LSD Docs/LSD Docs.iso/FILEZ/lsd21.dms/lsd21.adf/RSI.DEMO-MAKER100%.DOC.pp/RSI.DEMO-MAKER100%.DOC

Text File | 1990-09-07 | 23KB | 568 lines

                          RED SECTOR DEMO MAKER

                    Docs written by DION of GOLDSTAR (c)

                          GOLDSTAR P.D (E.C) Ltd

                               Po Box 2
                               Tyldesley
                               Manchester
                               M29 7BN

                            Tel [phone]



NOTES FOR PD LIBRARIES OTHER THAN GOLDSTAR P.D.

These documents are not to be altered in any way, inclusive of any reference
to Goldstar P.D  (EC) Ltd.

These documents are NOT P.D and may not be distributed without the
permission of GOLDSTAR P.D. Also, upon that permission being granted the
above will still apply.

                            Dion L Heap.

                                 author.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------


This document is designed to be understood by beginners and experts alike
so all you experts out there, have some patience if these docs go too
slowly for you, don't forget, we were all beginners once.

Incedentaly, a quick breakdown of the word expert.

ex - a has been.  spert - a big drip.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

O.K, now the official bits are over with lets get down to business.
Firstly I want to explain something about the demo maker. When you are
creating your demo, each part is dealt with in segments which are then
"bolted" together, for instance, a typical demo might be constructed like
this.

  ______________      ______________      ______________
 |              |    |              |    |              |
 |     LOGO     |----|VECTOR GRAPHIC|----|    GREETS    |
 |______________|    |______________|    |______________|


Now this rule doesn't only apply to R.S.I (which is a common name for the
red sector intromaker) but to almost all programming applications. In the
R.S.I, these segments are referred to as "patterns".

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                           THE MAIN SCREEN
                          -----------------


Right, lets get down to business, the first thing you will be greeted with
is the RSI main screen which has a panel at the top containing 12 buttons,
(I'll explain all these in a moment) and under this, on the left, a list
of words such as "musicroutine"," Music" and "Littlelogo".

The buttons are:

Test Demo - This is for running through your demo to check how it all runs
before saving it.

Demo Menu - This will take you to another screen that gives the save
options available and what drive to save to etc.

Pattern Editor - Takes you to another screen for editing each of your
patterns and joining them up in the correct order etc (more on this later)

Music OFF\ON - When you have loaded your music for your demo you can
listen to it by pressing this button so that you can tell if you like it
etc. in one position your music will play constantly while you are working
and in the other position it will only play when you test your demo.

About - Just gives a text screen with some info about Red Sector.

Edit - There are two editors built into rsi, one is a pallette editor for
altering the colours of your fonts sprites etc and the other is a text
editor for typing your text for scrolltexts etc.

Clear - This is for clearing something that you have loaded in to rsi ie
your music and have decided you want different music, you must clear out
the old before loading the new.

Load - You press this to load something in (simple eh).

Save - This is for erm, saving things.

UP & DOWN ARROWS - These are for moving through the items on the list
below the control panel.

QUIT - Dont think I need to explain this one do I.



                          THE PATTERN EDITOR
                         --------------------


If you press the button on the main control panel marked "PATTERN EDITOR"
you will go to another screen containing 27 buttons though one of them is
blank so really there are only 26. This is the screen where all the
interesting stuff is done. Here you make up and edit each of your patterns
and join them up in whatever order you want. The button functions are as
follows:-

Test Pattern - This is just for looking at the particular segment you are
working on.

Test Demo - Explained above.

Delete Pattern - This is for if you make a cock up of a pattern and you
want to remove it from your demo.

Insert Pattern - Just what it says really, for inserting a pattern between
two others.

Left & Right Arrows - Click on these to go backwards or forwards through
the patterns that you have used to create your demo.

Quit - This leaves the pattern editor and takes you back to the main
screen.

Screen Mode - Gives you a small list below the control panel that is used
for switching the top & bottom scroll texts and the music on and off
during various parts of the demo.

Biglogo - This is used to introduce a biglogo to your demo and manipulate
it, a biglogo is a fairly large picture that is done in D-Paint or
whatever. for example, a gold box with " Charlie Scroggins Presents"
written in it.

Littlelogo - This is the same as a Biglogo but smaller.

Vectorgfx - This is for manipulating any vector graphics that you may have
loaded in.

