I. Introduction
II. System Requirements
III. Startup-Pix (Images for your Amiga to display while booting)
IV. Preview-Pix (Images which give a brief overview of whats new!)
V. Patterns (Tile patterns for Workbench, MUI & LightWave 3D users)
VI. Palletes (A fine array of color sets to apply to these graphics)
VII. Startup-Music (Sound samples for your Amiga to play while booting!)
VIII. Other Stuff
I. Introduction
------------
Welcome to the wonderful wiggly-world of ArcsPack! ArcsPack represents a
incredibly wide array of ways which you, or anyone, can drastically improve
the look and appearance of their systems. With ArcsPack, anyone can give
their Workbench and/or MUI applications a makeover with a choice of nearly
7,000 possible combinations of hand-drawn tiles, patterns, and colors..
Also, dozens of beautiful startup screens for all Amiga models, and now, the
addition of digitized sound samples of differing lengths to be played while
your Amiga boots up! ArcsPack is for those who want their system to have
a sleek, guilded, polished appearance both inside and out. In addition
to other system enhancement packages like Magic Workbench and MUI, ArcsPack
is a fast and easy way to make your system absolutely shine.
In this document, you'll learn about what it takes to make any Mac
or lowly PC user's chin drop straight through the floor by giving your
system an eye-popping facelift which will set it miles above other
platforms. You're lucky you have an Amiga! ArcsPack is only available for
the Amiga community's consumption only! ArcsPack is also freeware. Its
a gift from me to you. I charge no money for it, and will accept no money
for it. However, if on the other hand you have an opening in your company
for a brilliant and incredibly modest young artist, well then... ;)
In any event, enjoy it. Its yours--So are the other 14 VOLUMES of
ArcsPack which are available worldwide via the Aminet. If you like it,
fab--Drop me a line in E-Mail, and I'll make sure you LOVE the next one.
My E-Mail address is listed at the bottom of this document. If you are
blind, stupid, horribly ignorant, or for some reason dissatisfied with the
level of quality contained in this package, please take the time to bite me.
II. System Requirements
-------------------
ArcsPack generally has no specific requirements--But for those without
an Amiga, or a hard disk, or at least a 16 color Workbench, you won't
get nearly the same amount out of this package as you could. A system
I would reccomend would be:
A) An A2000/3000 w/Graphics card (or preferably A1200/4000)
B) Workbench 3.0 or greater (For those with 2.x..UPGRADE! Its worth it!)
C) ~10MB free HD space to install this volume, or, about 50MB free space
to install this, and all previous versions of ArcsPack
D) ADPro, ImageFX, Brilliance or some image processing/paint program.
E) MagicWB and/or MUI installed.
Dont let my suggestion decieve you--You will still get a great deal
out of ArcsPack with just an 8-color Workbench on an ECS machine. :)
Infact, I dont even own an AGA machine, or a graphics card. My own
system is a "lowly" A2500HD/030 :)
Future versions of ArcsPack may require ~3-5MB free hard disk space
in order to install.
III. Startup-Pix
-----------
What are Startup-Pix? Startup-Pix are standard (usually high-res) .IFF
pictures which your Amiga displays while booting. Kinda like the "smile
screen" on newer Macs or the boring clouds you see on Windows '95..Startup
Pix are a good way to add a little color to normally dull, blank screens
while booting. There are specific screens for ALL Amiga models available
in previous versions of ArcsPack, as well as specific screens for all
common AmigaDOS versions. Instead of staring like an idiot at a blank
screen while your system boots, now you can have a glorious "AmigaDOS 3.1"
or "A2000HD/030/882" screen fade in from the darkness instead. :)
There are plenty of new utilities on the Aminet (like BootPic, StartScreen
and others) which perform the task of quietly displaying graphics during
boot-ups without disturbing other programs in your Amiga's startup-sequence.
Check them out! Most are written by skilled, reputable programmers who
know what they're doing. :)
Future version of ArcsPack will have the ability to "install" this feature
directly into the startup-sequence of your machine. For the time being,
this task must be performed by you, manually. I merely supply the graphics.
Simple show programs like Mostra or ViewTek can also fulfill this purpose..
In this paticular volume, special attention has been payed to those of us
who will be purchasing the new A4000 Towers from Amiga Tech! Special
A4000T/040 Startup-Pix are included for these guys. The other 10 images
are for everyone.
IV. Preview-Pix
-----------
Too impatient to sift through the patterns to find the one you like?
Then this is the place for you--In this drawer you will find several
images to preview, to give you a rough idea of whats contained in this
archive. There's also an interesting Workbench snapshot provided by
a friend of mine who used just 2 of the nearly 2 DOZEN patterns available
in this volume for his Workbench display!
Just double-click on the icons, and MultiView will bring up a window on
your Workbench to show you.
Keep in mind, you can also tell MultiView to use its own screen when
bringing up the graphics you tell it to--Just go to its pull-down menu
and select "Use Seperate Screen" from the Window menu.
V. Patterns!
---------
Patterns are what makes ArcsPack so popular--Everything from the trippy
and psychedelic to the sublime and corporate are available here. There
are patterns and tiles of every humanly imaginable style to be found
both in this volume, as well as the 14 volumes of ArcsPack which came before
this one. The Patterns are meant to give a variety of variations on a theme;
Usually, if you like one, you'll like almost all of them. I try not to
sqeeze too much out of one paticular style, so usually several are
represented.
