I've got an animation up with some pretty cool Fighting in it. I didn't create it, I just downloaded it from here and ripped it frame-by-frame. I removed a few seconds from the beginning and cropped it to size (I hope the creator won't mind too much). To see it you'll have to use empanim.
Share and enjoy!

Is this an empeg version of the fight3 flash animation by zhu_zhq?

Cool, I loved that one.

Same artist, earlier animation. This one only has 2 fighters (although one splits himself into 2 - so 3 fighters, total), and it's pretty short, at only 1800 frames.

Edit: I should add that any AVI can be converted to an Empeg Animation, provided the color depth is suitable and the proportions are the same. I picked this Fight AVI because it was already very close to the 128x64 proportions, so I just had to crop the top half of each frame out to get it into 128x32. There wasn't much action in the top half of the AVI, though.

The link to the animation doesn't work.

Where do you plan on putting this animation? (ie. during boot up...visualization...???)

Yes, Using the picker menu, It'll play a Matrix anim, Spinning empeg logo anim, or the "Stick-Fu". If I could make them hijack menu options I would, though ;-) .

jacksonville.net is down right now. I've uploaded it to RioCar.org, but it doesn't really belong in "Other OS Things". For the time being, try getting it from here.

How about visualizations? :-D

Calvin

No way I could do something like that, but here's what I think it would take for each "character" in a machine-driven fight scene:
1) A finite list of possible moves, each with different durations and with fluid transitions.
2) Reaction to other character(s) in the scene.
3) Ability to sync the moves to music (optional). Heck, the whole program could just create random sequences and look just as good regardless of music, but how cool would it be to see punches/kicks sync'ed with bass hits or something...

I think it would be tough to do this well and not look computer-generated. What this animation lacked in dimension it made up for in creativity.

I'd love to see Stick Figure Break Dancing, Stick Figure Disco, etc etc. :-D Whoo baby!!

Calvin

I'd love to see Stick Figure Break Dancing, Stick Figure Disco, etc etc. :-D Whoo baby!!

Yeah, it would be awesome to implement something like one of those Winamp plugins (like MpegDancer) where the dancer moves with the music.

Of course, since the window is lengthwise, it might be better to implement a dancefloor.

Wouldn't it be great to see a dancefloor with lots of dancers and maybe some spotlights? How about a lighted dancefloor?

I can see the visualization programmers cringing...

I can see the visualization programmers cringing...
Yeah...HIS name would be Toby.

Cringing? I don't think so!
The graphics for the existing effects seem to be waaay more complex than a couple of stick figures bopin' around!
I'd love to see a few stick dancers shakin their thang on the display. They wouldn't have to be very big but you could get a few in there.
Then apply smoke trails and you're cookin'

There was an iconbar dancing stick figure application for the Archimedes many years ago. You could drag and drop different dance definition files onto it. As we have at least three former Acorn demo writers at empeg I can't imagine this would be such a complex port..

Rob

What picker menu? Where would I find that? I thought I knew my empeg...clearly not.

so your saying that this is just a menu of 4 options that I can have it display or do something while the empeg is on? Can these things be displayed while listening to music?

Not at the time being. Picker assumes it has full control over the front 4 buttons and screen. It is called by my custom init file. Upon termination, init calls init.empeg, the binary file that used to be named /bin/init. Installing displayserver would get you a custom int that you could use to call any programs you want before the player starts. Just be careful about modifying a custom init, as a false keystroke could mean re-flashing a .upgrade .

Oooooooooo K - I just saw a stick man dancing the stonk on Toby's empeg. That man is fast

Rob

If he has a floppy hat and there is snow falling in the background, that's even better.

ooh ooh, can i get credit for that? :-D

How about crazy stuff like when the beat gets really powerful, the stick figures heads fall off and they have to go scrambling to pick them back up?

Calvin

>That man is fast
I thought he had too much time spare!

Please let it come out in the next release!
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

At the risk of being redundant......
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

Or someone put up one of those survey\poll things...

If he has a floppy hat and there is snow falling in the background, that's even better.

