Hollywood forums

Hi! I hope you're doing well.
I have some questions about Hollywood so I hope you can give me some help!
I'm very interested on buying this software, but first I need to clarify some questions:

1. So, if I use the Windows version to make my multimedia applications, can I compile for the Amiga 68k directly from the Windows version? How to compile from a modern OS version to an older OS version like 68k Amiga? I'm referring to RAM, color palettes, etc. Something that needs to be carefully considered on the Amiga (but we have plenty of it on Windows).

2. Does Hollywood accept .Anim or .Anim5 and .IFF audio files? Would it be possible to combine both into a single application that launch an animation with audio like a demo?

3. Does Hollywood allow .anim5 files to have multiple color palettes within a single animation? (Not all software supports this; many of them take the color palette from the first frame and then use that same palette for the entire animation, messing everyting)

4. I'd love (and my goal is) to make a Quick Time Event game (like Dragon's Lair, Space Ace) for Amiga 68k. Is it possible to achieve this type of game with Hollywood 10.0? Would I also need the Designer 7.0 version?

5. Could all this be achieved without any lines of code, or do I need to know programming? (Personally, I don't know anything about coding.)

6. Now, Quick Time Event games aside, which other game styles can be created? Platformers? Point and Click adventures like Monkey Island?

7. If I buy Hollywood, will I receive it in digital format or is it only available in physical format?


Thanks!!

Hernán.

hi, welcome

1. hollywood can create directly executable for ANY of its supported platform from ANY of its supported platforms , just select create exe for XXX in IDE
2. yes support anim anim5 and moany more, especialyl using plugins https://www.hollywood-mal.com/download.html (check yafa apng avplugin)
3. not sure what you mean, but anim's can be loaded as pallete and modify pallete, so direct or idirect is possible (check anim in online manual)
4. if you want SPEED fo 68k , it is possible as long as you talk for "modern" implementations thats WinUAE/pistorm/vampire (or at least 060)
designer is a diffrent think, not required but very cool, think of it something between powerpoint and visualbasic IDE rad
5. you can do some thinks in designer5 (+ hollywood) without code, but will be mostly point and click adventure or board game , somethin event based
its possible but definitelly not optimal.
keep in mind that "some lines of code" is not very difficult in hollywood
6. its programmer restriction not languange tool restriction
7. have to go to website and see have download and CD version for order.... but why need CD version!?

anyway most if not all of your questions are answer in manual check it -> https://www.hollywood-mal.com/docs/html/hollywood/

Andreas will hopefully answer you better, but


1. I keep using Hollywood on Windows, and make executables to Amigas. The process is exactly identical to making an executable to Windows, than it is to make to Amiga, except, instead of choosing target platform as Windows, you pick, for example, AmigaOS4.

What comes to question about RAM etc. that is bit harder to answer, but, basically Hollywood programs are bit heavy for classic Amigas. It is not trying to be light weight program, but it is a modern application that assumes machine it is run in, has modern power.

Therefore if you think to make a game for Amiga 500 for example, forget it. That is almost impossible, as in, you would need to restrict it very much.

However, there are support features for older machines, like while you normally would need GFX card in Classic Amigas, there is however a planarama plugin, which makes it so that just by turning that plugin on, it will automatically convert graphics to work on Classic Amigas, I assume, even in OCS, ECS.

About the RAM you need to take into consideration that Hollywood runs in a virtual machine environment, and that tends to suck lot of memory. So even if you simply print "Hello World" screen, then that executable will likely be around 2 Mb already, since that virtual machine is attached to that exe, and therefore you better be prepared to have 4 Mb of memory, just for the Hello World, and I am not sure if that is enough yet, just that supposing 2Mb exe means 2 Mb of memory, then 4 Mb would be enough for something.

To clarify, this does not mean that displaying "hello world" twice would take 4 Mb of memory, just that the Hollywood Virtual Machine (or whatever it is) takes some amount of RAM, after that it just takes the memory the actual program uses.


2 and 3, my Guess is, Yes to both, but let Andreas confirm this.


4. This is doable, and this might be even something that could be working with quite low end Amiga, since basically you just keep playing Animation there, so except for the Virtual Machine sucking RAM, this doesn't take much resources actually.


5. This is simple enough that you could achieve it without single line of Code, if you use Designer. Although, not sure Designer has "IF Joystick LEFT THEN" type of thing in options, but might have, and even if it doesn't, then you would only need that line of code to learn (supposing making Dragon Lair precisely)

You can check my Designer Tutorials from here:
https://youtu.be/tgMhmEUMWOM?si=eeMfdC3SUzKeY7K1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpOs8ABe9XQ&t=4s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OF8gfDHuNg

However, do notice these are from years ago, and several new Designer versions has came out already with much more features.
Also notice, that to use Designer in Windows, you need to use Emulator, since Designer is only available to Amigas. Those Tutorial Videos I made with Windows using free Amikit version to use Designer.


