Messages

16

SCI Community News / Re: SCUMMVM SCI Engine "HiRes Upscale" Support Mod

« on: January 29, 2021, 03:48:41 PM »

4x high res priority maps are now implemented!



https://github.com/MiLO83/scummvmx/releases/tag/v0.88-beta

EDIT: And full range alpha transparency:
https://github.com/MiLO83/scummvmx/releases/tag/v0.89-beta

17

SCI Community News / Re: SCUMMVM SCI Engine "HiRes Upscale" Support Mod

« on: January 25, 2021, 05:25:18 PM »

I was incorrect about aspect correction not being possible. You can get it by going to ScummVM's options in the Graphics tab and selecting "Fit to Window (4:3)" from the Stretch mode dropdown menu. Here's KQ4 running in ScummVM-X with a few VGA-ified backgrounds people have made over the years in attempted KQ4VGA remakes. Just dropped into a folder now and bam: instant remake!

18

SCI Community News / Re: SCUMMVM SCI Engine "HiRes Upscale" Support Mod

« on: January 25, 2021, 03:12:43 PM »

Video I made of my ESRGAN upscales in SQ4:




Here's a video Myles made of replacing SCI0 art with an actual photo of a cityscape:

19

SCI Community News / SCUMMVM SCI Engine "HiRes Upscale" Support Mod

« on: January 25, 2021, 09:20:57 AM »

An amazing individual named Myles Johnston has release a modded ScummVM that supports graphics asset replacement at up to 4x the resolution for the SCI engine. Effectively rendering ESRGAN AI upscaling (prerendered of course) usable in ScummVM. He's released a build of ScummVM and his own alternate build of SCI Companion. Here's an example video he made:



He's also got something going for SCI0 games (this will make VGA-ifying SCI0 EGA games a whole lot quicker):



This obviously will kill all colour cycling, but this is only the beginning. If enough people get in on this perhaps colour cycling can be simulated somehow in a 32-bit colour high resolution environment with special mapping files or colour flags or something.

Here are his builds of ScummVM and SCI Companion (which is needed for some reason, I don't know what yet apparently it batch dumps View cels into individual files) plus his tutorial video:

ScummVM X
SCI Companion X

GitHub:
https://github.com/MiLO83/scummvmx
https://github.com/MiLO83/SCICompanionX



EDIT: Here's his Readme file:

Code: [Select]

This is a Demonstration Alpha, v0.832 I suppose.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
SCUMMVMx SCI Engine HiRes Support Mod!

This mod loads .png files from the Launcher defined "Extra" folder.
It does not come with any replacement graphics or games.

Files must be exactly 4x their original size.
They should be true color and not paletted.

They should be named as follows (Case-Sensitive / Non-0-Padded):
pic.#.png
view.#.#.#.png

The original graphics can be dumped with my custom ALSO modified version of SCICompanion,
"SCICompanionX", this "X" version batch dumps views as individual cels instead of sprite sheets.
Individual Cel format is required by the HiRes Mod, and trust me exporting individual cels with
the original SCICompanion could take WEEKS of careful clicking.

Simply open your game in SCICompanionX, and in the top menu go to Tools->Extract all resources..
You will likely want to only "Generate bitmaps for pics" and "Generate bitmaps for views",
Un-checking the other options.

Currently Pics are exported as .bmp, you will need to scale them somehow to 4x and save as
unpaletted true color .png. Views are however dumped as .png but will crash the game if not
scaled exactly 4x.

ANY GRAPHIC NOT EXACLY 4X THE ORIGINAL WILL LOOK GARBLED OR CRASH THE GAME.

I enjoy "CupScale", but only because I don't have the time to program and redo the Art by hand in Photoshop.
I have also heard great things about GigaPixel AI.

KNOWN BUGS :
Some untested games may not work, for instance "QFG - Shadows of Darkness" (Sorry ;|)

[READ EDIT] Also, I found that in QFG3 some replaced graphics remain pixilated due to the game scaling them,
This is simply the current status of the HiRes Alpha, I am trying to fix this problem evenings after working
on other work projects 9-5. I have to track down where in the code needs fixing, fixing it shouldn't be difficult,
it's just finding the routine that needs modification in the code somewhere which is a bit of code reading.
Most likely its in a file I haven't actually read yet. [EDIT/IGNORE : THIS IS WHAT'S FIXED IN THIS VERSION!!! :)]

Please feel free to track me down (Myles Johnston aka MiLO83) on YouTube / Discord / Facebook with
Questions, Positive Comments, Help, Bug Reports, Etc.

