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Clares Render Bender Demos |
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bcass (22:06 19/4/2011)
filecore (07:09 20/4/2011)
apdl (15:07 20/4/2011)
tribbles (18:28 20/4/2011)
hairydalek (21:35 20/4/2011)
apdl (06:01 21/4/2011)
hairydalek (10:07 21/4/2011)
bcass (18:29 21/4/2011)
bcass (14:43 4/7/2011)
DaveHoskins (11:14 5/8/2013)
DaveHoskins (16:41 6/8/2013)
arawnsley (19:53 6/8/2013)
DaveHoskins (20:01 6/8/2013)
Zarchos (20:17 6/8/2013)
kaiborch (00:46 8/8/2013)
Zarchos (05:17 8/8/2013)
arawnsley (10:38 8/8/2013)
trevj (11:42 8/8/2013)
Zarchos (13:17 8/8/2013)
DaveHoskins (15:30 24/8/2013)
trevj (07:49 26/8/2013)
kaiborch (09:21 26/8/2013)
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bcass |
Message #117399, posted by bcass at 22:06, 19/4/2011 |
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Posts: 23
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I used to have an early Render Bender demo disc (possibly made before the package had even been released). It was basically a rolling demo of still RB scenes and some animated ones. At one point, the rolling demo stopped and a 3D (real-time) mask was animated on the screen against a pre-rendered background, accompanied by a superb rendition of Jean Michel Jarre's Equinox part 3. The demo would always start with a sample which simply says "The Mask".
Sadly, the floppy had some form of copy protection so I was never able to make a backup.
Does anyone know how I can obtain this demo? The version I had would only run under Arthur, but I think Clares released a RISC OS version at some point (which they sold in their catalogue for a while).
*edit* the title should obviously read "Render Bender" but the forum software won't let me edit it...
[Edited by bcass at 23:07, 19/4/2011] |
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Jason Togneri |
Message #117403, posted by filecore at 07:09, 20/4/2011, in reply to message #117399 |
Posts: 3868
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Well, I never used this application myself (and have hardly heard of it), but it seems that Render Bender came out in the summer of 1989, which is quite a heritage. I see it's mentioned in the July 1989 issue of BBC Acorn User, and if there was a cover disc for that, it might be amongst my recently given-away collection - I could contact the guy I gave it to, and ask.
Otherwise, it seems that Render Bender was given free to RiscWorld subscribers in Volume 8 Issue 3, so that might be one avenue to follow (although probably the full app, rather than the demo). There's a lengthy review involving it ("Graphics on the ARM") in Volume 8 Issue 5.
Certainly, Render Bender 2 was sold by Clares Micro for a while, but their website seems to be some generic holding page now. It might be worth trying to contact somebody from Clares to see if they still have copies of the older stuff. You could also try hunting out old cover disc material from the Acorn User cover CDs, although famously, many of the cover floppies that were promised to be included actually weren't. |
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David Holden |
Message #117409, posted by apdl at 15:07, 20/4/2011, in reply to message #117403 |
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We never actually re-released Render Bender and Illusionist because to do a proper upgrade with full 32 bit compatibility and 26 bit colour would have been a huge amount of work and probably not financially viable. Hence we gave it a bit of a wash-and-brush-up and gave it away with RISC World.
However, since it does now work on most later OS's and the manuals are now in HTML if there's sufficient interest I could make the pair available as a low cost download package. |
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Jason Tribbeck |
Message #117410, posted by tribbles at 18:28, 20/4/2011, in reply to message #117409 |
 Captain Helix
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I remember that demo - from memory, it wasn't copy protected as such; just that it was so compact it couldn't be copied by normal file copies (but a *backup copied it). I do remember it running on RISC OS.
I remember the church bells on the Equinoxe 3 version - I really liked it.
However, I don't have a copy of it any more. |
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Paul Dunning |
Message #117413, posted by hairydalek at 21:35, 20/4/2011, in reply to message #117403 |
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If memory serves me, Render Bender required you to describe the scene in the form of a script, rather than building a model in an editor. |
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David Holden |
Message #117419, posted by apdl at 06:01, 21/4/2011, in reply to message #117413 |
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Yes, that's what Illusionist is for. It lets you design a 3D 'scene' with a light source, objects, textures, etc. and then outputs a script which can be fed to Render Bender. The two programs go together although Clares sold them separately. |
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Paul Dunning |
Message #117422, posted by hairydalek at 10:07, 21/4/2011, in reply to message #117419 |
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Posts: 55
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I do remember a Blue Peter incident featuring an Acorn Machine and Render Bender. They were giving away A3010s as prizes in a competition, and to make it look exciting, they were running a Newton's Cradle animation on them. This was a Render Bender animation - I recognised it from my copy.
John Leslie said "it almost looks 3D," much to my amusement. We all know what happened to him.
________
All the best,
Paul. |
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bcass |
Message #117438, posted by bcass at 18:29, 21/4/2011, in reply to message #117422 |
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I think there were a few Newton's Cradle RB animations, but the very first (and full screen) one was on another demo disc that Clares sold and occupied the entire disc. Again, copy protected IIRC.
After a bit of searching, I managed to find the "Mask" part of the demo I talked about in the 1st post. You can download it here:
http://arcade.demon.co.uk/filepages/file33.htm
The file is called "!Mask_arc". Unfortunately, it's just the Mask part of the original demo and it doesn't have the original music.