6. Anything. No restrictions at all. It is more of a matter of, for which games is it more suitable. Like you can make Doom in Amiga Basic, but does that make sense? No.

But for example to Monkey island type game Hollywood is more than suitable, since there are some things that give even advantage in making something like that.

When coming to platformers, if wanting smooth scrolling etc. then Hollywood has plugins to do those things smoothly. Hollywood in itself isn't exactly meant for fast Super Frog kind of platformer due to it being meant for something else in its core, but with Plugins, it is good as any.

Similarly 3D stuff there is a plug-in to do those things, but no support so to say, as in no tools etc. but you have to code it all. But once again, as codeable as in any other language, just that something like Unity has lot of support for all kinds of 3D stuff, making it much easier to do it.


7. Available in Digital Format too.

hacheberoldo wrote: ↑Fri May 02, 2025 4:17 pm 1. So, if I use the Windows version to make my multimedia applications, can I compile for the Amiga 68k directly from the Windows version? How to compile from a modern OS version to an older OS version like 68k Amiga? I'm referring to RAM, color palettes, etc. Something that needs to be carefully considered on the Amiga (but we have plenty of it on Windows).

You'll just have to be more careful with resources, display resolutions, coding/design decisions etc. when you're targetting to a lower end system, but it still can be created and tested on any of the supported systems. But make sure you test real performance on your target system too. I still haven't tested how well new palette based productions would run on classic Amigas.. you might get a bit lower requirements when you'd study and take advantage of all those options in Hollywood. But as others said, you'll need an expanded Amiga in any case (several megabytes of RAM, mid to higher end 68k at least).

3. Does Hollywood allow .anim5 files to have multiple color palettes within a single animation? (Not all software supports this; many of them take the color palette from the first frame and then use that same palette for the entire animation, messing everyting)

Do you have any example files to test? But I'd guess that if Hollywood doesn't succeed playing such an animation automatically, you could probably extract frames with correct palettes out of it and code your own player routine.

5. Could all this be achieved without any lines of code, or do I need to know programming? (Personally, I don't know anything about coding.)

You can do some interactivity etc. with Designer, but I'd say that it would be easier if you could do some programming, even to extend the Designer functionality with embedded code.

Hollywood itself (if you don't buy Designer) is a pure programming (scripting) language, and you can't do anything with it if you're not willing to learn some programming.

I think everything has been answered already except this:

hacheberoldo wrote: ↑Fri May 02, 2025 4:17 pm 3. Does Hollywood allow .anim5 files to have multiple color palettes within a single animation? (Not all software supports this; many of them take the color palette from the first frame and then use that same palette for the entire animation, messing everyting)

Yes, that's possible. Hollywood's IFF anim handler supports multiple color palettes within a single animation. It also doesn't just support anim5, but also anim7, anim8, anim16 and anim32 because all those formats are used by Scala which Hollywood supports through the Malibu plugin.

Thank you all so much for your responses and advice. You've helped me a lot! I'll definitely be a new buyer soon!

Hi! I'm here again. I have one more questions: What is Hollywood like without the Designer? Is there a GUI included? Is it essential to add Designer for Hollywood to have features like this software "Multimedia Fusion" or "Macromedia Director"?
My question is: If I don't buy Designer, will I still have a visual interface where I can drag objects to a canvas and use an interactive event editor, or is this feature only available in the version with Designer?. Could you give me an idea of ​​what Designer adds? I've read about it on this website, but I can't see it clear.

Something else I was wondering is if there are any Hollywood demo available to download so I can try out and see if it meets my expectations..

Thanks!

No hollywood it self is text editor based scripting, scritping like programming languange.

https://hollywood-mal.com/screenshots.html
First screenshot ide/text editor of Hollywood alone
Second screenshot ois os Designer

There used be a demo version of Hollywood, which restricted to maximum of 100 lines of Code if I correctly recall, but I couldn't find it anymore.

Bugala wrote: ↑Mon May 05, 2025 10:17 pm There used be a demo version of Hollywood, which restricted to maximum of 100 lines of Code if I correctly recall, but I couldn't find it anymore.

The normal version without the keyfile works like a demo version. But I think to avoid hackers and the downloads and money expenses, a downloadable version is not available.