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Main - ROM Hacking - Solar Soundtrack discussion/suggestion/whatever thread New thread | New reply

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blackhole89
Posted on 08-04-07 12:58 AM Link | Quote | ID: 59884


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Since I was idle for a bit, and the only response I got on IRC upon asking whether this should be done was a positive one, I decided to start another thread...

To those who don't know, Solar Soundtrack (abbreviated as SST, name stems from a lame pun on Lunar Magic) could be defined as the Duke Nukem Forever of ROM hacking, or more precisely an N-SPC tracker I had in the works for over three years now (I'd link the thread which started it, but the archives aren't back up yet ).

What this means? You'll get a graphical means of editing, with the right two or three pointers to enter, every game using the N-SPC engine, which means nearly all first-party developed SNES games, i.e. SMAS, SMW with DJ Bouche's SMAS patch, LoZ3, the two Star Foxes and lots more.

Instead of caring about the rhetorical consistency of this post much, I shall proceed to the topic of the progress of it.

Right now,
- basic editing functionality (load, save, create, change, delete...) is present, though sometimes having minor bugs.
- Off-format import filters exist for Secret of Mana's music format (large thanks to Moppy) and Cave Story's ORG (researched that myself). A Seiken Densetsu 3 filter is half done (researched that myself too, I should post the data at some point ). All data is present from converting from SMW's native engine, which is an early prototype of N-SPC with different command mappings but the same basic paradigms.
- Import/Export of separate tracks to proprietary format (like LM's .mwl) was implemented, but got lost when I unconsiderately did the desktop-laptop codebase synchronization the wrong way around (coded it on the laptop and overwrote that with desktop files).
- In-program playback is unsupported [yet].

Some screenshots exist too:
drum track of a self-composed loop which can be found here
some other stuff
Alternatively, you can go to the folder containing the screenshots and trace the evolution of the recode's user interface yourself.

Now, thing is, 
00:31:26> <blackhole89> because if I built everything I want in, it would take another 10 years
(note: typo in selfquote corrected => not fully authentic)

So the question (and the purpose of this thread, apart from allowing general questionasking and discussion) is, what features do you, the potential users, want in, and what do you think is omittable? (And, at which point should I make a release/beta test?)

Sincerely. blackhole89

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Remnic The Hedgehog
Posted on 08-04-07 01:04 AM Link | Quote | ID: 59886


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I have a question. How easy will this instrument changing thing be? Let's say I want to change the instruments in SMW to the instruments in LoZ:Lttp. Will it be a simple "select rom file to use instruments settings" type of thing or will it be "insert instrument code here" thing?

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blackhole89
Posted on 08-04-07 01:08 AM Link | Quote | ID: 59888


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Exchanging instrument samples is a task fairly separate from tracking, although I was thinking to integrate that feature... currently, there are two tools I coded which do pretty much exactly what you want (one rips BRR samples from any SPC dump, the other inserts them into an SMW ROM with DJ Bouche's SMAS patch). I'd link to them, but they got lost in the HD crash and digging for them on my local HD would take ages.
(They're command line tools and require a small bit of technical knowledge to use, but if you are still interested, drop me a message some time tomorrow)

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Phoenix Yoshi
Posted on 08-04-07 01:20 AM Link | Quote | ID: 59889


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Last view: 5537 days 		Right now, all I'd really like is the ability to take music and insert it in SMW... Perhaps it would automatically convert it to SMW format when you load the music into it, just in case you need to change certain sounds on it? Seriously, that's all I'd really like....for now, anyways...

MathOnNapkins
Posted on 08-04-07 01:21 AM Link | Quote | ID: 59890


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Last view: 4010 days 		If I was going to make an editor of this sort, I think I'd find it cumbersome to stick a SPC player in it. Can't you just output them to an SPC format that say, winamp could play. That's how I'd do it anyway. Less coding and less redundancy in programs I own.

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blackhole89
Posted on 08-04-07 01:25 AM Link | Quote | ID: 59892


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Being able to test stuff you are editing instantly without switching programs is convenient though... I was thinking of using the fairly flexible SNESAPU with an SPC modified to be more convenient for program-side control as a playing backend, but it wasn't within my plans for the first version anyway... (I've written SNESAPU based playback plugins before, so just binding it in would be a matter of copypasting for me)

Phoenix Yoshi: So what speaks against using Bouche's patch and the N-SPC format? It's somewhat better documented than SMW's, even if only marginally, and probably mightier than it (I'm not aware of the scope of the SMW format's abilities to the fullest though ).

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Remnic The Hedgehog
Posted on 08-04-07 01:35 AM Link | Quote | ID: 59894


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Something else. In Hyrule Magic, the music editor looks super complicated. Do you intend to steer away from complication for Solar Soundtrack or at least as easy you can possibly make it?

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Phoenix Yoshi
Posted on 08-04-07 01:35 AM (rev. 3 of 08-04-07 01:37 AM) Link | Quote | ID: 59895


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Posted by blackhole89
Phoenix Yoshi: So what speaks against using Bouche's patch and the N-SPC format? It's somewhat better documented than SMW's, even if only marginally, and probably mightier than it (I'm not aware of the scope of the SMW format's abilities to the fullest though ).


That kinda confuses me a bit. Mind rewording it for me?

