ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ÚÄ¿ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ÚÄ¿ ÚÄÄ¿ ÚÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ À¿ ÚÄ¿ ³ ³ ³ ³ Ú¿ Ú¿ ³ ³ ÚÄÄ¿ ³ ³ ³ÚÙ ÚÙ ³ ÚÄÄÄÙ ³ ÚÄÄ¿ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ÚÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ ³³ ³³ ³ ³ ÀÄÄÙ ³ ³ ÀÙ ÀÄ¿ ³ ÀÄ¿ ³ ÀÄÄÙ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÙ ³ ³ÀÄÙ³ ³ ³ ÚÄÄ¿ ³ ³ ÚÄÄ¿ ³ ³ ÚÄÙ ³ ÚÄ¿ ÚÙ ÚÙ ÀÄÙ ³ ³ ÀÄÄ¿ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ÀÄÄÄ¿ ³ ³ ³ À¿ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ ÀÄÄÄÄÙ ÀÄÙ ÀÄÙ ÀÄÙ ÀÄÙ ÀÄÙ ÀÄÙ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÙ ÀÄÙ ÀÄÄÙ Release 3.0 The DL Animation Maker Reference Manual COPYRIGHT (C) 1990-1994 by Davide Tome' & Luca De Gregorio All rights are reserved DL-Soft c/o Galactica System Via Turati, 40 20121 Milano, ITALY Page 1 INDEX Topic Page INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 GENERAL FEATURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 DLS SOURCE FILE STRUCTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 DECLARATIVE SECTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 EXECUTIVE SECTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 SOUNDS SECTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 SOUNDS COMMANDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 SPEED COMMANDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 GRAPHICS COMMANDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 BORDER STATUS COMMANDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 VIDEOBLASTER MANAGER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 TEXT COMMANDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 KEYBOARD MANAGER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 LOADING COMMANDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 PROTECTION COMMANDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 QUIT COMMANDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 PAUSE COMMANDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 LOOP COMMANDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 TEMPORARY FILES XDL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 DL MAKER CONDITIONS AND TERMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Page 2 PREFACE This document is Copyrighted by Davide Tome' & Luca De Gregorio. All rights are reserved. The DL file format is exclusive property of Davide Tome' & Luca De Gregorio. Last release of DL MAKER will be always freely avaiable on the following bulletting board systems : Galactica BBS (Sysop : Davide Tome') Phone: +39-2-29006058 Fax : +39-2-29006153 Internet e-mail : dl-soft@galactica.it Inferno BBS (Sysop : Luca De Gregorio) Phone: +39-2-26221453 Fax : +39-2-26224663 We'll try to keep this document brief but informative. First of all, to use DL MAKER, it is NOT necessary to have a VGA card or special memory requirement : 640K will be enough. But DL MAKER will work better if you have enough free disk space on your hard drive (10Mb would be good). All other products or services mentioned are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of their respective companies or organizations. GENERAL FEATURES - DL MAKER is the ONLY program youy can use to create DL animation files. It works using GIF or TGA images (we suggest to use TGA) and VOC sounds. All you have to do is write your own DLS program (DLSource plain ascii file) and DL MAKER will do the rest. Animations will be created for 320x200x256 VGA mode only. This is the DEMO VERSION and some commands have been disabled. These commands are tagged with a {+}. Page 3 DLS SOURCE FILE STRUCTURE - DLS program must be written using a plain ascii editor. We can consider DLS separated in three parts : ------------------------------- [ DECLARATIVE SECTION ] . [ EXECUTIVE SECTION ] . [ SOUNDS SECTION ] . ------------------------------- These three parts will have to be exactly in this order and separated by a dot char (ASCII 46). You can insert comment's lines but the must have a major char (>) at the beginning (ASCII 62). DECLARATIVE SECTION - In this part of the DLS you'll have to specify the animation title (Max 40 characters), names of images you're gonna use and dot-resolutions for them. The first line in the DLS will be considered as a TITLE ! If this line will exceed 40 chars will be trucated. If you want to make a NO TITLED animation just leave this first line empty. From the second line you'll have to write names of images, one on each line, with their extension. About the dot-resolution (X,Y) please note that if the images is already of that size it won't be modified ! It is possible to use different image size for different images. But you are not allowed to overcome 320 dots for horizontal and 200 for vertical. Example : -------------------------------- TOMBA