Artnouveau by Bohemiq
ART NOUVEAU - A Java demo by Bohemiq
====================================
Requirements:
- A computer with Java 1.1 or higher installed (1.3 or higher for high quality
Ogg Vorbis soundtrack)
- Approximately 220 mb free memory in total, either physical or virtual
(yes we will abuse all your expensive memory, and we don't care!)
Recommended:
- Intel Pentium 4 2+ GHz (this demo loves lots of cache and fast memory)
- 512 mb memory
- ATi Radeon 9800 Pro
- Sun JRE 1.3.x (the 1.3.x series performs considerably better than the newer 1.4.x)
- Any Windows version with DirectDraw installed (see below)
- A good soundcard that supports at least 16 bit 44 KHz stereo
- The lastest album of Laura Pausini
This demo can be run both in a browser and as a standalone application.
To run the demo standalone (recommended), use the following syntax (assuming that the java
binary is in your search path):
java -jar ARTnouveau.jar <width> <height> <fullscreen>
(Windows users with only the MS JVM installed should use 'jview' instead of 'java')
The width, height and fullscreen parameters are optional, here are some examples:
java -jar ARTnouveau.jar
This will run the demo in a window of the default size, which is 512x384.
java -jar ARTnouveau.jar 320 200
This will run the demo in a window of 320x200 pixels.
java -jar ARTnouveau.jar 640 480 fullscreen
This will run the demo in a fullscreen mode of 640x480. This is the recommended way of
running the demo. Choose a lower fullscreen res if your PC doesn't deliver an acceptable
framerate.
The fullscreen switch will use a JNI library to set the screenmode, and send the Java
screenbuffer to screen, via DirectDraw. Sadly, we did not have the time and resources to
develop fullscreen libraries for other systems, so the fullscreen mode is Windows-only.
If anyone wants to write such a library for his or her system, we will gladly assist them.
Because of the rather excessive memory requirements, some JVMs may run out of memory with
the default settings. For the Sun JVM, to be on the safe side, use these switches:
java -Xms256m -Xmx384m
This will set the standard memory size to 256mb and the maximum memory size to 384mb, which
should be enough to stay out of trouble.
Press ESC to exit at any time.
To run the demo in a browser, simply open the included HTML file (you may edit this file
to freely change the resolution in which the applet runs). Fullscreen is not supported.
There is a an automatic fallback to .au sound if the Java sound API is not supported
(Java versions below 1.1.7). However, this only works when run as an applet. When running
as an application, the only fallback is silence.
For slow machines, the MS JVM might be the best option, it does not support Ogg Vorbis,
but only .au, which is faster. The JVM itself is also noticably faster than the fastest
Sun JVM we could find.
We do not recommend the IBM JVM, because its performance is very inconsistent. While faster
in some scenes, it was horribly slow in others.
Don't worry, we'll try to do something less horrible next time.
We like the loading screen best.
Note to organizers:
===================
Please show the demo with the following commandline:
java -Xms256m -Xmx256m -jar ARTnouveau.jar 640 480 fullscreen
A runme.bat with the above line is included in the zip for convenience.
We would recommend the P4, although we don't know how HTT affects it.
If there are any problems with the fullscreen mode, please fallback to 640x480
windowed mode or applet mode as a last resort.
Since the rules specify that you will test on both machines, please pick the machine on
which it runs best, to show it in the compo (if we make preselection that is ;).
(We think the 3 GHz compo machine can take this resolution well, but we default to 512x384
for people with less powerful machines).
The story behind:
=================
This whole demo is quite experimental. First of all we don't use a standard platform for our
demo and secondly the content is slightly different than the average demo. We had this idea
of mixing the Haujobb-feeling with a something more futuristic/technical look like Variform
by Kewlers.
This resulted in having these weird backgrounds, consisting of 3D shapes, the usage of Haujobb
like layerartwork and the abstract 3d models. We did not really succeeded in what we wanted to
do. We have a both technically and artistically decent demo and it's unique, but most of the
artwork, especially the music, was done in great haste and we think we could have made it even
better if we had more time and motivation.
Final words:
============
We've used the JOrbis library in this production. Thanks for that :)
(http://www.jcraft.com/jorbis/)
And many thanks go to delilah, ewald, mrmuk, trigger and kalms, without whom none of this would
have been possible.
And special thanks to our trusted foreign representative.[ back to the prod ]