Description of the Amiga program "Mnuł" version 1.04 (march 1999) NAME Mnuł - Let's you manipulate one or two animations realtime on the screen. AUTHORS Mnuł is written by Rob Haarsma, with valuable additions from Harro Mantel. The animation source code of Mnu and Mnu˛ was based on Olaf 'Olsen' Barthel's Mandelsquare˛ fractal program. Mnuł uses the animation playback codes of CyberAnim from Peter McGavin. VERSION Version 1.04 of Mnuł completed 20 March 1999. Compiled on a Amiga 1200 with SAS/C Amiga Compiler 6.58, while listening to Coil's Amethyst Deceivers. PUBLISHER © 1994-99 by TNCCI Inc. All Rights Reserved. Distribution of Mnuł is NOT prohibited. DESCRIPTION Mnuł displays one (single) or two (combined) Amiga animation 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 many buttons on the keyboard. There are unlimited different combinations possible, play around to get the best results. (Read the Quick Start chapter !) INSTALL The downloaded lha archive contains four different processor versions of Mnuł. So unpack the lha archive to your disk and erase the versions that you will not use. Next step is to open the Mnuł icon information from the workbench and specify, to your needs, the following directory settings: ANIMDIR=dh1:Animations PRESETDIR=dh1:Mnuł/presets SAVEIMAGEDIR=RAM: SYNOPSIS Mnuł - activate icon from Workbench. Load animations by pressing one of the first two filerequester buttons at the right of the window. The third filerequester button is for loading Mnuł preset files. (You need to create some first !) Show the selected animation(s) by activating the first two on/off buttons at the left of the window, and press the >Run Mnuł< button. During Mnuł playback you can save the current display effects in a presetfile by pressing F10. ****Caution:********************************************** There is NO "overwrite existing presetfile ?" protection ! ********************************************************** Load a presetfile with the third filerequester. When a preset is loaded it is also possible to repeat the effect on other animations. Simply load a new animation by pressing the filerequester button or activate it by pressing the desired on/off button. ENVIRONMENT Mnuł will use the settings specified in the icon information. If you'd like to change the Mnuł display settings, change the NOMODEREQ into (NOMODEREQ) and save the icon information. Though this is not recommended because Mnuł will lose all control over the image scrolling, it might give you the ability to select the Cybergraphics display modes. This is not tested ! OPERATORS --------- Mnuł has a lot of playback operators, which are activated by pressing keys on the amiga keyboard. These keys are divided into four sections and can have a different way of operating: (but) activate by pressing once. (butx3) circulate 3 options. (toggle) press once it's on, a second press sets it off. (row) activate one from multiple options. [1] GENERAL OPERATORS --------------------- Mouse motions Scrolls the animation over the screen. Read the 'Motion Operators' chapter to understand how the images react to the mouse motions. When a wipe pattern is activated, the horizontal mouse motions will deform the image. see 'Effect Operators' LeftMousebutton (toggle) pause/play the first animation. RightMousebutton (toggle) pause/play the second animation. Spacebar (toggle) pause/play both animations. F10 (but) Gives a filerequester so you can save the current Mnuł settings to a presetfile. Caution: when a existing preset filename is entered, the file will be overwritten ! All motion, mixing and effect settings are saved, however... please note that paused animations get rewinded !! Escape (but) Quit Mnuł playback. Backspace (but) Saves the on screen image to a IFF file. You can specify the output directory in the Mnuł icon settings. Multiple savings are called mnu3print000.iff, mnu3print001.iff, etc... Mnuł will check in the directory for the file with the highest adjoining number and will continue naming from there. Arrow Keys (but) The directional keys give you the ability to center the entire display screen. a (toggle) This will display the animations without any Mnuł effects. ` (toggle) This will try to reduce image flickering. ' (toggle) This will try even harder to reduce image flickering. Numeric Pad 0 (but) Resets all modifiers. Favourite button for newcomers ! Numeric Pad + (but) Increases the animation tempo. Numeric Pad - (but) Decreases the animation tempo. [2] MIXING OPERATORS -------------------- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, q, w, e, r, t, y (row) 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. f (toggle) Activates digital feedback. g (toggle) Activates analogue feedback when using two animations. You'll need to activate the digital feedback (f) as well to obtain the optimal effect. k (toggle) With two anims, this key will activate a color 0 superimpose. F9 (toggle) Switches between the two color palettes of the animations. Del (toggle) Switches between the two color palettes each frame. Help (toggle) Swaps automatically (without mixing) between animations each frame. [3] MOTION OPERATORS -------------------- o (butx3) Selects the mouse control speed. Default is medium, one press and its fast, another press sets the mouse control speed very slow. Slow is great when the image movements have to be precise. z, x, c (row) z The scrolling motion of both anims is equal to the mousemovements. x The scrolling motion of both anims accelarates with the mousemovements. c The scrolling motion of both anims will continue forever. b, n, m (row) b The scrolling motion of anim 1 is equal to the mousemovements. n The scrolling motion of anim 1 accelarates with the mousemovements. m The scrolling motion of anim 1 will continue forever. [,], [.], [/] (row) , The scrolling motion of anim 2 is equal to the mousemovements. . The scrolling motion of anim 2 accelarates with the mousemovements. / The scrolling motion of anim 2 will continue forever. TAB (toggle) Switch the motion settings of both animations. Numeric Pad ( (toggle) Disables Horizontal mouse input. Numeric Pad ) (toggle) Disables Vertical mouse input. [ (toggle) Locks screen position and disables scrolling for anim 1. ] (toggle) Locks screen position and disables scrolling for anim 2. - (but) Move the animations in the opposite direction. = (but) Move the animations in the same direction. Return (but) Places the animations to the centers of the screen. F8 (butx3) Performes a slow, fast and speedy automatic rotation of the mouse. [4] EFFECT OPERATORS -------------------- s (toggle) Audio Wave Deform. When a sampler with audiosignal is connected to your amiga, the images will react to music. F1 (butx4) Mirrors the image on screen. Pressing once mirrors the left half of the image, twice the right half, three times the upper and pressing four times mirrors the lower half of the image. F2 (butx3) Duplicates the image on screen. Pressing once doubles the image horizontal, twice doubles it vertical, and pressing F2 once more will display the image four times on screen. F3 (butx3) Enlarges the image on screen. Pressing once scales the image horizontal, twice scales it vertical, and pressing three times will display a 50% zoom of the image. F4 (toggle) Performes a 4 times kaleidoscope of the on screen image. F6 (toggle) Mirrors the image horizontal. (slow due to binary restrictions) F7 (toggle) Mirrors the image vertical. d (toggle) Enlarges the image vertical. Numeric Pad 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, / (row) Activate and select wipe pattern; 1 deforms the image with a half sinewave. 2 deforms the image with a half cosinewave. 3 deforms the image with a full sinewave. 4 deforms the image with a three sinewaves. 5 rolls the top of the image of the screen. 6 pinches the bottom of the image. 7 generates a dropout line in the image. 8 generates five dropout lines in the image. 9 performs a blockmove on the image. / shears the image. Numeric Pad [.] (but) Deactivate wipe pattern. Numeric Pad * (toggle) Toggles the function of the mouse motions. When a wipe pattern is selected, the mousemotions will automatically control the wipe pattern deform. Pressing Numeric Pad * will toggle the mousemotions control between image scrolling and the wipe deform. QUICK START Here are a few tricks to figure out how Mnuł really works... - Load one animation, press F1, move the mouse a bit, and walk through the 10 different wipe patterns by pressing the numbers (1 - 9 and /) on the numeric pad. Keep moving the mouse to control the effect. Deactivate the wipe by pressing the numeric pad [.]. - Load one animation, press C, move the mouse, press F4 and watch Mnuł turn your animation into a interactive caleidoscope. - To experience the digital feedback feature, load one animation, press f (feedback) and select a mixing method. 3 or e are best with feedback. Move the mouse... there ya go ! KNOWN BUGS There's one mouse movement that'll hang the program, but it is not located yet. Reports are welcome. 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 Mnu 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. Mnu˛ 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. The development of Mnuł was stimulated by the Amsterdam Fonds voor Beeldende Kunst. The program is now capable of playing every amiga animation format and has the ability to store and replay desired playback settings. And to make Mnuł more user friendly, an interactive helpwindow has been added. FUTURE The future of Mnuł depends on the future of Amiga, myself, and whatever happens next. CONTACT Contact the authors at: rob@captainvideo.nl (Rob Haarsma) hmantel@cs.vu.nl (Harro Mantel)