Messages

1

SCI Development Tools / Re: Robot Transcoding with Alpha Channel

« on: June 20, 2019, 07:36:02 AM »

Years ago I attempted to track down the creator of SCI Viewer. I finally did somewhere somehow but he said that his source was lost and that there would be no more releases.

2

SCI Development Tools / Re: Decompilation Archive

« on: June 19, 2019, 02:29:05 PM »

Very nice!

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SCI Syntax Help / Re: Where'd my buttons go (Sierra Script Conversion)

« on: June 11, 2019, 11:19:33 PM »

Looks good!

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SCI Syntax Help / Re: Can someone explain Flags to me?

« on: June 11, 2019, 11:14:19 PM »

Edit: Mod's symbol appears to be % in studio script.

Yeah, "MOD" is short for "modulus" and returns a remainder from a division operation...right?

5

SCI Syntax Help / Re: Dialog Box Edges Hiding Objects Behind

« on: June 10, 2019, 12:08:53 PM »

That is an interesting approach! And one I'd like to see in practice just to see what it's like.

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SCI Syntax Help / Re: Dialog Box Edges Hiding Objects Behind

« on: June 10, 2019, 10:29:48 AM »

Yeah. I love the idea of the technology and accomplishing it was really cool. But I don't care for the resulting effect at all. Still, some people like it and that's cool too.

You know what would be really neat is making some kind of algorithm that converts dithered EGA into 256-colour VGA complete with Deluxe Paint-style gradient shading. I can't imagine you'd get much success starting out, but the concept combined with some sort of AI neural-net processing (similar to all the ESRGAN upscales going around right now for old game images and textures) I think has the potential to produce something pretty neat eventually and I'm so sorry I'm really derailing this thread. Moving on.

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The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: INN is Back!!!

« on: May 31, 2019, 10:42:22 PM »

Considering I've never tried this, it will be interesting to actually experience it.

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SCI Syntax Help / Re: Music/Playing Note Sticks When Leaving a Room

« on: May 31, 2019, 09:19:28 AM »

Yeah, you can create whatever loop/cue points you want in Companion. Soundbox is very very old. Like, SCI Studio old. The conversations you saw about Soundbox are likely quite old as well. Before troflip returned and started updating SCI Companion again to version 3+.

Are you making an SCI0 game or SCI1.1?

9

SCI Syntax Help / Re: Music/Playing Note Sticks When Leaving a Room

« on: May 30, 2019, 11:10:17 PM »

Soundbox you say? Is there a reason why you're not using Companion's Sound tool? It might not solve your problem, but just wondering.

I believe the problem is rooted in driver issues. A stuck MIDI note used to happen in DOS because a particular MIDI interface wasn't in "intelligent mode." Sometimes it's the MIDI device receiving the MIDI information. I had a Roland MT-200 that was basically a Roland SC-55 (Sound Canvas) with the added functionality to track songs and save them to a floppy disk. I could never use it with Sierra games though because it would always give stuck notes everywhere. When I got a CM-500 (An SC-55 and MT-32 in one, basically) the note-sticking stopped. Not saying any of these are the issue, but it makes me doubt this problem is SCI-related a bit.

10

SCI Syntax Help / Re: "Bad opcode $4e" crash re: "setLocales" in Sierra Script-converted SCI0 game

« on: May 30, 2019, 01:18:10 PM »

Can we see the code that calls newRoom based on the ego being inRect? It doesn't accidentally call gGame's newRoom, does it? Because (see attached) if I do that I get a stack very similar to what you're seeing:

Oof.

That was it. It was gGame not gRoom. I guess it wasn't as identical to another room's inRect changeroom call as I had thought. That was a silly mistake I should have caught beforehand. Thanks, guys. Sorry to waste everyone's time!

11

SCI Syntax Help / Re: "Bad opcode $4e" crash re: "setLocales" in Sierra Script-converted SCI0 game

« on: May 30, 2019, 09:50:50 AM »

No, what I was really getting at is that there is something stuck in the regions list, possibly in a script that has been disposed (i.e. a dangling pointer). If so, the next step would be to find out what that is (check before entering the faulty room). From the debugger. press 'g' (inspect global variable) and select number 6. Then press 'c' to step through the list. Then repeat after the crash dumps you in the debugger. (oh, but I don't think it does, does it?)

Yes, if you launch SCIV.EXE with "-d" it'll drop you into the debugger on a crash before it exits to DOS. That's how I got that send stack list. I'll do that.

