Best Objectech Shareware Selections/UNTITLED.iso/boss/grap/anim/007/whatsnew.dta

Text File | 1992-12-16 | 18KB | 373 lines

What's new in DTA:

 Rel 1.8e (12/17/92)
  o For some reason the /NM option didn't work anymore.  Fixed.
  o Fixed a bug in FLC compression... it caused the wrong pixels
    to be updated when there was a change in a pixel row after a
    run of more than 254 unchanged pixels.
  o Fixed a bug that caused a page-fault (runtime error 216)
    when creating GIF or TGA files in the protected mode
    version.
  o There used to be a limit on the width of pictures that DTA
    could process... if you made it read a picture wider than
    1280 pixels, you'd either get a spectacular crash requiring
    a reboot (real mode) or an error message (protected mode).
    Now it should be able to process pictures with a width up
    to 16K pixels or so without crashing.
 Rel 1.8d (11/30/92)
  o Fixed one bug, which prevented DTA from creating 1-frame
    flics correctly.
  o Including two versions of DTA... DTA.EXE (real mode) and
    DTAX.EXE (protected mode).  The memory management stuff
    that I included in 1.8b and 1.8c is now separated into
    another archive, DTAMEM.ZIP.
    The real-mode version runs faster than the protected-mode
    version, but only gives you access to 640K of memory.
 Rel 1.8c (11/27/92)
  o Whoops, introduced some new bugs in 1.8b.  Got ZIP, LZH, and
    ARJ working fine, but it wouldn't read pictures outside of
    archives anymore.
 Rel 1.8b (11/27/92)
  o Fixed a bug that caused a runtime error 204 whenever a frame
    couldn't be compressed and had to be stored raw.
  o Flics of resolutions other than 320x200 are now saved with the
    extension 'FLC' instead of 'FLI'... to be consistent with
    conventions established by Autodesk's Animator Pro.
  o This is the first version of DTA to be compiled in 286 protected
    mode.  This means that DTA can access up to 16MB of extended
    memory without all that messy EMS/XMS/virtual memory management.
    It also means DTA doesn't recognize EMS or page to disk any more.
    If you require EMS or virtual memory, stick with the original
    version 1.8.
    Two extra files (DPMI16BI.OVL and RTM.EXE) are distributed
    along with DTA to support protected mode.  You must keep these
    files either in the same directory as DTA, or in the DOS path.
    When DTA is run from inside a Microsoft Windows enhanced-mode
    DOS window, it'll use Windows' DPMI services instead of the
    Borland DPMI server.
  o MAYBE fixed a bug in FLC compression.
  o DTA can read pictures stored in ZIP and ARJ archives as well
    as the previously supported LZH archives ... IF you've got the
    appropriate de-archiver (PKUNZIP.EXE, ARJ.EXE, LHA.EXE) in your
    DOS path.

 Rel 1.8 (11/08/92)
  o DTA couldn't locate PCX, IMG, or GIF files in LZH archives... fixed.
  o DTA can now read 24-bit PCX files (as well as the previously
    supported 8-bit type).
  o Added some additional error-checking so DTA will stop with an error
    message if it runs out of disk space while creating output files.
    Previously it just kept on trying to write to a full disk.
  o In a previous version, made some changes in the GIF-writing
    code to speed it up and use less memory.  As a result, upside-
    down TGAs weren't getting flipped rightside-up like they're
    supposed to... fixed.
  o Removed some useless experimental options: /L, /E, /O
    If anybody ever actually found a use for any of these, let me know
    and I'll put 'em back.
  o Removed /W, since it was only added as a workaround to a bug that's
    now finally fixed.
  o Added GIF89a input. (extension blocks are IGNORED)
  o Fiddled with output-file parameters.  You now specify the output
    filename with /O, and the format with /F instead of specifying
    both with /F
  o Added /H, which lets you adjust brightness.  /HA50 increases the
    values of red, green, and blue by 50%.  /HR200 /HG-25 increases the
    value of red by 200%, and decreases green by 25%.
  o Added /C, which lets you skip frames when scanning for a palette.
    If you use /C5, then DTA will only scan 1 picture for every 5
    in your animation.
  o Added /K, which lets you skip input files when generating a
    flic.  If you use /K3, DTA will ignore 2 frames out of every 3.
    If you use both /K2 and /C2, then DTA will skip every other
    picture, and create a palette out using only 1 of every 4
    pictures.
  o Fiddled with the time blurb so it writes in minutes and seconds
    instead of milliseconds.

