project angel by Impact Studios
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³ IMPACT Studios presents.... º
³ Project ANGEL º
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CONTENTS OF THIS TEXTFILE
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This textfile contains the following sections :
þ Welcome
þ Files in the archive
þ Requirements
þ Keys and options
þ Troubleshouting
þ What is IMPACT Studios
þ Credits
þ Our productions
þ Distribution sites
þ Rumors
þ Greetings and messages
þ Contact information
WELCOME
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This demo was made to compete at The Party IV held in Herning, Denmark for
Christmas in 1994. We started coding it around the end of the summer in 1994.
This was our first attempt to make a 486-oriented demonstration and if you
consider this demonstration as a trial, then we think it's a nice trial...
FILES IN THE ARCHIVE
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The files included in PRJANGEL.ZIP should be as follows :
þ ANGEL.EXE (3874636 bytes) Run this to see the demonstration
þ SETUP.EXE (22374 bytes) You must run this ONCE to configure some
settings before running ANGEL.EXE
þ DRIVERS.VGA (7400 bytes) Some miscellaneous VGA control parametters
that we left in an external file because we
were unsure about.
þ ANGEL.NFO (23039 bytes) The textfile you are reading
þ FILE_ID.DIZ (572 bytes) File description for BBS
þ CHECKEXE.COM (386 bytes) This program verifyes that ANGEL.EXE is not
corrupted.
If you have some other files you can delete them - They are probably just some
BBS advertisement.
If some of the files changed size then your version of this demonstration is
CORRUPTED - you'd better download the uncorrupted PRJANGEL.ZIP in one of our
distribution sites. If you downloaded your corrupted version from a BBS please
ask the sysop to do so.
REQUIREMENTS
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In order to run this demo you will need :
þ A 386 processor (but a fast 486 with a VLB is STRONGLY recommended)
þ 4Mb RAM will be enough (you need 538K of low memory and 2155K of XMS memory)
þ A VGA compatible card
þ If you like music you will need a Gravis UltraSound
(but can you say that you like music if you don't already have this board ???)
If your configuration matches the above, then this demonstration should run
without any problems, however we are not sure about some video cards, so if
you have troubles then please jump to the troubleshouting section...
KEYS AND OPTIONS
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Not much of them....
þ If you want the demo to loop forever you can run ANGEL -loop
þ When you are in the end scroller you can press ESCAPE to return to DOS
þ It is impossible to skip some parts or to return do DOS before the scroller
TROUBLESHOUTING
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This demonstration should be able to run without problems on most computers
as long as they satisfy the above requirements.
However there is some little rules to apply if you want to see the demo :
þ You must ensure that you will have enough free memory
þ Himem.sys is necessary
þ You musn't use some memory managers like EMM386, QEMM and so on (everything
that has EMM or 386 in its name should be suspected)
If you are a demo-lover you should already have one appropriate configuration
file, if not you could just copy this tiny configuration files :
þ CONFIG.SYS
files=30
stacks=0,0
dos=high,umb
device=c:\dos\himem.sys
þ AUTOEXEC.BAT
@echo off
prompt $p$g
@SET ULTRASND=220,1,1,11,5 < This is my Gravis Ultrasound startup
@SET ULTRA16=32C,0,0,1,0 < parameters, include yours or nothing
@SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T1 < if you don't have a GUS installed.
@SET ULTRADIR=C:\UTILS\ULTRASND <
@SET GUSMOD=C:\UTILS\ULTRASND\MOD <
@C:\UTILS\ULTRASND\ULTRINIT.EXE -dj <
This should eliminate most of the problems.
If the demo starts well and then crashes your computer with no apparent reason
then it is very likely that your ANGEL.EXE file is corrupted. Please check it
using CHECKEXE.COM. Some people complained about a crash, where they only did
not get the uncorrupted ANGEL.EXE file.
There is another kind of problems that will be harder to eliminate :
those that you can have with some unrecognised video cards.
