Short: FDPro game rendered w/Imagine
Author: jwalkup@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu
Uploader: jwalkup sfsuvax1 sfsu edu
Type: gfx/anim
FR 101 -- A quick'n'dirty colortest animation.
ANIM Op5 - about 440 frames - meant to be played back at 15fps - resolution
of 640x400, with 16 colors, though only 7 or 8 of them are used ....
dunno why. On my A3000, this plays back much smoother in Anim7 format,
depending on your CPU, you might want to convert it. I'm not distributing
it this way because a) it's smaller as anim5 b) Not everyone has the tools
for Anim7 playback, and c) It might not be faster on other Amigas.
Architecture: generic
Details:
This originated as a two-player FDPro (*1) game, recorded of course,
with the FR (*2). Three Imagine files were made (*3), destaged
with ISL (*4) and combined in a text editor. The results were
restaged and thrown at Imagine 2.0. The Arch object and a ground-
plane was placed properly, the colors for the sky set, some light
added, and every other frame (hence the 15fps) rendered in
"Color-Shade" mode.
*1 - Fighter Duel Pro, a 2 player head-to-head WWII aircraft combat
simulator. Duelling was done over 2400 baud modem. The plane
flown was the Spitfire Mk.IV (chosen randomly - I swear!)
*2 - Flight Recorder, lets you save your flights to disk, and use the
resulting 3D paths in several Amiga 3D-animation packages.
*3 - Three binary Imagine staging files.
#1- First pilot's path, me, the plane in the foreground.
#2- Second pilot's path, Eric Penn, the victim (sorry!)
#3- The camera's path, which was made from the first pilot's
path, offset by 4 frames.
These paths were created at 30fps resolution, but rendered
for 15fps playback, to speed rendering and save space.
*4 - ISL, the Imagine Staging Language by John T. Grieggs.
Basically, ISL converts the Imagine "staging" files, the files
where Imagine stores all of it's keyframe animation info, into
a human-readable form (ASCII). In this case, the text files
were manipulated by-hand in a text editor to cut and paste the
three FR-generated paths into a single staging file. It was
easier than it sounds! ISL was used in the creation of the
FDPro Flight Recorder, so I'm told. I wish they'd left in the
option to save directly to ISL.
Flight Notes:
At one point in this Duel, I pulled back too hard and went into
a high-speed stall. This is where Eric was zooming above the
Arch, I was trying to follow. This caused my plane to do that
little wing-dip and the view to rotate. This is not an error in
the Flight Recorder, nor in Imagine, this is accurate. It's
very ugly though, isn't it? I hate when I do that!
What you see here is the second phase of this Duel. During the
first part, I made a nice easy loop while Eric turned around
hard. Then Eric executed a half-roll and climbed again - this
was dumb, I should know, I used to do it all the time. Eric lost
a lot of speed while I did a wide lo-yoyo and came up, closing on
Eric fast and loosing a little lead. This is where the animation
begins. Eric has rounded his second loop and I am above him
coming down. He pretty much didn't have a chance at this point.
Although, after we had dove under the arch, I was using full flaps
to keep inside of his turn. He then zoomed, which could have been
a good move if he had kept climbing. Instead he started rolling
wildly, jinking my fire. What he probably didn't know was that
I was about to poop out, having spent all my energy on my last
maneuver in order to take my shot. He went over the top and
dove again, which allowed me to regain speed in the dive.
Splash one. The point where Eric's plane disappears in the anim
is where I got the kill.
Next up for the animation:
Insert "real" Spitfire objects, make a suitable background (whizzing under
the Golden Gate Bridge would be nice!), adjust lighting, and render at full
quality. Shouldn't be more than 500 megabytes when it's finished.... look
for it on nets everywhere... or maybe not.
--
Lt. Jeff "Blackjack" Walkup - INTERNET: jwalkup@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu
Eric Penn can be reached on GEnie as "STUPID", or stupid@genie.geis.com
Mega-thanks to John T. Grieggs for ISL. Take a bow! If you use Imagine
at all, you -=NEED=- ISL!
(C)opywrong 1993, No rights reserved, never, no how, nowheres. HAVE FUN!
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