SCI Companion V3 - alpha build notes/bugs/feature requests

[MusicallyInspired]

Wow this is really cool. We could get rid of the status bar altogether if we wanted to. Make an Full Throttle-type game that uses the full screen.

[lskovlun]

I was thinking of a 24-style split screen display. I don't know if that's even doable, though I suspect not.

[MusicallyInspired]

Could something like that be feigned by making a selection of Picture resources that only take up a portion of the whole image area and draw a new Picture with its contents in a different area on top (like you can in SCI0)? If you use the transparent colour in the palette (255) in an image, can you make part of an image transparent with that colour so that another Picture can show beneath it? If so, ports wouldn't be necessary. Of course that method would be limited. You wouldn't be able to impose the same picture in say a portion on the top half of the screen and also on the bottom half without two separate Picture resources, not that file size is a problem.

[Kawa]

Could something like that be feigned by making a selection of Picture resources that only take up a portion of the whole image area and draw a new Picture with its contents in a different area on top (like you can in SCI0)?

That's basically what I did with a view for the top part when this subtopic started.

[Kawa]

Okay so here's an observation.

Windows Western: ?? etc.
DOS US: ??ܢ??₧Ѫ??⌐ etc.
SCI: the same, until ?? and then finally a '?' where WinWestern would have '?'.

Now, the font editor labels each character as in Windows, so for example '?' is labelled "? (165)". Similarly, code, text, and message editors don't show the actual accented characters:

"We've got to do this\nfast! Shield your eyes!"#G"Wir m?ssen es schnell\nmachen! Sch?tze Deine Augen!"

This is of course rendered in-game as "Wir m?ssen es schnell machen! Sch?tze Deine Augen!". Similar trouble occurs for the various roman numerals in the same game, but those are a lost cause, being numbered lower than 32.

Therefore, I have a few suggestions.

• Have the decompiler use hexcodes for <32 characters: StrCat(@temp1 ($1E " - Latex Babes of Estros"))
• Have the font editor not label characters in Windows Western
• Or have the fonts in the template game adjusted to Windows Western order, or otherwise have such fonts available. I'm willing to provide.

That last option would allow, I think, the most intuitive writing of lines with accented characters such as the example from the German SQ4. And considering what the TTF importer does...

[troflip]

There are no fonts with extended characters in the template game. Where are you getting your fonts from?

I agree that having fonts in the template game that match the windows order makes the most sense. It's the least work for me, because it already works (See attached, using a font imported from win32).

If you're willing to provide a set of replacement fonts in the right order, that would be awesome (note that you can re-order characters by dragging on them)! But let's hear others' opinions first.

(Note that this means messages from existing international versions of Sierra games won't display properly in the message editor, but that is already the case).

Another option is to have a mapping table that converts between the text you type and the message resource data (and vice verse for displaying them in the message editor). But I think that brings more problems, since I assume some characters aren't available in one set or the other. And then I'd also need to do something special when importing a windows font.

[edit:] Well ok, it might actually be pretty easy to convert between character sets. Do all Sierra games use the "DOS US" character set? Are there any letters that are needed that aren't there?

[Kawa]

Do all Sierra games use the "DOS US" character set?

I only have Space Quest 4 to compare against, but besides the missing characters in its fonts (all but ? and ? are missing once you pass ?), codepage 437 as it's properly called simply isn't as exhaustive. You don't need box-drawing characters when you can simply draw a box any which way you want, nor do you need dithering or half-width blocks.

[troflip]

Version 2.0.0.9 has been released with some exciting changes! Details in the first post of this thread as usual.

Summary:
- importing wavs is much more flexible (no longer need to downsample or convert to mono in another app)
- message import/export to text files
- support for 200px high pics
- support for palette tinting/HSL adjustment, and previewing palettes for pics

[MusicallyInspired]

I absolutely love the palette tint/adjust feature. It works wonderfully! Thank you!

[Kawa]

I think you might've meant to call that one palette sample "King 6"

Edit: half of Sierra System and all of Sierra Debug left to expand/convert to Win-1252. ? and ? are in there twice, once for compatibility and once to actually type (what, you can't type a ?? you poor unfortunate soul), and the tab character is a wide spacer, in lieu of actual tab stops.

[troflip]

Lol, you're right about King 6.

Only one of those fonts matches that in the template game, right? (Sierra Small A, which matches 004). I guess I can add others as "font samples", but I'd like to keep the same fonts in the template game because of sizing issues.... or.... maybe I can play around and see which ones we can substitute? Any recommendations?

[troflip]

fyi, here are codepage 437 versions of the other SQ5 extended charset fonts in the template game. If you have time to apply your magic to them.... ;-)

[Kawa]

I'm sure I'll have plenty time between figuring out the latest horseplop thrown my way.

Edit: okay, now that that horse is back in the stable, here's a thing. The mass resource export function is great, but... what's a curosr?

[Collector]

but... what's a curosr?

A finger spoonerism.

[Kawa]

And here's Sierra Debug 1252.

Related: the default colors in the font editor are left-white, right-black. I feel this really ought to be inverted.