|
|
The latest version has been a long time coming. That's because it's been through so many redesigns it hurt. I've finally come up with a design that minimises loading times while still looking good.
What did I use?
1)HotMeTaL PRO 5 (demo)
2)Netscape Composer
3)Notepad
4)Serif DrawPlus
5)Paint Shop Pro
6)Bryce 2
I know what you're thinking: why use Composer when you have HotMeTaL? Well, I only recently found a demo of it. If my site was for profit, then this would be first in my shopping basket. And Notepad? That's sometimes just the easiest thing to use if only one or two tags need changing. DrawPlus was used to create the buttons and animations. Bryce 2 provided the 3D, and Paint Shop Pro hung around, being generally useful with images.
The site is tested in Netscape 4 and Micro$oft Internet Explorer 4
FAQ:
Where do you get your links from?
Where do you get MIDI from?
How do you get MIDI to work in Netscape?
How did you make the animations?
How did you make the 3D graphics?
Where do you get the links from?
Mainly from other people's sites. Maybe I'm trying to find something out, or find a fan site for Creatures or The Simpsons. Often, these sites will have a list of cool links on them. I found OW! that way, for one. Sometimes they come up on Alta Vista when I'm looking for something else. I was looking for a MIDI of Peaches, and found Inverse Reality. I found Movie Critic the hardest way. It was linked to somewhere, and I could remember it. But not it's name or address. It took a while to persuade AltaVista to come up with the goods. Finally, recommendations from magazines and friends can turn up good sites.
Where do you get MIDI from?
There are loads of free MIDI sites. The best method is via Alta Vista. Search for "Track" + "MIDI" and you can find virtually any song without too many tries. Beware, though. I have had trouble with MIDIs not being exactly what you would think from the name. Scan all MIDIs for "TMI", "Trycho" and "Kern". These are copyrighted, and the owners will sue you if you are using them. I think this company is an exception, and other commercial MIDI companies will simply ask you to take down the offending files
How do you get MIDI to work in Netscape?
Ah ha! It's all a case of using two tags for your MIDI, rather than one. Place them inside the <BODY> tags.
<BGSOUND SRC="song.mid">
<EMBED SRC="song.mid" AUTOSTART=True HIDDEN=True>
Type in the name of your song where it says "song". Thanks to the Norn And Grendel Palace for the info!
How did you make the animations?
I used Serif DrawPlus 4.0. It's a vector based package, which means editing the animations is easy. I just create a frame, clone it, and make some slight changes. The process is repeated for the next frame, and so on. When my masterpiece(!) is finished, it's exported as an animated GIF.
How did you make the 3D graphics?
I used Bryce 2, from MetaCreations. Although it's a landscape generator, it
has just the tools I need for creating my mostly surreal pictures. The objects
are all made from cubes, cylinders, spheres, cones and pyramids. There are a
couple of special objects used, the terrain and infinite plane. I created
everything using just those objects and simple Boolean interactions (adding and
subtracting shapes from each other)
I think I killed them all, but if there are any 3D animations left, they were created with 3DPlus and DrawPlus combined.
If you've found any problems, please report them. Oh go on, you know you want to.
