|dep 2 |fnt Prime 11 |plt 0,5,5,8 |plt 2,0,0,0 |plt 3,15,15,5 |spd 1 |col 2,1 |onc The Invisible World 2 - END BIT - |ofc |col 1,0 Press left-mouse to stop and start scrolling the text. Move mouse forwards and backwards to speed up and slow down. Right mouse quits ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I bet you`re wondering how that slideshow was put together eh? Well here`s the Digital Access Guide to Making a slideshow, as writen by the magazine`s editor Steven Lord! HOW THIS SLIDESHOW WAS MADE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1 - Get the subject! In this case, all of the pictures are in a book called The Invisible World. 2 - Firstly, a video camera was set up on a tripod and plugged into VidiAmiga digitzer. The camera used was a Panasonic MS1 Super-VHS (S-VHS) Camcorder. This gives out an excellent resolution. VidiAmiga was connected to a 1meg A500 with two drives. Lighting was provided by a basic angle-poise lamp with a normal 60W bulb. Additional lighting was provided by a nearby window in daylight. If the picture being digitized looks too over-exposed on screen, then it is rectified by moving the lamp further away from the book. The dark/light functions on VidiAmiga are too extreme for some jobs. 3 - After all the pictures are digitized and saved onto floppy disks, they are loaded into DPaint III where the unwanted parts of the picture like fingers and clips are cut out! The text is also added to the picture at this stage. Each edited picture is saved to another floppy. |col 3,0 So now we have one disk about 75% full of edited pics. |col 1,0 4 - A slideshow is no good without a nice presentation so the next part is to make the disk display the pictures in succession after the disk is inserted into the internal drive. After copying the usual system files to the disk, I had to find a program to display the pictures. In my first Invisible World Slideshow (see later on), I used PPShow to show each picture. Although it works, its a bit jumpy, with no fades. I recently found a program called Mostra, which has to be one of the most versatile picture viewers I have ever seen in my Amiga life!! This program displays and does anything under the sun! Yes - I had to have it. 5 - Due to the simplicitly of Mostra, the startup-sequence for the show is only one line! I have set up Mostra to display all the pictures in a directory called Pics, with a fade up, display for 60 seconds (or quit picture by pressing mouse button, escape, space-bar or return) and an fade down with black background to hide the Workbench - oh and not forgetting - you can turn off the mouse pointer too. 6 - When the slideshow is completed, and most importantly, tested on other systems and memory for incompatibility, it can be released. Checking for compatiblity is essential these days. There can`t be anything more worse than to see your work reviewed in a national magazine with the words "this disk crashed on my Amiga Plus". 7 - The question of `how do I release a disk into the PD` is quite common. It`s very simple: send it into a few of the main PD libraries and, beleive me, all the other libraries will get it - that is of course if the disk is featured in at least one magazine. I sent Invisible World 1 to NBS and in a matter of months, most of the other libraries stocked it! 8 - If a disk it to be successful, people have to know about it. The best way to get people to know about a disk is (like I`ve mentioned above) send a few copies to the magazines. I sent out loads of copies and got loads of reviews! You can read some of the quotes from the various magazines below. "This wins the award for the daftest slideshow ever...After seeing a bed bug at 300 times its normal size you may think twice about ever going to bed again...Go for this - looks strange but fun." |col 6,3 Paul Austin - Amiga Computing October 1991. |col 1,0 "This is one of the strangest demos to come along for some time...The demo features some superbly digitized pictures...it makes for quite an interesting slideshow." |col 6,3 Maff Evans - Amiga Format September 1991. |col 1,0 "The Invisible World will shock you into bathing in domestos and is available for only £1.00." |col 6,3 James Leach - New Computer Express September 1991. |col 1,0 "Bit of a weird one this...What with shots of broken and plaque-encrusted gnashers, it`s enough to stop you ever visiting the dentist again. Grusome