Vectorballs - These are objects that are made up of different coloured
balls. We will have a look at some later.

Text 16 Special - This is a screen with text written in it using a 16 X 16
font. This is different than a normal text screen because you can do more
effects on it.

Text 8 Special - Same as above but using an 8 X 8 font.

SinusScroller - Thats the text that looks like a sine wave (theres some on
the demo I did on this disk).

Lineffect - This is for creating and manipulating an object made from
straight lines.

Bobeffect - This is for manipulating and animating sprites that you have
loaded in.

Pixeleffect - This is the same as lineffect except that you do it with
pixels.

Zoomtext - This is text that zooms in and/or out of the screen (the very
beginning of the demo on this disk)

Textscr32 - A screen of text using a 32 X 32 font, actually this should
have been called textline 32 cos you can only fit one line on it.

Textscr16 - As above but using a 16 X 16 font (much better)

Textscr8 - Again as above but using an 8 X 8 font.

Plasma - This is a bit like one of those lights you see at discos or Acid
house parties (Aceeeeeed) that have oil in them and are projected on the
wall, except this can be manipulated in many ways.

Textline 32, 16 and 8 - These buttons allow you to enter one line of text
in the chosen font.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------



                             THE DEMO MENU
                            ---------------

If you select "DEMO MENU" from the main screen you will be taken to a
third screen which gives you the following options.

SAVE FINAL - I dont like to use this one really because it saves your demo
as a final file which is runable from a blank disk or from your disk that
your demo is going to be used on but it cannot be loaded back into the rsi
for any alterations.

SAVE SHORT - This is the save mode that I usualy use as it still saves
your demo in a self-runable mode but also it can, if necessary, be
re-loaded into rsi for further tweaking.

LOAD SHORT - This is for loading saved demos that have been saved using
the save short option. the demo I put onto the beginning of this disk was
saved in the short mode so that you can load it into rsi and have a look
at all the individual patterns and see how its done.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------



                              MAKING PATTERNS
                             ----------------

What we are now going to do is go through each type of pattern and playing
about with it so as to show you what to do.


MUSIC
-----

First lets load in some music. On the list under the control panel on the
main screen you will see "MUSICROUTINE", Click on this then on "EDIT" and
you will be taken to a third screen with another panel with listings such
as noisetracker etc. click on "NOISETRACKER". the next bit depends on
whether you are using this disk as part of the Goldstar RSI set or if you
have only this disk. If you only have this disk then the next thing to do
is to click on "MUSIC", then on load. Choose the DF0: option and click on
"Testmusic (dir)" then on "Mod.Blazzering" and then on "Load". If you have
the set as mentioned above then put in one of the modules disks and then
click on "Modules (dir)" to get at the tracks.

If you want to use your own modules in your demos then you may have a
problem with compatability, you can convert Soundtracker/Med modules etc so
that they are compatible. All you need is a copy of Noisetracker V2.00,
load your modules into noisetracker and then save them as modules. This
might seem a bit strange to load a module then save it as a module but
there are differences in the way the modules are saved in various trackers.




BIGLOGO.
--------

Now for this you need to either load one of the ready made ones on the
disk/s or better still to design your own. The rsi is VERY fussy about its
inputs so when making your own follow these instructions exactly and all
will be perfect.

Boot up your D-Paint and use a low res screen mode with 16 colours. NO
MORE THAN 16 COLOURS. Now you can use any 16 colours you want by pressing
"P" in Deluxe Paint and defining your palette.

Now switch on the co-ordinates from the top right menu on D-Paint because
you will need them. Your BIGLOGO can be any size up to a maximum of
158 x 320 pixels, if you don't feel comfortable with this or you need an
idea of the size then use the straight line tool and draw a line
horizontally across the screen, watch the co-ordinates at the top and when
you get to 320 then thats the maximum width of your picture. Then do a
vertical line until you get to 158, thats the maximum height. O.K, now
design your logo and when its finished, pick the complete logo up as a
brush then clear the screen, now press F10 to take away the menu bar and
pallete and stamp your logo down at the very top of the screen and
central. Once youve done this you should save your logo to a disk and
call it whatever you like. The next thing you need to do is load up the
IFF CONVERTER on this disk and load your picture into it. Now, using the
mouse you need to "cut" a window around your logo. Its just like making a
brush in D-Paint, press and hold the left mouse button at the top left
then drag a window over it until you see the following co-ordinates in the
controll panel.

