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VIRTUAL REALITY TOOLS 2.0 With MCGA and VGA libraries (c) Copyright 93/94 D.G. Sureau For AT-286 or more 512 KB & VGA card ┌─────────┐ │ SUMMARY │ └─────────┘ Overview. Starting up VTools. The VTools' desktop. MegaSprites. Automaton assembler. Organizer. Virtual tree editor. Three-D Viewer. Formats for sprites. File formats. Compatibility. ┌──────────┐ │ OVERVIEW │ └──────────┘ Virtual Reality Tools is a set of utilities to create scenery and animations for programs of the new generation. The current version contains sprite editors, an automaton assembler, an editor of mathematical designed virtual trees, and other tools to facilitate work of programmers. Here, summarized, what you can do with VTools: - drawing 16 or 256 colors sprites for VGA or SVGA. - drawing icons and saving them in standard ICO files for Win- dows. - rotating, merging images or parts of images, and therefore assembling objects in more complexes ones. - assembling sprites in automatons and viewing animations. - converting sprites from a format to another at the touch of a key. - defining virtual trees and saving parameters in files usable by your own programs. - displaying walls and objects in a 3D scenery to try them be- fore using in your programs. In the near future, other tools will be again added to this set with free update to registered users... ┌────────────────────┐ │ STARTING UP VTOOLS │ └────────────────────┘ From the DOS prompt, simply type: VTOOLS or add to the name of a sprite file or an icon as parameter: Ex: VTOOLS DEMO Ex: VTOOLS VTOOLS.ICO If extension is not typed, the program search for a sprite fi- le. In all cases but the present one, VTools sets itself the extensions for files, that are proper to file type, and that user can't change. Once the sprites loaded, you may type '?' to view them or choose a tool with cursor keys and press ENTER to start it. ┌─────────────────────┐ │ THE VTOOLS' DESKTOP │ └─────────────────────┘ The desktop that appears when starting VTools is the disk in- terface. It allows to load and save files, and to choose a pro- gram. Each program of this software is represented by an icon and you also can see than icons are affected to each sprite file in the current directory, while they can fit in the available space on the screen... To click on an icon allows loading the file. As a general rule, commands and processes are similar to Win- dows' standard conventions that I have done to avoid users to learn several graphical interfaces. The software can be used either with a mouse or with the key- board. To click on an object, is equivalent to select the ob- ject with cursor keys and press ENTER. Then, I shall say simply in this manual "click on the object" to execute or load the ob- ject, equally when one uses mouse or keyboard. When several functions can apply to an object, one clicks once to select the object, then one chooses a function in the menu or one click again to apply it, or one clicks twice to execute the program or to load the file. The two mouse buttons equally can be used on menu or on command icons. In other cases, they have not identical effect. Sometimes they have same function but the left button is for a single act while the right button is for continuous act while held down. Inside drawing windows they have not same function at all. The title bar The desktop shows on the title bar the name of the current sprite file. The button at right of the menu bar is similar to the ESC key for the mouse, and allows to exit a process, to close a window, or to quit VTools. The button at left of the title bar is for displaying the copyright and the current ver- sion, and the shortcut key is 'h'. The menu bar To access menu, click on the menu bar or press ALT plus letter which is underlined, or press F10. Use cursor keys to select an option (up/down) or change sub-menu (left/right). Press ESC to exit a sub-menu, press ESC again to exit the menu. Here are detailed commands in each sub-menu and their shortcut keys. FILE Load work l Load previously saved work CTRL+l Load work saved by CTRL+s Save work s Save table of sprites, addresses, types, automaton board. CTRL+s Save addresses and sprite images in separated files. Directory d Open the directory window. Set dir mask x Choose files to be displayed. Set path Home Set drive and access path. Load icon i Load a Window's icon. Quit q Exit VTools. SPRITES MegaSprites M 256 colors sprite editor. Automaton A Automaton assembler. Organizer O Memory organizer. Virtual trees F Editor for virtual trees. Three-D view T Display sprites in 3D view. Display all ? Display sprites in memory. PALETTE Change RGB % Change colors. Load pal+RGB r Load colors. Save pal+RGB w Save colors. INFO Help F1 Help screen. System ~ Display formats, sizes, and so on... Internal b Display internal