Dark Bit Factory & Gravity

GENERAL => Challenges & Competitions => Topic started by: noname on September 30, 2015

Title: [Amiga 30th Anniversary] Flare Mixer
Post by: noname on September 30, 2015
Hello everyone,

an Amiga compo at DBF sounded like the perfect opportunity to get involved! So here is my contribution: an Amiga effect that I started many years ago, but which was not used in a demo since then.

It is an 18 bit flare effect that I started on Amiga in 2009. As a first for myself back then, it was made using a mix of C and ASM code. This allowed me to quickly play around with different "magic formulas" for the movement in C, while maintaining access to the hardware hitting support routines that I have used ever since. Out of curiosity, I actually started a discussion about 18 bit saturation tricks on ADA back then (http://ada.untergrund.net/?p=boardthread&id=469) in which several well known Amiga demo coders participated and where Blueberry eventually revealed the trick that he would later use for his seminal Ikadalawampu (http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=54561) Amiga 4k intro.

But back to my contribution to this competition! The effect renders up to 512 flares at 160x90 pixel resolution in Amiga true colour HAM8 chunky which is well known at least since Tint by TBL. It calculates two different motion paths using simple trigonometric functions. Those two paths are then constantly mixed back and forth using another cosine, which makes for some hopefully interesting variations over time.

The drawing code is still totally unoptimized. But as the rules said that WinUAE emulation is fine, I thought that this wouldn't matter today :)

Tools were vbcc,vasm,genam, and vlink. My code uses the 18 bit C2P by Touchstone and The Player by Guru. Music by Virgill.

Binaries for AGA Amigas with 68040/68060 or WinUAE (please enable JIT for pleasure) here: http://www.dig-id.de/amiga/dbf/flaremixer.lha (http://www.dig-id.de/amiga/dbf/flaremixer.lha)
YouTube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZkP1p7hinc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZkP1p7hinc)

Hope you like it!

(http://www.dig-id.de/amiga/dbf/flaremixer.png)
Title: Re: [Amiga 30th Anniversary] Flare Mixer
Post by: KrazyK on September 30, 2015
That's a really nice effect, never seen that before and nice choice of music too.  I must have watched it for 15 minutes until I realized my pizza was burning in the oven.   :clap:
Title: Re: [Amiga 30th Anniversary] Flare Mixer
Post by: Kirl on October 01, 2015
Awesome effect and interesting variation indeed! Nice to read a bit about it's history as well.  :clap:

Title: Re: [Amiga 30th Anniversary] Flare Mixer
Post by: hellfire on October 01, 2015
Great one, Noname!
And two thumbs up for submitting an actual Amiga production to the Amiga compo!
At first I thought it's missing some kind of overlay (a logo, scroller, ...) but it would just distract from the effect and somehow degrade it to a "background effect". So everything is perfect.
Also great choice of music - one simply can't get more "Amiga" than Virgill :)
Title: Re: [Amiga 30th Anniversary] Flare Mixer
Post by: combatking0 on October 01, 2015
Cool effect! It reminds me of a time-lapse of galaxy clusters moving towards and away from each other.
Title: Re: [Amiga 30th Anniversary] Flare Mixer
Post by: Optimus on October 01, 2015
Wow, that's really cool! And in Amiga!
Title: Re: [Amiga 30th Anniversary] Flare Mixer
Post by: Rbz on October 02, 2015
Really great effect, it's very hypnotic  :D

Thank you for participating on this compo and good luck!
Title: Re: [Amiga 30th Anniversary] Flare Mixer
Post by: noname on October 02, 2015
Thanks everyone for the kind feedback. It has been a lot of fun preparing the code for this..
Title: Re: [Amiga 30th Anniversary] Flare Mixer
Post by: padman on October 03, 2015
The technical details don't mean anything to me tbh, but it sure looks awesome! And nice music, too. K++ for using the original platform.  :clap:
Title: Re: [Amiga 30th Anniversary] Flare Mixer
Post by: noname on October 04, 2015
 :goodpost: Just noticed that K++ was actually some kind of gift. Thank you!
Title: Re: [Amiga 30th Anniversary] Flare Mixer
Post by: Raizor on October 05, 2015
Very nice and mesmerizing to watch :) It brings to mind the creation of the universe or something cosmic like that. Great to see something made on an Amiga too! Great stuff!
Title: Re: [Amiga 30th Anniversary] Flare Mixer
Post by: Moroboshisan on October 05, 2015
intriguing effect, some special respect for using the real hardware! maybe, as noted by hellfire, a little scroller or a side logo seems like "missing"...
Title: Re: [Amiga 30th Anniversary] Flare Mixer
Post by: noname on October 09, 2015
 Thanks for the votes. It was quite exciting to participate in another compo.

  :||
Title: Re: [Amiga 30th Anniversary] Flare Mixer
Post by: hellfire on November 28, 2017
An Amiga effect that I started many years ago, but which was not used in a demo since then.
It is an 18 bit flare effect that I started on Amiga in 2009.

And after only another two years this effect finally made its way into this demo (http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=71976) ;D