This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (40 messages)
Nils, I agree. We also have to switch back because my German is too terrible to say anything of any importance . Hmm … is "ue" actually an acceptable alternative to u-umlaut? That's interesting, I've never seen that done before. But anyway, we should be discussing Demo stuff. Frame rate.…
Bri, Bad as me. "One of these days" I'm gonna become Master of the Earth. No, the Galaxy. No, the Universe! Maybe tomorrow … Regards, Fred Trafton
Lee, No big secret. I just said "Hi" and that I spoke a bit of German too. Und … die Toilette ist daruber. (The Toilet's over there). Regards, Fred Trafton
Nils, Wir sind alle Deutche. Aber ich wohne in Dallas. Ich bin nur halb Deutch, meine Mutti hat von Berlin gekommt. Aber ich kann ein bisschen sprechen. Viele grusse (mit kein umlaut?) Friedrich Trafton
Chris, I agree. I didn't really mean "squares", I meant rectangles. You could build up 3D objects with both of them cleverly used, but not just rectangles alone, that's true. I was suggesting that you could have different optimizations for each, so it may be faster to call "DrawTriangle" 4…
Chris, CT datasets? You a CT tech or something? Hmm … have you ever considered how cool a 3-D rotating pelvic bone would look in a demo? If you've got the data for one laying around, that is … Regards, Fred Trafton
Brian, So, you gonna work on an algorithm using it? I've wondered if it could be used to speed up filled polygons, but haven't really played with it. Regards, Fred Trafton
Nils, Sure, here it is: Graphics Gems edited by Andrew S. Glassner, Academic Press, Inc., Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers. ISBN 0-12-286165-5. There are at least 2 more books, Graphics Gems II and III, though I don't have those. The code is in C and is available for downloading somewhere around…
Jim, Thanks. Good reply. I wonder if you can say a few more words about Triple buffering. What do you mean by this? You mean writing a second page while waiting for the vertical retrace so you don't have to just sit and wait for the next one if it…
Jeff, Yep, your Border's sounds just like ours. I guess it must be a chain. And they don't even rag on you for reading the books there without buying. I'll upload my PASCAL implementation of the PLANETS algorithm. It's not too bad, though a bit slow being all in Pascal.…
Jens, See my replies to Brian and Jeff. On the subject of the spherical texture mapping stuff, I'll upload it sometime soon. Regards, Fred Trafton
Bri, Catch my answer over in the Public Demo thread. It actually works by drawing multiple pixels at once instead of just a single one for each pass. Any set of 3 pixels must always be one of: * * * *** * * * … or 90-degree rotations of…
#Public Demo Thread
Message #847
Jeff, I'm sick of posting this stuff in the "irony" thread. Let's start our own thread for this "public demo" group, even if it does just turn out to be the two of us. You'll note I've already done this. > Yes, exactly, I fiqure the extra calcs on a…
Jeff, BORDERS? Where the heck are you? The only Border's Books I know of is in Dallas. Is that where you are? I live in Garland, myself. As for the rest of your message, allow me to do som off-line composition and I'll let you know about the Wu algorithm.…
Chris, Well, dude, just jump in any time with some code. I'll be posting my stuff here as it finishes, so you'll get to see that regardless. All together, we could be the "public demo team", so tell me anything you think might be interesting. Actually, I find most demo…
Jeff, I'd be most happy to look at your code. Your 320×200 calculations sound like they'd work rather well. Yeah, I do the 256X+64X=320X trick myself, it's much faster than doing the multiply. I haven't worked on poly routines yet, though I do know in theory how they should work.…
Chris, Yeah, voxels (in the first part of Airframe). Some people call it that, though I think that's kinda stretching the definition of "voxels" a bit. Really, I'd call it a height field. And, yeah, 62K is major-league impressive for what that demo does, isn't it? Oh well, someday I…
Jeff, Good question. I've been wondering about that myself. It really depends on what you're programming. If you're doing math that translates directly to screen coords, like circles, etc., then the 1:1 aspect ration of Mode X 320×240 is cool. This is what first attracted me to it, and why…
Yeah, I know what the concept is. I even sorta see what the problem with "cosmic" was. Still, it was interesting artistically. Wait. I have a buddy here who knows nothing about the "demo scene". Here's his comments: (on cosmic): the visal scene was exciting, however, the actual message was…
Tee hee. I'm the electronic version of Timothy Leary – too old to really be in the scene, but enjoying watching it, commenting on it, and maybe even participating a bit. (Well, in TL's case, more than a bit ). So, you hear me you young demo coders? Tune in,…