BITPLANE= 18B0         TOTAL= 062C0

if you accidentally cut the wrong size window (it can be a bit fiddly)
just press the right mouse button to delete the wrong window you've cut and
start again. Once you have the window cut correctly just click on save and
the converter will replace your D-Paint pic on the disk with the converted
one.

For a LITTLELOGO you follow the above steps except that your logo can only
be up to a maximum size of 54 x 320 and the co-ordinates on the IFF
Converter must be;

BITPLANE= 0870   TOTAL= 021C0.

Once you have your logo saved like this you can load it into the RSI. go
to the main screen and click on "BIGLOGO" from the list under the control
panel then on "LOAD". Once you've done this, if you want you can fiddle
with the colours in your logo by clicking on "EDIT". If not then select
"PATTERN EDITOR" and on this screen click on "BIGLOGO" or "LITTLELOGO"
depending on which one you have loaded. now to view your logo click on
"TEST PATTERN" and hey presto, there it is. Now once you are in the
pattern editor you can manipulate your logo in many different ways, there
are some options under the main panel. We will refer to these in future as
parameters.



The first parameter is "Logonumber", this is for if you have more than one
logo, then you alter this for whichever logo you are working on.

The next parameter is "Time", Firstly, decide how long you want
your logo to be on the screen (the default value is 10 which I think is
too long) to alter the display time click on the number after "TIME" under
the control panel and insert the time you want (this seems to be in
seconds).

Next is Stars, use this to set direction and speed of a starfield if you
want one, I'll show you how to load stars in later.

Begineffect, Click on this for different methods of how your logo enters
the screen.

Endeffect, this is the same as above but for how your logo leaves the
screen.

Mode, with this you click on the word "mode" for different background effects
for your logo. some of the different mode effects introduce other
parameters which can be altered.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                              VECTORGFX
                             -----------


To insert vector graphics into your demo you must first load in a vector
graphic by selecting the "object" which is under the sub heading of
"vektorobjects" on the list on the main screen. As you will see you can
load up to 9 objects, so, click on object 0 and then on load. If you want
to use an object that is on the rsi disk, they are in the Objects (dir). If
you are using the extras disk then they are in the vectorobjects (dir).
Once loaded you go back to the pattern editor and click the right arrow
until above the arrows it says "End of Demo", then click on Vectorgfx. If
it says anything else above the arrows such as "Biglogo" then when you
insert your vector into the pattern editor it will delete the biglogo.

Now you can play around with the parameters underneath the panel and set up
how you want your vector to move about the screen. just fiddle about with
the numbers and then click on test pattern to test what each alteration
does.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                              VECTORBALLS
                             ------------

To insert these in your demo you have to load in two seperate items, the
object that you want and the balls to make it up, from the main screen
click on vectorballsgfx then on load and load in the vectorballs from the
bobs (dir), (these are the balls). Next click on ballsobject, then on load,
the ballsobjects are in the objects (dir).

The same thing applies to these as above with the parameters.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                             TEXT 16 SPECIAL
                            ----------------

This is a screen of text using a 16x16 font, ie Fred Bloggs did this demo
and isn't it good. The reason it's called special and is different from a
normal text screen is that there are more options available for effects in
the parameters list.

Click on Font 16*16 from the main screen (not the 16*16 1PL option as this
is different) and then on load. if you dont have the extras disk then you
only have one font on the rsi disk and this is called Pix16.Mamor and is in
the Fonts (Dir). Once you've loaded in a font you need to write your text
so, click on textscreen 16 and then on edit, write your stuff in the window
using the arrow keys or the mouse to move the cursor, dont use return at
the end of a line as this is for when the text is complete. when you have
written your message, press return then go to the pattern editor, click on
Text 16 Special, the parameters here give you vectorstars or starbobs,
amongst other things, but don't forget, you have'nt loaded any stars in
yet.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                            TEXT 8 SPECIAL
                           ----------------

This is just the same as the text 16 special except you use an 8 x 8 font
instead of 16 x 16.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                             SINUSSCROLLER
                            ---------------

To make a sine scroll text you need to load in the 16 x 16 1PL font (I
shouldn't have to tell you how to do this by now). then click on
Sinusscrolltext from the main screen then edit. once edited, go to the
pattern editor and set the parameters to give you the desired effect.
as well as the various background effects etc you can give your text
different colour effects.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                              LINEEFFECT
                             ------------

