Messages

16

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 16, 2022, 11:42:00 AM »

I'm not sure if it was The Sierra Network or some later incarnation, but it had an avatar creator that included the ability to change colors. Except instead of having the exact same hairstyles several times over for different hair colors, they just had the one cel for each hairstyle and such, and remapped it on the fly. I think the DrawCel call was extended to take an Array pointer.

So what I've been doing first is porting SCI32's Arrays to SCI11+.

Edit: found it was the LSCI scripts that use a DrawCel kernel that takes a clut argument instead of scale factors, and a Clut of ByteArray, which in turn is just an Array with its type preset.

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.

17

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 14, 2022, 03:33:36 PM »

I have indeed Played Around.

I've messed with views, mostly, to correct a bug where color #255 was considered remappable (it's not) and ended up skipped over. This also affected backgrounds as they share a format with view cels and thus share a render function. And since scaleSignal had most of its bits unused I uplifted that to add some more remap effects like "replace every non-skip pixel with #0", "draw them as #253", or "draw them as if #253 is drawn on top", which would usually darken them, SCUMM-style.

I've been working on color table remapping like in TSN, too, for a bit.

But compiling on Windows? Well, no. And no multiplayer.

What do you mean by you are working on color table remapping like in TSN?

18

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 14, 2022, 03:07:53 PM »

I have indeed Played Around.

I've messed with views, mostly, to correct a bug where color #255 was considered remappable (it's not) and ended up skipped over. This also affected backgrounds as they share a format with view cels and thus share a render function. And since scaleSignal had most of its bits unused I uplifted that to add some more remap effects like "replace every non-skip pixel with #0", "draw them as #253", or "draw them as if #253 is drawn on top", which would usually darken them, SCUMM-style.

I've been working on color table remapping like in TSN, too, for a bit.

But compiling on Windows? Well, no. And no multiplayer.

Interesting. You are doing this with Omar's sci32 source? Do you have it compiling in DOS? Has it worked in recompiling for any games yet?

19

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 13, 2022, 01:25:51 AM »

Kawa has played around with the source of the interpreter, but I don't think he has made that major of any modifications. Of course he can speak for himself. Also, I do not believe we have any source for any of the SCI32 interpreters, either.

Actually it does exist. Though not publicly available any where that I have seen.

20

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 12, 2022, 08:01:19 PM »

a user here, Aftertaste, was tinkering with the Realm trying to build some tools for it. https://code.google.com/archive/p/sci-palette-convertor/

Ahh yes I am in a friends / circle with Aftertaste. Group of fellow Realm lovers . Never spoken with him directly but I hear he has some pretty fun tools.

I think its intriguing that there is potentially some modern sci code still being used out there. If there was access to a modern sc, makevols, and an interp that could compile  and run on modern windows, what do you think could be possible for sierra games? Not to mention having access to networking. A multiplayer quest for glory 4 maybe?

21

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 12, 2022, 05:51:36 PM »

So far after examining a bit of the code for sci companion and views / pics, I am feeling pretty overwhelmed by the difference in how it handles the code for this. Not only is the code a little over my head and will need some studying, but it doesnt seem to be broken down into a familiar structure I am used to seeing in both fotoscihop, sci32, or scummvm. For example a view file is generally structured as a view header, loop headers, cell headers, then a sequenced offset of image data / scan lines / links. Im not following exactly how it is structured in sci companion yet. Maybe I am not seeing it in context yet.

22

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 12, 2022, 05:43:13 PM »

The Realm is LSCI (Large-model SCI), a variant of SCI with networking built in, like TSN/INN.

Yes exactly. I knew it forked off of INN and some later sci32 variants but I did not know it was termed LSCI. Good to know! I have actually been working on modifying resources for the realm which required full sci32 compatibility.

23

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 12, 2022, 04:30:17 PM »

I believe Phantas 2 was about the only 16-bit colour SCI game too, no? I have a feeling all the others were 8-bit but I can't be sure.

As far as I can tell, truecolor was reserved for video playback only. I have not seen any evidence of a pic or view file being truecolor though so Phantas 2 was probably mixed with both elements.

24

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 12, 2022, 04:26:53 PM »

I believe that GK1 is about the first SCI32 game and to go in the other direction, Phantasmagoria 2 would be about the last SCI game.

