MnuČ(1) USER MANUAL MnuČ(1) NAME MnuČ - manipulates realtime one or two animations on screen. AUTHORS MnuČ is written by Rob Haarsma, with valuable additions from Harro Mantel. The animation display code is ripped from Olaf 'Olsen' Barthel's MandelsquareČ fractal exploration program. The assembler animation unpack code is written by Jim Kent (Dancing Flame). VERSION Version 2.5.1 of MnuČ completed 29 Januari 1998 Compiled on a Amiga 2000 with SAS/C Amiga Compiler 6.00, while listening to Tackhead Power Inc. Volume 3 (Live). PUBLISHER © 1994-98 by TNCCI Inc. All Rights Reserved. Distribution of MnuČ is NOT prohibited. SYNOPSIS MnuČ - activate icon from Workbench. DESCRIPTION MnuČ displays one (single) or two (mixed) ANIM-5 files on the screen. While playing, the user can move the images realtime with the mouse. The user can also modify the appearance of the images with the use of several buttons on the keyboard. There are many different combinations possible, play around to get the best results. (Read the Quick Start chapter !) RESTRICTIONS MnuČ operates with 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 color animations that are created with ie. DeluxePaint4.6 (or less). When you're working with two animations, make sure that both size and number of colors are the same. Needless to say that the best performance is retreived by a minimum of colors. If the ANIM-5 file contains AGA or 256 color information, MnuČ will cause graphical artifacts that'll result in a system-crash. The authors hope to solve this problem in a future version. For now you can load and save the animation in DeluxePaint4.6 to get rid of the AGA rubbish. OPERATORS Mouse motions Scrolls the images over the screen. With two animations the second animation will move the opposite way. Z (default) The scrolling motion is equal to the mousemovements. X The scrolling motion accelarates with the mousemovements. C The scrolling motion will continue forever. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, q, w, e, r, t, y These buttons determine the mix mode of the animations. They represent all sorts of logical operations to combine and merge the bitplanes of the animations. Use them as you like. With one animation 5 is default, with two 1 is the default. TAB Select a (one of ten) wipe pattern, only visible when F1 is activated. Backspace Saves the on screen image as an IFF picture to ram disk. Multiple savings are called mnusession.000, mnusession.001, etc. Arrow Keys Move the complete screen. Numeric Pad + Increases the animation tempo. Numeric Pad - Decreases the animation tempo. Numeric Pad 2, 4, 6, 8 Move the mouse 1 pixel. Numeric Pad 0 Resets all modifiers. Favourite button for newcomers ! Escape Quits MnuČ. MODIFIERS All following buttons operate as toggles. Press once means ON, press again and it's OFF. Mousebuttons, Spacebar Freezes the first animation. f Activates digital feedback when using two animations. F1 Wipes the images when moving the mouse, according to the selected wipe-pattern. (use TAB button to select pattern). F2 Shears the images when moving the mouse. F3 Displays a quarter of the screen 4 times. F4 Performes a x and y mirroring of a quarter of the screen. F5 Enlarges the upper halve of the screen. F6 Performes a Y mirror. F7 Performes a X Mirror. (slow due to binary restrictions) F8 Performes a slow rotation of the mouse. F9 Performes a fast rotation of the mouse. F10 Swaps between the color palettes of the animations. Del Swaps automatically between palettes. Help Swaps automatically (without mixing) between animations. Numeric Pad ( Locks x scrolling. Numeric Pad ) Locks y scrolling. BITPLANE OPERATORS The following operators allow you to move the image's bitplanes separately. Their functionality depends on the number of colors of the animation(s). ' Lock bitplane #1 (works with 2 or more color animations) [ Unlock bitplane #1 ; Lock bitplane #2 (works with 4 or more color animations) p Unlock bitplane #2 l Lock bitplane #3 (works with 8 or more color animations) o Unlock bitplane #3 k Lock bitplane #4 (works with 16 or more color animations) i Unlock bitplane #4 j Lock bitplane #5 (works with 32 color animations) u Unlock bitplane #5 ENVIRONMENT MnuČ will hold the current animation filename in ram:mnuČ.fnc. If this file is missing, it will use Work: as the current path. QUICK START Here are a few tricks to figure out how MnuČ really works... - Load one animation, press F1, move the mouse a bit, and walk through the 10 different wipe patterns by pressing TAB. Keep moving the mouse to control the effect. Deactivate the wipe by pressing F1 again. - Load one animation, press C, move the mouse, press F4 and watch MnuČ turn your animation into a interactive caleidoscope. - To experience the digital feedback feature, load one animation, press 3 or e and move the mouse. For digital feedback with two animations; load two anims, press 3 or e (or 2,4,r,t, etc...) and press f. Enhance the feedback effect by activating the wipe patterns. You never saw this much garbage without crashing your Amiga. PAD 0 (reset all) will help you to clean the mess. - Obtain a realtime outline effect by loading the same animation twice, press 2 (the image disappears), and press a few times on the PAD (2,4,6 or 8) directional buttons. - To see the effect of the bitplane operators, load an animation that has more than two colors, don't move the mouse, freeze the animation by pressing the mousebuttons or space bar, press ' to lock bitplane #1 and move the mouse. Unlock the bitplane (#1) by pressing [. KNOWN BUGS Sometimes when using MnuČ, the filerequesters will seize to appear due to an error with the asl.library. A fresh restart will solve this problem. HISTORY The program was originally designed to scroll a huge animated image over the screen. While writing, I got addicted to the possibilities of the animation playback code, thus MnuČ was born. Since then the program developed into an interactive graphic tool that's capable of transforming simple animations into a variety of different appearances. MnuČ has been used by Captain Video during their VJ performances, where animations were made 'on the fly' to become an intuitive part of the live mixed imagery. FUTURE There are plans for a 3.0 version where I'd like to implement AGA and ANIM7 support. I'm also playing with the idea to include colorcycling and sampler code, so that the images will react to music. Requests and suggestions are welcome ! VERSIONS v1.0 Jun 95 buggy command-line version v2.1 Jan 97 workbench version v2.3 Feb 97 fully debugged version v2.4e Oct 97 hi-res animations reimplemented v2.4f Nov 97 speed optimised version v2.4h Jan 98 code optimised version v2.5.0 Jan 98 first public release at www.captainvideo.nl v2.5.1 Jan 98 wipe patterns added, MnuČ.doc extended Jun 98 MnuČ uploaded to aminet (a bit late... sorry !) CONTACT Contact the authors at: rob@captainvideo.nl (Rob Haarsma) hmantel@cs.vu.nl (Harro Mantel) Info-MnuČ Last change: 6 Jun 98 (v2.5.1) (1)