Images generated by RastaConverter

[+Philsan]

Yes, please post real output images, not destination unreal A8 images.

[_The Doctor__]

He hadn't used rasta in a while I'm sure it was an oops...

I kind of like the image from the xex

Maybe some more from Sikor?

[zzip]

Man! Can you imagine if Miner, et.al. could have witnessed screens like this in 1979, 1980?!?!?

 

I keep imagining myself in the 80s, seeing these images on an Atari. Would have been blown away-- especially after I learned how restriced the machines are in color placement

[Gunstar]

 

I keep imagining myself in the 80s, seeing these images on an Atari. Would have been blown away-- especially after I learned how restriced the machines are in color placement

Restrictive is really the wrong word, a better fit would be complicated. Obviously other 8-bits are more "restrictive" as I haven't seen graphics like this on any other 8-bit, I'd call that far less restrictive, just more complicated. Now the user/programmer might be more "restricted" if they don't know how to use the Atari's graphics to achieve these results, but it's restrictive only due to lack of know-how...but clearly, year by year and day by day we are learning and seeing just how un-restricted the A8 REALLY is. And not just with Rasta, but on other graphic mode mixes and even other aspects of the computer besides graphics. Jay Miner's genius in design is still being discovered! Even if he was unaware of what his design could ultimately do.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Gunstar

[zzip]

Restrictive is really the wrong word, a better fit would be complicated. Obviously other 8-bits are more "restrictive" as I haven't seen graphics like this on any other 8-bit, I'd call that far less restrictive, just more complicated. Now the user/programmer might be more "restricted" if they don't know how to use the Atari's graphics to achieve these results, but it's restrictive only due to lack of know-how...but clearly, year by year and day by day we are learning and seeing just how un-restricted the A8 REALLY is. And not just with Rasta, but on other graphic mode mixes and even other aspects of the computer besides graphics. Jay Miner's genius in design is still being discovered! Even if he was unaware of what his design could ultimately do.

 

Good point. When I got my 8-bit, I fully believed the marketing claim that it could place 256 colors on screen (with special programming- whatever that entailed).

I wanted to create my own games and art. I felt limited by the basic modes and the 4 color koalpainter. So I ordered Rambrandt from Antic, because it promised to lift that restriction. That was when I discovered that DLIs could only change the colors on a new line, and I seemed stuck with only 4 (or 5) colors per line for background. It was hugely disappointing for me at the time. I started having thoughts that maybe I should have bought a C64 instead, lol. (I still made some nice pics with Rambrant though, in spite of this)

 

So I love anything that overcomes the limit on colors per line.

 

Also I now realize that all the other 8-bits had their own weird restrictions in color placement that had to be worked around as well. At the time I assumed they were unrestricted. C-64 was limited to 4 colors per cell instead of per line. Apple II was basically using artifacting for colors, with all the limitations that entails.

[Gunstar]

 

Good point. When I got my 8-bit, I fully believed the marketing claim that it could place 256 colors on screen (with special programming- whatever that entailed).

I wanted to create my own games and art. I felt limited by the basic modes and the 4 color koalpainter. So I ordered Rambrandt from Antic, because it promised to lift that restriction. That was when I discovered that DLIs could only change the colors on a new line, and I seemed stuck with only 4 (or 5) colors per line for background. It was hugely disappointing for me at the time. I started having thoughts that maybe I should have bought a C64 instead, lol. (I still made some nice pics with Rambrant though, in spite of this)

 

So I love anything that overcomes the limit on colors per line.

 

Also I now realize that all the other 8-bits had their own weird restrictions in color placement that had to be worked around as well. At the time I assumed they were unrestricted. C-64 was limited to 4 colors per cell instead of per line. Apple II was basically using artifacting for colors, with all the limitations that entails.

Rambrandt is great, but if you wanted 256 colors anywhere back then, you just got the wrong art program, not computer. Red Rat software had the Technicolor Dream art program that allows those 256 colors anywhere you want, just one example.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Gunstar

[zzip]

Rambrandt is great, but if you wanted 256 colors anywhere back then, you just got the wrong art program, not computer. Red Rat software had the Technicolor Dream art program that allows those 256 colors anywhere you want, just one example.

 

I've never heard of that, when did it come out?

[Gunstar]

Back in the 80's about '86 I think. It is an English software company so if you are in the states, you may not have heard of it, but it's just one example of the top of my head, there are other similar programs that were made in NTSC land. But since you can just download it now from an A8 archive site, I mentioned it.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Gunstar

[kiwilove]

 

I've never heard of that, when did it come out?

 

Back in those days - Fun With Art was the only commercial art program that used more than 4 colours - by changing colours down the scanlines - so horizontal banding was present. A few years later there was a PD program that did the same thing.

