[NEW VIDEO ADDED!] AtomicFe running HyperSpin "Inspired" layouts...

[brian_hoffman]

Things I noticed to be diffrent:
The aspect ratio is off on most images... Example the moon patrol theme of mine is messed up... The logo should stretch across the whole backround. The moon rover is not the right size. Unless thats the look your after...

The Dr. Mario theme all the pills are the same... In HS it plays the SWF and each pill is a diffrent color.
This means your SWF support is lacking. 

Other than that Im glad your still working on this as it shows what a true fan you are. Even tho you said "Don't believe the hype" in a diffrent post.  Not that there is any sour grapes.

Great work on the demo it does look to perform very fast.
I also notice the swirl effect.. Thats pretty cool.  You must be very talented coder to do this all in software.
What are you programing in?

[youki]

Thanks.

I don't try to do exact same layouts , i just used same artworks (therefore i had to rework for Atomic).  I could do exactly the same than hyperspin with same ratio ect..ect... technically Atomic is prefectly able to do that (except the wheel for now), but it is not my goal. I just take "inspiration" , i will have also some other layout that are not yet in Hyperspin.

In addition , my layouts are not completed yet , i made all the set of layout you see in the video in about 8 hours... so i didn't took time to really "polish"...

it shows what a true fan you are

Yes, i really love all the work Hyperspin Artists did!
A big difference between Atomic and Hyperspin , is that Atomic works on all hardware and require lot of less powerfull machine to run that kind of skin.
So it could be a good alternative for whom can not run Hyperspin and don't have money to buy a new hardware.

Even tho you said "Don't believe the hype" in a diffrent post.  Not that there is any sour grapes.

In fact i say that, because i understand "Hype" as "very exaggerated publicity" , but may be it has another meaning?   It is why i say "Don't Believe the Hype" , because Hyperspin has nothing so exceptionnal. (except the work done by the "skinner guys").

What are you programing in?

Atomic's Engine is in Visual C++ using DirectDraw 7. 

[divemaster127]

Well I for one am waiting to put a front end back on my computer until your .20 is ready im sure it will be awesome
dm

[headkaze]

I'm sure Youki doesn't intend on turning Atomic into a HyperSpin clone, but I must say I'm impressed with how far you've pushed DirectDraw in terms of rotation and alpha channels. I still think it will be a hard job to replicate some of the Flash stuff like pixel blurring which is used to great effect in HS.

As for .swf support I have that working quite well in my own FE but it can be quite CPU intensive as you have to grab frames from the Flash ocx and render them. It might even be impossible to do with CS3 version .swf's but I personally haven't tried that. That might take the framerate out of the low-end spec support Atomic is aiming for.

That being said a job well done Youki although I think BadBoyBill probably deserves more recognition than you give him when you say HS is only impressive because of the artwork. There is more to it than that IMHO even if Flash does take much of the hard work out of writing an animation system. But really who cares what is "under the hood" other than other programmers?

I'm also curious Youki what version of Visual C++ is Atomic written in?

[youki]

BadBoyBill did a really great work. And he spent surely lot of time on it.
I'm just on  a purely technical plan not impressed by HyperSpin .

BadBoyBill deserves lot of recognition for his job , of course.

I'm sure Youki doesn't intend on turning Atomic into a HyperSpin clone

Not my goal at all.

I'm impressed with how far you've pushed DirectDraw in terms of rotation and alpha channels.

Thanks. but in fact i use directdraw to choose the graphic mode/resolution and then most of my routine access directly to his buffers bypassing APIs.  I don't really use the DirectDraw API. (sometimes i use BLT , but not in all case).

As for .swf support I have that working quite well in my own FE but it can be quite CPU intensive as you have to grab frames from the Flash ocx and render them. It might even be impossible to do with CS3 version .swf's but I personally haven't tried that. That might take the framerate out of the low-end spec support Atomic is aiming for.

Yes, if you use third party "component" like the flash ocx , you will be quickly limited somewhere.

I'm also curious Youki what version of Visual C++ is Atomic written in?

Visual C++ 6    , recently i moved it to 7 . (VC++ 2003)

[headkaze]

Thanks. but in fact i use directdraw to choose the graphic mode/resolution and then most of my routine access directly to his buffers bypassing APIs.  I don't really use the DirectDraw API. (sometimes i use BLT , but not in all case).

