animdtc0112

Short:        IFF ANIM DataType V1.12
Author:       GISBURN@w-specht.rhein-ruhr.de (Roland Mainz)
Uploader:     GISBURN w-specht rhein-ruhr de (Roland Mainz)
Type:         util/dtype
Replaces:     util/dtype/animdtc0111.LhA
Architecture: m68k-amigaos

IFF ANIM DataType, a replacement for (little bit) buggy CBM anim.datatype.
animation.datatype subclass.

Shareware !

Starting with V1.8, anim.datatype is shareware. See "anim.datatype.doc/MAIN"
for details

Features are:
- Can save it's local format.
  anim.datatype supports DTM_WRITE for it's local format, e.g you
  can save animations in IFF ANIM using this datatype.
  Supports currently IFF ANIM-3 as output format, other formats
  are on the way.
  Converters like "DTConvert" are now able to write IFF ANIM using this
  datatype :-)

- Supports sound.
  Any sound (loaded with a sound.datatype subclass) can be attached to the
  animation.

  If you want, you can read-out this animation+sound as an IFF FILM stream
  (using DumpDTAnim (Aminet:gfx/conv/DumpDTAnim#?.LhA)) and make a
  playback using film.datatype.

- Per-frame-colormaps (e.g. palatte change per frame). Using DBufDTAnim
  >= v1.2 (Aminet:gfx/show/DBufDTAnim) or animation.datatype V41, you can use
  this feature.

- Supports all (currently) defined ANIM compression modes:
  - ANIM-0    ILBM BODY
  - ANIM-1    ILBM XOR           (disabled, no test files)
  - ANIM-2    Long Delta mode
  - ANIM-3    Short Delta mode
  - ANIM-4    General Delta mode (disabled, no test files)
  - ANIM-5    Byte Delta mode
  - ANIM-6    Stereo Byte Delta mode
  - ANIM-7    Anim-5 compression using LONG/WORD data
  - ANIM-8    Anim-5 compression using LONG/WORD data
  - ANIM-J    Eric Grahams compression format

- Compression modes can be mixed in any way (e.g. ANIM-5 with ANIM-J etc.).

- Interleave counts can have any value (not limited to 1 or 2 frames back),
  maybe 255.

- Should be safer than the CBM version. Includes stack checking code and
  many asserts to avoid crashes.

- Random frame access (even to deltas).

- Supports clipboard as input.

- Dynamic loading of frames (disk-based) or caching the whole anim in memory.

- Preference file with various options and per project settings like
  - Viewmode ID
  - Frames Per Second Rate
  - VERBOSE option which shows the internal structure of the animation stream
    (used compression modes; animation dimensions and other attributes).
  - Sound attachment with
  - Volume control

- Matches the "DataTypes" proposal.

Future versions will implement:
- Frame skipping (by compression type and/or by frame number).

- Color cycling in an animation.

Changes since last release (V1.11):
       V1.12
         - Replaced the custom stack swapping code by my "standard" module.

         - Now the default FPS rate is 10 if animation.datatype is
           < V41. If V41 is running with ADTA_AdaptiveFPS, the
           fps is set to 60.

         - Fixed ModeID handling. The previous behaviour was that
           a 0 mode id causes the datatype to select it's own mode id.
           But 0 means LORES. Now the default is -1 (which means
           INVALID_ID), which causes the datatype to do it's own
           calculations.
           Fixed.

         - OM_DISPOSE now preserves Result2 (IoErr()) to avoid that an
           error code may get lost.

       V1.11
         - Recompiled with SAS/C 6.58. May fix some mc68060 related
           problems.

         - Found the longstanding bug that animation.datatype V40.7
           didn't free some frames. Reason is that ADTM_LOADFRAME
           may be used like "realloc". Now alf_UserData is checked;
           any given frame will be freed (ADTM_UNLOADFRAME).
           Fixed.

         - ADTM_UNLOADFRAME now clears alf_UserData to indicate that the
           frame has been freed.

         - Now supports anims deeper than 8 planes, but a colormap
           (e.g. a CMAP chunk) is still expected.

         - Fixed the bug that a free of the current frame caused an frame
           to be not freed. (The idea was to hold the current frame for
           following delta accesses; this has been replaced by the idea
           of the "posted free").

         - Implemented the idea of a "posted free". For delta accesses,
           it's not very usefull to free the frame when the next frame
           needs it for it's delta access. Therefore, the anim.datatype
           now manages a "free list", where the free of the previous
           and the previous-previous frame will be posted until
           it is really not longer in use.

         - Fixed a bug in the LOADALL mode that the wrong previous
           frame was used (due a change in V1.10).

         - The single framenodes now caches a pointer to their previous
           frame. This should speed up loading a little bit.

         - If an animation has dynamic timing and the superclass
           (animation.datatype) has the ADTA_AdaptiveFPS flag set,
           the playback speed now defaults to 60 fps.

         - Saved an AllocVecPooled in ADTM_LOADFRAME by merging multiple
           delta buffer allocations to one allocation (which can hold the
           largest delta).

         - The stack swapping code now allocates it's memory without
           the MEMF_CLEAR flags, which should speed up things.

         - Removed BestModeIDA code, because animation.datatype does
           the same.

         - The options setting for DPaint brush compatibility patch
           worked wrong (the order was wrong). Now the options
           work as described.
           Fixed.

         - Fixed a bug in the encoder that the last color of a dynamic
           pallete as not copied (GetRGB32 got numcolors - 1 instead
           of numcolors).
           Fixed.

----

Bye,
Roland