One of the frustrating things about being a RISC OS user, is its lack of support for commonly-used video formats, other than its own dedicated Replay system.
 
A few attempts have been made to remedy this situation, but, until recently, they have come to nothing.
 
In the mid-1990s, Innovative Media Solutions produced a range of Acorn readers for PC-format, educational CDs, such as Microsoft Dinosaurs and Dorling Kindersley's The Way Things Work. These readers included dedicated versions of ARMovie, which could convert the CD’s AVI files to Replay format on the fly.
 
Unfortunately, the work that IMS had done, did not result in the release of a souped-up version of Replay, which could play all Quicktime and AVI movies, despite the fact that RISCOS Ltd seem to have done some work in this area about five years ago.
 
But now, with the release of the open-source applications, Murnong and FFMpeg, by Chris Martin, things have started to take a turn for the better.
 
Although RISC OS still does not have a proper media player, which can play all the common video formats, we do now have the next best thing - an application that can capture a YouTube video stream as it arrives, and convert it to an MPEG file, which can be played using KinoAmp.
 
 

Here's the plan: take an old Mac mini, blow the dust off it, and repurpose it as a media centre. In particular, I wanted it to:

• Watch and record Freeview channels
• Watch shows on BBC iPlayer
• Play downloaded videos

Here's how I got on.
 

A while ago you may remember that I wrote an article about video conversion for RISC OS, and near the end raised the topic of video conversion on RISC OS using a port of ffmpeg. Although the version of ffmpeg I originally tried on RISC OS was old and broken, Christopher Martin obviously thinks there's some merit to this approach, as he has recently produced !FFmpeg, a working port of ffmpeg for RISC OS.
 
Once more in the interests of SCIENCE, I threw a few test videos at !FFmpeg and measured its performance against that of a similar version of ffmpeg running on my Windows PC.

 

As stated in the last article, this time I'll be looking at what went into the MK I map generator for my eternally work-in-progress game, DeathDawn.
 
Specifically, I'll be looking at the implementation and evolution of the following components of the generator:

• City block placement. This is arguably the most important stage as it defines the overall layout of the city.
• Edge and node linking. A housekeeping stage that prepares the data structures for the road weighting stage.
• Road weighting. A city with roads which all have the same number of lanes isn't very realistic, so this stage uses an algorithm to determine the number of lanes each road should have.
• Road and building painting. With the city structure generated, all that's left is to translate it into the format used by the engine during actual gameplay.

 

After writing my first article about random map generators, I said I was going to write a city generator. Well now I have, and I'm here to tell you about it over the course of the next few Building the Dream articles.

Blow your own trumpet much?

Although this article could just be dismissed as me blowing my own trumpet, I'm hoping that it will serve a somewhat more useful purpose. Before, during, and after working on the map generator I've searched the Internet for examples of similar generators and failed to find any. Sure, there are odd bits and pieces - descriptions of simpler generators that have given me ideas on some techniques to use, or screenshots of sexy work-in-progress realtime generators, but no actual algorithms or code samples from generators that come close to the required complexity of my generator.
 
So hopefully this article will become a useful reference point for anyone else wanting to undertake the task of writing a city generator, whether they're targeting a grid-based world representation like mine or a vector-based one.
 
Apart from discussing the algorithms used in the generator (and why they're used) I'll also talk about the data structures that are used - so even if you're not interested in random map generators you should be able to find plenty of examples of uses for the data structures covered in the first Building the Dream article, as requested quite some time ago.
 
 

A bit later than I was hoping, but nevertheless it's now time for Building the Dream 2. This time I'll be looking at the RISC OS sound system - everything from the terminology used, to what makes a sound, how the RISC OS sound system works, and how you can write your own sample player.
 
 

Hello and welcome to the Building the Dream, a new series of (regular!) articles at The Icon Bar in which I will be educating you in how to turn your programming dreams into reality. First off, let's get one thing clear - this isn't a beginner's course to programming, or a tutorial in a specific language. Instead it's the place to go once you've finished your programming tutorial and are wondering what to do next. If you have an idea for a program, but are confused about how to implement it, then this is the series for you, as I'll be covering everything from data structures and program design through to project management, optimisation, how to make sure your programs maintain the RISC OS look and feel, and even provide case studies of how certain well-known programs do their stuff.
 

Previously, on Bob and Trev: Resurrection...

Game over, man
 
The competition is nearly at an end, which can only mean one thing - tomorrow's article will be the conclusion, and will (hopefully!) feature a copy of the game to download.

...and here it is.