But there should be an ini option to remove the snow after Christmas/Winter. :)

Bruno

could someone put up some idiot proof instructions on how to get this going please

Most of this comes from Tony Fabris' Picker and Voladj for Dummies. If you haven't read it, it's much easier to follow than I can write.
Anyway, here's how to get an animation to start on boot:

1) Install a developer image. Mount all partitions read/write:
rw
rwm
2) Rename the binary init in/bin to init.empeg:
cd /bin
mv init init.empeg
chmod +x init.empeg (IMPORTANT)
3) Create or copy a custom init script. Here's what mine looks like:
#!/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/empeg/bin:./
PS1=empeg:\\w\\$
/bin/mount -n -o nocheck,rw /proc
/bin/mount -n -o nocheck,ro /dev/hda4 /drive0
/bin/mount -n -o nocheck,ro /dev/hdc4 /drive1
echo Running Picker...
/empeg/var/pick_list
/bin/init.empeg
Then:
chmod +x init(IMPORTANT)

4) This init will execute a script called /empeg/var/pick_list. My pick_list script is attached to this post. To run pick_list, you'll also need the binary file called picker(attached in my next post). Put both of these files in /empeg/var and chmod them both +x.
5) The first menu option in this pick_list is "Stick-Fu", which executes a script called /empeg/var/fight. This shell script looks like this: (Replace the &LT with the Less-than sign)
/empeg/var/empanim 0 1800 &LT /empeg/var/fight.ema

As you can see, it calls the binary empanim, linked in my original post.
6) The only other thing you will need is to upload fight.gz to /empeg/var, gunzip it and rename it to fight.ema, and chmod it +rx.

If all went well, your machine should allow you to start any animation or program you want at boot-up.
(IMPORTANT) ---> It's really easy to miss a chmod command and make your machine unusable until a re-flash. I've done this about 5 times already.

If you just want to see the animation, but not at boot-up, you just need the empanim executable and the fight.gz file (gunzipped on the player, of course). Just run the above green command to view the anim.

I hope this is helpful, but if not, it's 'cuz I've not yet finished my Mountain Dew this morning.

pick_list script attached

picker binary attached

I have put a call to empanim in mly init script.

The anim is personal. ;-)

Tell me what do you think about it

sorry that is still a bit beyond me any chance of a few more tips like what software i should be using to send stuff to empeg etc and what the hell is gunzipping

beware i am a microsoft dummy linux is a different world

How do I know how many frames are in an animation? The instructions for empanim require the number of frames and delay between them. Any help would be great. Thanks!

Incredibly we managed to track down the original author (Lee McGinty) of the Acorn Archimedes program from which we borrowed the dance data. He wrote it over 10 years ago, and we eventually found him on friendsreunited.com!

I'm pleased to say that he was happy for us to use the data, and Toby has written a nice visual which has several of the dancing men. It will be included in todays Alpha release, and all being well in the next public Beta.

Rob

todays Alpha release

Huzzah!

Well, the format seems to be 128 x 32 x 4 bits/frame, since the file is 401408 bytes my best guess would be 196 frames.

4 bits per frame for a 2-bit display? Seems a little wasteful if that's right. Wait, don't tell me, it's using a 2-bit alpha mask. :)

Bruno

I based my assumption on this post. He probably meant 4 colors instead of 4 bit colordepth. Ah well, assumption is the mother of all f**kups

4 bits per frame for a 2-bit display? Seems a little wasteful if that's right.

(Assuming you meant 4 bits per pixel...)

Correct. It is wasteful. But that's the way certain things are stored (such as the custom logos). I do not know exactly why. Although I will say that it made certain pieces of bit-bashing code easier in my logo editor.

Tres jolie.

(Assuming you meant 4 bits per pixel...)

Yes, 4 bits per pixel per frame. I'm just used to thinking "per pixel" for so many years that I virtually never write it. :)

Well, it's good to know in any case. Photoshop isn't the best program to manipulate pixmaps, but I've got a couple of really good (all things considered) pixel-pushing programs (IMage and ProMotion if anyone cares - both for Windows). Unfortunately there isn't anything that captures all of the former Amiga Deluxe Paint V nor Brilliance available to the general public for Win32.

Bruno