sprite buffer. Beeps on/off - Set/Reset sound. Colors o Dialog box for color preferences. QUIT Quit q Exit VTools. Restart y Restart program with default values. That will not clear sprite buffer. Erase sprites DEL Erase all sprites in memory. Other commands that are not in the menu: ENTER: execute an icon. ALT-F4, F3, ALT-x: Quit the program. Dialog box for confirmation When a box asks for a Y/N answer, press the left button inside the box to respond 'Y', or click out of the box to say 'N' and cancel. For security, one can't use mouse to respond, one must press the 'Y' or 'N' keys. The windows Some windows can be moved and have variable size. In this case, there is a button at left on the title bar, with a 3D box insi- de. If the window can be changed, press ALT-SPACE to enter editing mode, and then you may use the cursor keys to move the window, or hold down the ALT keys with the cursor keys to change the size. Alternate keys are +, -, <, > to change the size. Press ENTER or ESC to exit editing mode. When mouse is on the left or top border, the mouse pointer be- comes a four arrows image, if the window can be moved. Press left mouse button and drag to move the window. When mouse is on the right or bottom border, the pointer be- comes a horizontal arrow if size or width can be changed. In the same manner, press left button and drag to change. Press the right mouse button to exit the process, or click on the ESC button at the top of the screen. To change the colors, press ALT-b for the background, ALT-h for the title bar. The directory Press 'd' to display the current directory. It is displayed in a window having variable size. The window displays filenames in uppercase black letters, and sub-directories in lower case red letters. Click on a sub-directory to display it, click on '..' to return at previous level. Click on a disk icon or press the drive let- ter (uppercases) to change drive. Uses cursor keys or lift at right of the window to select a file and to scroll. Note there are two buttons at extremities of the lift than serves to scroll a single line at once. Click on a sprite filename (.SPR) or icon filename (.ICO) to load it. To change the window, press ALT-SPACE or click on borders. Press ESC, or do a mouse click out of the window to close it. File masking The directory display allows use of a combination of masks by file type. Press the 'x' key to open the dialogue box for the selection. The types and extensions are as following: - Work: Sprite files: SPR + WRK extensions. - Screens: PCX, VRT, VGA files. - ICO: Windows' icons. - All files: all files recognized by VTools including the above files.. - Directories: sub-directories. Click on the 1...5 button or type the number to set/reset a mask. The program says 'YES', when files will be displayed. Press HOME to restore defaults. Press ENTER to close, or press 'd' to show the directory. To change drive and path On can set drive and path for files by a press on the 'p' key, and then by typing the drive letter and the path. Example: A:\PIC Dialog box for loading and saving sprites Loading and saving are done with a dialogue box, opened when one presses 'l' for loading, or 's' for saving (or CTRL-l and CTRL-s to have the adresses in a separated file). There is three fields, one for the drive, the second for the directory or path, and a field for the filename. The dialogue box has a special built-in editor: use cursor keys up/down to change line, backspace or DEL key to delete letters, INS to toggle between insert/copy mode. In this program, only the filename node is read by the program, if an extension is typed the program removes it and replaces it with SPR and WRK extension to save or to load the file. Don't press ENTER when a line is filled, move to the following with the vertical cursor keys, the program keeps the displayed data. Press ESC to abort or ENTER when all three fields are right, to access the file. If previously, one has loaded sprite by clicking on its icon, when one wants to save the file, path and name are already ty- ped in the proper fields, only one has to press ENTER to save. The memory buffer for the table of sprites has variable size, that depends of the available conventional memory, 640Kb or less. If you frequently change the size of memory by loading resident programs, then avoid fully to fill up the memory buffer as the file will no longer fit in memory. If this occurs, you should have a disk system to boot which sets not these resident pro- grams. The palette windows (RGB registers) The % command opens the window for RGB registers changing, that don't affect the desktop's colors but those of the sprite edi- tors only. There are two buttons to select the previous or next colors and three bar to change the RGB registers. The registers are temporary affected to the color 9 to view the changes. This