Messages

1

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI Companion V3 - alpha build notes/bugs/feature requests

« on: August 11, 2022, 05:26:40 PM »

Just a heads-up, I just fixed some crap involving file dialog filter lists having random garbage, and an uncaught exception causing a CTD involving the VGA Picture palette editor and not having any image commands. Well, it's not much of a fix, but at least you'll not lose any work to a CTD and you'll know why. Also includes a tiny fix in the pattern pen bitmaps from a few months back.

Latest build is in the stash in my signature as always.

2

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI1 Sound Resource Format

« on: August 01, 2022, 10:06:19 AM »

How do you know that "in SCI1+ sound resources there are tracks, channels, and devices"?
I'm asking, because the evidence that I have, made me think that 'tracks == devices', for SCI1+.
But I'm ready to change my mind, if you'll show me that I'm wrong

There's a many-to-many mapping of tracks to devices, with potentially impressive overlap. Think of a PC Speaker track also being used for the Tandy 3-Voice.

Compare and contrast that with Anvil Studio's many-to-one, where you can assign each track to only one device, and one channel.

On top of all that, track 4 does not necessarily use channel 4 -- tracks and channels are a one-to-one map, unless it's a Type 0 file where it's one big track driving all channels. But those are rare, so don't worry about 'em.

3

SCI Development Tools / Re: Anyone knows of a SCI1+ game with sound channel?

« on: July 29, 2022, 08:23:10 AM »

I'm not sure what the difference between a digital track and channel would be.

All I know is that later games (SCI11 and higher) use Audio resources to do non-speech digital sound effects, that may match IDs with Sound resources. That may be why you couldn't find anything in SQ6's sounds, all its digital effects would be in another resource type entirely.

In earlier games, these digital sounds are part of of the audio resource itself, like in the provided EcoQuest (disk ver.) example (*chomp* OUCH!). That's all I know.

4

SCI Development Tools / Re: Found (a new?) easter egg in SQ6, dedicated to Steve's family

« on: July 07, 2022, 03:20:49 PM »

Very, very high.

5

SCI Development Tools / Re: Found (a new?) easter egg in SQ6, dedicated to Steve's family

« on: July 07, 2022, 11:58:09 AM »

And there you have it kids.

Have a drink.

6

SCI Development Tools / Re: Found (a new?) easter egg in SQ6, dedicated to Steve's family

« on: July 07, 2022, 07:02:51 AM »

From what I can tell it clearly appears when you press the enter button on the ComPost™, but there'll be a certain setup involving local51 being zero, local78 being truthy, and local77 being 7. So the next step is to find out what these locals are.

local77 is incremented when you press a button, and 7 is the amount of digits in the entity database ID codes. local78 is made true by Button::doVerb before incrementing local77, on a condition that involves [local69 local77] matching local79. If they don't match, 77 through 79 are reset (as also happens when the egg is triggered). Local69 is defined as [6 14 17 19 21 21 23], which is eight items for some reason, and is only used in that same part of Button::doVerb.

(if (== (= local79 (+ local79 value)) [local69 local77])

Value is of course the button's, so zero through nine.

It's obviously obscured so you can't just read the egg's database ID from the code.

6, 14-6=8, 17-8=9, 19-9=10, 21-10=11, 21-11=10, 23-10=13, so that's not quite it.

Still, perhaps this helps?

7

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: Quest For Glory I – Macintosh Easter Egg

« on: June 30, 2022, 10:56:31 AM »

Most what I know about the Data# files is that they're mostly just resource.### files mapped into Mac resource forks. There's some Mac-specific stuff like PICT and CURS, but the role of the resource.map file is taken over by the Mac's Resource Manager it seems.

8

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: So You Thought You Were a Hero? Development Journal

« on: May 31, 2022, 08:02:17 AM »

I'd love to add proper SCI2 support myself, but I wouldn't know how. Best I can offer is testing and UX guidance.

9

SCI Syntax Help / Re: SCI0 - gEgo and barriers

« on: May 25, 2022, 10:24:48 AM »

Going by the later StopWalk's doit, it checks (if (client isStopped:). That's available in the SCI0 template as well, and checks if the actor's mover actually moved. So if you want to detect walking into a barrier, that's how you might do it.

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The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: Rare SCI Games

« on: May 08, 2022, 12:12:49 PM »

The German version also has a translated QfG4 logo, Schatten des Bösen. The Italian and Spanish versions don't seem to have one.

11

Everything-Else / Re: A Curious Facebook Suggestion

« on: April 20, 2022, 06:13:43 AM »

Better than the whole "Justin Bailey" thing in Metroid.

12

Everything-Else / Re: A Curious Facebook Suggestion

« on: April 19, 2022, 10:32:34 AM »

"That" Avis Durgan.

Makes me wonder. You might expect just about anyone here to know who Avis Durgan is, but you might be surprised.

13

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 17, 2022, 02:25:38 PM »

What compiler/toolchain do you use?

For the stuff in the SCI16 folder, I use a very specific old version of Microsoft's C compiler (CL 8.00c), combined with a slightly newer version of their assembler (ML 6.11). Both of these, just the files needed to compile SCI16, are included in the SCI11+ source tree because IDGAF, along with the make (PolyMake 3.3) that came with SCI16.

14

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 17, 2022, 04:29:33 AM »

Have you been able to build this yet by any chance?

This is the SCI16 interpreter code and system scripts, and LSCI system scripts but no interpreter. There is source code for the video drivers and such though, which includes a cel renderer that takes remap tables (cluts).

So for me, the answer is "most of it, yes".

15

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 16, 2022, 05:23:08 PM »

Ahh yes i am very familiar with this. This is how the Realm manages its characters as well, and uses a clut system for remapping. I could probably help give you some insight into this.

No need, I've studied it well enough. The hard part would be to actually do the remapping thing.