Again this is not yet finished or polished, people seem to want to try it themselves before 100% compatibility.

https://github.com/MiLO83/scummvmx
https://github.com/MiLO83/SCICompanionX

  - Myles Johnston

20

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: Hey hey, I made another Christmas card.

« on: December 25, 2020, 02:11:17 PM »

Nice! And Merry Christmas to you!

21

SCI Syntax Help / Re: SCI01 Game Using SCI0 Template?

« on: December 13, 2020, 09:55:10 AM »

Is it that different? I figured everything would be mostly the same apart from additional features like scrolling screen transitions and stuff.

22

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: Betrayed Alliance 2 Development Journal

« on: December 09, 2020, 06:03:06 PM »

It's all indeed so lovely! Great job!

23

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: What are we working on?

« on: December 06, 2020, 01:43:22 PM »

Awesome!

24

SCI Development Tools / Re: The "Hold" feature

« on: December 05, 2020, 02:08:42 PM »

Wow never knew about that controller!

25

AGI Development Tools / Re: WinAGI Version 2.1.2 Is Available

« on: December 03, 2020, 01:44:43 AM »

Appreciate your hard work!

26

SCI Development Tools / Re: MIDI Editor (Possibly a better tool than Anvil Studio?)

« on: November 18, 2020, 08:35:43 AM »

Ooh that does look like a good one. Some nice companion programs too there.

27

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: I just wanted to record some MIDI...

« on: November 09, 2020, 11:18:46 PM »

I don't think it's really that much guesswork involved. Most loop points land right on a measure, or at least a beat, or a note. If it's an "atmospheric" sound with no perceptible tempo, time signature, or BPM then I feel like a close enough guess is warranted. You can playback sounds in SCI Viewer WITH the loop points so in my feeling guestimating the loop point for these tracks is alright and close enough. In proper musical themes it's really no guess. It'll all land on at least a note event if nothing else. That's for all intents and purposes pretty exact.

28

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: I just wanted to record some MIDI...

« on: November 02, 2020, 12:13:09 PM »

The loop information is not a MIDI command. The aforementioned MIDI loop controllers that Kawa mentioned are for customized versions of MIDI. EMIDI, for instance, is only used for 3D Realms' Build game engines (Duke3D, Shadow Warrior). The others would also be proprietary. There wouldn't be any way to implement it for everything to understand. If you want it to loop, you have to program in the loop functionality yourself in whatever your project is (that's what game developers did, and that's why the SCI developers made it a specialized data cue entry specifically for SCI sound resources and not a standard MIDI controller event). If you want it to loop in some other kind of project, you could open it in a DAW like Cakewalk (free) and set loop points yourself at the proper MIDI events or just copy and paste the selection of MIDI events and repeat it manually. There is no one consistent universal MIDI loop command so as I see it this is not feasible to implement nor is it within the scope of what should be implemented IMO.

ZvikaZ, DOSBox has a built-in function to capture MIDI data into an outputted .MID file in the CAPTURE directory similar to its screenshot, audio, raw OPL, and video capture functions.

29

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: I just wanted to record some MIDI...

« on: October 31, 2020, 12:43:08 PM »

I was talking about changing the tempo. The loop cue data is SCI specific and not a standard MIDI controller...at least I don't think it is...

Right, so what do you do when you want to record something from the games? I assume you've done it before, or at least whoever recorded all the Quest Studios stuff did somehow.

Quest Studios recorded the output of the games themselves from a seperate PC. So MIDI Out from PC 1 playing the game to MIDI In on PC 2 with PC 2 MIDI Out going to the MT-32 or the SC-55 or whatever.

Me, I'm content to export the files from the games as MIDI. And if the tempo is incorrect, I can change it in a MIDI Sequencer/DAW.

30

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: I just wanted to record some MIDI...

« on: October 30, 2020, 11:20:09 PM »

I was talking about changing the tempo. The loop cue data is SCI specific and not a standard MIDI controller...at least I don't think it is...