gnif

16th July 2003 05:27 UTC

overlay mode
Is there anyone out there that knows how AVS is able to render it's image to the desktop (or color).

I dont want to know how to turn overlay mode on:p, I want to know how to implement overlay mode in my own applications;)

I have been searching the net for ages now and have not come up with anything:mad:. I want to make a small application that plays a looping avi file onto the desktop (see the windows xp bliss screensaver).

Why do I want to do this? coz i ain't got nothin' better to do with my time (life :igor: ).

mikm

16th July 2003 05:47 UTC

search the forums. this has been asked before.

[Ishan]

16th July 2003 07:09 UTC

I have been searching the net for ages now and have not come up with anything.:mad:

Pixelcraft

16th July 2003 07:45 UTC

Then you obviously didn't check everywhere. Look around in the settings of the AVS editor. You'll figure it out - if you look hard enough.

gnif

16th July 2003 08:04 UTC

1. I didn't know what this was implememnted with (DDraw, OpenGL...)
2. I have allmost NO experiance with DirectDraw.
3. I didn't even know excatly what the feature was called (color key)
4. I have been searching on google for ages now for things like 'overlay', 'winamp', 'source', 'desktop'...
5. Why I didn't search on the forum, I dont know :(. It could be to do with the fact that I didn't expect other people to want to know how to do this.
6. I still cant find source code on exactly how do it (on the desktop), so any source code would be much appreciated.

Also this is not a troubleshooting question as it does not relate to a winamp problem.

mikm

16th July 2003 13:10 UTC

Like I said, somebody asked this before. Search the forums. Basically it is a videocard hack that fills the selected color with the data from the window or something. To do the desktop mode, it just changes the background it the color then fills it.

UnConeD

16th July 2003 13:31 UTC

Or you could look at Ryan Geiss' VMS (Visualisation Mega SDK) which has an alternative method to do it... it involves hooking into the desktop window and doing all sorts of stuff to it that would make baby Jesus cry.

papaw00dy

22nd July 2003 07:36 UTC

not sure about how to do this. but to clear things up a little using overlays is not a hack. Almost every video player program uses overlays to play video's with less CPU usage. I'm no technical genius but basically it works by using offscreen video memory to store the video and then the video card handles replacing pixels of a certain color on the screen with the off screen page. As far as programing this good luck, and let me know if you find any source code. I've been wanting to make a program sort of like that for combining screen capture and overlays to allow you to make any program resize to desktop. If you don't really care about actually using overlays, and just want it to show up on the desktop, I would work with Geiss's VMS like unconed said. Although that makes a winamp plugin, which is no good if you want to make an exe. Other than that you might want to look through the developer resources on the ATI site.

Also one time I found a program called videodesktop I think, that did exactly what you want. Unfortunately the free version is crippled, and I couldn't see myself paying for a program for just that. Also I think it did it without overlays.

oh, ya duh, what about the ATI File Player? With MMC 8.5 you can use thruview with File Player, although no desktop mode yet, I don't see why they couldn't add it though, maybe soon.

And don't forget you can make AVS play avi files.

turd ferguson

31st July 2003 06:09 UTC

Another method would be to use VitalDesktop. It's open sourced and can display most screensavers to the desktop wallpaper. I used it to write an app that can render opengl scenes to the desktop without using slow ActiveDesktop.