Re: some filters i have wrote.

["Ilya Razmanov" <ilyich@cacr.ioc.ac.ru>]

> Tim,
>
> I'm not very happy with the remarks on your homepage.
>
> Why does Filter Factory suck badly?
...
> What do you mean with "FiFo is SenilityWare"?
> It's just time limited Shareware.
...
> And what do you mean with "FM is ClumsyWare"?
...
> Please be carefull with such kind of remarks.

I think there's nothing "serious" about it; it's just a kind of younger
generation "maximalism" <g> - they want all, at once, perfect and free of
course. Oops! When did I get so old to say all this? <g>

>>Why does Filter Factory suck badly?
>
>you want a list, already?

I'm pretty sure he has his own already. As well as I do <g>.

>I feel I must respond to the growing aggresion in the ever-so-peaceful
FFDG.

Again, I don't think Tim wanted to be aggressive. Neither Michael did, of
course. A tiny bit of misunderstanding, nothing else; even less - just a bit
too much "sharp" terms.

>First of all let me say that I actually >LIKE< FF. It may not be the most
>flexible of programming languages, but then again; it isn't. I like to
>explore my creativity in limited enviroments, that's why I liked doing
>graphics on the C64 and that's why I like coding with FF. It's some sort of
>art to create something good with such limited means.

I must agree. I'm not a professional programmer (all my experience go back
to Pascal-2 on some huge PDP machine most of you never heared about. Lucky
you are!), I'm more of designer with some math skills. Often I feel like I
need something specific (like cutting a specific brightness range to
transparency or make noise proportional to specific function of alpha or
something else) to get an original effect, and FF is irreplacible for this.
It's the fastest way to overcome the limitations of ordinary commercial
software in these cases. I can quickly make something specific and use it
even without compiling. In some - rare - cases I feel like the filter (after
many tweaks and additions) might be good enough to share it. Currently, my
publically awailable distribution includes some 37 filters that I think are
tuned good enough to be useful, while my source dir contains some 200 afs'es
of such a "one-time filters" (which are mostly a "kernels" I might turn into
many other stuff easily). That's where the real underestimated power of FF
is, IMHO. That's where, I think, much of FUN or FM-free power must be.

>Third; FM is not so much a Beta as it is a Shareware version, meaning that
>the most important functionality is left out. If you read the docs enclosed
>with FM you would know that a compiling version exists and is working. It's
>Beta because it is not completely finished and is therefore ment for those
>people wanting to help in finding the leftover bugs. On general, Beta
>versions are not meant to be full product and cannot be judged accordingly.
>When I look at FM I see a tool with loads of potential and functionality,
>not a cripled program.

Exactly. As for me, I think current version of FM have many limitations. I
can even put it to "stack overflow" :-)) But it's way more powerful compared
to FF of course, and the best of all, it IS under development - and rather
fast one! I'm sure it will override all the limitations.

>Fourth; Any programmer ommitting nagging screens in small-scale shareware
>applications is just plain dumb; larger applications can bare to do without
>because since they earn most of there money from companies, which are
>checked regularly. Smaller applications will be used (and paid for) by the
>public. Surely you must see the problem. BTW. I'd rather have a nagging
>screen than a cripled program (ie. WinZip). This goes in FiFo's defense.

I'd also like to point at that FM (and the like) have a very specific (and
narrow compared to WinZip IMHO) market. Large development companies may live
with C (and they do). IMHO the target of such an "rapid plugin development"
tools is a small and individual developers, for those having such a tool
will make life much easier. Even I can do something with FM, although I
wouldn't get close to C - just have no time to learn it.

What as to pricing, of course I'd be glad to do all my stuff in my life for
free just to amuse myself and entertain people. Unfortunately, I somehow got
used to taking my meal, drink and clothes and living at some flat that cost
me. So I think it's normal if someone is trying to make living from his
work. All that counts is quality/price relation <g>...

>Final; I know this all may sound rather aggresive. It was not meant this
>way

And I'm pretty sure everybody understand it. I don't see any aggression in
recent discussion.

Oh well, this might be too much of a personal opinion nobody ever is
interested in. Let me go back to filters (placed at the bottom so you can't
get to them before you read my opinion <g>) :

>For several months, I wanted to post the code of the only filter I've wrote
>but I didn't have time.
>
>It's a common filter, to produce TV lines. I have wrote it from scratch.
His
>name is Interlaced.
...

Huh, the algorithm looks rather complex... Personally, I'd prefer a simpler
way like making a saw-shaped funclion based on x%ctl(n) or y%ctl(n) and
comparing a function to a constant value (like returned by slider).  Here is
an example:

Category: Toadies
Title: Look, Butthead, a TV!...
Copyright: Copyright © 1998 Ilyich the Toad. Freeware.Contact
ilyich@cacr.ioc.ac.ru
Author: Ilyich the Toad
Filename: t_TV.8bf

R:put(y%val(0,0,Y),1),put(scl(get(1),0,val(0,0,Y),0,255),0),get(0)>ctl(1)?sr
c(x,y-get(1),z):(255-ctl(2))*src(x,y-get(1),z)/255

G:get(0)>ctl(1)?src(x,y-get(1),z):(255-ctl(2))*src(x,y-get(1),z)/255

B:get(0)>ctl(1)?src(x,y-get(1),z):(255-ctl(2))*src(x,y-get(1),z)/255

A:get(0)>ctl(1)?src(x,y-get(1),z):255-ctl(3)

ctl[0]: Total Scanline Width
ctl[1]: Underline Width
ctl[2]: Underline Shading
ctl[3]: Underline Alpha

val[0]: 10
val[1]: 112
val[2]: 230
val[3]: 69

A bit more compact, isn't it <g>? Takng into account it has an additional
feature like mosaic for more realistic look. BTW following these approach
you may create a halftone filter Tim might like <g>:

Category: Toadies
Title: Rasterline...
Copyright: Copyright © 1997 Ilyich the Toad (ilyich@cacr.ioc.ac.ru).
Freeware.
Author: Ilyich the Toad
Filename: t_Rasterline.8bf

R:put(255*(y%val(0,Y,0))/val(0,Y,0),0),put(255*(x%val(1,X,0))/val(1,X,0),1),
put(ctl(4)>128?c:0,2),get(0)+get(1)>map(1,i)?get(2):255

G:put(ctl(4)>128?c:0,2),get(0)+get(1)>map(1,i)?get(2):255

B:put(ctl(4)>128?c:0,2),get(0)+get(1)>map(1,i)?get(2):255

A:put(ctl(4)>128?c:c,2),get(0)+get(1)>map(1,i)?get(2):0

ctl[0]: Vertical Frequency
ctl[1]: Horizontal Frequency
map[1]: Source image range
ctl[4]: Mode switch

val[0]: 247
val[1]: 128
val[2]: 228
val[3]: 6
val[4]: 208



Not to discourage you, just to show YET ANOTHER way. Like I have at least 3
rather different algorithms of making chekerboard pattern (among those I
like mine the most of course <g>) and don't feel bad about it. Having more
options is fine, isn't it?

Ilyich.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ilya Razmanov (a.k.a. Ilyich the Toad), Institute of Organic Chemistry RAS
http://www.chat.ru/~bufo/ - Freeware Photoshop Filters and Design Showcase
"Some of us tried to pirate on the land but it doesn't just feel right" -
Bart,
Monkey Island 2
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