window allows to set the registers by numerical value. As the desktop use the VGA 18 screen mode, it is not possible to display the colors one have sets beyond the 64 first ones. VGA 18 has only 64 registers while MCGA has 256. However the current dialog box allows to change all the 256 colors and view them on the MegaSprites desktop. They RGB registers may also be changed within the MegaSprites program. The dialog box for colors To select an item to change, use the vertical cursor keys. To select the color, use the horizontal cursor keys. All these colors are for the desktop but the input background and text, that are for some fields to input or to display in the utilities. One may change colors of windows with the ALT-b key for the background and ALT-h for the title bar. These color are saved with the file of sprites. ┌─────────────┐ │ MEGASPRITES │ └─────────────┘ Summary Features of MegaSprites The MegaSprites' screen The most usual keyboard commands: Using the mouse in MegaSprites Selecting a color for brush, ellipse, fill area and others Drawing Editing Changing the palette To change a color in the whole drawing Painting and special effects Making a sprite Making a standard icon Making a sprite in ASCII files Viewing sprites in memory Problems Summary of keyboard commands in MegaSprites Features of MegaSprites Produces 256 or 16 colors sprites, compressed fast sprites, standard icons for Windows (c), allows drawing with mouse or keyboard, can change size while editing, has simultaneous ma- gnifying window, creating palette, has rubber, ellipse, fill, rectangle, spray, shading, mirror, rotation by one degree, re- placing a color in the image, insert/delete row or column, mer- ging images, cut and paste with rotation on the drawing or from a sprite to the drawing, stores until 1024 sprites in memory. The MegaSprites' screen Images are drawn inside the window in the middle of the screen and zoomed x 4 simultaneously in the window above. Width and height are displayed below the image. At left, the "window on the memory" shows sprites loaded or previously drawn and stored into the table. Number in the table is below this window and available free space in memory is be- low the grey icons, that are for special effects. At right is the 256 colors palette and at top of the screen the palette for 16 colors sprites. Below, the three colors red, green and blue are for creating colors for the palette. Below are indicators: - at left the indicator for the brush up or down, nothing if brush is up and a filled rectangle if brush is down. - then is the rubber if rubber is on, otherwise nothing. - at right a triangle is shown when one gets a color to copy it elsewhere in the palette, or there are two filled rectangles when one does a color change in the image. Each of the ten most usual functions has an icon at the bottom of the screen, that are from left to right: 1) get image from the memory to the drawing window. 2) clear the drawing. 3) filling. 4) the rabbit and the hat, symbolize the 'undo' function, that comes back to past and restore image as before last act. 5) cut and paste. 6) change a color in the whole image. 7) make a 32 x 32 icon from the image. 8) make a 256 colors sprite from the image. 9) make a compressed 16 colors sprite. 10) return to the desktop. There is also a panel for special effects or other drawing function: shading, rotating, brush width, ellipse, line, rec- tangle, spray... The most usual keyboard commands: ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ cursor keys: select a color. │ │ space bar: set the brush up or down. │ │ 0: set the rubber on or off. │ │ numeric keypad: move the drawing cursor. │ │ b or z: create a 256 or 16 color sprite. │ │ i: create an icon. │ │ <,>,+,- : change the size of the image. │ │ page up/down: select a sprite in memory. │ │ g: get a sprite from memory. │ │ /: cut and paste. │ │ c: change a color in the drawing. │ │ u: undo. │ │ f: fill. │ │ ESC: returns to the desktop. │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The F1 key allows displaying usual commands while drawing. Using the mouse in MegaSprites In the drawing window the mouse becomes a pencil. By a click of the right mouse button, one puts the cursor where the mouse pointer is, inside the window, without any change in the dra- wing. Left mouse button is used to draw, a pixel at the time or continuously when holding down the button. Summarizing the mouse use in MegaSprites... In the central window: - press left button to draw. - press right button to put the cursor at a location. In the upper magnifying window: - press left button to draw. - press right button to get color according to that of the pixel pointed out by the mouse. In the left window on memory: - press left button to view next sprite. - press right button to view the previous one. In the palette