Last week I analyzed the code produced by the AMOS Professional Compiler and changed the ALS code in order to have the compiler output the most efficient code it is capable of. Contextually, I have also added a new little feature (palette segments), updated two demos and improved the documentation constantly.
This week I'm continuing the review of the documentation and constantly improving it. Once done, (hopefully) it will only be a matter of preparing a web page before ALS gets released.

@AmiDARK

Thank you!


@all

VIDEO PREVIEW #4

The implementation is complete and a new demo program has been written both to test ALS and to provide a practical programming example.

The demo initializes a 2-layer display:
* background layer: 4 planes, with opaque colors, for fixed graphics;
* foreground layer: 2 planes, with (partially) transparent colors, for bobs.
Then, it makes some 3-color ghosts bounce around on the foreground layer while changing cyclically their colors and opaqueness.
The effect could be achieved also without ALS by means of the Set Bob and Palette commands, but:
* all the planes (6) would be double-buffered instead of just the planes for layer 1 (2), thus wasting a lot of memory;
* rendering the bobs would be slightly more demanding (as the rendering code would have to consider 6 planes instead of 2);
* it would not be as easy and efficient to handle colors;
* more in general, it is more comfortable to have separate layers/screens to render to.

@orgin

Thanks!


@afxgroup

Thanks and LOL!


@all

Update: implementation finished! Now it's time to do some testing and writing the second tutorial.

Recently I've been working on a new graphics engine.

VIDEO PREVIEW #1
VIDEO PREVIEW #2
VIDEO PREVIEW #3
VIDEO PREVIEW #4
DEMOS VIDEO / 1
DEMOS VIDEO / 2
EXPERIMENTS VIDEO / 1
EXPERIMENTS VIDEO / 2


OVERVIEW

"ALS" stands for "AMOS Layers System", as it turns the screens of AMOS Professional into layers that can be laid over one another, with complete control of order, opaqueness and colors, while keeping them renderable as usual.
It is easy, does not require much knowledge of the Amiga graphics hardware, does not need installation, does not depend on third-party extensions and comes as a collection of variables, arrays and procedures written in fully-commented AMOS code - it can be thought of as an AMOS source-level library.

ALS comes in two versions:
* v1: for OCS/ECS/AGA - bigger and slower (and no longer developed)
* v2: for AGA only - smaller and faster

https://www.retream.com/ALS


GENERAL FEATURES

· Layers usable as screens and vice versa
· Overlaying of multiple layers
· Overlaying order freely arrangeable
· Per-layer planes height
· Per-layer planes number
· Per-layer double-buffering
· Per-layer vertical positioning
· Per-layer colors
· Per-layer 257-degree opaqueness
· Per-color 257-degree opaqueness
· 24-bit internal colors
· LORES horizontal positioning of layers
· LORES and HIRES display resolutions
· Programmable display window size
· Automatic centering of display window
· Automatic adjustment to chipset (OCS/ECS/AGA)
· Automatic creation of layers from ILBM files
· Display descriptors
· Layer descriptors and snapshots
· Global snapshots
· Palettes management
· Banks management
· Basic file management


ECS/AGA FEATURES

· Selectable video standard (NTSC/PAL) <ECS Agnus / AGA>
· Display border blanking <ECS Denise / AGA>


AGA FEATURES

· Non-EHB 6-plane displays
· 24-bit display colors
· 24-bit palette colors
· SHRES display resolution
· HIRES and SHRES horizontal positioning of layers
· 4x planes fetch mode


RESTRICTIONS DUE TO HARDWARE

· Maximum number of visible planes / 1-plane layers: OCS/ECS, HIRES: 4; OCS/ECS, LORES: 6; AGA: 8
· On OCS/ECS, EHB mandatory for 6-plane displays
· On OCS/ECS, 12-bit display colors
· On OCS/ECS, 12-bit palette colors
· On OCS Agnus, video standard (NTSC/PAL) dictated by the hardware
· Limited horizontal positioning of display window
· Same width for all layers
· Same horizontal positioning for all layers


RESTRICTIONS DUE TO AMOS

· Maximum number of in-use/ready-to-use layers: 8
· Maximum number of planes per layer: 6


RESTRICTIONS DUE TO DESIGN

· Most AMOS display/screen commands not allowed/possible
· Floppy drives not usable when the display is on.


