Bad Apple Amiga Version

[sovenyimre]

saimon69!

A demo is not worth much as a demo in the absence of proper music.
I myself am not a musician, but as chiark wrote there is a good one you made among the Scorpion Engine Demos.
So, I would like to ask for your consent to use it in my version , if you allow.
Thank You!

[saimon69]

We already discussed on PM - he has my permission by the way

[saimon69]

However i would also ask for Ross opinion to see if is possible

[sovenyimre]

My version is finally complete with music.
Successfully compressed to 1 disk.
The code was made in AMOS, so it runs on the A500 but needs the A1200 power.
Thanks to everyone for the help and a special thanks to JMD for the music.

[ Show youtube player ]
https://electricblacksheep.itch.io/b...ga-vectorized/
BadAppleAmiga2MB+Music.adf

[xyzzy1]

Have you considered swapping foreground and background colours at various points to keep the border looking consistent, for example, at 00:18, 00:30, 00:44 etc... ?

[hitm4n]

Wonderful stuff.

[Konrad]

Very well done.

[sovenyimre]

Originally Posted by xyzzy1

Have you considered swapping foreground and background colours at various points to keep the border looking consistent, for example, at 00:18, 00:30, 00:44 etc... ?

I thought about it, but I preferred to leave it at that because:
- the frame would still be visible on some of the images when they are on the opposite side of the same image (half / half). In ex. at 0:20 and at the end.
- if the frame is visible (and it is), a color shift (flash) would be even more visible. And if I want the frame not to be seen, I have to do it in overscan and scale the coordinates and therefore have to use more CPU, which is already too slow on A500.

- On the other hand, I focused on more shades (2 bpl - 4 colors) and it would be a problem there.
...so I preferred to leave it like that.

[chiark]

Yaaay! Congrats! Awesome to see. Thanks for following up on this

Now I have that darn tune in my head again. Last time it was there for weeks...

Would be great if Ross has some time to perhaps update this?

[ross]

Originally Posted by chiark

Would be great if Ross has some time to perhaps update this?

Not really But I always trust to finish it one day.
Is that I am distracted by too many other things and instead this would require a constant commitment for several days.

60Hz on a 7Mhz 68k, with nice resolution and details, is a pretty sight

[sovenyimre]

Originally Posted by ross

Not really But I always trust to finish it one day.
Is that I am distracted by too many other things and instead this would require a constant commitment for several days.

60Hz on a 7Mhz 68k, with nice resolution and details, is a pretty sight

I could also scale the image to a higher resolution but I wouldn’t gain much in quality due to the reduced number of lines. It would look like a paper figure cut out with a broken hand
Seeing your demo video, I still can hardly believe how it fits on a disc with that quality and all the frames in 30 FPS.
I wonder... if you have any data about what an A500 would be capable of? More specifically, I would like to know how much of a speed difference there may be between my AMOS Basic and your version?
In my case, I can draw and fill up to about 100 lines only on A500 and about 400 lines on a1200.
I only ask this because with around 700-800 lines per frame can make very detailed animations, of course if the speed allows it. I converted full movies this way. They fit on half a CD but it doesn't make much sense because it's only possible to look back with winuae, but if you could play them on an stock A1200 ... it would be wonderful. Not because of the movies, but it has possibilities.
Anyway...I hope you have time for it and can finish it.

[ross]

Originally Posted by sovenyimre

I wonder... if you have any data about what an A500 would be capable of?
...
In my case, I can draw and fill up to about 100 lines only on A500 and about 400 lines on a1200.

I don't remember, but A LOT of polygons (it's been a long time since I put my hand to the code).



Also by using an 'interlace motion blur', the visual perception is to have many more.




Of course, while the animation is running you can't see the 'sawtooths' and the polygons look 'blunt'

[chiark]

Ah Ross, you tease us . Can you share a little on the approach or techniques you're using here? I guess there's as much effort in creating the tools to get the data into the right format to give efficient processing as there is in the filling algorithm itself...

This was interesting: https://tbl.nu/2019/09/02/ScenePlayer/

[ross]

Originally Posted by chiark

Can you share a little on the approach or techniques you're using here?

Some info are in this very thread.
It is useless to write something more precise if there is nothing definitive
Anyway, as you can guess, the streaming system is designed according to how to use the CPU to decode the custom and 'dense' data and drive the blitter (which takes care of tracing polygons and filling) as quickly as possible.

[Yannick I know you lost hope but I *really* hope to find the time to continue it, ]

I guess there's as much effort in creating the tools to get the data into the right format to give efficient processing as there is in the filling algorithm itself...

You guess right.

This was interesting: https://tbl.nu/2019/09/02/ScenePlayer/

Very!

[sovenyimre]

Originally Posted by chiark

I guess there's as much effort in creating the tools to get the data into the right format to give efficient processing as there is in the filling algorithm itself...