area: press any mouse button to get the color. On the bar of icons: press any mouse button to execute the command. Selecting a color for brush, ellipse, fill area and others Use cursor keys to move both in the 256 color palette and in the 16 color palette. The current color is designated by a rec- tangle above the palette. One clicks the right mouse button on the color either in the palette or in the zoomed window to get the color. Drawing First put the brush down by a press on the space bar. When brush is down a rectangle of current color appears above the palette. In the same manners, the rubber is set on or off by a press on the '0' key. Use the numeric keypad to move the cursor on the drawing, or to draw if the brush or the rubber is down. One can change the size of brush by a press on the '.' key. Two sizes are allowed. Editing To edit the image, use these keys: CTRL-r Insert a row of pixels at cursor location. CTRL-y Delete the row. CTRL-o Insert a column. CTRL-w Delete the column. < reduce width (20 pixels min.). > increase width (80 pixels max.). - reduce height (20 pixels min.). + increase height (80 pixels max.). Mirror functions: ] or [ horizontal mirror. ~ vertical mirror. Undo: One level undo is provided, type 'u' to restore the image. That clears the result of any function having general effect. You can type 'b' to save the drawing in the memory buffer, era- sing it further is done at the touch of a key with the organi- zer. To clear the window, type CTRL-z or DEL. Changing the palette You can move a color from a number to another... Press 'o', this holds the current selected color, a triangle appears above the palette, move now to a new location and press 'o' again, this drop the color and the triangle disappears. You can change basis components of a color to create one... Above the palette are the basis components for colors: red, green and blue. One changes the current selected color by ad- ding or reducing of these inks. Click on the red, green or blue component with left button to add to, with right button to re- duce this ink. With the keyboard, press R, G, B (uppercases) to add ink to the color, press ALT+r, ALT+g or ALT+b to reduce an ink. The palette you create must allow inversion of color for some drawing function, this supposes colors with complementary num- ber (=complementary position in the palette) also have comple- mentary display, so complementary of a clear color must be dark and conversely... The palette is saved in the WRK file, when sprites are saved, or separately with the 'w' command at the desktop. To change a color in the whole drawing This changes all pixels of a color to another color. Move the brush on a pixel having the color to be changed in the image, and then select a color in the palette for the replacing color, then press 'c' to do the change. The two colors, are displayed above the palette. At left, the previous one, at right the new one. Press ENTER to do the change, or you can use cursor keys if you want change the colors: up and down for the previous, left and right for the new. With mouse, one selects the icon #5, one gets if needed old co- lor with left button, new color with right button and one clicks again on icon #5 to do the change. Painting and special effects FILLING Select first the color, set the brush up, move the cursor in- side the area to fill, set the brush down, press 'f'. Using mouse: 1) first get a color, 2) set the location inside the drawing, with right mouse but- ton. 3) click on the fill icon, the third. ELLIPSE/CIRCLE, RECTANGLE, LINE Select first the color for the object to draw. Type - 'e' to draw an ellipse or a circle, - 'r' for a rectangle, - 'l' for a line. The location of the object if the current cursor location. This is the center for an ellipse, the starting point for a line, the left bottom corner for a rectangle. To move the object, use the cursor keys or the left mouse but- ton. To change the size, use the '4', '6', '8', '2' keys or the right mouse button. If a line, this changes the ending point. Type ENTER to draw the object according to the selected color, or press ESC to cancel. For the mouse, the get icon does an ENTER press. SPRAY Press 's' or click on the spray icon, the mouse pointer becomes a spray and so remains until you press again on the spray icon. When the mouse pointer is a spray, to click or to drag puts a set of pixels on the image rather than a single dot. SHADING - choose a row in the palette, it will be displayed at top in the 16 colors palette... The standard palette has at second row a gray gradation that is a good example for the shading func- tion. - move the cursor on a color in the image. - press 'a'. All areas with the chosen color have now grada- tion, according to the row of the palette... - press ALT-a to do shading from right to left. MERGING IMAGES Press