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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Software News => Topic started by: softwarefailure on November 07, 2002, 05:22:47 PM
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After a long time of development, the Multimedia authoring system Hollywood
is available. Hollywood is a powerful and extensive program which is unique on the
Amiga. You could compare Hollywood with a modern version of Scala: But Hollywood works
fully in 24bit mode and uses only system functions to grant compatibility on every
Amiga system.
Check it out here (http://www.airsoftsoftwair.com/).
Because of this extreme system friendly programming Hollywood does also
run on Amiga emulators with great speed. Versions of Hollywood for MorphOS and AmigaOS4
and maybe also AROS are planned. On the Hollywood product page
you will find an extensive overview including screenshots from the program. In the
next days some applications done with Hollywood will be presented here. Hollywood
is delivered on CD-ROM and can be ordered now.
Hollywood is the Multimedia Application Layer for Amiga(tm) and compatible operating systems.
This means that it offers you a script language together with advanced functions that allow
you to create your own multimedia applications which range from a simple slideshow to a complex game.
The big advantage of Hollywood is, that it does all the framework for you. You do not have to
care for example, if your application is going to run on a ECS, OCS, AGA or RTG system. You
do not have to care if the Workbench screen your application runs on has 16 or 16.7 million colors.
You can concentrate yourself on the important thing which is your application and not its enviroment.
Hollywood is fully 24 bit enhanced which means that you do not have to mess around with palettes,
remapping and so on. Additionally it is fully integrated into AmigaOS(tm) and does not rely on a
specific custom hardware. Therefore Hollywood does also run on emulations like Amithlon or WinUAE
with amazing speed.
Using the Hollywood script language, the possibilities are almost unlimited. The basic version of
Hollywood comes with over 150 functions that range from disk operating system (DOS) functions to
functions that allow you to smoothly scroll animations and graphics on your display. There are
also many functions that allow you to display objects, pictures and texts with over 50 cool
transition effects or scale graphics and animations. You can also fade objects, texts and
pictures smoothly.
Hollywood uses the datatypes system to load all graphics, animations and sounds which allows
you to use all formats you have datatypes for. Additionally it supports unique things like
transparent windows which enhance the look-and-feel of your Workbench screen amazingly.
You can use true type fonts (with anti-aliasing), standard bitmap fonts and even the cool
Amiga color fonts with Hollywood.
The integrated sound system allows you to play various types of music modules (including
Protracker and OctaMED) but also sound samples. You have full control over this system because
you can specify which channels to use for play back.
Hollywood is a high-end application that needs some memory to work best. It uses a special
preload system so that all data is immediately accessible and the play back is incredibly fast.
Therefore it is advised that you have lots of memory (16 megabytes+) and also run a RTG
system like Picasso96 or CyberGraphX.
Hollywood is the absolutely number one choice in Amiga(tm) Multimedia nowadays and brings
the Amiga back to its roots...Multimedia! It comes with a compiler which can save your
applications as stand alone Amiga executables which may be freely distributed.
Hollywood is delivered on CD-ROM with many examples on it as well as over 250 kilobyte of
documentation in AmigaGuide format. It is only available directly from the author.
Although all this may sound a bit complicated to you, it is very easy. Programming skills
are not necessary. They are only of use if you want to create complex applications but for
the normal Hollywood usage, you do not need them because Hollywood is really easy to handle.
Graphics:
-Fully 24bit enhanced!
-Transparent windows are possible
-Over 50 transition effects for objects, pictures and texts
-Graphics can be scrolled smoothly
-Smooth and fast animation play back
-Support for transparent graphics and animations
-Functions for using textures
-Support for datatypes
-Support for true type, bitmap and color fonts
-Scaling of graphics is possible
-Application can open on Workbench or own screen
-Integrated easy Undo system
-Fully independent from the enviroment e.g. does not matter if user runs Picasso96 or CyberGraphX or AGA or ECS/OCS
Sound:
-Support for audio samples
-Full control over the audio channel playback
-Support for various music module formats
-Volume and pitch of samples can be modified during playback
-Sample size is not limited to 128 kilobyte
-Full Stereo playback
Script language:
-Variables, arrays and different data types (long, float, string)
-Conditions and loops can be used
-Easy handling of variables (no initialization, declaration)
-Functions for manipulating strings and doing math operations
-Compiler and linker to convert your script to an executable
-Inbuilt error handler that does all the error handling work for you
-Functions for debugging your script
-Labels that are fully integrated into the user interaction mode
-Plugins can be used to enhance Hollywood's functionality
User interaction:
-Buttons can be defined
-Hollywood buttons support mouse click and mouse over events
-Keyboard input can be monitored
-System keys can be monitored
-Window events (window is moved, sized, closed etc.) can be monitored with ease
System functions:
-Read from and write to files
-Easily read whole directories into an array
-Various file operations
-Many functions to handle files and work with them
-Query the Amiga system for information (e.g. CPU, Kickstart etc.)
-Retrieve information about hard disks, memory...
-Enhance your program to use different languages by using Hollywood's locale.library support
-Many time and date functions
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This sounds like a really cool program! Too bad no demo is available, but I understand the author's reasoning for it.
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Oh yes! I want this program.
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YYEEEEAAAAHHHH!!!! Finally we got it!!! Cool, really cool and impressive! I hope it will feature a sort of vector-based animation (Flash alike, or better: do you remember Fantavision?!?!?) and a FULL ontrol over .mod tunez (pattern jump and things like that!)
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I was so impressed, I just bought it :)
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This better be good as I just ordered it.
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please let us know how good it is when you try it :)
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Works with WinUAE ? Count me in on payday.
This better be good as I just ordered it.
"ditto"
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Yeah...this program seems to be very interesting. I hope author will release OS4 version soon after OS4 is released.
This program could replace Scala...If Scala is not interested Amiga software development anymore?
These kind of programs are very essential for the new OS to survive (In A/V business). I just hope they keep price reasonable. ;-)
Low prices of the application software has been strong point of Amiga from the beginning. :-)
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Yes I hope that a new version will be released with OS4. I have ordered this but I know that it is
only version 1. It probably lacks a few more professional things like the ability to play various
video clips like mpeg,avi,divx etc and probably lacks in the sound department, as I don`t know if it
can play mp3s etc. It sounds like version 1 is a very very good step in the right direction towards
a truly incredible piece of software.
I thank the guys behind this software, even before I receive my copy of it. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!