SaboTagE by Paradox [web]
____ /___/ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ ______ >____> <____< <____/ <____< <____< <_____> >_____< ____ p a r a d o x ________ /___/ ____________ ________ / ___/ ____ /_____ / / ___/ /____/ _____ / /__ _______ /_____/ _____ _____ /____/ _____ __/ // /_/ _/ ____ __/ /__/ /_____ ___/ //______//______//______/ / / /______// __// /___ /_______/ S a b o T a g E /___/ /____/ /________/ S a b o T a g E by Paradox 2016 The usual: This demo is being released under "Creative Commons 4.0" license: You are free to share and to adapt under the following terms: ( ) Attribution - You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reason- able manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. ( ) NonCommercial - You may not use the material for commercial purposes ( ) ShareAlike - If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. No member of Paradox can be held responsible for any damage occuring to your STE, monitor, other involved or non-involved hardware, physical or mental health before, while or after watching this demo. Prologue: We promised on the SillyVenture 2014. We (almost) delivered on STNICCC 2015. We did what .tSCc. did and was very successful with: Showing a preview on the party to be released later. A lot later. Anyhow, this is it. The final release version of "SaboTagE" following the preview from the ST News Internation Christmas Coding Conference STNICCC 2015. Minimum Requirements: - Atari STE - 2 Megabytes of RAM (about 1.8MB needed) - Double sided, double density disk drive - Colour monitor or TV set Also runs: - From Harddisk (if available) - On an Atari MegaSTE - On an Atari Falcon030 both RGB and VGA - On the Hatari Emulator Does not run on: - Atari ST or STf, Mega or MegaST - Atari TT - STEem Emulator - SM124 or compatible monochrome monitor Tested on: - Atari MegaSTE, 4MB, TOS 2.06, from disk and harddisk - Atari Falcon030, Nemesis, 14MB, TOS 4.04, VGA and RGB - Hatari 1.7.0a on Mac OS X 10.6.8, set to 2MB STE mode Does not require: - Satandisk, Gigafile or other ultra-fast external disk - 15MB on your harddisk - 14 Megabytes of RAM - MC68060 - Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 and Direct X 10.0 Credits per screen: Intro-Screen: Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Dan and The Paranoid Details: This is actually a "low-res" c2p effect based on pure BLiTTER magic - every tile is being calculated individually using a double sinus function. MPP-Displayer: Code: RA, picture converter by Zerkman, MPP-emulator for Falcon030 by The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Dan Details: It took a long long time to finally get this to run flicker-free on the STE along with the music replayer in Timer D. On the Falcon, an emulator simulates what the STE displays (even though rather slowly). Thanks to Zerkman for the helpful MPP-to- BMP converter C-code. Zooming In on Lucy: Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Dan, The Paranoid Details: Sort of slow and only updates every second line at a time, but it runs in regular resolution along with a secondary effect. Reflection in monitor: Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Dan Details: Nothing special 5 Guys: Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Dan, The Paranoid Details: BLiTTER induced blur. That's what SMUDGE-mode was designed for. I guess. Fire in the sky Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Dan Details: An offset effect that can be combined easily with a 1x1 fore- or background. Also known as max2p. Parallax-Scroller Code: RA Music: 505 Graphics: Dan Details: BLiTTER-based parallax scrolling with BLiTTER- based sprites and about 60% CPU time left... Interlude Picture Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Dan Details: None Ominious Sphere Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Dan Details: Presumed to be the last effect The Paranoid would ever write on the STE and therefore internally referred to as "last ever". Turned out it wasn't. Anyhow, it's a BLiTTER-based feedback effect. 3D Drone Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Dan, The Paranoid Details: A BLiTTER sprite of a texture-mapped animated 3D object in regular resolution with background. Interlude Picture Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Dan Details: None Interlude Animation Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Dan Details: None Alpha layer 3D fan Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Dan, The Paranoid Details: Have you also seen "Supernatural" by "Evolution" on the Falcon and have you also asked yourself why the fan in the 3D room doesn't move? We repaired it. On the STE. Not on 68060. 