the '@' key to put the sprite in memory over the drawing. Press the '*' key to do it according to the current rotation angle, value of which being displayed below the window of dra- wing, at right. To change this angle, type: F8 1 degree right. CTRL-F8 10 degrees right. ALT-F8 90 degrees right. F7 1 degree left. CTRL-F7 10 degrees left. ALT-F7 90 degrees left. CUT & PASTE This function is similar to the previous one, but it works with a part of the drawing, or a part of the sprite in memory. Press '/' . A rectangle is outlined upon the sprite in memory. Press the TAB key to cut into the image or to return on the sprite in memory. Use <, >, +, - to change size, and the cursor keys to move the outlined rectangle. Or put left mouse button down and drag to move and right button to change size. Now press ENTER or click on the first icon at bottom of screen. The cut part of the image is now displayed inside the drawing window, by inverting the colors... Remember than if colors are not complementary in the palette, you see nothing. Now you can change the angle of rotation if you want. - press a key of the numeric pad. - or press +, - to change a single degree. - or press < or > to change 10 degrees. - or use same keys as for the previous function. With mouse, click on the icons that represent curved arrows at left, to change the angle. The cursor keys or the left mouse button held down, allow to move the part of image. Press ENTER to paste or click on the icon #1 at the bottom of screen. Making a sprite Various kind of sprites can be made from drawing according to following commands: b 256 colors sprite. z Z-RLE compressed 16 colors sprite. k 16 colors sprite (Size in memory is reduced by half in relation to 256 colors sprite). As above, but no compressed. When making any 16 color sprite or icon, the image must have colors of a same row in the palette. The sprite has colors of the row of palette you select at the time you made it, not the colors you use when drawing it... The first color in this 16 colors palette is always the black background color. A 16 colors sprite must have even number of columns as two pixels are stored into one byte. The program sets the correct number of columns. Making a standard icon When you want to create an icon for Windows, you must first set the proper 32 x 32 pixels size. Use the '<' key to reduce the width and '-' to reduce the height, then draw the image. The black color is a part of the displayed image, to make the background, use any color that is not in the first row at bot- tom of the palette. To create the ICO file, press 'i', then give a 8 letters name, without extension, and press ENTER. The image will also be stored as a k sprite to be further edi- ted. Making a sprite in ASCII file Type 'j' and give a 8 letters name, without extension, and press ENTER. The program will create a text file having ASC extension, that holds a 16 color sprite, that you may insert directly into your programs. The syntax of the array is for the C language, but you may be easily edit it to another one. This command also makes an icon and a k sprite. Viewing sprites in memory The window at left shows sprites in memory, one uses PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN to select next or previous one in memory. Or one puts the mouse pointer into this window and presses the left button to view the next sprite or the right button to view the previous one. Type 'g' to copy the sprite from memory to the window of dra- wing. To compare the images, type @ to put one over the other and type u to restore the drawing. The Organizer displays full description of each sprite in memo- ry. Problems UNDO exists. Type 'u' to restore image as before the last act. BLACK SCREEN If you load a previous work and the WRK file has been corrup- ted, the color registers can be erased, type 'y' to restore standard palette, or load a previously saved palette. NO ELLIPSE, RECTANGLE, LINE, PASTE... The ellipse starts with color complementary to background co- lor, if background has color 0, and is black, complementary co- lor is 255, and if it is black also, you see nothing. This pro- blem disappears by making a palette with complementary colors, that is generally the case when using gradation. COLORS OF SPRITE... Remember than when ones makes a 16 colors sprite with MegaSpri- tes, colors of the sprites are those or current 16 color pa- lette (at top of screen), not colors used when drawing. This is a voluntary feature that allows to use different sets of colors with a same drawing... WIDTH OF SPRITES... The 16 color sprites must have even width. The program automa- tically corrects that and add a column if needed. WORK CAN'T BE LOADED This can occurs if you save sprites with CTRL-s (addresses and raw data in separated files) and then load file with 'l' (ad- dresses and raw data in same