QL Holiday cards

[bwinkel67]

So last year we had the really cool animation with Santa flying with his sleigh and dropping packages into a chimney:

Claus-small.gif (492.5 KiB) Viewed 6537 times

The other ones I know about are the fireplace:

...and the christmas tree one:

Any other ones out there?

[dilwyn]

Not my own artwork, but if you look for my AnimGIF program on my website https://dilwyn.qlforum.co.uk/graphics/index.html you can convert animated GIF files to QL graphics on high colour systems like QPC2.

On the same page there's a QXL.WIN and a CD image with many hundreds of freeware animated GIFs. These can be converted or run as QL animations. Routines are provided with AnimGIF to run these animations in your own programs.

If you look in the 'Xmas' and 'Xmasfire' folders, plenty of nice little animations on there, over 80 holiday ones. Here's just a few of them - these are the original GIFs, I was too lazy to make videos of the equivalent QL animation ones, they are just the same as the GIFs shown here.

Only 82 days to Christmas as I write this, folks!

[Cristian]

There was also the animated-countdown Christmas card (from the distant year 2018):

[bwinkel67]

Using Andrews code I created the following Christmas card for 2023. It's not complete as I want to add some blinking lights and have lights in windows go on/off, maybe have the Grinch drop a random amount of bombs, not all four each time. Once I finish it I'll include a zip file with the BASIC code. I may also include the BASIC code I used for converting my original Windows Paint files (first converted to low compression JPG using Paint.net, then Photon to create screen files, and then my BASIC utility to convert to sprites). I may be able to generalize the BASIC utility to just add size of sprite and have it auto-convert any screen file.

For now, enjoy the animated GIF:

Grinch_small.gif (481.05 KiB) Viewed 5688 times

Small version that will animate in post.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi

I think your effort is excellent, considering the QL you are using.

What I was really wanting, was smooth horizontal scrolling, which I do not think using Basic or even compiled Basic would provide.

Probably, the best solution would be written assembler, which there is no need for toolkits.

[Andrew]

Merry Christmas!
Same old Santa, same owl, different gifts and a bit of bling!

[XorA]

For mostly my own amusement!

dir-hard_ql.png (19.87 KiB) Viewed 5555 times

QL SCR in zip

die-hard.zip

(21.75 KiB) Downloaded 139 times

[tofro]

Ahhh. The traditional Christmas picture!

[bwinkel67]

So I cleaned up the Grinch animation a bit and added some features back in from the original Grinch picture. Someone noted my sleigh only had one support...but that was in the original picture, so I left it that way.

I'm working on a paper deadline for next Monday so this has been a great way to avoid writing But eventually I want to add some of the features of the original Village GIF into BASIC for my Grinch Christmas card. Hopefully I'll get it done before the end of the year. After that I'll see if I can use Andrew's sprite technique to write a game. Might do it in C though. Might look at PETSCII Robots, though that requires the whole screen to scroll.

Grinch_small.gif (527.02 KiB) Viewed 5515 times

Small GIF.

Here is the original Grinch image I used

xmasvillage2.gif (26.35 KiB) Viewed 5526 times

...and the original village GIF I found online.

[Andrew]

After that I'll see if I can use Andrew's sprite technique to write a game. Might do it in C though. Might look at PETSCII Robots, though that requires the whole screen to scroll.

Scrolling the whole screen on an unexpended QL requires some routine in assembly - BASIC or C are too slow for this, even when compiled.
On a QL with Gold Card or SuperGoldCard or Q68 or better - it is doable in BASIC or C.
Creating something like PETSCII Robots is quite possible, but i guess it requires a different approach than the one I used in Santa animation. Maybe using UDGs is the better approach, as I experimented here: https://www.qlforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=43120#p43120