GameSmith Development System Release 2.0 ________________________________________ These demos and the included demo source code are designed to give you a first hand look at the types of things that are possible with the GameSmith Development System. For more information please contact us at: In North America contact: Oregon Research 16200 S.W. Pacific Hwy., Suite 162 Tigard OR 97224 Phone: (503) 620-4919 FAX: (503) 624-2940 Internet: orres@teleport.com Genie: ORA CompuServe: 71333,2655 In Europe contact: HiSoft The Old School Greenfield, Bedford MK45 5DE UNITED KINGDOM Phone: +44 (0) 525 718181 FAX: +44 (0) 525 713716 Internet: hisoft@cix.compulink.co.uk GameSmith retails for $129.95 and is available at Amiga dealers everywhere. You may also order directly from Oregon Research or HiSoft. Demo Notes ---------- Some of the blitter/animation demos can run in Super72 800x600, but this mode is not used by the demo scripts. See the demo code itself for how this is accomplished, or simply type the name of the demo file (in each subdirectory) for a list of available command line options. Note that Super72 mode is only possible if the Super72 monitor is installed in your Devs: drawer. IMPORTANT: Most demos require a mouse button click to exit (either one). The Tutorial demo requires a Joystick to exit. Most of the demos have the Joystick routines activated and will do extra things when you use a joystick. Some of the demos, the Moonrocks in particular, require a lot of chip ram. If you get a setup error, or a message saying "Bad news from the moon". Then try closing some windows or other means of freeing up additional chip ram. ***************************************************************** ******** The GameSmith Development System Release 2 ************* ***************************************************************** So you want to write a game? Why? Games are fun! Besides that, about 99% of the games out there just aren't quite up to your standards. In this case the old adage rings true: "If you want something done right..." There's just one hitch: up until now, there were only 2 options: 1) Spend years developing all of the necessary low-level tools you'll need to make the games you want, or 2) Surrender to the empty promises of restricting BASIC language environments. 'C' and assembler programmers, this is your answer! AMOS and Blitz users: tired of BASIC restrictions? Tired of so-so tools? Do you want COMMERCIAL QUALITY results without spending years in development? Then check out what the GameSmith Development System has to offer. Three years in the making, the GameSmith Development System provides all of the low level muscle your programs require, freeing you to concentrate on the things you really want to spend time on - GAME CREATION! With the introduction of Commodore's exciting new CD32 game machine, more people than ever want to get in on the action. Amiga owners are in luck, because the GameSmith Development System allows even novice programmers to create stunning results. Its unrivaled power is currently available ONLY for the Amiga! Whether you're an experienced game programmer, hobbyist, or just getting your feet wet, the GameSmith Development System will SIGNIFICANTLY reduce development time, allowing you to be more creative. No matter what model of Amiga you're targeting, no matter what operating system level, GDS functions will run on it. Whether you want to make a fast paced shoot 'em up or a role playing adventure, the GameSmith Development System has a lot to offer. What is it? ----------- The GameSmith Development System comes with a linker library of highly optimized game systems and several programs for game creation. Most of the system was written in assembler, giving you true arcade performance. Your programs can make use of any or all of the individual pieces in the linker library. Want to use the GameSmith animation and/or sound systems in an Intuition screen instead of the GameSmith display? No problem. And the utility CITAS lets you graphically put together your animated objects (i.e. BOB's). There are also utilities to encrypt your IFF graphic and sound files, keeping them safe from prying eyes when you're ready to distribute your program. You can even write your own encryption algorithms! The major components of the toolkit include: 1: The most sophisticated programmable animation system available today, and all at arcade speeds. Using animated objects has never been easier! It automatically and transparently handles: - Double buffering (if desired). - Prioritized display of objects (objects can move in front of or behind each other). - Saving and restoring of background data "behind" objects (if so desired). - Object-to-object collision detection. Objects may have any number of collision detection areas. - Object-to-background data collision detection. Objects may have any number of collision points. - Software interrupt collision handling. Tell the animation system what functions you want to handle collisions and those functions will automatically be called when a collision occurs. - Translucent objects. - Animating an object forward or backward. - Single shot forward and/or backward animations (the animation system repeats the last cell until the sequence is reset). - Automatic bitmap bounds checking. - Automatic virtual space object coordinate handling. Objects may lie outside of the actual bitmap. - Ability to shift real space within virtual space; perfect for tilemap scrollers. - Placement of attached, or child objects from a parent object. Chain any number of objects. - Automatic handling and placement of multi-sequence objects. To your program, these complex objects are as easily handled as a simple anim object. Imagine a Street Fighter character with all sorts of different moves: to your program it would still be ONE LOGICAL OBJECT! EASY! - Automatic handling of objects in any number of simultaneous bitmaps. - Optional use of the CPU or the Amiga blitter chip to display objects on a per object basis. - Load disk-based anim objects with a single function call. Automatically allocate any number of objects in an array (objects use a single copy of the actual image data to conserve memory). Free them at any time. - Full dynamic control over anim objects. Many, many options. 2: A sound sample/effects player of unrivaled ease. VERY efficient! - Load IFF 8SVX sound samples, including stereo samples and samples with a loop portion, with a single function call (including those you've encrypted with the supplied utility). - Load raw sound samples. Any file can be interpreted as sound data. - Interrupt driven automatic playback of samples in the background. - Playback of sound samples from Fast RAM (with a small, user specified amount of Chip RAM). - Playback of sound samples in any octave and note. - Unlimited sound sample size (memory permitting). - Automatic handling of looping samples for real-time echo. - Automatic special effects such as fades and frequency changes. - Total Dynamic user control of samples in progress. 3: An ILBM picture loader. Load any picture with a single function call (including encrypted graphics), or merely interrogate the file (get dimensions, color, etc.). Optionally fill a color table at load time and/or allocate one or two bitmaps to hold the picture. 4: Sophisticated display system for taking over the Amiga's display. Complete hardware level display, yet totally compatible with all Amiga's. You will not find a more sophisticated, compatible, and reliable display system for the Amiga. - FULLY AGA compatible. Use any display mode available in any supported depth (included "promoted" double scan displays). - Automatic and transparent double buffering. - Split the display into any number of viewports vertically (resolution allowing). - Hardware level smooth scrolling on a per viewport basis (yes, even on AGA machines!). Easily scroll at full display speeds (60 fps NTSC, 50 fps PAL) even during intense game play. - Put any viewport in dual playfield mode. - Independently scroll either playfield in dual playfield mode. - Optionally make use of user preferences for display placement (system display clip and positioning). - Supports new AGA enhanced dual playfield modes: 7 or 8 bitplanes. - Change the color palette at any time: a single register or the entire palette (supports 24 bit AGA color values). - Fast (near instantaneous) user copper lists, modifiable at any time (REALLY!). Set AGA 24 bit color registers with the copper. - Parallax scrolling for great "Shadow of the Beast" type displays. - Hardware sprites. - Supports hardware border blanking on ECS Super Denise and AGA systems. 5: Many utility routines: - AmigaDOS librarian. One call to open the libs you need, one call to close 'em. Completely safe, open them as often as you like. - Joystick polling: both ports. EASY! - Vector routines. Move an object in a straight line at any angle or plot a line in a bitmap. User controlled speed and precision. Very fast, and highly optimized. - VERY good random number generator. - File requestor (this is the only function available only to SAS 'C' users). Runs on WB 1.3 systems. - Vertical blank timer. - Vertical blank controller: add any function to the system vertical blank server chain!! One call to add, one call to remove. - Fast plot routines for replacing the sluggish system ReadPixel and WritePixel routines. Flip any pixels color. Plot to any bitmap. - Many low-level blitter routines. These are the same routines used by the animation system. Blit any image using the Amiga's blitter chip or the CPU. Simple, just set a bit! Transparent operation. - Many additional utility routines are available. The system comes with 350 pages of manuals. You get a User's Guide, a Library Reference, and the CITAS manual. CITAS 3.1 This revolutionary utility is like nothing you've ever seen before. CITAS began years ago as a shareware utility that turned an IFF image into 'C' or assembler source code so that the data could be referenced by your program. Well, CITAS has really grown up! You can now graphically build all aspects of an anim object beginning at the image level, and progressing all the way through collision detection. All this simply and easily with the click of a button or the press of a key. You can still create source output for your objects (including all of the complex controlling structures), but you can also create the more flexible disk-based objects. Disk based objects can be loaded and freed by your program, conserving memory by using only those that need to be loaded at one time. What's more they can be encrypted (non-editable by CITAS) and even locked to your unique serial number - only your program can load them. The beautiful part is that objects created by CITAS, whether linked into your program or loaded from disk, are directly usable by the animation system! No additional setup is necessary, just load 'n play! CITAS let's you easily: sequence images in an animation, preview animation at any time, adjust image placement, single step animation, flip and rotate images, set display method and priority, define object-to-object and object-to-background collision areas, etc., etc. Lots of great features! CITAS loads IFF images, so you can use your favorite graphics program to paint or render your artwork. CITAS will run in any available display mode, even allowing you to save display preferences. Compatibility The GameSmith Development System is fully compatible with every Amiga ever made. It will run on WorkBench releases 1.3 on up. It is also FULLY AGA COMPATIBLE, with many enhanced AGA features. Finally! Now you can write CORRECT AGA software! What if I Want to Sell Something I Make With This System? No problem. There are no distribution royalties whatsoever. In fact, people won't even be able to tell that you used this system for your program (although a little mention would be nice). C Compiler and 680x0 Assembler INCLUDED! ---------------------------------------- Includes DICE GS C compiler and DevpacGS 680x0 assembler. These are fully functional special GameSmith versions of the commerical C compiler DICE 3.0 and 680x0 Assembler Devpac 3. Amiga Requirements ------------ Programmers should be familiar with either the 'C' language or assembler. You don't have to be an expert by any means, but you should be familiar with the basic things like pointers, structures, hexidecimal notation, and how bitplanes are combined to form a bitmap for display. Other languages that support standard Amiga linker libraries and can handle pointers and structures may be directly supported by Oregon Research in the future. What if I Have a Problem or a Question? Don't worry, we're here for you! Technical support is available by letter, phone Monday - Friday Wednesday 9am - 12pm Pacific, FAX or electronically. Our technical support specialists are there for you. In North America contact: Oregon Research 16200 S.W. Pacific Hwy., Suite 162 Tigard, OR 97224 Phone: (503) 620-4919 FAX: (503) 624-2940 Internet: orres@teleport.com Genie: ORA CompuServe: 71333,2655 In Europe contact: HiSoft The Old School Greenfield, Bedford MK45 5DE UNITED KINGDOM Phone: +44 (0) 525 718181 FAX: +44 (0) 525 713716 Internet: hisoft@cix.compulink.co.uk GameSmith retails for $129.95 and is available from Amiga dealers everywhere.