Then there was the appearance of the Technicolour Dream art program in England - while lots of colours were available - this was not a so-called hi-res mode - but you could colourize video captures via ComputerEyes. While I did use the program and drew a few pictures with it - I've forgotten how it all worked - so I would have to relearn how to use it all over again - if I was so inclined to do so.

I think if a Rasterconverter art program was made back in the day - when Rambrandt appeared - I think that would have been well received and used. I did try out Rambrandt - but did not do much with it - I've forgotten how it worked now because I did not spend much time on it back then.

Here are some examples done back then - with FWA and TD.

I made this disk up when I first got into emulation - you may have to have it present on your D1 and D3: disk drives. The FWA pics are viewed through running the GETFWA.BAS program. The TD pics are viewed through running the LOADER.BAS program - but you need to run the INIT.COM - first! Just type DOS, then INIT - to run that - go to BASIC to run the loader program. The DOS here is SpartaDOS. There is one TD pic -- that I did not draw/work on - and that is the Pole Position pic - which was drawn by Roy Lynch. I think I worked on every other pic in this collection.

 

I did not see much in the way of new TD pictures - nor that done via Rambrandt - but this was when the usage of A8 was in decline - and the focus was on the new 16-bit computers era - even these TD pics did not get sent out to anyone to publish, etc. The magazine support probably wasn't active anymore...?

 

TD&FWA00.ATR

 

 

(Sorry about the distorted snaps here - I don't know to readjust them quickly... to what they should look like...) There are more pics on the atr disk.

 

Harvey

Edited January 9, 2018 by kiwilove

[+Stephen]

I got a public domain disc from Vulcan Software, contained I think 5 maybe 6 images from Steve Dong. They had DLI based changes, and were some of, if not the 1st images I saw on the Atari with > 5 colours. If memory serves, they were hand pixeled, and the DLIs were manually placed by Steve.

[zzip]

 

Back in those days - Fun With Art was the only commercial art program that used more than 4 colours - by changing colours down the scanlines - so horizontal banding was present. A few years later there was a PD program that did the same thing.

Then there was the appearance of the Technicolour Dream art program in England - while lots of colours were available - this was not a so-called hi-res mode - but you could colourize video captures via ComputerEyes. While I did use the program and drew a few pictures with it - I've forgotten how it all worked - so I would have to relearn how to use it all over again - if I was so inclined to do so.

I think if a Rasterconverter art program was made back in the day - when Rambrandt appeared - I think that would have been well received and used. I did try out Rambrandt - but did not do much with it - I've forgotten how it worked now because I did not spend much time on it back then.

Here are some examples done back then - with FWA and TD.

I made this disk up when I first got into emulation - you may have to have it present on your D1 and D3: disk drives. The FWA pics are viewed through running the GETFWA.BAS program. The TD pics are viewed through running the LOADER.BAS program - but you need to run the INIT.COM - first! Just type DOS, then INIT - to run that - go to BASIC to run the loader program. The DOS here is SpartaDOS. There is one TD pic -- that I did not draw/work on - and that is the Pole Position pic - which was drawn by Roy Lynch. I think I worked on every other pic in this collection.

 

I did not see much in the way of new TD pictures - nor that done via Rambrandt - but this was when the usage of A8 was in decline - and the focus was on the new 16-bit computers era - even these TD pics did not get sent out to anyone to publish, etc. The magazine support probably wasn't active anymore...?

 

TD&FWA00.ATR

 

FWA-Moeraki.pngFWA-Tekapo.png

TD-IRobot.pngTD-MaxHead.png

 

(Sorry about the distorted snaps here - I don't know to readjust them quickly... to what they should look like...) There are more pics on the atr disk.

 

Harvey

 

Are the first two only using DLIs for color changes? They look like something that could be done in Rambrandt

[kiwilove]

 

Are the first two only using DLIs for color changes? They look like something that could be done in Rambrandt

 

Yes - as you can see via the horizontal coloured block of colours present. There are other sample pictures on the disk image.

 

The first commercial drawing program that made a favourable impression on me was MicroPainter because of the zoom mode available in it.

 

Later when Moviemaker appeared - I did have a brief go with it - but didn't have any good animation ideas to try out with it. So what I tried, was basically crap. It's Graphics mode 7 was too low res to my liking.

 

When Atari's touch tablet appeared - I managed to do a fair number of pictures with it. I would work from a sketch drawn to the size of the tablet and then trace from that. An example being the Escher sketch you can see to the left here...