 Rel 1.7g (08/27/92)
  o Fixed a rarely-encountered bug in 320x200 FLI compression.
  o Reworked the documentation (actually, Dan Farmer did most all of
    this task).

 Rel 1.7f (07/19/92)
  o Fixed some weird bugs in selecting output filenames for GIF files.
  o Added /PO option, which causes DTA to create a single optimal
    palette even when it's creating GIF files.

 Rel 1.7e (07/02/92)
  o Removed all the logging code, since the memory allocation
    problems seem to be licked.
  o First attempt at creating hi-color and true-color FLIs.
    (To create a hi-color FLI, use the /b16 parameter.  The
     resulting file with have an extension of FLH.  To create
     a true-color FLI, use /b24.  The resulting file will have
     an extension of FLT.)
    So far there's no player that will display these new files,
    but Steve Enns is working on one.
  o The color-mapping speedups in the previous version resulted
    in bad color choices in some cases.  Added an extra
    step between palette selection and color-mapping that
    should improve it.
  o Added /RA parameter (auto-resolution)... tells DTA to use
    the size of the first picture to decide how big to make
    an FLI.  Note: use this parameter only with pictures with
    even horizontal dimensions.
  o When DTA used XMS to store pictures, it wasn't always clearing
    the picture buffer when it was supposed to... resulting in
    some background garbage when animating pictures smaller than
    the FLI.
  o Added /DR (random dither) parameter.  Adds/or subtracts a
    random value from each pixel.  Random values are the same
    across frames, so FLIs shouldn't explode in size like they
    sometimes do with error-diffusion dithers like Floyd-Steinberg
    and Sierra Lite.
    Specify the range of the random number by appending a number
    to the /DR parameter, like this:
     dta *.tga /dr4
    That will result in random numbers ranging from -4 to 4.
    Note: I stole the idea from Stephen Coy's IMG2GIF program.
  o Got rid of /M parameter, which affected the order of
    color-tree pruning.  It was a failed experiments in
    improving color-selection.
  o Changed /MI (max internal colors) parameter to /M
  o Changed RLE TGA output so that line boundaries aren't
    crossed within a packet... (to avoid a VPIC bug)

 Rel 1.7d (04/25/92)
  o Fixed some more memory allocation problems.
  o Speeded up color-mapping.  When dithering, there should
    be a big speed increase.  When not dithering there should
    be a lesser increase.
  o Added Sierra Lite dithering (/DS parameter).  SL dither
    another error-diffusion-type dither, somewhat quicker
    than Floyd-Steinberg.

 Rel 1.7c (04/15/92)
  o Fixed a bug in grayscale output.
  o Reduced the amount of memory required for the color tree.
  o Fixed some other memory-related problems.
  o Got rid of V (verbose), and added /LOG (which causes
    assorted memory allocation info and other boring
    debugging-type data to be written to a file called "DTA.LOG".
  o Added /MI parameter (which means "maximum internal colors").
    The octree color routine allows only 256 colors to exist
    in the tree at any time.  Whenever the number of colors
    exceeds 256, parts of the tree get truncated.
    With /MI, you can change that maximum number of colors
    to something other than 256.
    If you change it to a number larger than 256, then the palette
    will not be reduced to 256 colors until DTA is done scanning
    pictures.
    This can result in a nicer palette, but it uses more
    memory.  I've h