For my part ...
I still have nightmares about how I can simplify line paths without killing too many details. And the detail can be small and large, curved or sharp, but I can't handle it the same way because it has a different effect, one solution works against the other.
...and imagine that in two bitplane, when when colors deteriorate as a result of line/bitplane simplification because they no longer overlap as they should.

Originally Posted by ross

Also by using an 'interlace motion blur', the visual perception is to have many more.

...I do not know. It was confusing for me at 25 FPS, maybe not at 30 FPS.
I didn't try exactly the same thing but something similar...
I drew 2 bitplanes alternately to make the image more continuous but I had to play with the colors.(2 bblack plane=do not try, 2 gray mixed to black= blury result, grey after black plane=looks like a ghost)
So... In large movements, both frames were always visible and I only felt the image clear when the movement slowed down or stopped.
...Or I look at the monitor too closely
But if the interlace version works then why not?

Originally Posted by ross

I don't remember, but A LOT of polygons (it's been a long time since I put my hand to the code).

If it is so much faster ... if a 1-point bezier curve could be drawn in certain line segments? I tried... Extreme slow in basic and does not make sense in lowres but I am sure it does make more sense in hires+laced.
I know I'm overdosing.

[ross]

@sovenyimre at least you managed to achieve your goal (or a working version that satisfied you).

In my case from the beginning the aim was not to demonstrate that it could be done (which if I was not sure I would not have even started to do it), but to create a real Amiga demo, using some effects overlaid on the actual animation (for the anim part is pretty much done, but it's just a brutal demonstration of what careful encoding, highly optimized code, and blitter can do).

The data stream also possibly includes script like commands to add specific effects to improve animation at critical points (increasing bitplanes, using sprites, superimposing bitmaps).
And in any case it lack a proper real-time loader/unpacker system which is fundamental..
None of this has been implemented yet

[chiark]

Huge congrats on releasing it Sovenyimre! Great work, and you've achieved much more than I ever have

Ross, I like the use of the word "yet". ;-)

[sovenyimre]

I do a projects like this because I had no idea how to do it, but I was interested to try and find out step by step. I had the time, curiosity and the logic (I hope).
At first, everyone mentioned the "Raw video" players, of which there are many, but due to the size of the data, none of them can do wonders on lower machines. No one has even tried to store only the difference between frames (without compression), in a way a basic machine could play. I thought that it is a good approach. That’s why I (and others) liked the ATARI version ... which I still don’t understand why they don’t use it for other animations (...it could be used).
I often see others just talking about how to solve certain things, but they can’t get any further than writing, so I thought I’d take the ATARI approach and since I have time for it I’ll get out of what I can do, in my own BASIC way. In summary, I managed to achieve what the ATARI version did and being able to play other videos. It can stream and play video/audio and even subtitles, but fails to load the data as a background process durning playback ...and I only realized that at the end of the operation when I tried on a real machine. So it's ok on Winuae but useless on a real machine. But at least I tried. I still think that with the right technical knowledge, such a player would have a raison to exist and what everyone could use it on a basic machine.
The vector version came up in connection with the Vectrex and I didn’t even think about it the way it looks (with outlines only). I only started thinking about its possibilities after extracted/converted the data from the SVG file to my format and saw its size. It matter how, but not much data had to be removed from it to fit on a disk in a relatively enjoyable quality. The fact that I was able to fill as polygons was due to my luck and this forum. I already stored the data as in the SVG file and only had to replace the line drawing command. I had no idea that I could do that in AMOS either.
So this part wasn’t even planned but I think it ended well and it happened just because i tried step by step. That’s why I had several versions, I thought I couldn’t do better.
I like the kind of approach to things when I not only view at the final result, but how it’s made. That is why I like these forums.
In this vector version, I see the possibility in the same way as in the video player.
So I hope one day in the future I see a program that can create / play vector animations (like 9 Fingers) in multiple colors, in enjoyable quality (and with god's help) streamed from the HDD.

Overall. I spent my time in a creative way, was fun and I learned from it, thats why it will be better later.

[sovenyimre]

Bad Apple 3D Vectorized in 32 Color.
-Player AMOS source is included.
-It is slow but fun to exist.
-UAE can play properly.
-Optimized code coud help but I am not capable to do it in ASM.

https://electricblacksheep.itch.io/b...iga-vectorized

[sovenyimre]

It may be boring, but I have a newer version.
Difference from the previous:
-I found a nicer solution to reduce the number of lines so the result shakes less.
-Using an FFS disk, I have 45Kb more data space.
-Additional 40 kb more space by compressing music.
-By monitoring the change of consecutive frames, I only store data if it is necessary. With that, I gained about 50-100 kb of free space.
-Previously, each outline had the same starting point and end point. If I store these points only once, in case of 18000+ outlines I gain 36kb.
-6KB by rationalizing control bytes.

Based on the above, more space => more lines => better overal quality, stars and shadows in 1 ADF -> BadAppleAmiga2MB+MusicHQ.adf
In present version : 358546 points, 22318 control bytes.

https://electricblacksheep.itch.io/b...iga-vectorized