this doc file (at last). Hope you like the program and
think it worthy of an upgrade.
Thanks to Acid Software for their mighty fine Blitz Basic 2, the
best 50 quid I've ever spent (well, maybe not, but it is better
than one other basic programming language I could mention which
doesn't fully support the Amiga's lovely front end, Ooeerrr)!
Thanks also to Gerard Cornu for the icons. I got them off a Fred
Fish disk (and changed them slightly).
Another thanks to Gary Stimson for his PowerText 2 word processor
from CLR Licenceware (disk CLU 32).
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<=-- Bye Bye Bye Bye --=>