Full motion video demo - ready to check out

["Frank M." <frank_o_rama@hotmail.com>]

Okay, I have rendered enough frames to put together a demo of a few of
the full-motion 'movies' Michael Mahon and I have been talking about.
The video runs on the lores GR screen at about 10 frames per second(?).
It uses my frame rendering process and Michael's code to load the
video. The result currently runs at about half speed, but it gives a
cool effect. The best part is that it can also be run from a real ][
that has a CompactFlash drive (provided you run it from the path the
PLAY.MOVIE application and files are located). Here's a download
link......

http://clients.kraftworksltd.com/download/APPLE2VIDEO.2mg.zip


here's a similar demo i did last year (before i realized people had
created CompactFlash hard drives), using the same frame render process.
it fits in 64k memory, will run from a ][+ (it should anyway), and fits
on a 140k floppy. the downside is it's only 34 frames, but still pretty
cool.

http://clients.kraftworksltd.com/download/White_Weddin.zip


Here are a few of the next steps i'm thinking about that could make
this even more cool....

1. automate GR frame rendering on whatever your 'real computer' is
using OpenGL or something else (quickascii?? or a bastardization
thereof). my current method works but is pretty labor-intensive,
requires tons of folders and small files, and frequent trips to
CiderPress (which isn't running on my mac).

2. code frame playback program into ML instead of BASIC so that you
don't have to open and close a file for each frame. i'm not much of a
ProDOS guy so i don't know anything about it. i didn't even know you
could have offsets. sorry! Mario Bros. always came on a DOS 3.3 disk
and that's how i roll!!!   ;)

3. add 2 bytes in the beginning of the movie files equal to the number
of frames so that it doesn't have to be hard-coded into the filename.
in my mind this is/was less important than just getting something
running. but now that it's running maybe making a new GR-MOVIE file
format is smart. this links with #1.


kudos to Michael for his assistance.
Questions? Comments?


-Frank-