All of these patterns and tiles were painted by hand, by me. How did
I paint them? Well, if I told you, then I'd be out of a job. :) I take
a great deal of pleasure in painting these..Theyre fun to create and
polish off, and they look stunning in actual use. Whenever I paint,
I almost ALWAYS plugged into my stereo with my headphones on, either
listening to mods, or listening to my fabled collection of Human League,
Devo, and Kraftwerk CD's..which can often explain the bizzare filenames
these patterns and tiles have. :)
Why are they all GREY, do you ask? No, I didn't forget to color them.
The reason why they're all grey, is because it would be pointless (not to
mention incredibly stupid) for me to include 20 DIFFERENT COPIES of the
same little tile or pattern, just with different colors. ArcsPack would
be gigantic if I did it this way. Instead, the raw graphics AND the Pallete
files are ALSO given to you separately, so that you can apply the color
of your choosing to the tiles & patterns which you like best. You can
apply the colors to the graphics with any paint program, or image processing
utility such as ADPro, ImageFX, PhotoGenics, PersonalPaint, etc. Consult
the manual for the package which you have for instructions on how to
apply a color pallete to these graphics. Don't worry, its easy. :)
Future versions of ArcsPack will automate this process. Stay tuned.
VI. Palletes
--------
A wide selection of possibilities for colorizing your favorite patterns
and tiles finds its home in this drawer. Inside the Palletes drawer,
are a whole bunch of IFF/ILBM Pallete files. These tiny little files
contain all the color register information for a picture. If you load
in one of my normally-grey patterns or tiles, and then tell the program
you're using to do this to load in the Pallete file, the colors will
instantly snap themselves into place, and the screen/tile/pattern will
come alive with vibrant color. Its more fun than a barrel of Sea-Monkeys! :)
Everything from Clockwork-Orange to Pink-Panther and Grapeity-Grape Purple
are included, in every shade, of every color of the rainbow sparing the
ugly ones.
Once you've applied the Pallete to the graphics, you can save the graphics
back out again, which will now have aquired the new color scheme.
Groovy, eh? :)
VII. Startup-Music
-------------
Where do these sound samples come from? :)
I have a couple Kraftwerk albums in my small (but good!) CD collection.
I usually only listen to Kraftwerk as I paint, as it usually helps my
output quality a bit.. Anyways, probably my favorite-of-all Kraftwerk
album is one called "Radio-Activity" which came out in 1974. As some
of you know, Kraftwerk was/is an extremely innovative eletronic/techno
band to which many of today's groups owe their inspirations to. This
album (Radio-Activity) is almost exclusively comprised of sounds recorded
from radio equiptment, edited, and arranged in a way which we hear
as music.
The 30-second sample is from a track called "News" .. From what I'm told,
the muffled voices you hear are German news anchormen talking about how
a new nuclear reactor (what else!) will be built soon, to provide power
for millions of people. :) Remember, this whole album is virtually
comprised of radio noise--The background "hiss" and distortion you hear
* IS HOW IT SOUNDS ON THE ACTUAL CD * -- The samples were recorded at
15-17 Khz, which is plenty high enough. The samples are not muddy. The
track is meant to *have* that background hiss and unintelligble voice
in it.
Thats Kraftwerk for yah. :)
The 60 second sample is from my favorite song on the whole CD..The name
of the song is "Radioland", a very quiet almost lullabye'ish song about
how to correctly tune a shortwave radio. :) You've gotta love these
lyrics:
Drehen wir am Radiophon
Vernehmen wir den Sendeton
Durch Tastendruck mit Blitzesschenelle
Erriechen wir die Kurze Welle
Nach Feineinstellung mit der Hand
Lachen wir dem Morseband
Electronenklænge aus dem Radioland
Which roughly translates into instructions for fine-tuning a radio
to hear different broadcast bandwidths. :)
All the whacked-out weird ass sounds you hear in the 60-second sample
were all originally recorded in 1973-1974 from live radio transmissions.
None of it is pre-fab. :)
Or, for the casually minded, just click on the 60-second icon, and then
click on the 30-second icon. They'll both play simultaneously, so you
can hear what they sound like together. Kinda neet, huh? :)
If you want to hear something REALLY kick ass, have your startup-sequence
play BOTH samples at the same time while you boot. Pretty spooky. :)
A cloud of distorted voices whispering in Deutsch about power for the
people, as a metronome thumps away the seconds until your reboot completes..
Give it a try! You'll find a little file in the Startup-Music! drawer
labelled "Play".. Copy this file into C: and insert the appropriate
command into your startup-sequence. Something like:
run >NIL: c:play >NIL: 30-second.snd
... in the beginning of your startup-sequence. When used in combination
with Startup-Pix, the effect is fucking glorious.
VIII. Other Stuff
-----------
Well, that about wraps it up--If you're having unforseen problems with
ArcsPack which you cant account for here in the documentation, drop me
a line at my email address below. Or, if you'de just like to drop me a
line and say what you'de like to see in future ArcsPacks, that would be
pretty cool too. In any event, ENJOY my work. Spread it around--make
people happy with it. If anybody charges you money for it, steal it.
Bowie J. Poag
Arctangent
E-Mail: bjp@interaccess.com
My life,
I'm a fool for you..
You take no advice,
You think evil doesn't exist
Just because you deny it is true.
You're lucky I care..
For fools like you.
You're lucky I'm there
To stop people from doing
The things that you know
They are dying to do...
You know, I am no stranger..
I know rules are a bore..
But just to keep you from danger,
I am the Law.
AP15-??? 12:16:95 03:32A
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