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TITLE: New OpCode 6 Addition to ANIM IFF Format
Revision Date: 20.8.91
Prepared by:
Cryogenic Software
13045 SouthEast Stark St
Suite 144
Portland, OR 97233-1557
Contact: William J. Coldwell
Voice: (503) 254-8147 (11a-4p PDT/PST)
Data: (503) 257-4823 (EMail to SYSOP)
Portal: Cryogenic
UUCP: uunet!m2xenix!percy!cryo!billc
Internet: billc@cryo.rain.com
1. Introduction
In 1989, we added support into one of our commercial products to
support the Haitex X-Specs glasses. This documentation will not
go into a detailed description of this product. Contact Haitex
for more information concerning the hardware:
Haitex Resources, Inc.
Post Office Box 20609
Charleston, SC 29413
Voice: (803) 881-7518
Fax: (803) 881-7522
Contact: Shawn Glisson
We found that there was not a supported way to display stereo
animations using the current IFF ANIM OpCode 5 specification.
Cryogenic supported OpCode 6 as an internal format in our
commercial programs (see below) and provided Public Domain
players. It is our intention at this time, to release this
format to other developers wishing to support stereo animations
using this OpCode.
When we first started this project, the current Amiga machines
had a 512K of CHIP RAM maximum. This caused some memory problems
with some of the higher resolution stereo animations, since the
Quad Buffers were in CHIP RAM for our players. It was our
intention to attempt to do some memory magic to require only
two of the four bitmaps to be in CHIP RAM at one time. It was
our feeling that this would have caused the animations to slow
down, due to data swapping that may or may not have needed to
be done. By the end of 1989, all development had stopped on
OpCode 6. This left all buffers in CHIP, and the format has
remained the same since then.
2. OpCode 6 Additions to OpCode 5
Please refer to the ANIM IFF format submitted by Sparta/Aegis.
The format is exactly the same as OpCode 5 but is QUAD buffered
instead of DOUBLE buffered. This allows the player to show 2
screens at one time for the X-Specs Glasses. Each picture MUST
be viewed for 1/60th of a second, therefore to see a 3-D Picture
the viewer can only play ANIMs at 30 frames per second.
(2 pictures = 1 frame).
The IFF file is stored exactly the same except that instead
of having each DLTA (delta) modify bitmap two frames back, it
modifies the bitmap four frames back.
Example:
------------------------
| |
| BMHD |
| |
------------------------
| DLTA (1) |
------------------------
| DLTA (2) |
------------------------
| DLTA (3) |
------------------------
| DLTA (4) |
------------------------
| DLTA (5) |
------------------------
| DLTA (6) |
------------------------
.
.
.
------------------------
| DLTA (x) |
------------------------
3. Playing OpCode 6 ANIMs
Four bitmaps are allocated. Bitmaps 1 and 3 are the left views,
and bitmaps 2 and 4 are the right.
The First bitmap is gets its image from the bitmap in the file
(BMHD). The Second bitmap is a copy of the first with DLTA (1)
performed on it. The Third Bitmap is a copy of the first with
DLTA (2) performed on it. The Fourth Bitmap is a copy of the
first with DLTA (3) performed on it.
We now have the first two 3-D Pictures:
One in bitmaps 1 and 2 and the other in bitmaps 3 and 4
DLTA (6) is used to create the third left view from bitmap 1.
DLTA (7) is used to create the third right view from bitmap 2.
DLTA (8) is used to create the forth left view from bitmap 3.
DLTA (9) is used to create the forth right view from bitmap 4.
NOTE: This technique requires 4 Loop frames at the end to
perform looping.
4. Chunk Changes
In the ANHDChunk structure the only differences between OpCode
5 and OpCode 6 are the _Operation_ field which should be set to
6, and the _Interleave_ field which should be set to 4.
5. Supporting Software
3-D Professional 1.0+ (Progressive Peripherals and Software)
View 1.7 and above (Public Domain) on a Fred Fish Disk
MSA: Make Stereo ANIM (internal) Available upon request.
PSA: Play Stereo ANIM (internal) Available upon request.