WHQ: The HobBIT BBS
≈.ss%%ssss.≈	 	       +39-81-5563352

CdS - 3D Code            S$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$             ⁿ$
FrOYd - Art and still code $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$s            $s
Asavaris - 3D Art and motion  $$$Sⁿⁿⁿⁿ$$$$$$$$$$$$$s           ⁿ$
pix - Code               ⁿSS∙sⁿⁿⁿs≈ⁿ$$$$$$$$$$$$s≈         $
Ez - Music         ⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿsssssss  $ ⁿ$$$$$$$$Sⁿ∙ⁿS$$s≈    ≈$
MoD - Sysop             sss≈$≈   ≈$ $$$$$$$$$             $ⁿ
JackBass - Sysop/Support     $$$S≈ⁿ$s$ⁿ s$$$$$$$$$            ≈$
AfY - Support           $$$$$$ssss$$$$$$$$$$$s$$s        $ⁿ

This is the final version   $$ⁿ     $$$$$      $$$$$$ⁿ     sⁿ
of Claudia: complete and    s$ⁿ      ⁿ$$$$       ⁿⁿⁿⁿ      ≈$
full, as shown at the      $$        $$$$s               ≈$
Party. We are sorry for    $          ⁿ$$$s              $
the half version that     $ⁿ            ⁿ$$s           ≈sⁿ
has been available on     $ s$            ²$$         ≈$ⁿ
the net and for the late $$ $$               $s      ≈$ of this release, but
$  $$               $ ⁿⁿsssⁿⁿ	we had some trouble...
sS$$$Ssssssssss≈        ≈sⁿ  $$              sⁿ		   Anyway, the demo that
$$$$$$$$$$$ⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿ    $$              $  came
$$$$$$$$ⁿ                   $$$           s$ $	     #1 at SYMPOSIUM/MEKKA 97
$$$$$$$$    ∙ⁿⁿⁿ$Sssss≈   ≈s$$$s          $$ ⁿ$s≈
$$$$$$$$          ∙ⁿⁿ$$$$$$$$$$$         $$    ⁿⁿⁿssss≈			is here...
$$$$$$$$$s             ⁿⁿⁿ$$$$$$        s$$         ∙ⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿssss≈			enjoy!
$$$$$$$$$$$s                ⁿⁿ$ⁿ        $$$$s≈              ∙ⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿsss≈
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$$$$$$$$$$$ss ssss$$$$$$$$$ⁿ               $$$$$s≈ⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿⁿ$$          ⁿ$$

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$$     "MMMMMMMMMMMMMM"         Final version #1 Symposium/Mekka 97        $$$
$$       "**MMMMMMM*"                                                .,°$$$$$$

²,  ASCII by swan^tbt ;²
CLAUDIA - A brief histoy	                       \    and FrOYd/DS    |'

The Idea of Claudia took birth on a cool night         `:
in June at FrOYd's, when Asavaris and he decided to meet togheter to
draw-up the design of the new demo.
When Asavaris came, he found FrOYd drawing with a pen on a sheet of paper
the first figure of Claudia.
Asavaris was working on the modelling of human bodies, and that picture
impressed him at the point that the two did not go to sleep at all, that
night, to write down what has become the scene of Claudia, since the
creation up to the Escape through the HyperGate.
The first part came later.
CdS challanged FrOYd to realize in one night a world that could put his
engine to its limit... so FrOYd designed the columns, the arcs, and the
central shrine, as well as the temple front.
Surprisingly, the power of the engine made necessary to add something else.
So FrOYd took a scene that he designed for a DeathCon (DeathStar meeting)
some time before, and put it into the scene, then he worked with his
small world generator (by hand!), and that's how it all started.
The training idea of the demo is the leitmotif of time crossover and
the kiss of life -- life seen as motion.
Claudia was completed at the partyplace (we have to thank a lot of people
if this has been possible -- see later) but we messed up with some binary
files so we didn't have a spreadable version at the party.
Anyway, a test version of the first part of the demo has been spread
anyway and many ppl have got it, we are sorry, but that's definitely
NOT the demo that won the party. THIS is the right one.
When we returned from germany we started working on the relase version
to reduce the size and fix up a problem with matrox boards (BTW, matrox
really suxx, they're hardware VESA2 is often shit). We took a lot more
time than the needed because we went seek one after the other, expecially
me, FrOYd, still seek when writing this lines: we got too tired during
the party, it seems... ;-)
Anyway we finally made it, and it's all up to you now.
Enjoy - we hope you like our productions like the sceners at the party did.