Harvey

Edited January 10, 2018 by kiwilove

[Gunstar]

 

Are the first two only using DLIs for color changes? They look like something that could be done in Rambrandt

Technically, all graphic modes that have extended color beyond the number of colors that hardware mode will allow, use interrupts DLI or otherwise. But some of them aren't just changing the scan line colors, but changing to another graphic mode entirely, Technicolor Dream uses APAC mode, (Any Point, Any Color) by having a 16 color graphic mode line followed by a 16 luminance graphic mode line to get all 256 colors. Software graphic modes like HIP and TIP and many more, are also mixing modes and interlacing modes, and introducing VBI's, etc. The maximum number of on-screen colors out of a true 128/256 color palette (palette depending if the graphic mode is Antic or GTIA) without DLI's or any other programming "tricks" is 16 out of any 256 colors from the GTIA chip. From Antic, IIRC, only a max of 4/5 colors without tricks from a 128 color palette.

 

Today there are lots of PD/freeware art programs that use software graphic modes like HIP or TIP that allow colors and resolution similar to Rastaconverter images. Though they use other techniques than PMG's so they have some flicker to them generally, at least on CRT screens.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Gunstar

[Gunstar]

 

Back in those days - Fun With Art was the only commercial art program that used more than 4 colours - by changing colours down the scanlines - so horizontal banding was present. A few years later there was a PD program that did the same thing.

Then there was the appearance of the Technicolour Dream art program in England - while lots of colours were available - this was not a so-called hi-res mode - but you could colourize video captures via ComputerEyes. While I did use the program and drew a few pictures with it - I've forgotten how it all worked - so I would have to relearn how to use it all over again - if I was so inclined to do so.

I think if a Rasterconverter art program was made back in the day - when Rambrandt appeared - I think that would have been well received and used. I did try out Rambrandt - but did not do much with it - I've forgotten how it worked now because I did not spend much time on it back then.

Here are some examples done back then - with FWA and TD.

I made this disk up when I first got into emulation - you may have to have it present on your D1 and D3: disk drives. The FWA pics are viewed through running the GETFWA.BAS program. The TD pics are viewed through running the LOADER.BAS program - but you need to run the INIT.COM - first! Just type DOS, then INIT - to run that - go to BASIC to run the loader program. The DOS here is SpartaDOS. There is one TD pic -- that I did not draw/work on - and that is the Pole Position pic - which was drawn by Roy Lynch. I think I worked on every other pic in this collection.

 

I did not see much in the way of new TD pictures - nor that done via Rambrandt - but this was when the usage of A8 was in decline - and the focus was on the new 16-bit computers era - even these TD pics did not get sent out to anyone to publish, etc. The magazine support probably wasn't active anymore...?

 

 

(Sorry about the distorted snaps here - I don't know to readjust them quickly... to what they should look like...) There are more pics on the atr disk.

 

Harvey

I got in late on the 8-bit era with the 130XE, and I was just getting into graphic art, 8-bit style. I had a lot of Gr. 8, APAC and Rambrandt artwork I did back in the late 80's and early 90's. But I lost all the disks with that art in the late 90's. The only hope any of it survived was that I was a by-mail-only (I forget what they called these members) membership with a San Antonio based user group known as Alamo Area Atari User Association (AAAUA) and they had a monthly news letter called (FR)ANTIC that I had a graphic arts column I wrote in it and I sent AAAUA disks full of my artwork. This was around 90-92 time period.I still have all the news letters from when I was a member and contributor. One of my images I remember clearly, it was of a one-eyed green alien who just stepped out of his flying saucers and I think I put text on the image with the alien saying "take me to the Tramiels." It was an APAC mode image, I don't recall if I used TD for it or another PD art program.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Gunstar

[kiwilove]

I did not have access to many peoples' artwork as such back then - but I did come across these ones -

3 from the U.S. and I did make contact with at least 2 guys (UK) who did some really nice work - Keith Berry

, and Roy Lynch - his was done in 4 colours - so I tried adding extra colours to them... here...

All these are Fun With Art format pictures.

 

Harvey

Edited January 10, 2018 by kiwilove

[_The Doctor__]

Um these need to have their files posted and then a a rasta run done on them will results posted... we are kind of wandering a little here... but I definitely want the originals...

[Gunstar]

The first three I've seen, I used to have those on disk at one time too. I used to mail order PD disks all the time including utilities, demos and art. I've never seen the last 5 before.

 

The doctor is right, about straying here, but I'd like to see a thread devoted to people uploading files and images of vintage Atari art. From all art formats and graphic modes.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Gunstar

[+CharlieChaplin]

Um these need to have their files posted and then a a rasta run done on them will results posted... we are kind of wandering a little here... but I definitely want the originals...

 

Well, I do not have any Keith Berry pictures in my collection. But attached you will find all Steve Dong pictures I have and all FWA pics I have (including many from Harvey and Roy Lynch).

