Tag - Source

Bit Plane – O – Mania

By Neil Halliday

Bit Plane – O – Mania was an unfinished demo screen that I created in October of 1993 for a STOS Mega Demo that GBP were writing called “Hellbender”. I recently rediscovered the majority of the source code on one of my many floppy disks I have stored in the attic, but there were some elements missing. I’ve spent my spare time over the last week finishing off the screen so that I can make it available for download on the site. The code is by no means perfect, and I’m sure it can be optimised more, but it works.

The screen features:

  • Single plane 32×47 horizontal scroll text
  • Single plane vertical real-time sine waver scroller
  • 4 single plane sine wave sprites
  • 2 single plane moving logos
  • Lots of rasters (approx 256 colours on screen)
  • SNDH Music by Jochen Hippel (aka Mad Max)

Included in the zip file is the main BPOM.BAS file, which is the demo and some sub directories containing the source assets and utility programs for creating the data files in the correct format.

I’d love to hear your feedback on this demo screen, so please comment below!

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How Many Can You See?

By Bruno Azzara (GBP) & Neil Halliday (GBP/Storm/TYG)

The unfinished “How Many Can You See?” screen from the abandoned Hellbender demo that we were writing together in ’92/’93.  This is a “4 in 1” demo screen that features four mini demos in each corner of the display.

Top Left = Multi colour pixel perfect horizontal sine wave scroller

Top Right = Multi colour sine wave logos (this should have had single plane “GBP” sprites bouncing around too, but never got added)

Bottom Left = Traveling landscape (this should have had 3D balls bouncing around on it)

Bottom Right = Multi colour & multi line sine wave text

 

DOWNLOAD the full source code.

Using the Douglas Little 3D Routines

I thought it would be a good idea to include this additional information I posted up to the STOS Coders FB page. It’s to help those who want to make new models for DML’s 3D extension. A JPG screenshot has been included, showing a possible workflow in action.

I’d advise not using The Pixel Twin’s Utility Disk version that’s floating around in Floppyshop PDL (ie. UTL-3242.zip). It seems to be an earlier 1991 version and somewhat incomplete, so please use the later 1992 version included within this archive (which Doug posted to Atari Forum in 2014). You can modify the code within DML’s newer example file, STOS3D3.BAS much more easily to view/use your own models now too.

So, I have come up with a workflow that works well so far. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we can eventually do more than just view a newly created model!

1) Model a low poly model in Blender 3D (https://www.blender.org/)

2) Export as a Wavefront *.OBJ file (you can probably try other formats too, I just used this one because I figured it would work fine and it did)

3) Load the *.OBJ file into 3D Object Converter v7.0 (http://3doc.i3dconverter.com/index.html) (799 3D object file formats supported!)

4) Save as *.3D2 format (Cyber Studio CAD-3D)

5) Load the *.3D2 model file into DML’s “CADCONV.PRG”

6) See DML’s own original doc for further info and get ready to be patient with all of this!
Use the arrow keys to navigate around the model, Z & X keys to cycle through each triangle. Clean up each surface by deleting the first triangle (with “DEL FACE”), then expand the 2nd triangle to make all surfaces appear like your original Blender 3D model. You will have to click on “EXP FACE” a couple of times, sometimes more. Then “EXP DONE” when finished. Recolour all surfaces to your liking. Only use the first 16 colours. If you mess up, reload the *.3D2 file and start again.

7) Click on the floppy disk icon “O” with the arrow pointing towards it, ie. 4th one in. Export a new object file set (*.X, *.Y, *.Z, *.OBJ) to a blank floppy disk image in drive A (not your HDD partition, as I don’t think it can save to HDD). The doc says it saves off a *.S file somewhere, it doesn’t, it’s an *.OBJ file (so remember to keep your original Wavefront *.OBJ files within a seperate folder from your output here, to avoid overwriting!). You just type in the name you want for the whole file set, but no extension required as it saves out 4 new files at once.

8) Modify the example file listing (STOS3D3.BAS), so you can load in your new model and view it. In line 10 you can modify the palette, I think this may need experimenting with to get the colours to match up correctly.

Then on line 46, you can change each filename similar to what I have done here:

46 I(X_LIST)=start(6) : I(Y_LIST)=start(7) : I(Z_LIST)=start(8) : I(S_LIST)=start(9) : I(FIL_PATS)=start(10) : bload “objects\cybercar.x”,start(6) : bload “objects\cybercar.y”,start(7) : bload “objects\cybercar.z”,start(8) : bload “objects\cybercar.obj”,start(9)

It should now display your new model, at least I hope so. Elon Musk won’t be hiring me for my new car design, that’s for sure!

Mike K

ps. Many thanks to Neil Halliday for tracking down The Pixel Twin’s Utility Disk! We were able to include the docs from that disk, with the later version posted to AF which I found later.

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For reference, here is an image of the workflow