The only regions I have in the game are waterRegions and beachRegions. The game starts off on a screen on the beach so right off the bat you're in a region. The BeachRegion is used to control ego's change in view resources as he moves deeper into the water until he's swimming via control colours painted into the Picture. It also has custom said statement responses. waterRegions are the same except they don't have unique said statement handling and they don't handle control colours that get deep enough to swim in.

I tested navigating through the game and avoiding all waterRegions to enter the room that crashes and it still crashes.

Also, global variable 6 in my game's case is gIntro (the introduction sequence). gRegions is number 8, is that the right one? It just says "regions" when I look at it in the debugger both before and after the crash.

I tried removing the setRegion line in the first room and then navigating to the crash room and it still crashes. gRegions still says "regions" in debugger.

Come to think of it, if you have leftover files from the SCI Studio era, you may need to delete some of them to make sure you are really compiling from scratch. Some variable numbers were out of sync between Brian's template game and the SCI Companion one (the current room number being a notable example; the usual methods for room teleportation didn't work with Studio games).

Ok, which files should I delete? Does it not convert over every script in the game to Sierra Script when making the conversion?

EDIT: This seems to be inconsistent. Before I distinctly remember removing the setLocales line in the previous room would avert the crash. Now it's crashing regardless but it's giving a different error this time: "$52" instead of "$4e". I even removed all regions and locales from the beginning of the game to the crash room and it still crashes. Same send stack. I've recompiled a few times since so this may point to a compilation error of some kind after all?

EDIT 2: Something residual is definitely going on. I just painstakingly removed all lines of code that sets regions and locales and it still crashes on this one room alone with the same error. No regions or locales anywhere in the game.

12

SCI Syntax Help / Re: Music/Playing Note Sticks When Leaving a Room

« on: May 29, 2019, 08:52:41 PM »

Are you using just General MIDI music files? With the General MIDI driver? How are you handling stopping the music between rooms, with "(gMusic1 stop:)"?

I've run into this with some GM MIDIs I imported with Companion. One of them doesn't play all the instruments and another one deals with the stuck notes (and still another doesn't sound at all!). I haven't really dove into sound yet. Just been using placeholders. I just removed the offending music for now.

13

SCI Syntax Help / Re: "Bad opcode $4e" crash re: "setLocales" in Sierra Script-converted SCI0 game

« on: May 29, 2019, 04:36:03 PM »

Yes, but there are no regions in either of those two rooms. Are Locales sub-objects of Regions? I didn't think so but...

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SCI Syntax Help / Re: "Bad opcode $4e" crash re: "setLocales" in Sierra Script-converted SCI0 game

« on: May 29, 2019, 02:48:53 PM »

I can't seem to run it in ScummVM. It just says "Game data not found" even though it recognizes it as an SCI game of some kind and gives a message to report the file hashes to the ScummVM team.

Here's the setLocales method code block from Game.sc:

Code: [Select]

(method (setLocales scriptNumbers &tmp i scrNum hScript)
(for ( (= i 0)) (< i argc)  ( (++ i)) (= scrNum [scriptNumbers i]) (= hScript (ScriptID scrNum)) (hScript number: scrNum) (gLocales add: hScript) (hScript init:))
)
Comparing to the SCI Studio code original it looks pretty good. I don't get it. I can just not use Locales for that room to get around it as it seems to work everywhere else, but if it's a problem with the compiler or something or the conversion process I'd figure it would be important to point out.

15

SCI Syntax Help / [SOLVED] "Bad opcode $4e" crash re: "setLocales" in Sierra Script SCI0 game

« on: May 29, 2019, 02:12:31 PM »

I decided on a whim to revisit KQ2SCI0 and wanted to convert the whole thing to Sierra Script. It all compiles fine and works but on one screen in-game in particular that has a certain Locale set, when I exit it into a room that doesn't have a Locale the game crashes upon entering the new room saying "bad opcode $4e." If I comment out setLocales in the previous room the crash goes away. The only thing different about this room compared to others is that it changes rooms based on the ego being inRect. Other inRect codes work fine elsewhere in the game, including ones that change rooms. So I'm guessing something in the Locales code is broken in the conversion to Sierra Script in certain cases maybe when disposing or something? But only sometimes? Because there's another room with "forestLocale" and an inRect code to change rooms and the code is virtually identical.

Sierra debug Send Stack readout displays:

Code: [Select]

(??? doit:)
(??? doit:)
(regions eachElementDo:)
(Game doit:)
(KQ2 doit:)
(KQ2 play:)
The Locale is set in its script with the "(public)" code block as "forestLocale 0", which is also what the Locale instance is called.