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Topics - cosmicr

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1
Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / Sq5, hoc, etc pic resources
« on: April 24, 2004, 05:31:33 AM »
can anyone direct me to where I might be able to get a program to view the pictures from these games?

2
Mega Tokyo AGI Archive / agi studio on windows xp
« on: August 12, 2002, 10:59:28 PM »
I recently installed windows xp on my comp and now agi studio is now saving logics.  it compiles fine, but when it goes to save it says cannot create directory "D:\game\\src".  is this an xp problem or something else?  please help, as I'm so close to releasing a demo.

3
Ok, so I know that sierra famously used scanned images/paintings/etc for the backgrounds in VGA SCI games. I have read somewhere that they developed their own "codec" for scanning the images in (does that mean their file format?) But what I'm interested in is how the images were processed after being scanned.

Specifically, did they use proprietary tools for editing, or something like deluxe paint? How did they reduce the colour depth to 256 colours? I have seen a lot of games reserve the first 32 colours for the UI and other fixed items (like inventory, views, etc), whilst the rest of the palette was dynamic, depending on the background. I would like to know more about their dithering techniques.

For the most part the dithering looks like it's a kind of ordered dithering method, and then touched up manually, but it could be something else.

Does anyone have any insight on how it was done?

4
I've been having a blast converting Sierra images to modern art pieces using AI.

See below some examples:














I have found that it works best for fantasy style scenes and landscapes. Luckily, a lot of sierra games feature these!


5
AGI Syntax Help / Understanding how goto and else work
« on: May 03, 2022, 06:17:59 PM »
Working on my decompiler a bit more, I originally had it just use goto everywhere, but reading WinAGI's docs, specifically:

Quote
Else and Goto Statements
Code 0xFE is a bit unusual in that it can act as a goto statement, but is also used in conjunction with the if statement to act as an else statement. The operation that AGI performs when it encounters the 0xFE value is to read the next two bytes as an offset, then jump to that new position. This is why this code is referred to as the goto statement.

When used in conjunction with an if statement, this code acts as an else statement. To create an if ... else construct, the programmer includes a goto statement at the end of the commands to be evaluated if the condition is true. The offset value of this goto statement is the length of commands that are executed if the condition is false (i.e., the else block). An example illustrates this concept best:
Code: [Select]
FF 07 E7 FF        if(isset(f231))
05 00                {
65 0F                print("The door is already open.");
FE 11 00             goto END
                     }
0C 24               set(f36);
77                  prevent.input();
3B 05               start.update(o5);
03 98 03            assignn(v152, 3);
4C 05 98            cycle.time(o5, v152);
49 05 E8            end.of.loop(o5, f232);
63 46 9A            sound(70, f154);
END:
This is functionally equivalent to:
Code: [Select]

FF 07 E7 FF         if(isset(f231))
05 00                 {
65 0F                 print("The door is already open.");
                      }
FE                  else
11 00                 {
0C 24                 set(f36);
77                    prevent.input();
3B 05                 start.update(o5);
03 98 03              assignn(v152, 3);
4C 05 98              cycle.time(o5, v152);
49 05 E8              end.of.loop(o5, f232);
63 46 9A              sound(70, f154);
END:                  }

This makes perfect sense, but going through Gold Rush code I found this:

Code: [Select]
    if (isset(f233))
      {
      print("You are already fishing.");
      goto(Label2);
      }

How does WinAGI's decompiler know that this isn't an 'else' block? The bytecode for this is:

Code: [Select]
ff 07 e9 ff  if (isset(f233)
05 00        (block is 5 bytes long)
65 7e        print message 126 ("You are already fishing.")
fe 5d 07     else/goto 1885 bytes (blocksize/offset)

6
AGI Syntax Help / Some Logics have blank messages?
« on: April 10, 2022, 06:47:32 PM »
I wrote a logic decompiler! Pretty pleased with it - it's working great.

I've been testing it on a few Sierra titles, but noticed along the way that some games (eg Gold Rush logic 42) have blank messges? Is this some hangover from their compiler? It took me ages to work out what was wrong with my decompiler.

At the end of the code section there's a list of offsets/pointers to messages, which in this example there are 134 pointers. But when you get to the actual messages about 30 are blank? Anyone know why this is?

Messages are split by zero '\0' bytes, when you get to the blank ones, they're literally just nothing followed by a zero byte. How should an interpreter handle these?

I'm thinking that the original source code must have used the message numbers (rather than compiling them into a list later) and as they went along and made edits, they just added new messages instead of reordering their list?

7
Anyone know why this is?

You have to register your game with them to be able to play it. Why can't they just make it work for any/all SCI/AGI games?

