Uncharted Territory by Noice [web]
(this is the text from the
note file to thedemo)
Uncharted Territory by Noice
Released 2007-07-28
In this notefile you will get the
history behind this demo, the full
credits, technical info for all parts
(i love it when notes include all kinds
of nerdy tech-stuff, so I just had to
include some!) and last but not least
some well deserved thanks to some people
who helped make this demo possible.
It all began earlier this year when I
bought a DTV (well, rather a PAL-modded
Hummer board, but it's flashed with
DTV3 ROM, so it's the same thing!)
I thought it was a fun challenge to
explore a new platform where not every
trick in the book was already known,
kind of uncharted territory (you can
guess where the name of this demo comes
from!).
First I released a very simple small
demo named "Hello DTV World".
Then I started thinking that there had
been a whole bunch of small onepart
demos released for the DTV, but no
"proper" full-length multipart demo.
This was my chance to break some new
ground! So I started coding effects.
Then out of the blue TRSI released
their DTV demo "Ghost in the machine"
a very nice multipart demo. At first
I was a bit disappointed, knowing that
my demo would not have the same impact
of being the first "real" DTV demo,
but after a while I decided to finsih
the project anyway and aim for a BFP2007
release.
The problem was that I didn't have any
graphics whatsoever and no music.
I had a few offers from graphics artists
but noone who could work under that
tight timelimit. Then with about two
weeks left Rayden contacted me and
offered to do some quick graphics.
For music, I went with an already
released tune by 6R6 (sorry about it
sounding weird, the DTV doesn't emulate
the SID filters apparently btw...)
Finally after a lot of hard work, the
demo is finsihed, not nearly as good as
my intentions when I started, but then
isn't that the way it always turns out?
Anyway, now on to the credits!
Credits
-------
All code: Andreas Gustafsson
aka. Shadow/Noice
Music: 6R6/Shape
Intro picture and
twirl background: Rayden
Vector part font: Shadow/Noice
SHIRES grayscale pic: Boris Vallejo
Loader: Covert BitOps
Next we have the technical info!
Intro
-----
Scrolling picture in 320x200 256 color
mode. The picture is two screens (400
pixels high). Very easy stuff to do on
the DTV. The only problem is that the
picture is 128000 bytes, and even with
some compression that does eat a lot
of disk space!
Shadebobs
---------
Shadebobs in 320x200 256 color mode.
Well, when I coded this I thought I was
going to be world-first with it, but
if you have seen the TRSI demo you may
have seen that they have larger and
faster shadebobs.
Still, unless I'm missing something I
don't think that their routine can use
the full 256 colors, so we have
taken quite different approaches.
1500 dots
---------
1500 sine dots each frame running in a
256x200 a area, no mirroring or other
tricks used.
Dot records was all the rage on the C64
when I started, so I thought that I
better establish one on the DTV.
It's probably not that hard to do more,
but we have to start somewhere! :)
Twirl
-----
Radial twister/twirl.
A PC effect we have seen lots of times
on the C64 in 8x8 and 4x4 etc. modes.
On the DTV it is running 256 color mode
in a 160x80 pixel area.
Well, to be honest it's only
every other line so in truth it is
160x40 pixels. :)
SHIRES
------
640x200 super X hires grayscale picture.
Artwork by Boris Vallejo, converted
with my own converter.
Interference
------------
Full screen interference in 160x200
16 colors, running 50 fps.
Those who are familiar with the
different graphics mode on the DTV might
think that this is easy, which I also
thought at first, but it turned out to
be kind of tricky!
Vector
------
20 faces lightsourced vector, covering
a 128x128 pixels area in 256 color mode.
This part really puts the blitter in the
DTV to good use!
Tools used during development
-----------------------------
KickAssembler
Exomizer
64HDD
ViceDTV
UltraEdit
Well, that was all the technical info,
on to the thanks:
Thanks to:
Expertsetup for providing me with the
PAL-modded Hummer.
Zniper, Safety and the other guys at
work who helped with the hardware
modding.
Jay for letting me massacre one of
his cables when I needed a PS2
connector... :)
Slammer/Camelot for KickAssembler.
TRSI for their DTV-exomizer depacker.
The team behind Vice DTV.
All the people at the DTV hacking forum
for their great help!
Rayden for stepping in at the last
minute with some gfx!
6R6 for letting me use his tune.
..and ofcourse to all the forgotten
ones!
That was it, see ya in another DTV demo![ back to the prod ]