3D STE Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: The Paranoid Details: Z-shaded and texture mapped. On STE. 'nuff said. Neon Cubes Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Zweckform, The Paranoid Details: No, it's not just a bitplane effect. Count the number of colours and the cubes that can overlap freely and with the background. Not to mention the semi-transparency of the cubes. Subpixel Rendering Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Zweckform, The Paranoid Details: In "maikever", Earx showed real-time anti-aliasing on the ST on a wireframe object for the first time. We thought this was so impressive that we decided to do a sub-pixel texture mapper on the STE. Z-Buffer: Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Zweckform, The Paranoid Details: In "Sure Trip 2" DefJam showed off displaying z-buffered gouraud-shaded 3D objects. We were so impressed that we decided to do it with depth- shaded, texture mapped 3D objects. Reflection in monitor Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Dan Details: None Gaussian Blur BLiTTER Greetings Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: The Paranoid Details: Using a 7x7 Gaussian Blur Matrix generated in the spreadsheet application of OpenOffice. That's what modern computers are good for. Serving STE demos. Final Effect Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: The Paranoid and Dan Details: One of the oldest effects in the demo, by the way. The BLiTTER generates the lightflare in max2p. QR-Code Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: The Paranoid (+ "Barcode Generator" on Android) Details: Be quick and scan it before it transforms Endpart: Code: The Paranoid Music: 505 Graphics: Dan Details: Designed together by 505 and Dan. Converted from PNG to STE native 4 plane format by RA. The oh-so-famous Paradox demo release FAQ: ? Why do i have to watch the intro screen for 11 minutes? ! You don't have to. Press space to enter the main part. ? It stutters when loading from floppy disk. Why? ! We have arranged the loading so that loading from disk should not affect the demo in any visible way. However, on badly fragmented disks, this might still occur. Please copy all files to an empty disk to make sure the files are not fragmented. ? Why does it stop somewhere and exit to the desktop? ! You seem to lack some files. On a file-not-found error, it simply terminates. Please make sure to have all files in the "DATA"-directory to run this demo. ? I have checked but all files are there. It still crashes after loading something. Why? ! All data on the disk is ICE-packed. If a file is corrupt, it is likely that the demo freezes or crashes when trying to depack the data. Please download the demo anew and try again. ? What's so STE-specific about this demo? ! A lot. The BLiTTER is being used in most of the effects shown in the demo. All graphics by Dan use the extended palette of the STE wisely and so do the screens donated by Zweckform. Hardware scrolling is used in three parts and the trusty YM2149 is being supported by an STE-DMA- channel most of the time. ? I am trying to watch the demo on my video beamer but i only see greyscales. Why? ! Just as any other Paradox demo, the demo requires 60Hz PAL display. From our visits at the famous SillyVenture parties we know that some video beamers do not decode colours correctly when being switched to 60Hz. Please use a video beamer capable of PAL60. ? All of this can be done on a 1MB STf, too! ! Most probably not. First of all, the STf lacks the BLiTTER, the palette, the hardware scrolling and the DMA-channels being used in this demo. Then, the demo has to load a lot of data in advance because there are only a couple of seconds in the demo where there is time to load at all. Getting all this down to 1MB while running memory intense effects such as the max2p or the depth shaded texture mappers is close to impossible. ? Haven't i read on Wikipedia that you're all irrelevant? ! Yes, we remember. The so-called "expert on the matter" who declared us irrelevant is now back to worship the fire - or something - and wasn't so happy about being reminded of that event. ? This demo looks like a lot of time was spend on the graphics, the music and the code. Where can i read more details about how this demo evolved? ! Just read on. Statements on the graphics by Dan: Info on the graphics in SaboTagE The production of SaboTagE took us about 3 years. Starting in 2011 from the very first rough script over long terms of silence and a very busy period in 2015, the goal