There can be two different problems on unrecognised video cards :
þ Synchro problem : Your screen may be garbled, distorsed, or it can scroll
very fast or if you have an Energy Star monitor it could even switch off
automaticaly. Hmmm, it is hard to describe. Have you ever tried to display a
1024*768 picture on an old VGA monitor ? Well, if you have then the effect was
about the same. The reason is that your video card uses some non-standard
retrace frequencyes and when we try to switch to some 'special' display modes
(for example 320*240) it may cause some problems. In most of the cases this
problem can be resolved by using an utility delivered with your video card
that will let you choose some retrace frequencyes. You must choose 60Hz for
the 480 lines graphic modes, and 70Hz for the 350 or 400 lines graphic modes.
If this does not solve your problem... hmmm, we are sorry... You can try to do
a SETUP /REPORT to create a DEBUGNFO.DAT file, and then send us this file...
Please precise us the name of your video card, the number of the VGA chip, and
the name of your monitor. Be as precise as possible. Then we will perhaps be
able to fix the problem on your video card. But we don't promise you...
(we had this problem on *some* ET4000W32P cards, but not all. This depends on
the card using standard retrace frequencyes or not.)
For this problem it is best to write to Walken or to contact us on ACE BBS
þ Bank Switching problem : You may see a lot of flickering on the screen.
Usualy one image will be as it should, and the next one will be either black
or garbage. The reason is that we don't recognise correctly your video chip.
You can use SETUP /NOBANKS to fix the problem, but the display won't be as
nice as nice as it should be without this problem. Please report us the
problem, by using SETUP /REPORT and sending us the DEBUGNFO.DAT file.... And
please give us the name of your video card, the manufacturer and the number of
the video chip. It should be possible to fix the problem by just releasing a
small patch file (we just need to change the DRIVERS.VGA file)
For this problem it is best to write to Ozzy or to contact us on ACE BBS
As always there must be a last minute problem. We discovered that the setup
can crash down some computers. If this happens you must use SETUP /NODETECT.
Please report us the problem with as much detail as possible. It is best to
write to Ozzy or to contact us on ACE BBS
WHAT IS IMPACT STUDIOS
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IMPACT Studios is a group of persons that have the desire to work together on
some computer graphics demonstrations as this one. But, unlike most of the
other groups, we don't want to make a memberlist because we prefer to stay as
open as possible. "Nice", will you say, "but you know who is in your group ?"
Well, in fact the limit of the group is very blur even for us.
The kernel of the group is no doubt formed of Sigfrid, Kej and Mike because
they founded the group and because they were in each production from the
beginning.
I (Walken) consider that I also included this kernel since I decided to join
just after the first release of the group and also because I really did a lot
of hard work for coding boring stuff like the loader and depacker.
For the rest, it is harder to tell because they are all implicated in some
other projects, on the Amiga for most of them and on the PC for the others.
But in our opinion this makes no difference : Why when we want to work with
someone should we ask him to sign with us so that we have the exclusive rights
to publish his work ? I think it's a stupid idea.
We prefer to stay very open. If we have the shared desire to work with then we
just decide to include him in our team for the next project, it's as simple as
that.
We had to make this text section because we are fed up with some things that
we hear very often and that look silly to our eyes.... Mostly they critised us
because we used cascada's music replay and because we usualy work with some
artists who comes from the Amiga. I can't understand those critics, because in
my opinion it can't be lame to show someone's else work as long as you say it,
and why should we banish someone, just because he comes from the Amiga ? If he
accepts to work with us then he shows that he also has the desire to work on
the PC, so it should be all right for everyone.
