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Titan 1.1.0 beta        (http://now.at/Titan)

General Readme file     27.June.1999

Author: Dan Brown       (_danbrown_@yahoo.com)
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This package and all included source code is licensed under the GNU LGPL.
Please refer to the included file COPYING.LIB for the exact terms.

For a history of changes, refer to the file CHANGES.

Contents

1.) Installation
2.) Features
3.) Notes
4.) Known bugs
5.) Thanks
6.) Contact details


1.) Installation

  Refer to the file docs/win32.txt, docs/linux.txt or docs/dos.txt for your platform.

2.) Features

  Currently, Titan can load the following formats -

        .TGA -  8-24 bit, uncompressed only
	.PCX -	8-24 bit
        .BMP -  8-24 bit, uncompressed only
        .JPG -  24 bit, NOT grayscale
        .PNG -  8-32 bit, plain/interlaced

  and can save to these formats -

        .TGA - 8-24 bit, uncompressed
        .JPG - 24-bit, not grayscale
        .PNG - 8-24-32 bit, not interlaced

  They will soon be upgraded to support compressed versions, and the
following are in development -

        .GIF    (Being done now by Jelle Herold)
        .LBM    (now done, waiting to add files to distribution)
        .CEL    (now done, waiting for files from Rich Talbutt)
        .RAW    (flexible loader, not started yet, Dan Brown)
        .TIF    (Jelle?)

  Also an animation handler is in the pipeline, with planned support for -

	.FLI    (being investigated by Dan Brown)
	.FLC    (being investigated by Dan Brown)
        .AVI    (compressed version Windows only?)
	.MPG    (being investigated by Jelle)
        .MOV    (Windows only?)

  These can be handled either by a timer or by polling. They can be loaded
into a cache or be decoded from memory on the fly (not recommended for
.AVI, .MPG or .MOV) either from disk or ram.


3.) Notes

  This library is based on the Loader classes from PTC 0.7x. Since PTC 2.x
has had image loading removed, I've separated the classes into Titan. The
credit for the design and most of the TGA loader goes to Gaffer.

  Their might be an OpenPTC implementation of Titan. Whereas Titan itself will
be fully compatible with OpenPTC, I may write an OpenPTC port that renders to
an animation file. This would be completely platform independant and allow
any demos written with OpenPTC to be generated as a movie (if the demo teams
wants you to). This means that if you have a slow computer (like I do!), you
can watch the latest demos at a full 70 frames/second. I like this idea,
thanks to Gaffer for suggesting it. I can't wait to see the Mojo demo working
at this kind of speed!


4.) Known bugs

  Refer to the file BUGS.

  I have cunningly hidden lots of other bugs in Titan, then convieniently
forgotten about them. Anyone who spots one and reports it, gets the prize
of, umm, well, a big thank you at least.


5.) Thanks

  Gaffer                  - For developing, and continuing to develop PTC
  Christian Nentwich      - For developing the X11 port of PTC
  Zoon                    - For developing the DOS port of PTC
  Jelle Herold            - For maintaining the Linux port of Titan, donating
                              web space and starting to work on .GIF support
  Rich Talbutt            - For starting to work on .LBM and .CEL support

    Everyone else who has contacted me, I've had some very positive feedback,
  Thank you.


6.) Contact details

  Any bugs, ideas, or other formats you want supported, don't hesitate to
drop me a line -

Dan Brown (_danbrown_@yahoo.com)
Titan webpage (http://now.at/Titan)