WINS SKIING TOMBA1.TGA 160 100 TOMBA2.TGA 160 100 TOMBA3.TGA 160 100 TOMBA4.TGA 100 50 MOUNTAIN.GIF 320 200 . -------------------------------- Page 4 EXECUTIVE SECTION - In this part of the DLS you have to specify the images and sounds sequence; you are also allowed to add some specific function commands (read function reference). Each images and sound will have a number corresponding to their position in the DLS declarative section. In our example TOMBA3 will correspond to image number 3; MOUNTAIN.GIF will be image number 5. When you write a number in this executive section you mean "DISPLAY IMAGE NUMBER #". You can write more number on one line (but blank-separated) and can write more lines. Example : -------------------------------- 1 2 3 4 5 3 4 2 . -------------------------------- Please note that the sequence will be looped. SOUND SECTION - In this section you have to list all the sound files you mean to use. They'll have to be standard VOC files and their extension must be included. They'll have a number in the same manner of images in the declarative section ! SOUNDS FUNCTIONS - There are 2 functions for the sound manager. One is to play a sound once only, the other one is to play a sound and keep it playing in loop. To choose the sound you just have to write the number as it is defined in the SOUNDS SECTION ( First sound is 1, second is 2, and guess what is the third ? ;) : Start sound number # and play it once only. : Start sound number # and keep on playing it forever (until another sound is choosen). Example : -------------------------------- L1 1 2 3 4 5 3 4 2 . -------------------------------- Sound 1 is played in loop. Another sound function is command that freeze the animation sequence until the current sound is playing. Page 5 Example : -------------------------------- S1 1 2 3 4 5 W 3 4 2 . -------------------------------- Sound 1 is played and the sequence 1 2 3 4 5 of images is shown on the screen. Then the screen pauses until the sound is over an then the animation will go on with images 3 4 2. SPEED COMMANDS - You can modify the current animation speed using 5 speed commands : <+> : Increase <-> : Decrease <*> : Very Fast : Very Slow <=> : Standard When you enter one of these commands into your DLS file it is like if the DL VIEWER user would press the corrispondent key. GRAPHICS COMMANDS - These are the commands you can use to modify the scene of the animation. : Fills a portion of the screen between (x1,y1) and (x2,y2) with color attribute 'col'. Example : -------------------------------- CLS(1,1,35,25,13) -------------------------------- Fills the rectangle between 1,1 and 35,25 with color number 13. Note that color number 13 is not a CERTAIN color ! It depends upon your current VGA PALETTE so upon the vga palette of the images you're usign. We suggest you to make different test to find your favourite color. Please remember that screen resolution is ALWAYS 320x200 dots 256 colors (VGA STANDARD MODE), so x1 and x2 can be from 1 to 320 and y1 and y2 from 1 to 200. It is necessary that x2 >= x1 and y2 >= y1. Do NOT insert a BLANK between CLS and '(' ! {+} (or X-) : Start moving images to the right ( or left ). This moving will go on until another X command is found. If you wish to stop moving just insert command . If your images reach the border of the screen there will be different reactions depending upon your BORDER STATUS (See commands ). Page 6 {+} (or Y-) : Same as commands X but vertical. {+} : Stops horizzontal moving. {+} : Stops vertical moving. {+} <(x,y)> : Change the current images placing point. Note that x and y are the coordinates of the upper left corner of images. This command has no effect if you are in BORDER STATUS . BORDER STATUS COMMANDS - These 4 commands will determinate the placing of images on the screen. {+} : STATUS F. If your images go out from the screen... say them bye ! {+} : STATUS A. Images are always places in the middle of the screen. {+} : STATUS R. If your images want to go out of the screen we'll stop them ! {+} : STATUS O. If they exit on the right will reappear from the left ! Same for up/down. VIDEOBLASTER MANAGER - If you have a VideoBlaster card from Creative Labs. Inc. then you have 2 addictional commands to have the videoblaster signal on a portion of your screen. {+} : Activates the VideoBlaster signal in the Window x1,y1 x2,y2 (same as CLS). This signal will be viewed only where the pixels would have the color 'col'. {+} : Stops Videoblaster. {+} : This command makes automatic rescale of video signal into the active Videoblaster windows. Page 7 {+} : Disable automatic rescaling of the Videoblaster signal. TEXT COMMANDS - These are commands to write text on the screen. {+} <"text> : Writes the string 'text' in the current virtual cursor position with the current color. To set cursor postion and color see command <>. No blanks allowed ! Please use the '_' underline character instead (ASCII 95) : it will be converted in blank while viewing. {+} <> : Set new virtual cursor position and new color for text outputs. X ranges from 1 to 80, Y from 1 to 14. Example : -------------------------------- 1 2 3 4 5 <5,10,14> "Hello_World_! 3 2 1 -------------------------------- This sequence will show 5 images and the set cursor position to 5,10 and color 14 (depends upon VGA PALETTE !) and writes 'Hello World !'; then goes on showing images. KEYBOARD MANAGER - You can choose if the viewer will be able to use it's on keyboard or not ! {+} : Turn keyboard on. The DL VIEWER user can use the keyboard to tune speed, to change sound status, and use all the DL VIEWER keyboard features. {+} : Turn keyboard off. The only thing he can do is to press ESC to quit. : Wait for a key. DL VIEWER will keep on waiting until a key is pressed. LOADING COMANDS - You can link more animations making one call the other creating a slide of animations. {+} <#dl_name> : Loads and runs the animation 'dl_name'. The new animation will take control ( is not a gosub ) and inherits the environment variables (BORDER STATUS, virtual cursor position, current color, etc.). Page 8 PROTECTION COMANDS - You can protect one or more animations with a password and/or a KEY FILE. To build your KEY FILE you need to purcase our KEY SYSTEM non included in DL MAKER package. {+} <@key_name:code> : This command will check the existence of the key file named 'key_name'. If the file exists it will be loaded and checked to be a valid key and to contain right 'code'. {+} <$password> : The DL VIEWER user will be prompted for the password to go un viewing the animation. Note that the password check in not case sensitive. Example : -------------------------------- 1 <1,1,14> $secret 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 -------------------------------- This sequence will let the user see the first image then set virtual cursor postion to 1,1 and color to 14 and prompts for the password. If the password is correct he'll be able to go on viewing. QUIT COMMANDS - Usually a animation sequence will be looped until ESC or ENTER is pressed. But you can terminate the execution of the animation automatically ! : This command terminate the viewing. : It will wait until the sounds are over and then quit. PAUSE COMMANDS - If you want to insert some pauses inside the viewing sequence you can do it using command . : Animation will pause for ##### hundreds/second. The pause value can range from 0 to 65535. This command will not alter the sounds execution. Page 9 LOOP COMMANDS - You can loop parts of the animation sequence using the start loop character <[> before the part you want to loop and a <]###> at the end. Please remeber the the whole animation will be looped anyway from the begining (except when using a QUIT COMMAND). You can not use nested loops. <[> : Loop starting simble. <]###> : Loop ending simble. The number ### mean how many times this sequence will have to be looped; it ranges from 1 to 255. TEMPORARY FILES XDL - DL MAKER will create some temporary files that will have the same name of images you're using but extension XDL. This files will help the program to be faster when you have to recompile an animation for your sequence adjustments. They won't be deleted by DL MAKER !!! So delete them by yourself when the corresponding DL file is OK for you. Page 10 DL MAKER CONDITIONS AND TERMS DL MAKER is not free software. If you paid a "public domain" vendor for this program, you paid for the copy and mailing service only, and not for the program itself. Nothing ever gets to the author of the program from such a sale. DL MAKER is copyrighted software, and all rights are reserved. The program may not be changed or modified in any way except by the author. It is SHAREWARE, and may be freely distributed, as long as it remains in its complete form with all support and documentation. This program allows a 15 days free trial period, but if you continue to use it after that time, you must register your copy or you will be in violation of the copyright. Registering you will receive the registration package with the leatest version on it and a registration key which removes the ending screen of the current and all future versions. DL MAKER is continually updated, so look for the newest revision in our authorized distribution sites. DISCLAIMER All warranties are disclaimed, including damage to hardware and/or software from use of this product. In no event will we be liable to you for any damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental or consequential damages arising out of your use or inability to use the program, or any other claim by any other party. Note that DL MAKER is a stand alone program, and not associated with a particular group of animations or pictures.