file). Remember 'l' matches s, CTRL-l matches CTRL-s. CTRL-c The control-c interrupt is disabled, however some mouse drivers can thwart that, so try to avoid type that. Summary of keyboard commands in MegaSprites Be careful to upper and lower cases. Keyboard is set in small letters state at start. F1 or h Help screen. ESCAPE, q Return to desktop. cursor keys Select a color. space bar Brush up or down. 0 Rubber or brush. . Change size of the brush. numeric keypad Moving the brush on the drawing. HOME Move to lower left in the drawing window. END Move to upper right in the drawing window. u Undo, restore the previous state. PAGE UP/DOWN Select a sprite in memory. CTRL-HOME View first sprite in memory. CTRL-END View last sprite in memory. g Get displayed sprite. # Put sprite in memory over the drawn image. * Put sprite over image with current rotation. / Cut and paste with rotation. b Make a 256 colors sprite. z Make a compressed 16 colors sprite. k Make a 16 colors sprite. i Both stores image in table in 16 color format and writes it in an ICO file. j Same as 'i' but saves again the image in an ASCII file. CTRL-r Insert a row of pixels. CTRL-y Delete a row. CTRL-o Insert a column. CTRL-w Delete a column. CTRL-z or DEL Erase image, clear the window. < Reduce width by one column. > Increase width. + Reduce height by one row. - Increase height. o Copy a color to another location in the palette. c Perform replacement of a color in the whole image. f Fill area of same color, with current selected color. R Add red in current color. G Add green. B Add blue. ALT+r Reduce red in current color. ALT+g Reduce green. ALT+b Reduce blue. y Restore standard palette. ] [ Horizontally reverses the image. ~ Vertically reverses the image. e Draw an ellipse. r Draw a rectangle. l Draw a line. a Shading for areas of a same color. ALT-a Reverse shading. F8 1 degree right for * command. CTRL-F8 10 degrees right. ALT-F8 90 degrees right. F7 1 degree left. CTRL-F7 10 degrees left. ALT-F7 90 degrees left. A Goes to the assembler of automaton. O Goes to the organizer. T Goes to Three-D Viewer. F Goes to virtual tree editor. ALT-CTRL-b Set the background to the current color. ┌─────────────────────────────┐ │ THE ASSEMBLER OF AUTOMATONS │ └─────────────────────────────┘ An automaton is a sequence of sprites that composes an anima- tion. This assembler eases to make automatons and to try them. The board that graphically shows automatons, and that is saved with the sprites, can hold many automatons, that can be easily edited and combined. On this board, an automaton is a sequence of ellipses with number inside them, ordered by arrows. These numbers are numbers of the sprites in memory. Animation can be shown in the window at the middle of the screen, or in full screen with VGA 19. At right of this window, nine symbol represent different available links. At right are shown the sprites in memory. To execute a sequence, press 'i' or 'z' to view it in full screen. The interpreter reads on the board from left to right. It can go up or down, but it respects following priorities if several arrows start of the same ellipse: right, then up, otherwise down. Making and editing automaton One selects a sprite in memory with PAGE UP/DOWN keys, and one presses ENTER to put an ellipse at cursor location, holding its number. The keys to put arrows are these: 0: a horizontal line, the symbol to go right. 5: a vertical line, to go up or down. 1, 3, 7, 9: symbols to change direction. 2, 6, 8: add '>' to the lines, that is for better comprehensi- bility but have no utility for the interpreter. The DEL key erases an ellipse. To save an automaton, move the cursor at the first ellipse and press 'w'. To load it, move the cursor at a location and press 'r'. Using a mouse The mouse pointer becomes a pencil when it is over the board of automatons, it becomes a cross if one selects a link symbol otherwise it holds a sprite number. To get a symbol, click on a displayed symbol in the command pa- nel, and click on the sprite in memory to get the sprite num- ber, or anywhere on the command panel. On the board, click the left mouse button to drop an object, the right button to put only the cursor at a location. The horizontal lift allows to scroll the board of automatons. To change the sprite, click on the PAGE UP/DOWN keys at left of sprite in memory, with left button to scroll one at the time, right button to a fast scroll. Keyboard commands of the assembler F1 Help screen. PAGES Select a sprite in memory. Cursor keys Move to a location on the board. 