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Author Topic: ALS, a new graphics system - RELEASED!  (Read 16964 times)

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Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: ALS, a new graphics system
« Reply #14 on: October 15, 2020, 01:13:29 PM »
VIDEO PREVIEW #5

Since last time, I improved/fixed a few things, revised greatly the documentation and updated the programs shown in the video. I also prepared the project web page: https://www.retream.com/ALS (redirects to https://retream.itch.io/als).
Currently I'm continuing to revise the documentation iteratively: when no more corrections are needed, ALS will be released - and I hope to make that happen this week.
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 
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Offline Louis Dias

Re: ALS, a new graphics system
« Reply #15 on: October 15, 2020, 05:00:13 PM »
Very impressive!!!
 

Offline klx300r

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Re: ALS, a new graphics system
« Reply #16 on: October 19, 2020, 07:47:59 AM »
looking great!
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Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: ALS, a new graphics system - RELEASED!
« Reply #17 on: November 01, 2020, 11:01:21 AM »
It took longer than I thought, but finally ALS is out!
Get it for free from https://www.retream.com/ALS.
I hope that it will be useful to somebody, and that some day I'll get to see a cool game made with it ;)

FINAL VIDEO
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Offline klx300r

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Re: ALS, a new graphics system - RELEASED!
« Reply #18 on: November 03, 2020, 07:53:56 PM »
big time congrats on the release of ALS ;D
____________________________________________________________________
c64-dual sids, A1000, A1200-060@50, A4000-CSMKIII
Indivision AGA & Catweasel MK4+= Amazing
! My Master Miggies-Amiga 1000 & AmigaOne X1000 !
--- www.mancave-ramblings.blogspot.ca ---
  -AspireOS.com & Amikit- Amiga for your netbook-
***X1000- I BELIEVE *** :angel:
 

Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: ALS, a new graphics system - RELEASED!
« Reply #19 on: March 22, 2021, 03:52:00 PM »
I have released a minor bugfix update for ALS which fixes a few minor issues.

v1.89 (21.03.2021)
* Fixed bug in ALS_SET_DISPLAY_COLORS_RANGE_FROM_PALETTE_SEGMENT[], which caused the low 12 bits of the colors to be set to the same value as the high 12 bits (because the instruction Areg(0)=PSA was placed just after the beginning of a loop, despite the comment just above said: "Areg(0) is set only once before the loop thanks to the fact that it is updated by Call with the value returned by ALS_SETCOLORXXRANGE()").
* Replaced all End/Pop Proc[False] with End/Pop Proc[0], as False might crash the Compiler in some circumstances.
* Fixed a comment in the ALS code.
* Fixed the metadata of a couple of ILBM files.
* Added a note to the demo3 program.
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 

Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: ALS, a new graphics system - RELEASED!
« Reply #20 on: June 06, 2021, 11:04:44 AM »
Working on Follix (which uses ALS) inspired a few improvements.

v1.94 (06.06.2021)
 * Added ALS_CHECK_LAYER_INDEX[].
 * Added ALS_COPY_PALETTE_SEGMENT[].
 * Added ALS_CREATE_LAYER_AS_CLONE[].
 * Added ALS_SET_LAYER_A_AND_COLORS_FROM LAYER[].
 * Made check on layer index in ALS_DESTROY_LAYER[] and ALS_MAKE_LAYER_DESCRIPTOR[] more robust.
 * Removed check on layer index from ALS_GET_LAYER_DEPTH[].
 * Simplified ALS_OPEN_FILE[].
 * Updated manual.

https://www.retream.com/ALS
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 

Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: ALS, a new graphics system - RELEASED!
« Reply #21 on: July 04, 2021, 09:44:47 PM »
Just released another update.

v1.95 (4.7.2021)
* Optimized ALS_SET_DISPLAY_COLORS_RANGE_FROM_PALETTE[] and ALS_SET_DISPLAY_COLORS_RANGE_FROM_PALETTE_RANGE[] a little bit.
* Removed wrong comment from ALS_SET_DISPLAY_COLORS_RANGE_FROM_PALETTE[].

https://www.retream.com/ALS

This is the last version that supports also OCS and ECS. ALS v2 will be AGA-only. The reason is that supporting all the chipsets requires lots of additional code and also slows down execution in many places, while functionality is still very limited on OCS and ECS due to the fact that they offer only 6 bitplanes and 32 color registers. ALS is much more useful on AGA, so it makes sense to have a leaner and faster version for that chipset.

Also, I decided to postpone the release of Follix to after ALS v2 is done, so that the game can benefit from it.
« Last Edit: July 04, 2021, 09:46:48 PM by saimo »
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 

Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: ALS, a new graphics system - RELEASED!
« Reply #22 on: July 06, 2021, 04:14:28 PM »
v1.96 and v2.0 released

As announced recently, here is ALS v2, whose main difference with the previous versions is that it's for AGA only and, therefore, can benefit from faster and smaller code (the compiled binary is about 3.5 kB smaller).
Besides the work done for the AGA-only transition, there are also a few more improvements, many of which made it also to a new v1 library (v1 is supposed to be end-of-line, but still I couldn't resist fixing/improving what surfaced along way). The changelogs below detail the changes.

