Ambience by Tran
Welcome to Ambience (or Timeless 2 if you wish)...
Normal stuff:
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Call it what you will, a demo/dentro/intro/screen or whatever... To me its
just a small demo. This is not your usual demo/trackmo/etc... I am far too
lazy a soul for that type of thing. The idea here is not to display a bunch of
routines but rather just to do something fluffy. The code itself is pretty
simple, but it looks really nice, and that is the point.
All the routines are randomized, it will run differently but forever every
time you run it. So kick back, relax, and project it onto your ceiling... Or
better yet, a building adjacent to your house! Share the experience with your
neighbors. Best of all, on a cloudy night, project it onto the sky!!!
If you recognize some stuff from Timeless 1, you win a lollypop! I was
originally using a bunch of routines from the first to test the background
routine, but they looked so nice that I left them in.
Tech stuff:
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This demo uses a very tweaked VGA mode at a high frequency with 21 bit
color. That's right, twenty one bits of color (7 red, 7 green, and 7 blue),
even though the regular hardware limitation of the VGA is 18 bits max color
resolution. Some monitors out there may not be able to support very high
refresh rate, though so far most of the monitors I tried it on worked. The
21bit color mode thingy is something I've had lying around since ASM'93. Some
people who were there early may remember it with some sine waves scrolling on
the screen in a stupid little thingy of mine Gore ran on the big screen. If
there is a little bit of flicker when the demo runs, I can not help it, your
monitor's phosphors just don't live long enough, and I will not take the
default frequency any higher for fear of compatibility problems, though you
can adjust it yourself. Be aware that there will be some monitors the demo
will just not work on. If yours is one like this, chances are its pretty old,
there is nothing I can do about it.
When running the demo, the height of the picture is usually about half the
height of the screen. But you may want to play with your monitor settings to
expand the screen to get a fuller effect.
You should have a fast machine for this one, and a fast video card is a
MUST! Though this thing is really best for a VLB or PCI system at high
resolution, it will look nice on a fast 386 with a good video card.
This demo is meant for faster computers because of the amount of data that
has to be updated for each high color frame. I tried simpler (faster)
algorithms for the main background, but they just didn't swim like what is
there now. Yes, hardware effects could have been used to speed up some of the
stuff. But that would forefeit certain grafix and basically restrict what
could be done, making this demo just another boring plasma (instead of being
an interesting plasma :).
The code is 100% 32bit ASM under PMODE 2.51. If you could not tell, I like
PMODE a lot. Its really nice how now there is a variant of PMODE for WATCOM
C/C++. If you code in that, take a look at PMODE/W, you may like it.
Credits:
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Design, Code, and Grafix:
Tran.
Music replay routines:
Daredevil and Starscream of Renaissance.
Music:
Ryan Cramer of Renaissance/Iguana.
Thanx:
Rich Geldreich for the Targa file format.
Every one else who has served as a guinea pig for this release.
Keys:
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ESC - Exit the demo.
UP - Increase monitor frequency.
DOWN - Decrease monitor frequency.
LEFT - Move the screen up a bit.
RIGHT - Move the screen down a bit.
ALT-BACKSPACE - Capture the screen to a 24bit Targa file.
Switches:
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/C - Skip the configuration screen.
/E - Skip the end screen.
/A - No animations.
/S - Select an S3M to play on the command line. The filename of the S3M you
wish to play instead of the default music should immediately follow this
switch.
/W - Write out the default music file used in Ambience (Drops in Time by Ryan
Cramer) to an S3M file.
/0 - High resolution (slower updates).
/2 - Low resolution (faster updates).
/3 - There is a maximum optimal frame rate that is allowed at which the demo
was designed. This switch will let the demo run at a higher rate if the
system is fast enough.
Example:
AMBIENCE /C /E /Sfilename.s3m /0
The '/2' switch is only provided for those slow systems where the demo is
totally unbearable at the default resolution.
Misc stuff:
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Dear PC Demoscene, it is not 'Tran Productions', but merely 'Tran'. I am
just one person. Any demo thing that I can not or do not feel like creating
myself I get from friends who are, by the laws of logic, not 'Tran'. The term
'Tran Production' means a production of 'Tran' (that's me :), and not a
'Tran Productions' production. Just thought you would like to know... Hey,
group people, ever consider going solo?... A lot more flexibility and no
group politics to get in the way.
Final stuff:
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I worked on this thingy on and off for a little while, with other minor
things sprinkled in between. It is not as full as I would like it, but my mind
refuses to take it any further, and I can never win an argument with my mind,
it always outsmarts me. I decided to release it now as a little birthday
present to myself, a whole 19 years closer to nirvana now.
Contact me? Why would you want to do that? It could be pointless... But
anyways, tran@phantom.com is a one way path, I can not (and would not if I
could) answer from here. If it is really important, try leaving it on the
Data Connection BBS at 703-506-8598 or 703-847-0861 to 'Tran', but what would
be the use?
Oh well, that is that for that I guess... Why does existence suck so much?
Why does my head hurt? This decrepit rotting metropolis of twisted and broken
granite, a corpse without a soul, why do they build ever taller monuments to
humanity's ignorance and block out all those pretty stars beyond? I don't
care... There is no meaning, no reason, no being. There is no truth. There is
no life, no escape from the fools, liars, and hypocrites.
Gotta get back to my empty wasted life now. I hope at least someone derives
some pleasure from this little thingy. Have a nice trip...
Just another lamer in the soup...
Tran...
[ back to the prod ]