Nils, Yup, as simple as setting the pixels vertically one after the other. I'd like to see your plasma program, I'll look forward to seeing it when you upload it. See you around … Fred Trafton
Rob, Don't quite know what you mean about PMODE being some sort of "fake" 32-bit mode. It's 32-bit all right. If you're griping that the BIOS and interrupt servers are all 16-bit, and that you have to keep flipping back and forth between 32-bit protected and standard segments every time…
Bri, *sigh* oh for the good old days. You're right, Bell *used* to do this. Now they're much more modern. They're more "result-oriented". This means they don't want people just wandering around on the fringes of some technology that may never produce bucks. That's why relatively few "big" innovations come…
Bri, I agree completely about innovation being the key. I also think that "artistic merit" has its place in demos too, even when the techniques aren't the most leading-edge possible. That's why I felt bad for the coders of "Cosmic", one of the ASM'94 demos I downloaded. Evidently they were…
Bri, Agree with you wholeheartedly. A lot of them are just trying to learn, and those in particular are the ones I'm HAPPY to share my code with. I was just being sympathetic to people who don't want to see their software floating around with credit being grabbed by someone…
Nils, I agree with the reply you already got – don't use horizontal lines with Mode X, use vertical. I know, it's tempting to enjoy writing 4 pixels at once, but as Jim said, this is only better for "big" polygons. If you're trying to do good 3-D, you'll probably…
Yeah, don't rub it in! I'm 39 myself, and I know VERY well that demos are mostly coded by high-school or college-age "kids". I can only aspire to doing code at the level of some of these demos. Maybe some day I will be as good as the Future Crews…
So, you're doing the music part of this, huh? What does your software support? Just GUS? Soundblasters? I'm a musician too, but so far I've been doing VGA-FX and leaving the sound card programs 'til later. Maybe I'll just use one of the public players for awhile. Nah. Other people's…
I've got no problem with that, in fact, it would be sorta neat to try to do a "parallel" demo that uses Pascal/ASM instead of the Team's C/ASM. What a challenge! But I really would rather do things in full public view. I already told Lily I'd upload a micro-demo…
Lily, Okay, I just might do that. My "water molecules" demo is not really ready for uploading yet, since it's not QUITE a "demo" yet. Although the graphics are drawn in real-time, the atomic movements are programmed into a movement file and this series of motions is played back. I…
I agree. Those are "lamers". You get to exact your revenge by lambasting them in your next demo. "Greetings to the LAME turkey who just ripped my code and stuck his name on it. Hope you feel like a REAL programmer now." But they're just kids. Nobody in the know…
Alex, I'll try, as best I can, but you should really ask one of the sysops. I'm not on the demo team yet, I just hang out here. The demo team is a Compuserve demo-writing team. They are working on the code, artwork, and music required to put together a…
David, You're right of course. It was the half-a**ed 286 arcitecture that spawned 24-bit DPMI, and those geniuses at Microsoft who decided that they wanted to support this lame addressing method instead of the 386's flat mode. At the time they came out with Windows 3.0, a LOT of people…
Paul, Ironic that you should say that … Regards, Fred Trafton
Rob, A very interesting message! In all seriosness, I have a couple of questions for you. 1. Just 'cuz Win95 isn't out doesn't mean you can't write apps for it? It doesn't? How can I interface with Win95 if I don't know what the "hooks" are yet? Are there books…
Lily, No prob. I sorta hang out here anyway, just to listen to the demo chit-chat. Maybe if there's several people who want to get some demos together, we should form more than one demo team or sub-teams or whatever. At any rate, I just sorta wanted to trade code…
Jim, Me too. My problem is that I love programming, and Windows cuts me off from getting "down to the metal" as someone said. I wanna stuff bits in registers whwnever I want to, and not let the operating system do it for me, with code I could undoubtedly do…
Jeff, Right. Enough Windows-bashing. Everyone who loves it will continue to love it, and everyone who hates it will continue that as well. Nobody's going to smack themselves on the forehead and say, "Now, WHAT was I thinking?" from any arguments we're likely to make here. So, I'll wait until…
Lily, I know, nobody was being rude. It just struck me funny. Judging from the huge number of messages here, it seems that some others have gotten lost in the shuffle as well. Oh, well, I imagine everyone interested in demos will soon find their way here as well. BTW,…
Jeff, Why not restart the fires? I love a good flame . But, seriously, I had to laugh. I had skimmed the news section in the GRAPHDEV forum, but it sounded like there was ANOTHER demo group forming here in this section. Then suddenly I found I was not "authorized"…