Written by Jeff Minter
Llamasoft
£19.95
Those of you who have been to the Atari User shows
will undoubtedly have seen this amazing piece of software in action
on the Llamasoft stand being used by its author, Jeff Minter, to
create fantastic graphical effects in time to loud rock music.
It is billed as a 'light synthesiser' and this is
probably the best name for it as it does not really fit into any
standard category of software. It is not really a game, even though
it is 'played', and I guess if you had to categorise it, you would
call it a 'creative tool'.
The manual, which is excellent, explains how to
get started in a very different way to normal programs - 'Fire up
the stereo, reduce the amount of ambient photons in your vicinity
(turn off the light), grasp the mouse firmly and waggle it about a
bit.' It then goes on to tell you about the really 'zowie' effects
that you will be able to create!
The program has a staggering number of different
commands available, over one hundred!!! However, daunting as this
may sound, it is a very easy program to use. To start with, I put
some very loud music on the stereo, and pushed fl on the ST
keyboard. The disk drive started to whirr and two golden coloured
shapes appeared at the bottom of the screen. Hmm, strange, I wonder
what they could be? I pressed one of the keys on the numeric keypad
which change the colour palette and the two golden shapes turned
into two large, bald heads (you must have seen the advert on the
back of the magazine!), which to be quite honest, are pretty amazing
if the room is in total darkness! I then waggled the mouse about a
bit, as instructed, and held down the left mouse button. The
resulting effect was stunning! The fine lines of the ST's
low-resolution mode had beautiful colours flowing through them. I
consulted the 'Colourspace command summary' sheet and decided that
the pattern on the screen would look pretty good in a different
symmetry mode, so I pushed 'N' on the keyboard, which is 'Spiral
Symmetry'. The result was nothing short of brilliant. The graphics
were reflected in four ways, and when I moved the mouse with the
left button pressed, the graphics moved around the centre of the
screen in a 'spiral' pattern (hence the name).It is a fantastic
effect which is well suited to slow pieces of music (such as
'Brothers in Arms' by Dire Straits). I continued to fiddle with the
program, and before I knew it I had spent several hours with the
thing!
Well, enough of my praise, I'd better tell you a
bit more about the program itself. The program uses the ST's 320x200
mode, and is controlled by the mouse and keyboard. It is possible to
load in NEOchrome files as either foregrounds or backgrounds for
your light show. There are six different forms of symmetry including
X, Y, X/Y, Quad, Spiral and Augmented, or you can select to have no
symmetry at all. What do these symmetry modes do? Well, you control
a basic light form shape, and when a symmetry mode is activated the
light form is reflected to other parts of the screen. This then
moves in the same way as the lightform you are controlling, making
the patterns on the screen look symmetrical. You can also have
starfields, either coming outwards from the centre of the screen or
moving left to right and up and down. You can also implement a
gravity routine which pulls the graphical effects downwards.
It is possible to record shows which have been
created specially for particular pieces of music, these can be
played back at a later date without having to touch the controls.
You can also define your own 'presets' which include things such as
colour palettes, lightform shapes and which symmetry mode is enabled
etc.
This program is spectacular! I haven't met anyone
yet who doesn't like it! It is an ideal performance tool, and it
will go down well at parties, or at disco's (it would look fantastic
using a projector telly at a disco). The author, Jeff Minter has
already displayed it in various different ways, even at the London
Planetarium!!! Whatever your use for this program, it will bring you
hours of enjoyment. But watch out, Colourspace II is coming, all you
1 meg ST owners are going to be in for an even bigger treat!
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