Edit: Oh wait, now I get it. I didn't fully read everything in the first post... Sorry.

blackhole89
Posted on 08-04-07 01:39 AM Link | Quote | ID: 59896


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Phoenix Yoshi: You must distinguish between the "SMW format", which I prefer referring to as the "SMW-native format", being the alpha version of N-SPC which is used in Super Mario World and not really anywhere else as far as I know, and the "SMAS format", coined as N-SPC, which is used by the games described in my head post and which is the music data format Solar Soundtrack operates on; it becomes usable in SMW using a patch DJ Bouche made ages ago, which replaces the whole native music engine in SMW with the engine used for SMB1~3 in SMAS. I interpreted your previous post as asking to make SST operate on the SMW-native rather than the SMAS format.

Remnic: The Hyrule Magic editor basically has no graphical representation whatsoever; all it really does is resolving the pointer tree down to track level and aligning the hex representation of the bytes nicely. SST, as you might have seen in the screenshots, is a graphical tracker and naturally easier to handle, though some technical complexities and constraints of the format inevitably carry over (like the whole command system).

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Phoenix Yoshi
Posted on 08-04-07 01:46 AM Link | Quote | ID: 59897


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Posted by blackhole89
Phoenix Yoshi: You must distinguish between the "SMW format", which I prefer referring to as the "SMW-native format", being the alpha version of N-SPC which is used in Super Mario World and not really anywhere else as far as I know, and the "SMAS format", coined as N-SPC, which is used by the games described in my head post and which is the music data format Solar Soundtrack operates on; it becomes usable in SMW using a patch DJ Bouche made ages ago, which replaces the whole native music engine in SMW with the engine used for SMB1~3 in SMAS. I interpreted your previous post as asking to make SST operate on the SMW-native rather than the SMAS format.

Oh no, not at all! I was simply saying that I wanted to be able to edit SMW's music and have any loaded music converted to the format the ROM currently uses... As... Well, let's just say there's a few pieces of music in SMW I actually LIKE... For instance, SMW Castle... So I'd like to have that in, but also have certain other SMAS musics in, too...

Sorry for any misunderstandings.

blackhole89
Posted on 08-04-07 01:48 AM Link | Quote | ID: 59899


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Ah yeah, the castle tune is probably the only song in SMW I really like... yeah, this SMW import thing I said I have the required data for could accomplish that.

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Hamtaro126
Posted on 08-04-07 03:43 AM Link | Quote | ID: 59904


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Last view: 2314 days 		Can I use your beta of the tools please? Just to see what it will look like!

EMAIL: JAJJMM@MSN.COM

-Hamtaro126

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blackhole89
Posted on 08-04-07 04:01 AM Link | Quote | ID: 59905


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If you are referring to the tools I mentioned in >>59888, I said I was going to upload them tomorrow ... as for SST itself, the beta is not going to be released yet (and when it is, it will only be to a few select ones at first).

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Mattrizzle
Posted on 08-04-07 04:38 AM Link | Quote | ID: 59907


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Posted by blackhole89
...the "SMW format", which I prefer referring to as the "SMW-native format", being the alpha version of N-SPC which is used in Super Mario World and not really anywhere else as far as I know...
I just wanted to add that I know of two other games which use this SMW-native music format: Pilotwings (no surprise, as it was being worked on at the same time as SMW) and Panel de Pon/Tetris Attack (strange, as it was released in 1995; the N-SPC format was already the standard).

Not absolutely necessary, but how hard would it be to add a feature which can convert a WAV file to a BRR sample, and insert it into a ROM? I know this would be limited, as a single sample can take up a buttload of space.

Also, will you add support for editing the sound effects?

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Squash Monster
Posted on 08-04-07 08:15 AM Link | Quote | ID: 59918


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Yay, it's back .

Here's the features I'd vote for having in an initial release:
- Reasonably user friendly GUI
- Save and load from ROM
- Playback in editor

That's pretty much all that's needed. An external file format is a close secondary feature.

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Lunaria
Posted on 08-04-07 09:33 AM Link | Quote | ID: 59920


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If this works for most games right? Or is it only snes or only nes, etc?

Will the editor support midi adding?

In any case, I want the change the music in super metroid. It is horrible really.


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Rich
Posted on 08-04-07 11:42 AM Link | Quote | ID: 59922


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Posted by Green-Kirby
In any case, I want the change the music in super metroid. It is horrible really.


Woah. Massive fail, there.

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The Kins
Posted on 08-04-07 12:30 PM Link | Quote | ID: 59924


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Last view: 5912 days 		- Open Sourcing, possibly via a SVN or something, so multiple people can assist in the program's development, thus speeding things up significantly.
- Some sort of in-program playback (I know this is planned, but just saying.)
- Support for Duke Nukem Forever and Team Fortress 2.

Stifu
Posted on 08-04-07 12:48 PM Link | Quote | ID: 59925


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Posted by The Kins
- Open Sourcing, possibly via a SVN or something, so multiple people can assist in the program's development, thus speeding things up significantly.

I agree, that would be good.

blackhole89
Posted on 08-04-07 01:54 PM Link | Quote | ID: 59926


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>>59918
Interesting... I haven't played either of those..

As for encoding PCM sample data as BRR, it would be one of the first features to add once I added a sample editing feature in, but I don't know if I already would consider that for the first release...

Sound effects... if I did some research on how they are set up, it probably wouldn't be an overly hard thing to do...

>>59920
I think I stated what games this will work for sufficiently... as for MIDI import support, I am still lacking a good documentation for the MIDI file format

>>59924>>59925
I loathe showing my shitty code to the general public other than that, if I was to open source it, it would more likely be in a way like c-evo's, i.e. making the source public but reserving working on the core codebase for yourself. On an already-messy codebase, having multiple people contribute can't possibly do any good.

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