CREDITS
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Here are the complete credits for this demonstration :
þ Music by Clawz
þ Intro : Rendering by Kej and Mike
Additionnal artwort by Mike
Code by Sigfrid
þ Space trip : Code by Walken
Modeling by Kej and Sigfrid
Animating by Kej
þ Voxel 360-Z : Code by Sigfrid
Voxel map by Kej
þ Fighters : Code by Walken
Modeling and Animating by Kej
þ Arena : Code by Sigfrid
Modeling by Kej and Mike
Animating by Kej
þ Underworld : Code by Walken
Modeling by Trajan and Kej
Textures by Trajan
Animating by Kej and Trajan
þ Greetings : Code by Sigfrid
Modeling and Animating by Kej
þ "Project ANGEL" picture by Suny
þ Scrolltext : Font by Mike
Music by Reflex
Some more additionnal credits :
þ XMS manager, loader, packing, linking, synchro and music system by Walken
þ Design and all parts between the main parts by Sigfrid
OUR PRODUCTIONS
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Not so much of them....
þ Realtime was the very first production of IMPACT Studios. It was released
at a very small french party. All the code/gfx/design of this demonstration
were done by Sigfrid, the founder of the group, with some additionnal graphics
done by Mike and by Kej. This demo was coded on Sigfrid's 386SX16.
þ LEGEND, our second production, was coded for The Party III and won a fourth
price. The team was bigger (it's at that time that I, Walken, joined it) but
the spirit was the same : We wanted to show that we can do some nice things on
a small computer.... This demontration runs perfectly on my old 286/16.
þ Project ANGEL is our third production. This time, and considering the few
reacts we had after the release of LEGEND, we decided to use the full power
allowed for the demo competitions. And yes, we can admit that it can be fun to
have all this CPU power. But I still feel that a good demonstration should be
somewhere between this two extremes....
DISTRIBUTION SITES
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If you want to download our productions or to contact us on a BBS, this is a
little list of BBS where you can be sure to get our productions :
þ ACE BBS ++33 1 45887548 It's our French HeadQuarters. If you want to
++33 1 45888809 contact us you can expect a fast reply here. We
check the IMPACT Studios conference very often.
þ GENESIS ++32 (0)22453498 It's our World HeadQuarters. You can also
contact us here, but don't expect a fast reply.
This BBS is located in Belgium.
On the folowing BBS you can also download our productions, but please don't
try to leave us messages there :
þ POINTBREAK ++32 11436925 A Distro Site in Belgium.
þ SUPREME COURT ++31 165051850 A Distro Site in Netherlands
++31 165067577
þ SIDE EFFECTS ++39 755725175 A Distro Site in Italy
þ TRIPLEX ++358 (0)5062277 A Distro Site in Finland
RUMORS
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At The Party IV we had to release a version of Project ANGEL and this version
wasn't linked and has a lot of stupid bugs so that it was impossible to run it
on a lot of computers. We don't think that the idea of forcing the competitors
to spread their productions on the party place is a good idea, but this is not
the debate here. All this stupid bugs were the start of some rumours so that
we need to apologise :
þ Due to a lack of time, the party-release version was not linked. This is
because I (Walken) had my linker ready and I had no doubt that it worked, but
at the last minute when I tried it, it refused to work. As the linking system
is very complex and as I was very tired, I wasn't able to find the bug. So I
had to code a lame XMS loader and depacker in a very short time. When I did it
I included some part of an old source code into it and I forgot to change the
size of the memory allocation. That't why this version of the demonstration
needed 5Mb of XMS memory to run. Of course that was easy to check : But I just
did not imagined that I could have left a bug here.
þ There was also a stupid bug in some of my parts that prevented the demo from
running on a 386 or Pentium processor. This is fixed now.
We can recognise when we're wrong, and all those critics about the party-
release version were more or less awaited, but there were also lots of STUPID
rumors that we had to react about...
þ On the internet some people were unhappy because they had a CRC error in the
ARJ file. We are sorry, but we can't be responsible of all that happens of the
internet...
þ Some people believed that some parts of the demonstration were just some
animations. The only animations in Project ANGEL are the little sequences in
the introduction where you see a space ship going out of his space base.
þ Some people were unhappy because of this three little animations. They said
that the demonstration should be disqualified because it included this anims.
