SpecialFX: OWL/OWLNext demo
(C) 2009

This OWL demo is based on a MFC demo created by David Swigger
plus tweaks and more effects added by Sebastian Ledesma.

LICENSE: This software is licensed with L-GNU license.

Notes on implementation:
The TSpecialFXApp, TSpecialFXDlgClient and TAboutDlg classes were created
from with AppExpert. Nothing new here.

This application supports XP themes, but notice that the support is 
incorpored  by adding an external manifest file (specialFX.exe.manifest)
instead of an embebed resource.

The routines for water, fire and plasma fx rendering are pretty the same to
the original ones except for some bug fixes in fireroutine and tweaks.
The routines should be compilable with MS-VC and Borland/Codegear back and
forth.
I've modified the original fx routines a little so they resemble as
much as possible in order to easy the learning of one vs other.

The bitmap used as source must be a 24 bit bitmap.

There are two kind of effects in this demo:
- Transform effects
- Filter effects

Transform effects: they take a bitmap (actually DIB) as source and also take
a destination bitmap to generate a 'transformed' version with some mathematical
model.

Filter effects: work on the same bitmap by adding an overlayed effect.
Usually this kind of effects allow to select the alpha level
(level of transparency) of the effect.

You can chain with no limits the Filter effects.
You can also chain the transform effect, in this case, you will need a bitmap
(Dib) for each intermediate effect.
Since I've used only two bitmaps (bmpRenderSource and bmpRenderTarget),
I only allow to use one transform effect at time.

You can make your own routines for fx rendering!
Here are some cool ideas:
- gel
- glass
- ice
- meltdown
- sand
- waterfall
- water
- rain
- dew
- flares
- snow: generate random white spots and down them semirandom, alpha-channel over the source Dib
- stars
- clouds
- cloud of words
- matrix
- reflex
- enredadera (use fibonachi to grow with random switchs)


Feel free to aport your critics, suggestions, ideas, etc.

Please read more info about fx at:
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank_filter
- www.anfyteam.com
- nwww.gamedev.net
- etc