No loading in for this one, just go to the pattern editor and click on
lineeffect, you will then see a lot of paremeters that you can alter to
give the desired effect, this is a bit hard at first and takes some
figuring out but the finished effect can be pretty good.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                              PIXELEFFECT
                             ------------

this is practically the same as above but you use pixels instead of lines,
once again this is a bit difficult to master.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


                                BOBEFFECT
                               ----------

For this one you need to load in a bob (Blitter OBject). If you only have
the rsi disk then you only have one available, this is found in the bobs
(dir) and is called bobeffect bobs 4, now if you have the extras disk there
are loads to chooose from, there are animbobs which are animated and
nonanimbobs which are'nt, the bobeffect bobs 4 choice is an animated bob
which means that as well as whizzing it around the screen using the
parameters, it is also animated, if you insert a number 4 in the anim part
of the parameters you will see that if you check using test pattern that it
will animate. If you have the extras disk try other values as the 4 means
that there are 4 frames but some animbobs have more or less than this.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                ZOOMTEXT
                                ---------

This makes your chosen text zoom in and out of the screen, (the beginning
of the demo on this disk) and is one of my favourites.

Select Vectorcharset and load in the vectorfont1 from the fonts (dir), next
go to the pattern editor and click on zoomtext, where the parameters are
you will see a blank line. Click in that area and then type in your text
(only room for one or two words here). Next click on test patten and check
that your text is centered, you may have to insert a space or two at the
front to move it over.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                         TEXTSCREENS 32, 16 and 8.
                        --------------------------

I've put all these together because they are all the same except for
loading in different sizes of fonts. Once you've loaded the desired font
then click on whichever textscreen you want then edit it. Then over to the
pattern editor to set the parameters.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                         TEXTLINES 32, 16 AND 8.
                        ------------------------

Just load the fonts again and then. go to the pattern editor and click on
the relevant size textline then edit it where the parameters are.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                PLASMA
                               --------

This fills the screen area with colour, it is actually two multi coloured
sine waves that you control with the parameters. Nothing to load in with
this one, some really good effects can be gained with this one but once
again it needs practice, a quick tip here is to keep it simple, because
there are so many parameters you can change doesnt mean that you need to
insert numbers in all of them, in fact you usually get better effects this
way.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                  STARS
                                 ------

There are two types of stars available to load in, one is sprite stars,
which are loaded into the Spriteobject option, the other is vector stars or
starbob stars, there are only a couple to choose from with the rsi but
there are loads on the extras disk.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                SCROLLTEXT
                               ------------

This is the text that scrolls on the top and/or the bottom of the screen
that usually says stuff like hello mum and whatever. To edit these just
click on scrolltext oben or scrolltext unten, whichever you want and then
click on edit. Now when writing your text DO NOT use capitals, the capitals
are used for another purpose. If you press shift and a letter you will see
that instead of being in white on the editing screen it will be grey. These
are used for giving your text various effects such as mirror and speed.
Here are the various codes and what they do.

Shift & S1-5 alters the speed of your text S1 is slow and S5 is fast, the
default is S3.

Shift & B1-3 Gives you copper bars that spread from either right left or
middle.

Shift & M0-1 This gives a little mirror under your text, M0 =  no mirror
M1 = mirror.

Shift & C1-4 used in conjunction with M gives you different colours of
mirror.

Shift & O0-1 Switches between 32 size scrolltext and 16.

Shift & J1-4 Makes your text jump by various degrees. (only works with 16
size)

Shift & H   Stops the scrolling for a short time, you can use multiple
HHHHH to stop it for longer.

Shift & L0-8 Displays a littlelogo for a short while. (the 0-8 being
whichever number logo you want displayed)

Shift & W1-6 Makes your text wobble. 6 different effects.




Thats all on the instructions side of thing except to say that the demo
that is on this disk is saved as a short so you can go to the demo menu and
click on "LOAD SHORT" and then click on "GOLDSTAR" and you can then have a
look at all the bits and see how its put together. Also if you do have any
difficulties with the RSI then just give goldstar a ring on [phone].
Just ask for Dion and I'll steer you in the right direction.



                                               Bye For Now,

                                                    DION
                                                    ~~~~