Is there a hack or hidden setting that might allow you to do this?

8
SCI Development Tools / SCI0 Picture Extended picture operations 0x03-0x06
« on: September 21, 2020, 01:36:03 AM »
Anyone know what these do? According to the SCI Companion source code they are only used in KQ1SCI and Colonels Bequest? Which pics?

I have been trying to update the pic resource format specs on the Wiki. It seems that SCUMMVM, FreeSCI, SCI Studio and SCI Companion all ignore these operations.

Most docs describe them as PIC_OPX_MONO1 etc...

0x03 (MONO1) 0x02 (MONO0) has 41 parameters. It makes me wonder if it's a palette operation?

Or perhaps they were just placeholders for commands never implemented?

Has anyone taken the time to investigate what they are?

9
The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / SCI Tetris
« on: September 19, 2020, 10:34:59 PM »
I've been slowly learning SCI programming, working on my game. As always my game is huge in scope and I needed a diversion.

I wanted to try to familiarise myself with a few lesser used functions of SCI and learn a bit more in the process, on a smaller game.

So today I present: SCI Tetris!



No don't check your calendar, this isn't an April Fools joke...
It's all coded in one room. I've included the source for anyone who wants to take a look (warning it's quite messy). Anyone new to SCI programming might learn a few things.

How it works and my methodology:
  • I keep an array of the board in a 20x10 array. SCI doesn't support 2d arrays, so it's basically a 200 element array.
    The blocks are programatically generated from one View (with 6 loops) and move down the board. A popular implementation of a Tetris game.
    When the blocks hit the bottom they become part of the board and I used the AddToPic function. One of the issues I had to overcome was the addToPic library function doesn't work the way I wanted it to so I used the Kernel function instead.
  • Once I had the main game working, I added boundary and lines cleared detection. I used the template gScore and gMaxScore for the scoring. I also used the death handler but modified it to display a random Russian "Superstition" just for fun (and to abuse the text resource feature). I copied all the quotes from Wikipedia into a text file, then using a hex editor I replaced all the CRLF's with 0's and imported the text patch into my game.
  • The game gets progressively faster as you level up. Rosella is there to give you a sense of urgency.
  • I had a bit of trouble with keys. I'm not sure if SCI0 allows a key-held event. So for that reason you can't hold a key down you have to "tap" the key controls.  I didn't spend a lot of time on controls so it might be possible to improve.
  • High scoring is saved to a local file in the game folder so that next time you play it's still there.  The big font is just a "Russian" style Cyrillic-looking font that I found online.
  • Save and restore sort of don't work, but it wouldn't take much to make it work. But why you'd want that is beyond me hahaha.
  • There's also some midi music in there too.
  • I should also add I used Kawa's version of SCI Companion, but I don't think it makes any difference.
  • If anyone's wondering this is the result of about 12 hours coding/design/learning (about 2 days).

So anyway I've attached the game files to this post, take a look, let me know what you think, and any questions you might have!

Now back to my main game...

10
Forum Support and Suggestions / Rules for editing the wiki
« on: September 14, 2020, 06:04:56 PM »
Sorry I didn't know where else to post this.

I have found a lot of the SCI wiki stuff is really outdated. There's a lot of straight up copy and paste articles/documents from other sources which have become outdated.

I have been tempted to make corrections/revisions etc, but I am worried that editing these pages would ruin the prosperity of these articles. I think it is important that the original versions of some of them be preserved too.

Even the 'front' page of the SCI wiki could use a face lift (especially to make SCI development more appealing to newcomers), but again I don't want to put anyone out by making unsolicited changes. The last "news" was 4 years ago hahaha.

Just want to know what others think? Collector it's your baby, I don't want to spoil it!

11
SCI Syntax Help / Where to get SCI0 documentation in 2020?
« on: August 30, 2020, 11:32:19 PM »
There's broken links everywhere!

I've trawled through and found some older documentation from SCI Studio, but I'm using SCI Companion and Sierra Script for SCI0. Is there a source for that documentation? (I'm aware it's just syntax but it's the convenience I'm after).

Or is there a definitive place to find all documentation that doesn't have broken links?

Thanks in advance.

PS My first post in probably 7 or 8 years haha. Some of you may remember me from MegaTokyo Forum days (and even before that!)

12
Forum Support and Suggestions / AGI forum
« on: December 20, 2006, 07:32:44 PM »
hey cloudee have you considered moving AGI forums over as well? it would be convenient to have all things Sierra in one place...

13
Everything-Else / new home
« on: December 20, 2006, 07:31:48 PM »
hi all. just wanted to say hi and to let you all know I'll be around here lurking as I did on the MT forum.

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