It was the most stupid joke I heard from a very long time. But I didn't
laughed anyway.... Hey man, have you ever seen a demo ? Animations are quite
common, there were some in S!P's eyecatcher, or in LEGEND, our previous demo,
and in lots of other places.
þ Some people were unhappy of the big diskplace taken by this demo. The
diskplace is not used for any precalculated things as you could imagine. Most
of the diskplace is used for storing some rotation matrixes. As you have seen
when watching our demo, the movements of the objects are quite complex. We
don't know how to directly get the keyframes in an animation to interpolate
between this positions, so we had to save one matrix for each object and for
each image, and this really takes a lot of disk space.
þ It's hard to reply to this people that are unhappy about the huge diskplace,
because in fact we agree with them. Do you remember of the LEGEND demo ? We
wanted to show the scene that it was possible to make a nice demonstration
without all this power. But at the party place most of the people believed
that the 'for 286/16 mhz' picture was just a stupid joke..... We wanted to ask
for another type of competition, with more limitative rules. So we decided to
use the "power" of the compo machine. And, then we saw all this critics
saying that it was not nice to use all this power. Quite disappointing... So
here is our opinion : If you think that too much is too much, go on and change
the rules. If you don't, then please don't whine when someone uses all this
power... In the big parties this is the JUNGLE LAW now, and we want to use
the same hardware as everyone...
þ Some people said that the demo did not follow the rules, because it depacked
some data on the disk. It's wrong. The party release depacked its data in XMS
memory.
þ By the way you can check at The Party IV rules : there were no limit on the
demo filesize. As we can guess that this was only a mistake of the organisers
we decided to follow the limit of the previous big party (it was Assembly'94)
and to adopt a 4Mb maximum filesize.
A last word about this rumors : lots of them were the result of some kind of
supporters that fighted together because they didn't liked the same demos.
Some of them liked our demo, and some other preferred Nooon's. They are both
stupid if they start to fight only because of that. Nooon and IMPACT Studios
are both french teams, and we are the best friends of the world.
GREETINGS AND MESSAGES
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Walken's greetings :
Hmm, I don't like doing it coz I know that I will forget half of the people...
Quick greetings to IMPHOBIA, ZUUL DESIGN, NOOON (and especialy Barti!), INFINY
For the others : I'm sorry if you're not in this short list. Don't take care,
I love you as well ;-)
Walken's messages :
þ Unreal/S!P : ?!?!?!? Of course I still want to write you ! but... I believed
this was your turn to respond ?!?!?!? Probably I've missed something with you.
I'll write back very soon. (I'm really overworked now...) Enjoy life !
þ Darkness/IMPHOBIA : You look quite busy this times.... And you don't look
very often at your EMAIL on GENESIS.... but your exams should be over ? I hope
to see all the IMPHOBIA team at the party III.
(BTW why did you split up with Cascada ?)
þ PL/IMPHOBIA : I'll do the job you ask me for our small project soon. But now
it's my turn to be overworked... Argh !
þ Wizard/IMPHOBIA : Hey, I hope you'll come to the Saturne Party ! Move,
you'll see lots of great people ! (french people are great people ;-) ) Now
I'm going out a bit more -> you openned my eyes :)))) this was really a great
time I spent with you three at my kind of private party this summer !
þ Xann/Melting Pot : Hello boy ! Are you still coding your XOS ? and will you
send me this SPIKE&MOLLY tape ? I spent a great afternoon with you at your
small party... too bad that I can't come to your meeting next saturday.
þ Snagrot/Melting Pot : Hi ! I had a very cool time chatting with you. And by
the way, your occupation is really a cool one.... now all you have to do is to
counvince all the Melting Pot to go to the Saturne Party so that we can meet
one more time !
(btw please don't forget to send me invitations for your next private party !)
(btw2 greetings to Euphoria...)
þ Zeugma/Melting Pot : Hello girl ! Can you please send me some photographs ?
