Screen Savers Available for Delirium (September 1998)
====================================

All savers are copyright their respective authors, and may not be
distributed unless all files remain unchanged.

If you don't have all these savers, see our Web site (or get in touch by
post, and we'll send them to you). The URL is later on in this file.


Blur Cluster
------------

Developed from the pre-RiscPC Flame Cluster effect, Blur Cluster uses a
mix of dot rotation and horizontal blurring for a relaxed and yet quite
animated saver effect. The colour range is enhanced by blurring the
separate RGB elements at different rates, and by altering the dot plot
colours depending on their xyz coordinates. Effect is 100% ARM
assembler.

Code/design : Origin


Head Punch
----------

Quite an experimental effect which uses a rather harsh random plotting
routine. For a more laid back Head Punch, or a "Cold Punch" if you will,
set the intensity to about 7. For a much more intense and in your face
"Hot Punch" whack it up to 80. As with Blur CLuster, the blur routine
does the main work, with the colour content being added via rows of
transparent sprite plots or rings.

Code/design : Origin
Silly name and Fine tuning : The Various Artists


Metamorphosis
-------------

A heavily customisable saver that takes a directory of Sprites and
displays them randomly. None of these dodgy Acorn Slideshow mixes
however, this uses full accuracy 24bit picture to picture mixing. Nice
and smooth, especially if you use a screen mode that allows 2 banks of
24bit colour (480x352 is tops, unless you have a Phoebe). Mix speed,
delay time and of course the images you use are all configurable, but
the effect comes complete with a set of abstract Kulture related images
by Origin.

If you use your own sprites, make sure they are all of the same
dimensions (and are dimensions of a usable screen mode like 320x256) and
that none of them have palettes or masks. Oh, and they need to be 32bit
sprites as well.

As of Version 1.50 of Metamorphosis (as distributed with Delirium 2.20),
support for JPEGs has been added, albeit with a few provisos:

 * Firstly, you will require version 0.99 or higher of the SpriteExtend
   module. This is in ROM on RISC OS 3.6 and higher machines. It is
   available from Acorn's FTP site for RISC OS 3.5.

 * You will also need to adhere to the same 'laws' as with sprites. That
   is, they must all be the same size, and that size must match an
   available screen mode.

We are currently in the process of a complete rewrite of this saver,
which will support scaling JPEGs to fit an arbitrary screen mode, and
also lots of nice new fades. Keep an eye out early 1999...

Code/design : Origin, with JPEG code from Joe
Image design and digital photography : Origin


Spray
-----

One of the original screen saver effects that I wrote on an ARM2
machine, years back. The effect has been constantly upgraded as I got my
hands on new machines, and now runs in 1024x768 with a tasty 256 colour
redefined palette. The effect has featured in a variety of Quantum and
then Kulture demos in the past, and its very laid back and ambient look
makes it ideal as a screen saver effect.

Code/design : Origin


Shade Cluster
-------------

A revision of the old flame cluster effect on which the processor
intensive Blur Cluster effect is based. Shade Cluster uses a little 3D
rotation routine and a tasty random generation routine to create a kind
of squirming, growing virus that mutates around the screen. Or something
like that. Now quite a few people complained on
comp.sys.acorn.moaning.people that Delirium wasn't configurable enough.
Hopefully this effect is configurable enough even for them. You can
alter the growth rate, the rotation speeds, the res, and optionally have
trails. But to be frank, the default settings look best. If ya like it
with the trails on, you're best off setting the speeds up a bit.

Code/design : Origin


Star
----

Another blur effect, this time using sine driven sprites to create a
swirly star kind of effect. Reasonably laid back and the title image and
gradual fading in and out of the sprite plotting rounds it off nicely.

Code/design : Origin


Haze
----

Very simple code but serious design is the explanation behind this
effect's heavy use of BASIC. Probably the most laid back effect of the
bunch, Haze steadily builds a picture on the screen by plotting rows of
45 degree shaded lines in 24bit colour. The effect runs for around ten
minutes (depending on screen rez and processor speed) before screen
clearing and starting again. An essential for uses who find the more
animated effects too distracting.

Code/design : Origin


Substance
---------

Based on the Star effect in technical terms, Substance uses exactly the
same graphical effects - transparent sprite plotting and screen blurring
(although this time it's a fixed RGB blur). The difference is a whole
load of work put into the design of how these effects are used. Spinning
shapes and the subtle combining colours are used to produce five
different Substance types (as usual, all with pretentious names),
including Visionary, Raw, Kinetic, Globular and Smooth, as well as two
auto-random modes. The config options allow you to select your favourite
as well as set the brightness of the plotting and turn on or off the
Substance banner. The default Substance type is set to Pro-Random, which
alternates between the Visionary and Kinetic Substances. Nice.

"Yeah man, I can see the music coming out of the screen... and it's all
kinda... multi coloured streams of light. Groovy"

Code/design : The Various Artists


Vortex
------

Vortex is a re-working of that old circles trick - plot a couple of
sprites worth of circles over each other in some kind of warpingly
transparent way, wibble them around a bit, and Paul's your uncle. This
time, the circles idea has been combined with some blurring to give it a
spacey look. The blur code was specially modified so that the blue
element appears trailed and the red colour is hardly trailed at all. The
code is almost identical to that used for the Substance effect. All the
development time went into making the effect look good from a design
point of view - work that's much more important than the actual
technical coding.

Code/design : The Various Artists



Blank
-----

Your bog standard blank task. Unexciting, but used by Delirium if you
don't have enough memory to run the selected saver. Oh yes, it's really
that clever.

Code : Joe


Delirium Banner
---------------

As with "Blank" another low memory screen saver that bounces the loading
banner around the screen. Doesn't alter screen mode, so you can pop
straight back to the desktop instantly.

Code : Joe
Gfx : Origin


Random (Improved for version 2!)
--------------------------------

This saver allows you to select a list of your favourite savers from a
menu, and it'll choose one of them randomly each time. It tries to
ensure that the same saver is never used twice in a row, too.

Code : Joe




Third Party Savers
------------------

A number of third party savers have been written. At the time of writing
this file, I am aware of the following savers:

  Blur Space, by Tom Thorne
  Bump Mapper, by Chris Lund
  Dali Clock, by Steven Singer
  Dots, by Robin Watts and Steven Singer
  Fireworks, by Matthew Bloch
  Juliana, by Robin Watts, Jan Vlietinck and Jamie Lokier
  Scope, by David Brookes

All of these should be available from our Web site. If they aren't, they
will be soon...



More Savers
===========

Kulture will be continually supporting Delirium and adding new savers as
we come up with new fx. Unfortunately Origin won't be developing any
more fx as he's gone to work for Gremlin Interactive, but new savers
from the rest of the group will be appearing. Check the Delirium Web
site for the latest range of effects to download.

Currently in development (by Stu, our 3D expert) are the following
savers:

 * Fish (real 3D fish, that is!)
 * Flag
 * Warp
 * Plasma
 * Vox

Watch the web site (see main Help file for URL) later on in 1998 for
their release!

For information about writing your own savers to use with Delirium, see
the Docs directory inside the !Delirium application.