CLAUDIA - troubleshoot problem videomode error UNIVBE VESA MATROX SUXX

Claudia system requirements are:

Pentium processor
16 Mb of RAM
a VESA 2.0 COMPLIANT videocard

a good SoundCard is also recommended (Gravis UltraSound preferred)

*** What is VESA2

If you have trouble running Claudia first ensure you have the right
videomode avilable on your videoboard, but DON'T PANIC if you don't.
Understand VESA 2: Vesa 2 is a standard for accessing SuperVGA modes
uniformly on all the cards in convenient way: the LINEAR FRAME BUFFER.
This is the ONE and ONLY way to have fast graphics in hicolor modes,
because VESA1.2 is slow and, more, does not cover all the modes we
needed.

*** UNIVBE

At present, most cards are not hardware VESA2 compliant, but you
can easly find, on the internet, a usuful utility called UNIVBE (or
Scitech Display Doctor) that can make it work right in the 95% of the
cases. You can get this utility at http://www.scitechsoft.com.
You only need the DOS version of UNIVBE (about 500k) not the boring
Windows version (2M) to make this demo work.
Once installed and configured UNIVBE, just launch UNIVBE before
launching this demo.

*** UNIVBE evaluation period

Note that the the evaluation period of UNIVBE is 21 days, after which
you should buy the program: after 21 days UNIVBE will still run, but
will not support VESA2 protected mode BIOS Extensions anymore, so
it's useless, in our scope... Also note that it will not re-install
correctly because it stores the date of the original installation
in a file that it originally creates in the root directory of your
boot drive called IO.IDX (system, hidden and read-only). If you
decide to remove your (expired?) version of UNIVBE, you can safely
remove this file because it's not needed by your system anyway at all.
Then your system will be clean again.

*** VideoModes

If you installed UNIVBE, or you didn't cos your board is hardware
VESA2 compliant you might still experience a trouble like "Valid video
mode not found". This means that your board has absolutely no way to
display the resolution we need (320x240 hicolor 15 bit).
This MIGHT happen on some SVGA cards but *SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN* on a
VESA2 hardware compliant card.
But, unfortunately, it's exactly what happens on most matrox boards.
So, sing along with me "Matrox suxx", and don't panic... we love you too.
This is becaus such Matrox boards are not really VESA2 COMPLIANT, but
just COMPATIBLE... 8-& this suxxx and means they don't have all the video
modes that the VESA2 standards includes!!! More, some other Matrox
cards provide that mode, but in a flicky-happy-junky way that looks
really weird. In all these cases you should use SOFTWARE emulations
for that videomode use the switch "/SUXXX" from the command line, so:

CLAUDIA /SUXXX

Will make the demo work even on your board, even if a bit slower
(640x480 15 bit)...

*** Memory troulbes

You should not experience memory problems, anyway you should keep
about 14 Mb free XMS memory (so a standard 2Mb SmartDrive is *welcome*)
and a normal low memory amount, such as 500k or such.

*** Other troubles

If you experience trouble with sound or have other problems check that
no useless TSR and drivers are loaded, expecially remove alle that
13734 viruschecker, superbackupper, hyperansi, ultrascreencapture,
supermanager, and other utilities that your friends collected for you
and try using a smooth configuration to run Claudia.
Special Note: Absoulutely no screen capture utility is really needed
with Claudia, unless you keep your fingers in your nose (or worse)
while watching the demo... ;-)
Enjoy!

CLAUDIA - The code

Claudia's engine, called "N-Genius", all made by CDS, is really powerful.
Written in ASM + C, it features:

ZBuffer
perpective correct texture mapping
environment mapping
lambert and gouraud shading
glenz, flenz (FrOYd glenz), and color flenz
Blur
Antialiasing
Smoothing
Any number of moving omnidirectional, directional or spot lights.
Static lights.
True lens flares in full color.
3D positioned sprites (starlets near the small starship)
Much more that we won't tell you, such as exclusive techniques to
handle huge worlds that you will see some day...