HOW ALS WAS BORN

In 2003 I wrote a Copper-based screen flipping effect for a developer who was making a game with AMOS. Eventually, the effect was not used (and the game was not made at all), but writing it gave birth to a whole bunch of ideas, which little by little transformed into a collection of procedures that constituted a small graphics system called XPF (Cross PlayField).

The development however, having started from an effect and having proceeded spontaneously, lacked the necessary rigour that a proper system requires, so I decided to rewrite everything from scratch and created CSS (Custom Screens System). That one turned out to be a clean, feature-rich system. It worked nicely and I even wrote a few tutorials for it.

But it did not support sprites. While pondering on how to add them, I realized that actually the core design was not good enough and that an alternative one would have allowed sprites and have been more efficient, too. Therefore, I wrote another system: AVS (Advanced Video System). When I was at about 80-90% of the development... I lost the sources. I cannot remember how that happened, but for sure I could not recover them, so I remained only with the sources dating back to some days before, when a lot of important code had not been written yet. The anger, which made me hate the idea of reimplementing what had been lost, coupled with the fact that I was about to move country, killed the project.

The idea of rewriting an old game of mine using CSS - which was good enough for the purpose - kept on lingering in my head through the years. I kind of promised myself I would do that sometime, as a smaller project between bigger ones - provided I could swallow the idea of using a suboptimal system, that is. In fact, in a few occasions, I considered completing AVS first... only to drop the idea immediately: I just could not bother getting acquainted with that old code, maybe discovering that, after all, I would do things differently once again.

Although, in the meanwhile, I dedicated myself to many other projects, the ghosts of those systems kept on haunting me. In 2019 I presented CSS to the world with a video preview: it was an attempt at doing justice to the system (and thus hopefully making peace with it) and at forcing myself to complete the work by exposing publicly the waste it represented. Since then, I made a new game (Blastaway), I continued the work on and released a preview of a game (QUOD INIT EXIT IIo), I released two little updates for another game (MeMO), I almost finished an update for yet another game (SkillGrid), I created two other graphics systems not related to ALS and I made a demo (THE CURE) with one of them. But the ghosts were still there.

Well - as they say - enough is enough and better later than never: the time to get rid of them came and in July 2020 I designed and implemented a new and proper system from the scratch - and so ALS was born.


PERFORMANCE

Whenever a color, an alpha value, or the stack of the layers gets changed, it is necessary to recalculate many or even all the colors starting from those relative to the first bitplane of the first layer affected. That is a CPU-intensive operation that AMOS struggles with, so it must be avoided as much as possible by not using dynamic changes or by precalculating palettes (ALS provides specific procedures for that).

Other than that, the system is quite lightweight.


WHY AMOS SOURCE CODE?

ALS could have been written in assembly and made available as high-performance source code, as a linkable object or as an AmigaOS library, but it has been written as pure AMOS code for AMOS programs, instead. Even within the AMOS world, it could have been written as an extension or at least as embedded machine language procedures, thus resulting more efficient (in particular, the ALS_CALCULATE_PALETTE*[] procedures would have been dramatically faster). Why AMOS source code, then?

First of all, because of how ALS was born; secondly, because returning to AMOS and writing everything in such language - the language I started programming on the Amiga with - after many years was fun; then, because I enjoy the idea of showing that AMOS, which way too often gets exaggeratedly bashed, is actually more capable than it is commonly thought of; finally, because I find it just too amusing to see the surprised reactions from people who can barely believe that what ALS achieves is done by means of the original AMOS alone.

