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Future 1999 by Pers' Wastaiset Produktiot [web]

FUTURE 1999 - A VIC-20 DEMO BY VIZNUT/PWP

Originally to be released at Alternative Party 2008. Due to some
organizational problems there, the release was postponed to Stream 2009
where it came 1st in the oldschool demo competition.

The file future1999-vice21.d64 is a version optimized for the latest release
of the VICE emulator (2.1). Should run straight with autoload, just make
sure that all memory expansions are off and true drive emulation is on.

A hardware-optimized is there as well, of course, but it won't be released
until certain issues have been resolved.

== TECHNOLOGY & STUFF ==

The technological innovation in the demo is the audio compression scheme
(which is not utilized even close to its full potential). The codec uses raw
waveforms but supports variable bitrates and looping to keep the binary
bursts compact.

As I was too lazy to compose a proper melody, I decided to go for the
"soundscape" route instead. The algorithm that generates the harmonies is
very simple, consisting of a couple of logical operations tied to a
free-running counter. It's, by the way, my first attempt at a generative
soundtrack in a demo.

The animation streamer is the same as in The Next Level. All the visuals and
cinematography were made in just five short evenings, and they had to be
simplified even further from the original versions due to the loader
schedule and memory constraints being too tight otherwise.

The version included in this package is the emulator-optimized party
version. Technically, this means two things:

#0: The volume of the digital sound playback has been adjusted to the
behavior of VICE 2.1, which results in too faint sounds on the real
hardware.

#1: In order to keep the flow smooth, the semaphore mechanism in the
streamer has been disabled. This leads to loading problems with many
real-world disk drives (virtual ones, i.e. 1541U, should manage the stream
fine, however).

The hardware-optimized version will be released once the flow issue has
been properly resolved. I'm also hoping to include NTSC support in the final
version (there are no raster tricks, so it's basically just a matter of
screen position, like in TNL, of which I may also release an NTSC-compatible
version).

That's all for today.

http://www.pelulamu.net/viznut/

http://www.pelulamu.net/pwp/
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