The world in the first part of Claudia is about 8000 3angles, of which
you see up to 5500 togheter.
The world in the second part of Claudia is about 2000 3angles, of which
you see up to 1000 togheter.
Claudia is about 1500 3angles, 52 objects, that you usually see all
togheter.

The DeathStar Liquid Bump effect as well the liquid hypergate door effect
are done by pix.

The credits rotozoomer is also coded by CdS as well as the 3D stuff.

The river and the background of the greetings are not really special
effects and are coded by CdS upon FrOYd's ideas.

Utilities such as converters and so on have been done by FrOYd and mainly
work under Windows95, so if they're released, you are warned! ;-)
FrOYd is also responsable for the linking of Claudia.

CLAUDIA - The Art

Claudia herself was entirely made by Asavaris using several modelling
progams, with a little help from FrOYd.
Textures and worlds were entirely made by FrOYd, with a little help
from Asavaris, and using the scanner two three times, just as a
starting point (in the shrine, for instance).
Credits back-textures where done by hand of pix, with a little help
from FrOYd.
Members' face retouch done by FrOYd, Asavaris and pix (his own pic).
Music was made by Ez and FrOYd using Impulse Tracker 2.11, using some
original samples (10x Allan Holdsworth) and some collected ones, took
from popular, common, internet resources.

CLAUDIA - The thanks

There are a lot of guys whose help has been critical in the last
phase (the party) of Claudia development, they are:

All the Symposium/Mekka 97 organizers for their great GUEST spirit!
In special mode:

Crash/Amable     - for introducing us to the right guys etc.
and to his friend (?) for driving us from the
McDonald's to the Station the last day!!! 8-)))

Zig/TekLords     - for his *great* electric work support as soon as we got
at the  Party.

StarCode/Amable  - for helping us testing and tuning the demo.

DOJ/Cubic Team   - for test help and support

Gandalf/Phantasm - for leading the organization of the BEST party around,
with real scene spirit, thank you.

Tran             - for his great PMode

Sahara Surfers   - for Midas Sound System

XChip            - for last minute help on 3DS format from #coders

Pulse            - for his great, unbeatable, Impulse Tracker

Admiral & Cynic  - for some help while with makefiles

m00nshado        - for file and moral support, thank you!

CLAUDIA - The meaning

It should not be necessary to explain te emotions and sensations you
have watching a demo. But sometimes it's useful to know what the author
has to say about some detail.
Here are some Questions and Answer I (FrOYd) had at Symposium/Mekka 97.

Q. Why does the stoneman drop his dart to the temple?
A. Just suppose being a statue, made by some ancient artist, who
made you to stay for thousend years pointing somewhere without the ability
of moving. You've been watching that damn stone face for years.
What else will you do as soon as the kiss of life touches your lips?
This is the starting point.
Life, motion, is the freedom to react.

Q. Why the time position is so confused?
A. It's a joke. You're free, in Claudia, so you can see marble, stone,
gold, wet paintings and night light, roman, renaissance and cyber,
while time runs with the river flow and the face-clock oscillation.

Q. Why does the river flow backwards?
A. You should understand it yourself... Time is a relative concept!

Q. What is the glenz white object wondering around?
A. Uh... it's the soul of Claudia, looking for a place to go.
You might notice a swan figure somewhere on it, if you watch carefully.
That's the spirit of Claudia. Wondering for the sole aim of discovering.
It moves over space and time to find a body, and then finds it in a
cybersuite.

Q. Who is the girl in the picture before the first Claudia scene?
A. A fremen, a tribute to Frank Herbert, the drwaing is also inspired
to Ivana: FrOYd's lover.

Q. What is the small starship in Claudia's world?
A. Just like the stoneman and the stoneface, the "shiplet" has been
waiting through the eons for the birth of Claudia. Loves her
and also is a bit scared by her...

Q. Where does claudia go?
A. Claudia has just ONE WAY to go, she has no choices...

Q. Why does Claudia run, in the end part?
A. She knows that no choice is left, so why waiting?
She runs towards the unknown... hopeful for freedom.

Q. Why does the shiplet follow?
A. The shiplet lookes for life too... ;-)

Let the kiss of life move you.

Claudia,
in all her Beauty.