https://www.retream.com/ALS

v2.0 (6.7.2021)
* Removed useless code from ALS_COPY_PALETTE_SEGMENT[].
* Removed OCS/ECS code.
* Removed OCS/ECS palettes support.
* Removed ALS_CHIPSETID, ALS_MAXLAYERCOLORSNUMBER, ALS_MAXPLANESNUMBER, ALS_PALETTECOLORSNUMBER, ALS_ADDRESSABLECOLORSNUMBER.
* Optimized code for AGA.
* Optimized ALS_SET_DISPLAY_COLORS_FROM_PALETTE[], ALS_SET_DISPLAY_COLORS_RANGE_FROM_PALETTE[] and ALS_SET_DISPLAY_COLORS_RANGE_FROM_PALETTE_SEGMENT[] a lot.
* Added ALS_BUILD_DISPLAY_COPPERLIST_HEAD[] and ALS_BUILD_DISPLAY_COPPERLIST_TAIL[].
* Made various other improvements.
* Revised/extended manual.

v1.96 (6.7.2021)
* Removed useless code from ALS_COPY_PALETTE_SEGMENT[].
* Optimized ALS_SET_DISPLAY_COLORS_FROM_PALETTE[] a little bit.
* Added ALS_BUILD_DISPLAY_COPPERLIST_HEAD[] and ALS_BUILD_DISPLAY_COPPERLIST_TAIL[].
* Made various other improvements.
* Revised/extended manual.

I have tested both version extensively through their test/demo programs and by means of ArtPazz and Follix. All tests have been done on a real Amiga 1200 (with and without accelerator board) and in UAE, and ran both from interpreter and as compiled programs. No issues were found, so it looks like the massive work didn't break anything.
« Last Edit: July 06, 2021, 04:40:37 PM by saimo »
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 

Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: ALS, a new graphics system - RELEASED!
« Reply #23 on: July 16, 2021, 04:04:24 PM »
Just released an update aimed at improving the terminology and the documentation.

v1.97 & v2.1 (16.7.2021)
 * Renamed "palette segments" as "segments".
 * Renamed: ALS_COPY_PALETTE_RANGE[] as ALS_COPY_SEGMENT_FROM_PALETTE_RANGE[]; ALS_EXTRACT_PALETTE_SEGMENT[] as ALS_CREATE_SEGMENT_FROM_PALETTE_RANGE[]; ALS_SET_DISPLAY_COLORS_RANGE_FROM_PALETTE_SEGMENT as ALS_SET_DISPLAY_COLORS_RANGE_FROM_SEGMENT[].
 * Updated/revised in-code documentation.
 * Updated/revised/fixed manual.

https://www.retream.com/ALS
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 

Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: ALS, a new graphics system - RELEASED!
« Reply #24 on: February 21, 2023, 12:38:00 PM »
A quick heads-up to let you know that I released a couple of littles updates.

v1.99 and v2.3 (20.2.2023)
* Changed the conditions of many If, Until and While statements and turned For ... Next loops into Repeat ... Until loops to have the AMOS Professional Compiler produce shorter and faster code.

v1.98 and v2.2 (19.2.2023)
* Added CPU caches clearing after machine code routines generation in ALS_INITIALIZE_SYSTEM[].

https://www.retream.com/ALS
https://retream.itch.io/als
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 

Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: ALS, a new graphics system - RELEASED!
« Reply #25 on: March 18, 2023, 02:38:18 PM »
Ring around the World received an update yesterday. Today is ArtPazz's and Follix's turn - but first comes the library they're built on: ALS.

v1.100 & v2.4 (18.3.2023)
* Removed dependency on mathtrans.library by replacing CN=2^LD with CN=1 : Rol.l LD,CN.
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 

Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: ALS, a new graphics system - RELEASED!
« Reply #26 on: May 22, 2023, 08:22:24 PM »
A couple of experiments done while brainstorming about a new game made with ALS.
The first effect is obtained basically at no processing cost, while the second one requires only the minimal cost of blitting a 2 bit mask. A stock Amiga 1200 can handle this without breaking a sweat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Il8SYeYoAs

To be honest, I'm at a loss regarding which game to make.
It all started with the itch of remaking the second game I ever made (and never publicly released), but while fiddling with ALS these effects came to mind - and they don't happen to be very suitable for that game.
So, I tried to think of alternatives, and the best idea I came up is a game where: there are two parallel worlds, a real (dangerous/dark) one and an illusory (pleasant/nice) one; the screen mostly shows the illusory world, but the character controlled by the player is inside a bubble around it that shows the real world or there's some mechanism that allows the player to somehow reveal the real world - e.g. with a sort of torch light. The problem with this idea is designing the game and producing the content (double graphics work!) - it's something I can't undertake now.
Also, a sports game is sorely missing from my catalogue, but so far I couldn't think of anything interesting.
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 

Offline TribbleSmasher

Re: ALS, a new graphics system - RELEASED!
« Reply #27 on: May 24, 2023, 04:04:50 PM »
it definitly sounds interesting; i remember a game named Evil Twin with a concept not too far off from that.
 

Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: ALS, a new graphics system - RELEASED!
« Reply #28 on: May 24, 2023, 05:04:05 PM »
I don't know that game. Anyway, it's unlikely I'll make a game based on the concept of world duality (as said, I can't afford that now).
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 

Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: ALS, a new graphics system - RELEASED!
« Reply #29 from previous page: May 29, 2023, 04:37:39 PM »
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC