Hello

I'm Rhino, the coder of an old Amiga demoscene group called Batman Group.
At that time we did some demos for A500 like "Batman Vuelve" which can be viewed at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaCgxYyhx4c

After 14 years since our last demo we want to return to the scene with which it will probably be the best demo for 8 bits including Amstrad CPC and C64. The reason is that Amstrad was the machine where we learned to program and believe that is clearly undervalued. We want to do justice to our cherished machine.

We have produced about 60% of the routines now, but we need the optimal source code support for play music and track disk access. We are not experts in these aspects of CPC programming and probably the best solution for this is already invented, if the source code are public domain, we appreciate those who help us find them, or if the author gives us permission to use and wishes be included in the credits of the demo.

We also need to know what is the best way to compose music for the CPC, the best tools for this, we used always the classic Octamed in Amiga and we are a bit lost in CPC. Probably also need some graphic support, we accept suggestions from anyone who wants to participate in the project...

We appreciated your help in advance.

Thanks,

Rhino.

Back off, you comodore user !!!!
No i Am kidding, lol.

More seriously (sorry for my engrish) :

I think it may be better to use an Atari ST to compose music for a CPC because :
--the midi port : allows to connect a midi synthesizer, easier to compose maybe...(but amiga can have one also)
--the same sound chip on the 2 machines.

Also it may be easier to use a more powerful computer than the 8 bit, as softwares tend to have a bad "user friendly interface" on 8 bits.
Just to have a mouse and more memory helps a lot indeed.
But amiga must be great too for that (I don't know).

As an Amiga user, you must probably know the "sound trackers" kind of softwares..
Well there are some for Amstrad CPC.

Look there (in french, sorry)
https://cpcrulez.fr/applications_music.htm

Errrr....I suggest that you develop your stuff for a CPC+ instead of the old CPC.

Because :
--those machines were under-used as it was clearly the end of the 8-bit Era and a commercial disaster.
--they are quite more "powerfull" and you don't have many different CRTC models (graphic component).
--it is good to have a 4096 colour palette, 16 HardSprites with their own 15 colours, splitscreen facilities, Hardware scrollings, DMA sounds...

As an Amiga user, you may find this familiar and friendly.

And it will soon be the 20th anniversary of the Amstrad+ models range release !


Concerning graphics :
De you need some guys to do some graphics for you ?
Can you give us more hints or information ?


Well, have a look at the CPC wiki :
http://www.cpcwiki.com/index.php/Main_Page
also there :The Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource
http://www.kjthacker.f2s.com/
you may find quite a lot of information in Engrish (and Deutsch or even Espaniol or French...)

You may already know those.

lol, beware, there are some Demomakers here, who may not believe this and be quite cryptic with this statement...lol.
Demomakers tend to be so proud sometimes...

Others here will probably be more helpful than me, as I don't really program or code.

But a few questions arise :
--Do you do your stuff on a real CPC or just through emulation ?
As the real Hardware doesn't always react as expected in emulation (and vice versa)

--Where are you from ?

Good luck to you in this project (and the rest of course.)


Oops, j'ai pas vu qu'il y avait le même sujet en Démoscene...bon bin ça fait doublon alors...

JeJe, well, personally I was a satisfied user of Commodore Amiga, but not C64. In fact, one of our goals is to demonstrate that CPC is better than C64.

I agree with you except to make the demo for cpc+, our motivation is to do something spectacular for the standard CPC, so it can be compared with its equivalent in the C64 standar.
About the pride of the demos developers, we just want to compete with C64 groups, and put CPC on the top.

Thanks for your links and suggestions. Are you a graphic artist?, Tell us about your work, please. we're doing a demo with a very specific style mainly based on the Batman characters. We are from Spain, certainly a place not very prolific in CPC productions ... so far.

errr...Dynamic ?
maybe Spania is not that active in the Demoscene, but it used to be quite prolific with game production in the great CPC era...

That goal honors you, as C64 users are just pretentious "locos"...

464 or 6128 ?(64Ko or 128Ko Ram)

I am not really a great "artist". I'm just starting the "retro computering" stuff with the good old CPC I used to have in my youth.
I have to admit I don't know anything abouyt the "Coding aspect".

But i try to "re-do" some graphics from existing games :
I recolour levels or graphics from "speccy ports" (ported games from ZX Spectrum to CPC, often used by lazy game makers...) in mode 1.
Such as R-Type or Black Tiger.
As Speccy ports, the levels where mono-colored...
So I use the same graphics but with the 4 colors available as the CPC don't have this lame "Colour clash".

exemples :
R-Type levels :
http://img512.imageshack.us/my.php?image=level1plus.png
http://img178.imageshack.us/my.php?image=level2plus.png
a R-type mock-up
http://img512.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... sample.png
Black Tiger level 1 redone :


I was expecting some coders to build me a game-engine for such graphics on a cpc 6128+ to have all the kool "plus" stuff (15 colors HardSprites, split screens and hardscrollings...) but no one want to do that...
So I did it for the fun to show the good old CPC "speccy ports" may have been a lot better if correctly colored (and maybe programmed...).

And I try to design some levels for games (Thanx to "Tilestudio") that peoples in this Website are currently doing (when I have time to do so).
So I design my own tiles and so on when a have to, but as it is applied to a games, it's quite different from a real complete Graphic work creation.


But as an American Comics fan...Your project seems quite interesting.

Another pride would be to do something spectacular compared to the 16bits Atari ST standards...which I believe the CPC+ can reach
Or even Amiga (well, maybe this would be harder...).


When do you plan to release your Demo ?
What kind of stuff would you need ?
What will be the size of your Demo ?

Good luck again.

Not necessary to code on the cpc plus for that.
Screen with no border and offset splitting technics are spectaculars from an "atari st" point of view.

well, I mean demoscene productions, 8 bit was the golden age for game programming in Spain


Thanks, i think c64 users do not know what CPC can do...


Our intention is 64kb but with disk drive (trackmo).


Good job, MacDeath26.


Well, we have no specific dates.. Now it's not like when we were young, we have responsibilities and we can not spend all the time to make demos. Slowly but surely


We need technical support and possibly some graphics..


One CPC disk size, I still do not know if you need both sides



Thanks and Good luck to you too.

Rhino