was to finish a demo with a solid storyline and never-seen-on-STE- effects by the end of 2015. The Paranoid und myself started putting together the storyline around some rough drafts of impressive STE-Effekts. A solid storyline or a consistent design had not exacly been one of Paradox strenghts in the past. Powerpoint and wunderlist did not do the trick to get the whole thing moving. With a bunch of metaplan-cards on the floor of my place we finished the script and set the deadline for december 2015. With the following text i will give you an insights into making this production. Welcome to the Intro-Screen: The intro-effect is called: leather-tiles. Have a close look! This piece of code must have pushed The Paranoid close to madness, because the idea for this screen is totally graphics-designer based. I had no idea about coding this. It takes basically no advantages of the common code-memory-restrictions-stuff. The leather-tiles are far off the standard-size and were done in various versions of brightness. The shiny gold logo is a mixture of handwriting with a tablet in Photoshop with heavy usage of the addons and full redo in NeoChromeMaster. The idea for the transparent font is based on the movie: The call. All pictures in the demo are based on rough pencil sketches. -> MPP-Picture <- The next screen shows Lucy and Cookie sitting in front of the cybernetics laptop: This picture was one of the early pieces done for the SaboTagE Demo. The wobbling Paradox logo in the window is meant to give a brief hint of how the demo will evolve. The instruction for the coder was: "Irgendetwas mit Licht", which roughly translates into "Something with light". So The Paranoid came up with this wobbly crazy zoomer. None of us had ever visually told a story, so conider this a firstie. The next screen was our idea to push the story forward Lucy and Cookie as a reflection in the laptop screen: The picture had to be repainted dozends of times. The first one was simply ugly, the face barely recognizeable. I still needed more practice in painting faces and anatomy. The second version turned out better, i added Cookie as Lucy's sidekick, but did not stick to the right palette. If you take a close look at the font you will recognize its transparency. Therefore The Paranoid forced me to move the whole thing down to 8 colors. If i was ever close to smashing my pc, it was then. In the last version i added the rim of the screen, still fuming. Next screen is: The shady five guys. The picture was finished on the outline-party in 2011 in the Netherlands, originally not considered for SaboTagE in the first place. The Paranoid helped with the halo for the guys. The guys symbolize a rogue force, not willing to let cybernetics take over the conrol. The sign at the left bottom reads: "find the one they can not control". The inscription of the sign was done by The paranoid. Lucy heads for the cybernetics building to see what was happening. The Screen is called "Fire in the sky". That one was a lot of back and forth. The code for the screen originates to the early versions of "Superstar Tennis" by Paradox, a game planned that never materialized based on a perspective engine by RA. Piecing together the palette was tough with all the mixing and overlaying. Even though the pic might look simple, the whole tool-chain was necessary to finish it. Painted in Grafx2, STE color-correction in NeoChromeMaster. Cybernetics building damaged: Another full handmade 320*200 pixel-screen , done in Grafx2. The text-Displayer on top was added to enhance the story telling. Last Ever: It's my last picture for SaboTagE. Practicing sketching and anatomy led to the final version of this screen. The Helicopter-Screen: Graphics for this 4-color background screen is inspired by the artist kuvshinov-ilya, i follow on tumblr. Figuring out a fitting perspective for the flying path of the helicpoter was a huge challenge. In the end i figured out the perspective in Blender 3D and did a 3 color version of it based on the sketch. The Paranoid did the textures for the helicopter. Impossible: While the foreground is hand-painted, the inside of the building, that is revealed by the spot is done in Blender 3D. Lighting a pushing the contrast was done in Photoshop and putting it all together was done in Grafx2, which became my favorite tool in the production. Underground and Entrance: With these pictures i settled my current workflow. First: Sketch with pen and paper, Scan it using the iphone, Photoshop for scaling and contrast, Grafx2 for shading and finally NeoChromeMaster for finishing the STE-palette. 