and ghastly stuff." |col 6,3 Maff Evans - Public Domain November/December 1991. |col 5,0 "Some [photos] are grotesque, others are fascinating, and some are just plain astonishing" |col 6,3 Shareware Shopper - May 1992. |col 1,0 |col 6,3 |onc ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ STOP PRESS STOP PRESS STOP PRESS STOP PRESS STOP PR ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ The Invisible World 2 - OVERSCAN VERSION AVAILABLE!!! When the project was started, the pictures were converted to FULL PAL OVERSCAN - which means that the pictures are shown beyond the edges of your TV screen! Unfortunately, the pics would not display properly on the Amiga Plus so to retain compatiblity, the idea was dropped and this normal version was released for PD. If you want this special version, you can obtain it from Digital Access for £1.50 inclusive. Please note that the overscan version is not freely distributable due to incomp- atibility. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ STOP PRESS STOP PRESS STOP PRESS STOP PRESS STOP PR ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ |col 1,0 |ofc ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now for the greetings to a few people in the old Amiga World. |fnt Pica 32 |col 3,0 |onc BIG HELLOS TO: GARRY HESLOP THOMAS JANSEN SIMON THIRKELL RICHARD SKEEN PAUL CIUPEK (NBS) RED DEVIL/DUAL CREW DANIEL RIGBY RONNIE JAMES PHIL HARRIS MALCOLM HARNDEN DARREN (GET WELL SOON!) PAUL NEWPORT MARTIN ROUND SIMON DICK AND THESE MAGAZINES: AMIGA FORMAT AMIGA SHOPPER PUBLIC DOMAIN SHAREWARE SHOPPER AUI AMIGA COMPUTING |fnt Prime 11 |col 1,0 ABOUT DIGITAL ACCESS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |ofc If you havn`t already gathered, I produce a disk-based magazine called Digital Access. It`s a bi-monthly two disk magazine aimed at all Amiga users. each issue is brimming with the latest utils, articles, games, demos, music and graphics. It is currently (6/4/92) on issue eight, and sells at £2.50 per issue. Rather than me rambling on about it, why not just order a copy? Simply sent a cheque or PO payable to DIGITAL ACCESS (yes, thats a business account, not a personal account like some PD libraries have) and send it promptly to: |onc |fnt Pica 32 Digital Access 6 Stubbing Brink Hebden Bridge W.Yorkshire HX7 6LR Tel:0422 844215 |fnt Prime 11 |ofc So How Did It All Start? If you havn`t seen The Invisible World 1 yet, I suggest you get it from your normal PD supplier. Here`s my story of how it became... In about February 1991, it was a Sunday, and I was at a bit of a loose end. With a whole day ahead of me I was wondering what I could do on my Amiga. Having bought a digitizer, I had thought about making some sort of slideshow a while ago, but never really had any good subjects. I suddenly remembered that I had a weird book called The Invisible World which was full of strange pictures of magnified insects and other things that we humans cannot normally see. I thought it would be good to digitize some pictures to present on a floppy disk into the PD world. After setting up my Sony V200 Camcorder on it`s tripod, I started grabbing pictures from the book and saving them all to a total of about three disks. After quite a few hours of that, I left the disks on a shelf which gathered dust for about one month! This stoppage was soon short-lived as I loaded the pictures into DPaint to add the text to each picture. Suprisingly, the pics hardly needed touching up. I just chopped out some of the unwanted backgrounds. I was left with 32 pictures with text in IFF format. They would not all fit onto one disk so I crunched them all with Power Packer. After putting the disk together, I had a very interesting slideshow. The first thing I did was to duplicate it a few times then send it to a few PD libraries and the magazines. Copies went to three libraries: NBS, Blitterchips and 17 Bit Software. Paul from NBS replied within three or four days enclosing a thankyou letter and a disk with some new PD stuff on it. The other two, well, not even a letter of thanks. Other libraries soon got hold of a copy from their rivals. That`s how it happend. The Invisible World 3? Not a chance mate - Hmmm, I said that after the first one! However, I will be producing more slideshows in the future if I can get any good ideas together. If you have a good idea for a show, why not write to me? Thanks for reading.