There are no DD API's for rotation so of course you are locking surfaces and manipulating the bits manually. I did the same thing in the GameEx rotation routines although I used GDI and GetDIBits/SetDIBits since a DD surface and a GDI DC are easily interchangeable.

Yes, if you use third party "component" like the flash ocx , you will be quickly limited somewhere.

I'm curious if Flash CS3 has an ocx for their new player and if it will improve the performance I'm getting.

Visual C++ 6    , recently i moved it to 7 . (VC++ 2003)

I still use VC6 for writing dll's as they compile with no dependancies. I don't like how VC7/8 require end-user installed runtimes when all I'm writing is a small dll. But people think I'm crazy because I still use VC6.

[youki]

still use VC6 for writing dll's as they compile with no dependancies. I don't like how VC7/8 require end-user installed runtimes when all I'm writing is a small dll. But people think I'm crazy because I still use VC6.

What runtime are you talking about?  I have done few dll in VC 7 , i use , and don't need runtime.

I also like VC 6 , i was very happy with it.  But i had to do a work for a guy  on VC7  , so to avoid to have both installed i migrated Atomic  to 7. (just recompile in fact , i had nothing special to do ! )

I'm curious if Flash CS3 has an ocx for their new player and if it will improve the performance I'm getting.

I think the future could be Microsoft SilverLight.  I started to work on it (for my job) , that's quite good. Still young of course , but very very promising....

[headkaze]

What runtime are you talking about?  I have done few dll in VC 7 , i use , and don't need runtime.

You might be right the only runtimes I found are for 2005 and 2008. Maybe I should move from VS6 to VS2003 then?

Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package (x86)
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86)
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package (x86)

I also like VC 6 , i was very happy with it.  But i had to do a work for a guy  on VC7  , so to avoid to have both installed i migrated Atomic  to 7. (just recompile in fact , i had nothing special to do ! )

Yes I think I will have to move all my C++ projects to VC 2003/2005 eventually. If 2003 doesn't need runtimes I think that might be a good one to migrate to but I already have VS6 and 2005 installed on my dev PC.

I think the future could be Microsoft SilverLight.  I started to work on it (for my job) , that's quite good. Still young of course , but very very promising....

Isn't SilverLight a web only API? I think Windows Presentation Foundation could also be a future avenue - alot of complex graphic tasks can be done easily in XAML. Also WPF is 3d accellerated API. I think maybe FE's of the future will be written in WPF, but it is still a long way away before people will be using Vista for cabs.

[youki]

You might be right the only runtimes I found are for 2005 and 2008. Maybe I should move from VS6 to VS2003 then?

Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package (x86)
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86)
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package (x86)

Are you sure these library are not only needed for Managed C++?  I have briefly read the page they are talking about installation in Assembly Cache.   I think if you are not in managed mode you don't need them.  You can also , i think , use static version of these library and link it to your project.

Isn't SilverLight a web only API? I think Windows Presentation Foundation could also be a future avenue - alot of complex graphic tasks can be done easily in XAML.

SilverLight uses WPF and XAML .  For now i just used Silverlight for simple web prototype, so i'm not an expert , but i think it is not necessary "only" web.  As it stands now , it clear it will compete with Flash ,   Try Microsoft Expression Blend 2.5 , there are similarities with flash...

[MAME TIME]

Youki has been a stand up guy from the start, great work. Looks like im going to have to update my cab yet again. I'm sure the vert layouts will be on the backburner untill further notice? any plans?

[youki]

These layout can be used as is vertically too , but of course will not have the correct Aspect/Ratio.

But layout are also easly modifiable to vertical using AtomicLayout Editor.

If i can find time , I will do also a set of vertical ones. But surely after the release.

[headkaze]

Are you sure these library are not only needed for Managed C++?  I have briefly read the page they are talking about installation in Assembly Cache.   I think if you are not in managed mode you don't need them.  You can also , i think , use static version of these library and link it to your project.

I think you might be okay with VS 2003, but I remember upgrading a non-managed C++ dll to 2005 and it stopped working on other user's PC's. I believe it was because they needed the runtimes installed. So yeah I don't mean managed C++.

You might be right about being able to staticly link them though, although I haven't tried it. That would inflate the size of the exe quite a bit I'd imagine though.