A while ago I wrote some code that accesses the Amiga CD32 NVRAM directly. Unfortunately, I don't have an Amiga CD32 and UAE, in this case, doesn't make for a good reference: in fact, the code worked right away on UAE, but it never worked on a real machine. Until now, a friend made lots of tests, but I caught him in a very busy period and, moreover, running tests is a huge hassle to him.
I don't want to bother him anymore, so I need an Amiga CD 32 owner who can easily trasfer files from/to the machine (i.e. without burning CDs or plugging/unplugging expansion hardware) and run tests for me. The tests consist in small programs (under 2 kB) which run for a couple of seconds and output text and/or dump files to RAM:.
Can anybody help? Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I have received help offers from three persons, so, for the moment being, don't bother answering ;) Should I need further help, I'll let you know.

I guess that this is a good candidate for the most exotic post ever made here...

I'm looking for a job abroad, preferably in one of these countries (alphabetical order): Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland. I'm not new to relocating to another country: in the past, I have already lived and worked for several years in Finland and in the Netherlands. I intend to make my new destination permanent.

You know me as a developer, but I am *not* looking for an IT job: for me, IT begins and ends with the C64 and the Amiga, it's just passion. So, what am I looking for? Basically, whatever my skills allow me to be successful in: I want to do my job well - if I can do that, then both my employer and I are happy ;)

I have a wide range of technical and human skills, and many varied experiences in different contexts/companies/organizations. You already know that I (meticulously) take care of all aspects of my games (design, code, graphics, music, documentation, packaging, etc.), but you can get an even better idea from my LinkedIn profile. Also, feel free to ask for more information.

If you know of or have an opportunity for me, please get in touch by sending an email to simone at retream.com. Thanks!

Lately I made this piece of progressive rock music. Normally I make music for my video games, but this is just a single. Yet, who knows, maybe one day it will belong to a game or to an album...

https://soundcloud.com/retream/nothing-or-little-more

The song is mostly instrumental. These are the few spoken lines:
If you build through dazzled eyes
a vision you come to adore,
in the end you'll realize
you're nothing or little more.

Enjoy!

@all

Just a quick heads-up to let you know that, after some months, the deluxe edition is back in stock on the RGCD store!

@benny

Sorry, the game hits the hardware directly, so that isn't possible.

I have just released a slightly updated version of my little game MeMO.

CHANGELOG
* Fixed/improved music.
* Updated P61 code with the latest version (P6112).
* Replaced TV Sports: Football card with SkillGrid's (yep, shameless self-promotion).
* Added old-style 4 color icon.
* Fixed/improved manual.

https://www.retream.com/MeMO

I published BOH in 2009, and in the (more than) 10 years that passed since then, I released 19 free updates, because I just couldn't resist making it better and bettter. The physical edition I produced in 2018 was supposed to close the game's development cycle, but I felt that I just had to backport to BOH the video system features/improvements that I came up with for Blastaway. The result is that now I have made the 20th update available (again for free, of course)!

CHANGELOG
* Simplified and optimized CRT pixel modes.
* Made 4x LCD pixel mode slightly brighter.
* Added 6x pixel modes.
* Added hardware-accelerated zooming for solid pixel modes to AmigaOS version.
* Added Italian brief to mission "Faces".
* Made a few minor fixes.
* Updated manual.

BOH page: https://www.retream.com/BOH
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j39yyZKJo0 (very old, so it doesn't show all the improvements that happened since it was made, but instead of spending time on making another trailer, I prefer making more games!)
Gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snpKPbTzSpA (more recent, but still it misses something)

To update an installed copy of BOH, simply install the new version over the old installation by means of the supplied installer.

Even more good news for the owners of the physical edition: due to the very limited production runs, the CDs were duplicated (i.e. burned), not replicated (i.e. glass mastered), and the factory was asked to leave the CDs open to make them updateable in case of future updates! The CDs can updated by burning a new session/track that contains the files included in the new CD ISO image.

*** WARNING ***
Updating a CD is a delicate process that might damage the CD, so it is necessary to have specific skills and tools. If you are not completely sure, do not attempt the update. IN ANY CASE, UPDATE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

My pleasure :)

Welcome, and, well, I just couldn't stand the idea of BOH, Huenison, and KOG not having the same features as Blastaway.
BTW, I have BOH ready, too, but the MacOS port is holding the release back as I don't have easy access to the machine I used for development.

