amiga-news.de - Multimedia authoring system: Hollywood available

Multimedia authoring system: Hollywood available
Andreas Falkenhahn wrote:
Finally! After a long time of development, the Multimedia authoring system Hollywood is available. Hollywood is a powerful and extensive program which is unique on the Amiga. You could compare Hollywood with a modern version of Scala: But Hollywood works fully in 24bit mode and uses only system functions to grant compatibility on every Amiga system. Because of this extreme system friendly programming Hollywood does also run on Amiga emulators with great speed. Versions of Hollywood for MorphOS and AmigaOS4 and maybe also AROS are planned. On the Hollywood product page you will find an extensive overview including screenshots from the program. In the next days some applications done with Hollywood will be presented here. Hollywood is delivered on CD-ROM and can be ordered now.

Hollywood is the Multimedia Application Layer for Amiga(tm) and compatible operating systems. This means that it offers you a script language together with advanced functions that allow you to create your own multimedia applications which range from a simple slideshow to a complex game. The big advantage of Hollywood is, that it does all the framework for you. You do not have to care for example, if your application is going to run on a ECS, OCS, AGA or RTG system. You do not have to care if the Workbench screen your application runs on has 16 or 16.7 million colors. You can concentrate yourself on the important thing which is your application and not its enviroment.

Hollywood is fully 24 bit enhanced which means that you do not have to mess around with palettes, remapping and so on. Additionally it is fully integrated into AmigaOS(tm) and does not rely on a specific custom hardware. Therefore Hollywood does also run on emulations like Amithlon or WinUAE with amazing speed.

Using the Hollywood script language, the possibilities are almost unlimited. The basic version of Hollywood comes with over 150 functions that range from disk operating system (DOS) functions to functions that allow you to smoothly scroll animations and graphics on your display. There are also many functions that allow you to display objects, pictures and texts with over 50 cool transition effects or scale graphics and animations. You can also fade objects, texts and pictures smoothly.

Hollywood uses the datatypes system to load all graphics, animations and sounds which allows you to use all formats you have datatypes for. Additionally it supports unique things like transparent windows which enhance the look-and-feel of your Workbench screen amazingly. You can use true type fonts (with anti-aliasing), standard bitmap fonts and even the cool Amiga color fonts with Hollywood.

The integrated sound system allows you to play various types of music modules (including Protracker and OctaMED) but also sound samples. You have full control over this system because you can specify which channels to use for play back.

Hollywood is a high-end application that needs some memory to work best. It uses a special preload system so that all data is immediately accessible and the play back is incredibly fast. Therefore it is advised that you have lots of memory (16 megabytes+) and also run a RTG system like Picasso96 or CyberGraphX.

Hollywood is the absolutely number one choice in Amiga(tm) Multimedia nowadays and brings the Amiga back to its roots...Multimedia! It comes with a compiler which can save your applications as stand alone Amiga executables which may be freely distributed.

Hollywood is delivered on CD-ROM with many examples on it as well as over 250 kilobyte of documentation in AmigaGuide format. It is only available directly from the author.

Although all this may sound a bit complicated to you, it is very easy. Programming skills are not necessary. They are only of use if you want to create complex applications but for the normal Hollywood usage, you do not need them because Hollywood is really easy to handle.

Graphics:

Fully 24bit enhanced!
Transparent windows are possible
Over 50 transition effects for objects, pictures and texts
Graphics can be scrolled smoothly
Smooth and fast animation play back
Support for transparent graphics and animations
Functions for using textures
Support for datatypes
Support for true type, bitmap and color fonts
Scaling of graphics is possible
Application can open on Workbench or own screen
Integrated easy Undo system
Fully independent from the enviroment e.g. does not matter if user runs Picasso96 or CyberGraphX or AGA or ECS/OCS

Sound:

Support for audio samples
Full control over the audio channel playback
Support for various music module formats
Volume and pitch of samples can be modified during playback
Sample size is not limited to 128 kilobyte
Full Stereo playback

Script language:

Variables, arrays and different data types (long, float, string)
Conditions and loops can be used
Easy handling of variables (no initialization, declaration)
Functions for manipulating strings and doing math operations
Compiler and linker to convert your script to an executable
Inbuilt error handler that does all the error handling work for you
Functions for debugging your script
Labels that are fully integrated into the user interaction mode
Plugins can be used to enhance Hollywood's functionality

User interaction:

Buttons can be defined
Hollywood buttons support mouse click and mouse over events
Keyboard input can be monitored
System keys can be monitored
Window events (window is moved, sized, closed etc.) can be monitored with ease

System functions:

Read from and write to files
Easily read whole directories into an array
Various file operations
Many functions to handle files and work with them
Query the Amiga system for information (e.g. CPU, Kickstart etc.)
Retrieve information about hard disks, memory...
Enhance your program to use different languages by using Hollywood's locale.library support
Many time and date functions

(ps)

[News message: 05. Nov. 2002, 00:25] [Comments: 2 - 07. Nov. 2002, 01:32]
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