Messages

1531

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI tool requests

« on: October 05, 2010, 08:20:04 AM »

Good idea, but...does it really matter? File size isn't really an issue and even with a full vocab the size is still tiny. It doesn't take up heap space or anything does it?

1532

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: Final Testing now taking place

« on: October 04, 2010, 06:19:52 PM »

Awesome! If I notice anything I'll let you know.

1533

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI tool requests

« on: October 03, 2010, 12:20:13 AM »

Yes, SCI0 (and AGI, incidentally) are vector based. But I just don't see the gain in converting from a modern vector-based image editing program like Corel Draw. What's the difference?

1534

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI tool requests

« on: October 02, 2010, 04:51:10 PM »

That is true. But I just don't see the point personally in working with vector tools as opposed to raster tools for such a low resolution. Especially seeing as everything needs to be pixel perfect in such low resolutions.

1535

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI tool requests

« on: October 02, 2010, 11:47:37 AM »

Views are basically no problem. You can copy/paste back and forth between Companion's View editor and any image editing program. And it'll translate the palette to SCI's 16-color range as close as possible. It doesn't have any of the detail options that the background image converter has so it's only a "nearest neighbor" type of deal. No dithering or anything.

If only we had the source for Companion. We could look at the code for how the background image converter works and work something exactly the same for control and priority....

...actually, now that I'm thinking about it this is possible already! Here's what you do, create a priority screen version of a background in an image editor (this would be easy if you're already working with layers to create a background image) and import it into SCI Companion the same way you would import a regular background image. Make sure the colors are right and then go into the the toolbox with all the image "undo states" on the left and change each instance of "Set Visual" to a "Set Priority" instead and you've got your priority image! It wouldn't be an automatic detect thing like you're thinking, but like I said above, if you're already creating a background image with layers in a conventional image editor (Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro) you could easily create a priority image from this for importing with Companion's background converter.

Nonetheless, it would be handy to have a tool to do this for us either way.

1536

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI tool requests

« on: October 01, 2010, 11:13:05 PM »

Is that even possible? How does a picture know what you want in the foreground and what in the background?

Unless you mean something like AGS where you can import a priority mask image as priority data for a background image? Much like how you import/convert other images to a visual picture resource in SCI Companion? I've been actually really wishing for such a tool, actually. Would make things a lot easier if you didn't have to draw priority lines with Companion's tools. And Control lines as well, for that matter.

1537

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI tool requests

« on: September 30, 2010, 08:06:33 AM »

You can already do this. When using a fake ego view for testing the priorities of a background you can set the view's priority manually, have it change to whatever priority colour it's on, and also enable "observe control lines" so it won't go past control lines. I think it only counts white ones. I specifically requested this from troflip when Companion was in its infancy to which he happily obliged, to my delight.

1538

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: Final Testing now taking place

« on: September 28, 2010, 08:02:56 PM »

I have zero spare time to do anything at the moment. I started going to audio engineering school a few weeks ago and I have 2 tests coming up this Friday. I'm also working on a soundtrack for a commercial title. Between that and my other obligations, I have virtually no time at all. Both my SCI projects are currently on hold until the opportunity opens up. This is also why I haven't tested anything further with BC SCI beyond that priority issue in the briar patch screen. I'm just kind of dropping in and checking on things...

1539

SCI Community How To's & Tutorials / Re: How to keep your gTheSoundFX from interupting gTheMusic

« on: September 24, 2010, 06:53:09 PM »

Allow to play two sounds at the same time.

1540

SCI Syntax Help / Re: Cuing code with sound resource cues

« on: September 24, 2010, 08:20:55 AM »

The PC Speaker should have its own channel (channel 1) which plays only one note at a time. This channel should be reworked so that it contains a mix of the more important sections of a song. That is, you can't have 2 PC Speaker channels and expect them to figure out which notes to play before others. Same thing with 2 notes playing at the same time in the same channel. You have to manually edit the sequence so that it's one note at a time in one channel.

Usually this channel is also the first of 3 channels used for Tandy 3-voice (each playing one note at a time).

MT-32 channels are from 2-9 as those are the only channels the MT-32 can read conventionally in a game. Some of these channels can be shared with Adlib channels as well. Altogether Adlib uses a maximum of 5 channels, I believe. I'll double check, though. I also can't remember right now what the polyphony limit is. I think it's 7 constant notes from all 5 channels at a time but I'll double check. I looked at a sound resource from KQ1SCI as an example which I tried to copy the format of and that's how I discovered these rules.

Note, for Adlib, if you use the ADL.DRV it'll ignore the panning MIDI information and have that low polyphony limit. If you use SNDBLAST.DRV that I provided with those SCI sound utilities it'll use the panning information and will not have such low polyphony. I think you can conceivably get the same polyphony level as an MT-32 which is much higher than 7, yet not unlimited.

1541

SCI Community How To's & Tutorials / Re: How to keep your gTheSoundFX from interupting gTheMusic

« on: September 24, 2010, 08:08:29 AM »

Elaborate on what exactly?

1542

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI tool requests

« on: September 22, 2010, 06:05:50 PM »

As far as I'm concerned, the biggest issue I have with SCI development is the almost complete lack of proper sound resource tools. We need an all-inclusive SCI Sound Resource tool that can do everything SCI Viewer, Soundbox, SYX2PAT, BNK2PAT/PAT2BNK, and ADDWAV can do and more. Adlib emulation for proper previewing of sound resources via Adlib output would also be welcome. Currently SCI Viewer will only output to a MIDI device which obviously doesn't work well if you want to preview the sound in Adlib mode. An easier way to add loop points and cue points than how Soundbox handles it. Also, a built-in rudimentary MIDI sequencer would be nice to add quick fixes to MIDIs or even already converted sound resources.

I realise that would be a big job for anyone to take on and not everyone is a musician. But being a musician this is a major issue for me regarding creating SCI games. Especially since SCI centers around music with a lot more focus and attention than AGI ever did.

Besides that, if a VGA SCI IDE tool is ever completed it'd be nice to have a converter to convert back and forth between PCX/BMP/JPG/GIF/PNG/WHATEVER and background resources. I long to MOD SCI1+ backgrounds .

But I can't think of anything else for EGA games at the moment.

1543

SCI Development Tools / Re: Vocab.000 file format

« on: September 22, 2010, 01:39:51 AM »

Nice work, gumby! And a spell/grammar check for text resources is also a neat idea. Nice to see some new activity in creating SCI resource programs!

1544

SCI Syntax Help / Re: Changing menubar colors

« on: September 17, 2010, 07:52:55 AM »

I tried that too. It's possible in FreeSCI but as part of the interpreter I think, rather than it being possible in the scripts. Seeing as I've yet to see an actual Sierra game that can set the colour, I don't think it's possible .

1545

SCI Community How To's & Tutorials / Re: How to keep your gTheSoundFX from interupting gTheMusic

« on: September 15, 2010, 09:46:37 PM »

Sweet! Up until now I thought this was impossible in SCI0 games!

EDIT: Ah, it's not exactly what I was hoping for (that'll teach me to skim excitedly). But still a great solution to an annoying problem. Nice find.