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

[troflip]

I was asking about the pic palette. If the pic has a palette, the colors will override those in the global palette. Can you show the background, and its palette?

Here's how I was able to get this to work:


Also, if you need to copy your cyan extension to other palettes in the game, you can use the "export range" feature of the palette editor, and then "import".

[Cloudee1]

Ahh, I see. So here is the pic palette.

So what is happening then is that the view isn't really looking at the color that is saved in the views palette, but moreso the position. Since that position is actually gray in the pic palette then it is placing that color there instead of the color in the views palette.

* and with that bit of info in mind, the view now appears as I would expect. Thanks for the info.

[MusicallyInspired]

Finally home from touring now, playing around with the template game. I was wondering if there could be another option for the preview cels in the Picture editor on the right (or possibly the editor window itself). Is it possible to preview a 4:3 version of the picture? I ask because of the 4:3 nature of the 320x200 resolution. All of Sierra's games at the time used that aspect ratio with rectangular pixels instead of square. Not a big deal, just a request. I can work around it for now but it'd make for quicker and easier work.

Actually, an option to import images with a checkbox to convert (stretch) to a 4:3 ratio would be nice as well. It'd lose data, but would be more accurate to the way the engine treats that resolution. Or maybe make it a radio selection between Scale Image to Fit (4:3) and Scale Image to Fit (16:9).

Speaking of which, if we're going to be using custom artwork for sprites and such, do we want to create 4:3-friendly (rectangular pixel) sprites/backgrounds/cursors or modern monitor-friendly 16:9 (square pixel) assets? It'd be easier to treat it all as square pixels, but we'd have to really recreate the assets from scratch instead of basing them off of Sierra game assets as none of them were created with 16:9 in mind.

[troflip]

I can see how that would be useful for editing old Sierra games, but for new stuff it seems to make more sense to use square pixels (even Scumm and DosBOX use square pixels by default, right?). And honestly, I'm so used to playing/seeing the Sierra games "squished" that they look weird when they're not squished.

[MusicallyInspired]

Fair enough. I'm probably alone in this, but if anyone is curious as to how to transform your backgrounds to be compatible with a 4:3 resolution, open it up in an image editor and enlarge the canvas size (not resize) to 320x227 THEN resize down to 320x190 (make sure maintain aspect ratio is not selected). This actually gives you more "room" in your background, but less pixels if that makes sense. You can do it with sprites, too. The difference is about a 120% increase in height.

On the other hand, having a widescreen resolution in an SCI game is kind of an awesome fluke due to the way DOS games used to treat pixels.

[MusicallyInspired]

Am I incorrect in remembering some functions in the Picture editor command list where you can not only copy and paste commands and move them around the drawing area, but also mirror/flip and stretch/resize them? I know you can rotate but I seem to distinctly remember at least mirroring commands...

[MusicallyInspired]

It seems that the MIDI device selection doesn't persist after clicking OK in the Preferences menu. There are four MIDI devices on my list and when I try to select one other than the first on the list it just resets after opening Preferences again. I can't listen to any Sounds properly as a result.

Also, I have two other MIDI devices that aren't being listed in SCI Companion for some reason...However, in other programs they sometimes give odd names with Chinese characters. Maybe that's why? Never mind, figured this part out. Choosing alternate MIDI devices still doesn't persist after selecting, though.

[MusicallyInspired]

I apologize for all the back to back posts, I have another feature request. Is it possible that you can add the Length in time (MM:SS) for sound resources in the resource detail list browser?

[troflip]

Am I incorrect in remembering some functions in the Picture editor command list where you can not only copy and paste commands and move them around the drawing area, but also mirror/flip and stretch/resize them? I know you can rotate but I seem to distinctly remember at least mirroring commands...

You can stretch them with the arrow keys and rotate/flip them with the numpad (I had to look at the code to remember this).

[troflip]

I apologize for all the back to back posts, I have another feature request. Is it possible that you can add the Length in time (MM:SS) for sound resources in the resource detail list browser?

So, that would require actually opening/decoding the resource. Which is a relatively slow operation, which means I'd need to spawn a background thread to do that (like I do for view and pic resources). How important is this? Is showing it in the preview pane sufficient, or are you needing to sort by this in the view or something?

[MusicallyInspired]

You can stretch them with the arrow keys and rotate/flip them with the numpad (I had to look at the code to remember this).

Right! Thank you!!

So, that would require actually opening/decoding the resource. Which is a relatively slow operation, which means I'd need to spawn a background thread to do that (like I do for view and pic resources). How important is this? Is showing it in the preview pane sufficient, or are you needing to sort by this in the view or something?

Ah I see. That makes sense. Yeah, I was thinking of sorting through the list, but that's no big deal. If it slows the operation then don't worry about it. Preview pane will suffice. There's still the size field which is fairly close to the same thing anyway.

[MusicallyInspired]

One little glitch which is not really a breaker in any way, but might be confusing for some. In the View editor on the bottom left where it lists what Loop you're viewing it adds one to the total number of loops (probably because it's not taking into account that it starts at 0). For instance, in the template game for view 995 (which is the control panel view buttons and such) it says "Loop 0/10", which is sort of corrent. There are 10 loops, but it starts from 0 so when you go to the last loop in the view it displays "Loop 9/10".

[troflip]

One little glitch which is not really a breaker in any way, but might be confusing for some. In the View editor on the bottom left where it lists what Loop you're viewing it adds one to the total number of loops (probably because it's not taking into account that it starts at 0). For instance, in the template game for view 995 (which is the control panel view buttons and such) it says "Loop 0/10", which is sort of corrent. There are 10 loops, but it starts from 0 so when you go to the last loop in the view it displays "Loop 9/10".

I agree, that's weird. What should it say? I want to convey which loop you're looking at, but also how many loops there are. I don't want to start counting from 1, because in code you refer to them starting at 0.

I should put out a new build later today with some of these fixes (including setting the midi device, which is basically just unimplemented). I just need to track down a painting bug where sometimes switching between the different screens of a pic doesn't update the view.

[MusicallyInspired]

Just let it count by zero. I think people will understand the context. At least, we do, and if somebody doesn't and is going to be programming their own game they should get into the habit of becoming familiar with programming conventions like counting from zero. My two cents.

[troflip]

I've updated the SCI Companion at the download link. Should be version 3.0.0.3 now. Release notes in the first post of this thread.

The download is much bigger because it includes debug symbols. If someone has a debugger and can repro the "Add AFter" cel crash and give me a stack trace, that would be much appreciate!!