505 on the keys: So here it is - Sabotage. This demo has come quite a long way. I remember emails circulating back in 2010, discussing ideas on this prod. Dan created the storyline and then the years just passed. A lot of code snippets and graphic drafts were exchanged, mostly created by Paranoid and Dan, then dumped again, modified and stored on dusty trusty hard disks for years. In some cases the existing material was used to built completely different demos from it (e.g the Blue Period demo in 2011). And as often when a project takes too long, the startup enthusiasm is blown out and it gets really tough to catch up and complete everything. To speak the truth, at times I didn't really believe that this demo would ever be finished and lost interest in it myself. Real life came across and the project was in rather paralyzed state. However, in 2014 Paranoid and Dan magically became super active again, created a basic preview of the demo and suggested the others to get their homework done after all. Hats off to the two, working on the prod with such constant force. The past months were just a good flow of exchanging ideas, previews and collaborative fine-tuning, which I really enjoyed and which also creates a perfect surrounding for working on a soundtrack. For the music, I used gwEms maxYMiser (2 MB version) in its special STE 1-channel native sample frequency mode and one timer for effects, as in most of the recent Paradox productions. MaxYMiser is always good to come back to. This tool has enriched the possibilities to create music for STE demos so much, that I cannot thank you enough, gwEm! Anyhow, seeing the finished demo now and realizing that we were able to keep this project going for about 6 years and actually completing it in the end - that is "the best part of the creation" for me. That said, see you next time - whenever ;) 505 A few words of raZen alias RA: It was a very long and stony way but finally its done - the release of SaboTagE! :-) Due to some private circumstances i couldn't contribute so much i wanted. Hence Paranoid had to code the demo almost on his own - respect for this maximum output! It was also awesome how much work Dan did for this demo in graphics and design. Thanks to 505 for his marvelous soundtracks - my personal favourite is the one in the end part. I was really pleasantly surprised that one member of the first hour - Zweckform - was active again for SaboTagE. Welcome back buddy! There are some rumours that this will be the last production of Paradox. Sadly it's true that Paranoid won't do anymore for the STE or Atari at all. However this doesn't automatically mean that Paradox is dead. Paradox is still alive and i heard there could be something in the pipeline - just don't expect it too early. ;-) See you all! Closing statement by The Paranoid: So, finally it's done. The first thoughts about this demo were being shared between Dan and me around 2010 and then, nothing happened. In 2011 and 2012, a few ideas were being spread but that's about it. Early 2013, we decided to engage the demo, hoping to finish it that year and if not, then in 2014. We failed in 2014 as well, merely releasing the little teaser and promised it for 2015. We didn't manage to release it in 2015 either but at least we managed to show a preview at the famous STNICCC 2015. But this time, we wanted to do it right. So we took our time in fine-tuning the demo for some more weeks, the weeks turned into months but i, personally, think it was worth it. Especially as it's going to be my last demo on the STE. Without wanting to sound arrogant, i broke all the barriers i was eager to break. Texture mapped 3D objects in full resolution with background. Fully interpolative max2p-blobs in full resolution. Texture mapped and depth shaded 3D objects. Sub-pixel rendering. Depth shaded texture mapping with Z-Buffering. Animated outdoor 3D scene with lighting. And all that on an 8MHz STE with 2MB of RAM, running from a double density disk drive. I also think we helped a bit in making the STE more popular in the little Atari scene. DHS, Live!, BlaBla, NoExtra, and even Oxygene and Checkpoint did things for our beloved STE - not to mention that for a while, Hatari was being debugged against Paradox demos. Having said that i am curious what other barriers other people will break on the STE. Be sure i will be following the little but wonderful Atari community. But i will be out of the race. Or in other words: move.w #PARANOID,-(sp) ; Set value move.w #76,-(sp) ; Function PTERM() trap #1 ; Call GEMDOS addq.l #4,sp ; clean up SaboTagE by Paradox 2016 Alive on a dead machine that's Paradox!
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