0..9 Put a symbol at cursor location. ENTER Put an ellipse on the board. DEL Erase current cursor position x Clear the whole board. i Interpret the automaton and animate it. Move first the cursor at start of the sequence. z Run the automaton in VGA 19, 256 colors. m Execute step by step the automaton. r Read an automaton, displays it starting at current cursor position. w Write an automaton in a file, starting at cursor. # Put/Remove the grid. n Refresh the screen. HOME Go to the start of the board. END Go to the end of the board < Scroll the board 20 columns left. > Scroll the board 20 columns right. + Slow down the animation. - Speed up the animation. p Switch between editor palette or standard one. ALT-b Change the panel command color. ALT-j Change the board color. ALT-n Change the text and line color. ALT-o Change the border. O Organiser. M MegaSprites. T Three-D viewer. F Virtual tree editor. q Return to desktop. Automatons are saved in files with the AUT extension, that the program adds to itself. The board is saved into the WRK file. ┌────────────────┐ │ THE ORGANIZER │ └────────────────┘ This utility allows to change order of sprites in memory, de- lete one, convert the format, display the detailed description and test the integrity. Keyboard commands of the organiser PAGES Select a sprite in memory. HOME Go to the first sprite in memory. END Go to the last sprite in memory. m Go to the move mode. Use PAGE UP/DOWN to select a new location, press ENTER to move or ESC to cancel. DEL Delete displayed sprite. t Change current format for converting. ! Convert displayed sprite to current format, and replace it. b Display x 4 a Z-RLE sprite. z Display on VGA 19 screen, if format is compatible. p Switch between editor palette or standard one. A Assembler. M MegaSprites. T Three-D Viewer. F Virtual Tree Editor. Q, ESC Return to desktop. ┌─────────────────────────────┐ │ THE EDITOR OF VIRTUAL TREES │ └─────────────────────────────┘ Why get tired to draw landscapes when the computer can do most of the work? This program mathematically calculate form of trees and paint them on the screen. Their parameters are saved in a 16 bytes file that the user can display, with the tree function, in its programs. Defining all the trees of a forest or a golf ground can be done with a single k. byte of data. In the editor, there are commands to change sizes and command to change characteristics of trees. In a general manner, one use lowercases to reduce a parameter, and uppercases to increase it, for command that have a horizon- tal lift on the panel. Press F1 for help screen. Press ? to know numerical values of parameters. To speed up the changes on bars, type a number, from 1 to 9. Commands for sizes: s size of the whole tree. r random number to determine the whole tree. t height of the trunk. u length of the branches. w width of trunk and branches. Commands for characteristics: l drawing leaves or not. b branching or not for the trunk. m multiple branches at same level or not. h straight trunk or not. f fractal characteristic: branches have same form than the trunk. c conical form. The trunk can be gray or brown (n), leaves are green or snowed (v). To save parameters, type 'p', then give a name, the program adds to the TRE extension. To load a tree, press 'g' and gives the name without extension. ┌────────────────────┐ │ THE THREE-D VIEWER │ └────────────────────┘ This utilities allows to display the objects you create with MegaSprites in a Three-D view. I you are a registered user, you are provided a object module to add the function to your program, and also you are provided the source in C standard language of the algo that make this 3D maze you see in the new games that come on the market in the last year. The algo is short, and the beauty of this routine, is as for the fractal threes, you paint only one image, and have it reproduced on all the walls of the virtual city the algo draws. This speed however is not that of these programs you have seen for the reason the present program don't use look-up tables that store the result of calculations. These tables require more than 100Kb and may not be included with the editors. They should also be rewritten when one changes the size of the sce- nery. In this unregistered version, size of the sprites is limited to 80 x 80 that is not sufficient for the walls, and so a special version of MegaSprites is provided with the registered version that is the same program, with a 16 color palette and a 160 x 160 drawing window. The Screen Maker program provided with the registered version also allows to import pictures having until 320x200 pixels. The bar of icons at bottom display these function from left to right: 1) Set the corridor view. 2) Set the front wall view. 3) Get the previous image. 4) Get the next image. 5) - 8) Change the size. 9) Go to MegaSprites. 