FWA_Dong_pics.zip

[+CharlieChaplin]

The first three I've seen, I used to have those on disk at one time too. I used to mail order PD disks all the time including utilities, demos and art. I've never seen the last 5 before.

 

The doctor is right, about straying here, but I'd like to see a thread devoted to people uploading files and images of vintage Atari art. From all art formats and graphic modes.

 

Hmmmm, I collected hundreds (or thousands ?) of pictures and sorted them by the used gfx format (e.g. Gr. 8, Gr.9, Gr. 15, AP2, APC, HIP, RIP, TIP, MAX, XLP, RGB, etc.). Think I have not many disk-images that are dedicated to one artist, except:

 

- Steve Dong pictures, FWA or Gr. 15 + DLI's (but in executable format)

- FWA Gr. 15 + DLI's pics by Harvey and Roy Lynch

- Gr. 15 pictures by Armin Stuermer (title-pictures of his AMC-Verlag games and a picture disk with an unreleased adventure game)

- Gr. 15 pictures by ??? named "Movie Movie" with lots of re-painted pictures from various movies (the style looks, like it was one artist)

- Gr. 15 pictures by ??? named "Disney's best" (or something similar with Disney in the name), again with lots of self-painted or re-painted pictures from Disney animation movies (most likely by one artist)

- Gr. 9 picture disks with converted and/or captured pictures of Girls in swimming suits by Fuls

- Gr. 15 painted pictures by ??? with (original/old) Star Trek characters (originally in Koala Fomat, but I converted them into 62-sector format)

- Gr. 15 picture disks by ??? with old and NG Star Trek characters (most likely converted)

 

Think I have some more disk-images with pictures in Gr. 15 that I liked very much (by several artists, think Harvey's Escher picture is one of them and probably more pics with HA in the picture). But most pictures in Gr. 8, Gr.9, Gr. 9+11, HIP, RIP, TIP, XLP, RGB (Colourview), etc. were either scanned/digitized or simply converted from other computer platforms (ST, Amiga, PC, etc.). Afair, my parents once had a CD with original Corel Draw 4 for the PC, I was not interested in the program but ripped and converted most pictures from the CD, e.g. several fairy-tale pictures into colourful RGB-15 format...

Edited January 11, 2018 by CharlieChaplin

[Gunstar]

I really don't expect anyone to have seen my art, my pen-pal membership to the user group was my only connection to any Atari community back then, and I don't know if my disks/art ever made it passed whoever it was I used to send my articles and disks too through the snail-mail. They are more than likely gone forever, unless someone has the AAAUA PD software archives still.

[_The Doctor__]

Alamo Area Atari User Association?

 

perhaps a Frantic Newsletter search could yield results... FrANTIC was the newsletter in case ya'll didn't catch that...

 

*edit* http://atariage.com/forums/topic/265934-why-the-dedication/?p=3768872

you may be able to find a few people who can help in the endeavor...

Edited January 11, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[kiwilove]

 

Here is a disk (AAFRLV.ATR) full of Roy Lynch pictures in the original 4 colours - you can decide if I have improved upon by adding extras into them or not? And there's the AtariMan comic pics that he has drawn - I think they're not in one continuous order here. Also he did excellent conversions of Atari print adverts run in the UK - the long nosed man, and the elephant ad. I did add the wording to the Jack Tramiel pic - in reference to an Atari user magazine I edited - it only ran for 2 issues.

There's only 3 here not done by Roy - those are the 3 Solid States 3D pics - that I composited together - I forgot how I went about it.. Roy did not have any face detail in his Last Starfighter drawing - so I added some facial detail to it.

There are two picture loader programs you can use - either SLIDES or FADER2 - type in either name and it will then load what pictures it finds...

 

And I've tried to include the original pics from the earlier post - but did not find the right disks - but most of them are here .(FWAPICKHK.ATR).. I think.

ie. the Technicolour Dream pictures - here is a disk full of sample pictures (TCD2.ATR) that I think were included with the art program... and included 3 I worked on amongst them.

 

FWAPICHK.ATRAAFRLV.ATRTCD2.ATR

 

Harvey

[+Philsan]

Very nice pictures Harvey!

 

If possible, please post Rastaconvert images only.

 

It would be nice to have a thread completely dedicated to the beautiful images generated by the awesome converter made by Jakub "ilmenit".
That tool really gave colors, once reserved to the classes, to the masses.

Original image (optional), converted image preview, Atari .xex file (filenames format: "Author's name_imagename" to keep Kaz atarionline.pl's format).

Posts without images are not allowed!

 

[Heaven/TQA]

Wasnt Rambrandt published by Antic?

 

And I can remember those first 3 pics somewhere on an disk I got in 80s here in Europe.

[Gunstar]

Kremlin. 73 colors.

Kremlin.xex