Sounds about right, with the exception of the Realm which is sci32 that is still in use today. I think it branched from sci 2.1 or so and was modified for windows and network play. But all the resources and scripts are still very much sci.

25

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 10, 2022, 05:22:35 PM »

I have some curious thoughts about about the sci decompilation projects and the sci32 games that have come from that like SQ6 and KQ7 demos. I have not looked into it much, but are those able to be compiled and used in sci companion?

I have been wanting to play around with modifying and recompiling some of these games and also maybe earlier titles to test out some tools.

26

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 10, 2022, 05:17:14 PM »

Maybe it's just me but for SCI32 Picture support, I think being able to change positions and depths from inside the Picture Editor itself would be preferable. Are we all just too intimidated by how hairy the source code is to make the point editor (fills, lines, polygons) also work on cels? Cos I know I am.

Yes I think that would be very ideal and I have a strong interest in tackling all that as well. Not having actually looked at how the Picture editor is working though I can't say for certain whether its easy or difficult to do yet. In the mean time though I am trying to get as familiar as I can with how pictures and views work in code. Ill try to take a look this evening just to start getting the context of sci companion code in my head. 

27

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 10, 2022, 05:03:43 PM »

I tried going through FotoSCIhop's source, but my C++ skills are sorely lacking. I have not even recently looked to see if Enrico has a newer version of it. When I asked him about it quite a while back he seemed to be mostly done with any further development of it. Nice to see you take it up.

Actually Enrico finished it up at the end of last year, which basically meant finishing linkpoint compatibility. So for him it is done and finished for the scope of what he designed fotoscihop for in the first place which is for translating sierra games and not necessarily graphical editing. This is partly why I decided to keep it going from where he left off as I need it for development in with a current sci32 project I am working on.

28

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 09, 2022, 04:49:19 PM »

Sounds good I hope to have something released soon. Lots of work is going in to fotoscihop. I have been trying to organize it in a way that makes it easy as a reference to understand how a v56 file is working and is broken into parts. I think this could definitely be useful is helping implement support to sci companion, though its been while since I have looked at the sci companion code in these areas to verify how they relate. My thoughts is implementing the main parts may not be so trivial, but setting up the user interface with the editor and maintaining compatibility with earlier pic versions may take a little sorting out. But hopefully it can be done. I will try to find some time to start reading it over in sci companion to start getting some better ideas on how it might merge over.

29

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: April 07, 2022, 02:24:21 PM »

Just wanted to touch base and let you know that I have been working on a set of tools outside of sci companion to help aid in p56 and view file modifications. Some examples that are currently finished and / or in the works.

A tool that will take any image file (png, jpg, etc) and convert it into a p56 file with complete support for multi-cell and priority mapping. This tool can either map to a particular palette which is very important to matching to the sci palettes, as well as a palette quantizer which will limit the palette index for use in creating new pics with their own palettes. This is 100% sci32 compatible up until the latest sci version from what I can tell. I have been using this tool to create new rooms, as well as upscale previous p56 files to 1080p for an upscaling project I have been working on.

I have also been working a FotoScihop fork that is becoming pretty heavily modified. I have added a CLI support to allow to add support for direct modifications to view files as well as process in batches. This is useful for making changes to header files as well as positions / links in views. I have accompanied this modified fork with a set of tools that will batch upscale / swap images in views by whatever % of scale. It can process hundreds / thousands of view files in a matter of minutes. This again has 100% compatibility with the most recent versions of sci as far as I know.

I have many more ideas for tools in the works as well, but this is what I currently have working. I plan on releasing these tools to public as soon as they are a little more defined and established for casual use. I also plan on implementing the CLI modification tools to the FotoScihop GUI once they are finished as well. My forked version of Fotoscihop has a lot of the back end revamped to allow easier support for modifying things. Currently, I have added the ability to add / duplicate cells and loops to views which will also aid in creating new views for use in sci32. I have a pretty good understanding of how the view files are put together now, so I am hoping I can also start implementing support into sci companion.

I will keep everyone in touch as development continues.

30

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI32 Templates

« on: March 12, 2022, 01:17:43 PM »

Ok I am following you and also experience it when trying to modify the priority locations. I will take a look at some of the code and see if I can think of any solutions. Although I have OEM tool to build these pic files, it would be nice to have something with a full on editor that supports modern os.