10) Return to the desktop. Above the bar of icon is an indicator that shows if the view display an image or only the structure of scenery. If you wish to change the size of the scenery, set first the view to the green lines for faster display. That be done by a click on the indicator. Summary of commands: g Get the image to the view. DEL Remove the image from the view. e Set the corridor view. f Set the front panel view. PAGE UP Newt image. PAGE DOWN Previous image. < Reduce the width. > Increase the width. - Reduce the height. + Increase the height. M Go to MegaSprites. ESC Return to the desktop. ┌─────────────────────┐ │ FORMATS FOR SPRITES │ └─────────────────────┘ All formats but MS are for displaying sprites from bottom to top of screen. Coordinate of sprite, but special F and EAS, are - 0..639 x 0..479 on VGA 18 and SVGA, - 0..319 x 0..199 on VGA 19. Size is limited only by editors, 80 x 80 with MegaSprites and VGA 18 sprite editor, 320 x 200 with Screen Maker. Encoding use either bitmap: 16, 256, Z16 or bit planes: F16, MS, EAS. Bit planes encoding displays very fast on VGA 18 (or VGA 16-EGA) screen resolution. Bitmap is an universal encoding that displays on MCGA, VGA, SVGA with appropriate functions. Principle of bitmap is to store all bits of a pixel into a byte of memory, while bit planes encoding stores image by screen planes. The 256 colors format. It's a universal format to display sprites with all VGA and SVGA screen modes. Each pixel is coded with one byte, according to the bitmap encoding. In VGA 19 these sprites can be displayed very fast. Header: Byte 0: height, from 1 to 200. Byte 1: unused Byte 2-3: width from 1 to 320. Byte 4: format code 1. Byte 5: unused The 16 colors format. A universal format for VGA and SVGA. No compressed. The palette number allows on 256 color screen to display the same sprite with different sets of colors. It uses bitmap encoding with a byte holding two pixels. Header: Byte 0: height, from 1 to 200. Byte 1: unused Byte 2-3: width from 1 to 320. Byte 4: format code 5. Byte 5: palette row number. The 16 colors Z-RLE format. A universal format for VGA and SVGA. Image is coded with an RLE compression algorithm that allows a display with same fast speed than no compressed sprite. Compression can divide size by 5 or more, depending of complexity of the image. The palette number allows on 256 color screen to display a same sprite with different sets of colors. Use bitmap encoding. Header: as above, with format code 4. The F16 (fast) format. It is a format for VGA 18, that displays sprites very fast, with no boundary, so horizontal coordinate is in range 0..79 and not 0..639. Use bit planes encoding. Header: Byte 0: height, from 1 to 200. Byte 1: unused Byte 2-3: width from 1 to 80. Byte 4: format code 6. Byte 5: unused. The EAS (Easy) format. This format allows to make sprite with variable number of screen pages, from 1 to 4, and so displaying animation without erasing background. Uses bit planes encoding. Header: Byte 0: height, from 1 to 200. Byte 1: unused Byte 2-3: width from 1 to 80. Byte 4: format code 3. Byte 5: unused. MS Format to display sprites from top to bottom of screen. It uses bit planes encoding. Header: Byte 0: height, from 1 to 200. Byte 1: unused Byte 2-3: width from 1 to 320. Byte 4: format code 2. Byte 5: unused. Icons. When icons are packed in a single file, they use the 256 or 16 colors format or compressed Z-RLE format. They also can be saved into an ICO file with Windows' format. Functions of the library in the registered version that display icons use color 9 as background color and don't put it on the screen, that is for rather display the 0 color that corresponds to the most useful black color. ┌────────────────┐ │ FILE FORMATS │ └────────────────┘ Extensions are entirely managed by the program. If user gives an extension when asked for a filename, the program removes it and puts the proper extension. Each type of file has its proper extension. SPR Sprite table. Can hold relative addresses of sprites, or no. WRK Work file, it is created when saving sprites and it holds preferences, palette, board of automatons. ADR Addresses of sprites in the table. Generated by a CTRL-s. PCX Picture file, the standard format. VRT Picture file, more compressed format with fast display. VGA Picture file with no header, no compressed. PAL Palette. Bytes 0 to 767 are RGB registers, byte 768 is unused, bytes 769..784 for colors 0..15 of the VGA 18 palette. AUT Automaton. Each sprite number use two bytes. Bytes 0 et 1 of the file hold the number of sprites. TRE Tree file, holds 12 parameters, one byte each. ICO Standard Windows' (c) icon file. ASC Sprite saved as ASCII file. ┌───────────────┐ │ COMPATIBILITY │ └───────────────┘ This new version is fully compatible with the previous ver- sions. However new variables for configuration have been added since version 1.6 to configuration (WRK) files, also some win- dows can be black when loading old files. To fix that, change colors with ALT-b and ALT-h and save the file. Since version 1.7 compatibility is full between Screen Maker that produces 320 x 200 images and VTools.