Another little Render Bender factoid - some of the enemy sprites in Zelatines were rendered in Render Bender. |
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bcass |
Message #118164, posted by bcass at 14:43, 4/7/2011, in reply to message #117438 |
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Good news: I managed to locate my original disks and get them dumped. Big thanks to Tom Walker for doing the dumping for me. The disks were unreadable on my A3010 and A3020. Here are the files:
Render Bender Animation Demo By David J. Hoskins (1988) (Clares Micro Supplies):
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=20BKV6WD
Clares Sound And Graphics Demo By David J. Hoskins (1988) (Clares Micro Supplies):
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=87TQ425F
To run these on Arculator, you need to run them with RISC OS 2, 1MB of memory and ARM2 CPU. In addition, to run the Clares Sound And Graphics Demo, you need to set the screen memory to 160K and the font cache to 48K before loading.
These brought back some memories! It must have been over 15 years since I last saw these running.
[Edited by bcass at 16:23, 5/7/2011] |
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Dave Hoskins |
Message #122518, posted by DaveHoskins at 11:14, 5/8/2013, in reply to message #118164 |
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Brings back memories for me, that's for sure. ; )
Does anyone have a copy of the Sound and Graphics demo in an emulator friendly format?
I'd loved to see my work again, after all these years. |
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Dave Hoskins |
Message #122519, posted by DaveHoskins at 16:41, 6/8/2013, in reply to message #122518 |
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Is this site dead or moved or something? The previous links have been removed with the demise of Megaupload. Can someone please find me a new copy?
Thanks,
Dave J. Hoskins.
(yes, I AM the author) |
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Andrew Rawnsley |
Message #122520, posted by arawnsley at 19:53, 6/8/2013, in reply to message #122519 |
R-Comp chap
Posts: 600
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I think it is more a case of thread ressurection and the fact the few people have access to discs that are 20+ years old.
I know I'm as passionate about things Acorn/RISC OS as anyone, but I don't have those discs, nor know of anyone who would/does. Others may have copies of things that I do not, of course - my time is taken up with the current RISC OS scene, rather than the more "retro" aspects, whereas I know others love the older stuff.
Basically, I'd wager that the silence simply implies that those who *might* have access to that content, or be interested in that era of stuff, haven't got round to visiting this week yet.
You might have more luck on Stairway to Hell forum, which is, I think, more retro oriented? |
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Dave Hoskins |
Message #122521, posted by DaveHoskins at 20:01, 6/8/2013, in reply to message #122520 |
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Cool, thanks for the reply. Sorry for sounding impatient!  |
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Xavier Louis Tardy |
Message #122522, posted by Zarchos at 20:17, 6/8/2013, in reply to message #122521 |
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Posts: 47
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Hello.
I'm not sure you'll find what you want but you should try to have a look at the apdl.co.uk freely downloadable files.
Also, search here :
http://ftp.uni-stuttgart.de/pub/systems/acorn/
Hope this helps.
Xavier. |
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Kai Thomsen |
Message #122523, posted by kaiborch at 00:46, 8/8/2013, in reply to message #122519 |
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Posts: 3
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I have re-uploaded the two ADF images originally provided by user bcass:
Render Bender Animation Demo By David J. Hoskins (1988) (Clares Micro Supplies)
Clares Sound And Graphics Demo By David J. Hoskins (1988) (Clares Micro Supplies)
On that note, Dave, please let me thank you for developing the impressive Render Bender! When I needed my mum to co-finance my buying an Acorn A3000 in 1990, we visited a local Acorn dealer here in Germany which had the "Rolling A3000 demo" (I think) running on a machine on display. It was the brilliant, ray-traced "Rendering of the Guard" animation that convinced her this computer was worth the money! One year later or so, I bought the Render Bender package and spent countless hours modifying scenes and creating my own ones. Still have the package box, disks and manual in my closet ...
[Edited by kaiborch at 03:59, 8/8/2013] |
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Xavier Louis Tardy |
Message #122524, posted by Zarchos at 05:17, 8/8/2013, in reply to message #122523 |
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Posts: 47
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Hi.
Thanks for the upload.
Yet oher bits of Archimedes history which should be captured and uploaded on Youtube ;-) |
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Andrew Rawnsley |
Message #122525, posted by arawnsley at 10:38, 8/8/2013, in reply to message #122523 |
R-Comp chap
Posts: 600
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So, the next question is how can we convince Dave to update Render Bender for current gen ARM systems, given the Pi is so cheap to get back into? |
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Trevor Johnson |
Message #122526, posted by trevj at 11:42, 8/8/2013, in reply to message #122525 |
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Posts: 660
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...if the sources are still available or binary patching is feasible... |
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Xavier Louis Tardy |
Message #122527, posted by Zarchos at 13:17, 8/8/2013, in reply to message #122526 |
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Posts: 47
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Let's see when the development of the new Top Model is completed ... that would be a really good news, too. |
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Dave Hoskins |
Message #122576, posted by DaveHoskins at 15:30, 24/8/2013, in reply to message #122527 |
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Thanks for the comments guys!
And thanks for upload. I have those adf files now, but can anybody show me a good emulator to play them? I've tried Arculator and RedSquirrel but they refuse to recognise the adf.
Cheers,
Dave H. |
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Trevor Johnson |
Message #122591, posted by trevj at 07:49, 26/8/2013, in reply to message #122576 |
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Posts: 660
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Would ArcEm be any more cooperative? |
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Kai Thomsen |
Message #122592, posted by kaiborch at 09:21, 26/8/2013, in reply to message #122576 |
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Posts: 3
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And thanks for upload. You're welcome, Dave.
I have those adf files now, but can anybody show me a good emulator to play them? I've tried Arculator and RedSquirrel but they refuse to recognise the adf. I can confirm with Arculator 0.99 that the ADF images can't be accessed on RISC OS 3 (regardless of emulated FDC type), but I can successfully access the disks and run the demos on RISC OS 2. |
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