I would like to get doubles of your photographs at the party III and at the
Saturne party II. Which ones ? Well, mostly these where I can see some people
that I know.. For the rest I'm confident that you will choose the right ones !
I send you my french kisses ! ;-)
þ Ervin/Abandon : Too bad that I did not had time to say you goodbye at the
party. I will write back soon. Did you made this work on the UMB thing ?
þ Stephane FRANCOIS : Thanx man, for the help when I was starting up my modem
and also for giving the scene access to the best prices ever ! Don't feel bad
about all this delays, I know that you were not faulty. So you will only be
banished until the third generation ! ;-)
þ Zaol : I'll write back soon. Sorry for the delays.
þ Bequille/Revenge : Hi ! Thanx for lending me your SIMM modules.... But hmm,
I don't see you very often this times....
þ Shocker/Zebra Desing : Hello boy ! I need to apoligize for the delays about
the Gravis soundcards. Hmm, now this story is over...
Sifrid's messages:
þ Unreal/S!P : sorry for the answer you still waiting for, but now you
should have receive it before the present demo.
þ syntax Error/Zuul : Thanks for testing this demo, see you in Pizza Hut !.
þ Barti!/Nooon : The 3D objects I promised you will be sent as soon as the
artists will give them to me.
þ Gandalf/Infiny : thanks for the time you spent to help me on the board.
þ Katana / Asylum : nice JPEGs !
þ Stphane Francois : great support for cheap GUS max and other hardware.
þ IronX : Virtua cop & daytona rules ! be carefull on the way...
þ Titan/Bomb : when will you get your PSX ? wait for the next netdoom.
þ Zebig/Speed : No matter the ansi art, thanks for your nice contribution to
this production.
þ Pitbull/Legend Design : short but nice chat, hope to meet again soon.
þ Black Label/HMD : hh, entering in the chart, it's your true place.
þ LCA/Infiny : How is your new 3D-engine ? i've heard it's smashing !
þ Karl/Nooon : Thanks for testing non-documented instructions on your P5.
þ Alex & Nam/Melon : we are waiting for your next demo/intro !!! WHEN ?
þ Red Scorpion/Bonza : I received the GUS I won last year, thanks to you &
Cyrix.
þ Ukko/Zuul : congratulations for your last gfx ! very nice. may be a future
cooperation (?)
CONTACT INFORMATION
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Now that you know us better you can fell free to contact us....
Here is our adresses :
þ Sigfrid / Mike / Kej :
Hubert NGUYEN (Sigfrid)
Michael NGUYEN (Mike)
4 allee Jean de la Fontaine
92000 Nanterre / FRANCE
voice or data : ++33 1 47 21 56 43
You can contact Sigfrid for what you want. He also does most of the
PR because nobody wants to write me :( [Walken at the keys]
þ Walken : Michel LESPINASSE
18 rue Jean Giono
80090 Amiens
voice or data : ++33 22 47 28 70 (to remember : ++3 EACH-PC-UP 0)
Contact me for anything that has something to do with coding.
Sometimes I'm fast but sometimes I'm very very slow to answer....
(apologizes for those who are still waiting my letters)
þ Ozzy : Sylvain LABBE
28 rue Vauquelin
75005 Paris / FRANCE
Contact him if you want to talk about SVGA-coding.
You can also send flames to him if the demo does not support your
video card ;-)
(in fact he will be happy if he can adapt his routines to more and
more video cards !)
þ Trajan : Just phone to ++33 1 43 08 17 06
þ Suny : Corentin JAFFRE
6 rue des Vignes
95270 Asnieres sur Oise / FRANCE
þ Clawz : Mathieu BERTHAUD
25 rue du Mail
91600 Savigny sur Orge / FRANCE
(no swapping !)
We don't have a lot of free time and we can't (and don't want to) do some
swapping. So if you just want to swap better write to :
Zeb / ZUUL Design
14 rue Pablo Picasso
81000 Albi / FRANCE
Project ANGEL - IMPACT Studios in 1995
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