When in 2018 I produced the physical edition of Huenison, I intended to close forever the development of that game (originally released in 2013 and then updated five times). Yet, writing Blastaway inspired me some video system features/improvements that I just couldn't resist backport to Huenison. And now, an updated version of Huenison is available!

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2-IoKxbGtg

CHANGELOG
* Simplified and optimized CRT pixel modes.
* Made 4x LCD pixel mode slightly brighter.
* Added 6x pixel modes.
* Added hardware-accelerated zooming for solid pixel modes to AmigaOS version.

Get the latest version of Huenison from https://www.retream.com/Huenison.
(Who plays it on Steam will be able to update it directly from there.)

Even more good news for the owners of the physical edition: due to the very limited production runs, the CDs were duplicated (i.e. burned), not replicated (i.e. glass mastered), thus I seized the chance to ask the factory to leave the CDs open so that, if I'd ever release an update, I could tell you... it's possible to update the CDs!
The CDs can updated by burning a new session that replaces the following files and preserves all the others:
* install-AmigaOS.info
* install-Windows.exe
* manual.pdf
* AmigaOS/Huenison
* AmigaOS/icon-64x64.info
* AmigaOS/icon-80x80.info
* AmigaOS/icon-96x96.info
* AmigaOS/icon-128x128.info
* AmigaOS/icon-160x160.info
* AmigaOS/icon-192x192.info
* AmigaOS/icon-256x256.info
* Windows/Huenison.exe

*** WARNING ***
Updating a CD is a delicate process that might damage the CD, so it is necessary to have specific knowledge and tools. If you are not completely sure, do not attempt the update or ask an expert to help. IN ANY CASE, UPDATE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

@Joeled

You've been very generous, too! Thanks, and enjoy!

@ktadd

I'm happy you're enjoying the game :)
And thanks a lot for your generous donation!

I've been asked by email, on itch.io, and on various forums to port Blastaway to other platforms, and I've also read some misinformation somewhere, so I thought I'd better give a complete and clear answer everywhere.

I'm not going to port Blastaway to any other platform.

In general, other platforms won't be considered because:
* I can't take the burden of adapting the game and then of offering (future) support (two platforms are already demanding, and with BOH I've learned that increasing the number of supported systems beyond two is insane);
* porting is boring;
* help offers aren't of any help (terrible pun intended) because also collaborating, for several reasons, takes time and energies;
* I don't own all the machines I'm being / I will be asked to port the game to, and for money and logistical reasons I can't get more;
* I have many other projects (for classic Amiga and Commodore 64) wating to be resumed, and time and energies are limited.

In particular, a classic Amiga version won't happen because:
* it couldn't be identical;
* it would require a huge development effort, as no direct port is possible: the code would have to be written from scratch and the data would have to be adapted;
* it would require an additional effort for testing, given the variety of hardware configurations;
* it would require again a big effort in case of updates (if any).

You're welcome!

The Blastaway code reuses most of the video system code I had written for my other games BOH, Huenison, and KOG. Along the way, I made some improvements to the system, and at some point I decided to backport those improvements to the older games. I started from KOG - and now I have just released a new version.
(If you're surprised that this release comes just one day after Blastaway's, don't be: yesterday I've been busy with releasing Blastaway, answering comments/emails about it, and also a few visits I've received for my birthday. The trick is that I worked on KOG last week, during the final testing phase of Blastaway.)

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn1AvxVurF4

Get KOG from https://www.retream.com/KOG - also this one is free ;)

CHANGELOG
* Simplified and optimized CRT filters.
* Added 6x zoom.
* Added hardware-accelerated zooming for solid pixel modes to AmigaOS version.
* Fixed rate of tune of shoot mode WILD.
* Removed click from menu tune.
* Fixed other sounds.
* Touched up manual.

@cha05e90

Quote:
The last donations are very generous, so it must be yours - thank you so much!

Quote:
I'm happy to hear this :)
Enjoy!