Posts by blackhole89

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Please chime in on a proposed restructuring of the ROM hacking sections.

04-29-24 06:25 AM

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blackhole89

Posted on 08-03-07 07:12 PM, in Hey Guys

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It's the correct emotion to assume when faced with either too.

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blackhole89

Posted on 08-04-07 12:07 AM, in New Custom Sprites

Link | Quote | ID: 59882

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Ah, so it's just that... explains why it was only done on one level

Still, I can imagine implementing "actual" reverse gravity can't be that hard, unless there are some differences between the top and bottom collision handling.

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blackhole89

Posted on 08-04-07 12:58 AM, in Solar Soundtrack discussion/suggestion/whatever thread

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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blackhole89

Posted on 08-04-07 01:08 AM, in Solar Soundtrack discussion/suggestion/whatever thread

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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blackhole89

Posted on 08-04-07 01:25 AM, in Solar Soundtrack discussion/suggestion/whatever thread

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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blackhole89

Posted on 08-04-07 01:39 AM, in Solar Soundtrack discussion/suggestion/whatever thread

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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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blackhole89

Posted on 08-04-07 01:48 AM, in Solar Soundtrack discussion/suggestion/whatever thread

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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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blackhole89

Posted on 08-04-07 04:01 AM, in Solar Soundtrack discussion/suggestion/whatever thread

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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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blackhole89

Posted on 08-04-07 01:54 PM, in Solar Soundtrack discussion/suggestion/whatever thread

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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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blackhole89

Posted on 08-04-07 02:06 PM, in Super Mario's Crystal Island Adventure (Screenshots)

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>>Level 2, along with a new object.
The top right block of wall in that picture seems to be missing a left border...

>>But if there are no coins...
Please... do not use that background.

Other than that, this sounds like an interesting idea for a hack to make... it's virtually impossible to judge just based on the screenshots - without having gotten an impression of the gameplay - though.

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blackhole89

Posted on 08-04-07 02:28 PM, in Solar Soundtrack discussion/suggestion/whatever thread

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"So they wouldn't have to mess with your stuff" ...

Either way, an extensive documentation of the format (which either me or Mattrizzle87 are certain to post earlier or later) would be of much more help than the pointer jungle that is SST's file I/O code.

Also, as promised, here's the two command line tools for replacing samples in DJ Bouche's SMAS patch. Documentation is not included, some ripped samples of varying from shitty to decent quality are. Interface should be (more or less) self-explaining.

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blackhole89

Posted on 08-04-07 06:23 PM, in Regarding the downtime.

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The arch ives are back online now, although incarnation 2's still is a bit broken...

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blackhole89

Posted on 08-04-07 11:12 PM, in Add a "Programming" board?

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There you go.
Let's see how this one performs...

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blackhole89

Posted on 08-05-07 12:24 AM, in Solar Soundtrack discussion/suggestion/whatever thread

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You have a good point, but... well... I'll probably release the source at some point, I guess, since demand is that large. (It will be after the public release though, so I get at least a bit of a chance to clean up the mess

)

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blackhole89

Posted on 08-05-07 12:51 AM, in [Spoiler] Harry Potter

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I did not perceive the page as important at all until it was pointed out Snape took it...

Snape actually being with the good guys all the way was obvious enough... although I initially had the suspicion that the whole locket thing was a trick by Voldemort and the locket they found in the middle of the pool actually was the Horcrux... it would be the perfect method of hiding it. Well, I guess Voldemort just wasn't smart enough... or, one could reckon, a fictional character can only be as smart as its creator...

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blackhole89

Posted on 08-05-07 07:15 PM, in Solar Soundtrack discussion/suggestion/whatever thread

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Kawa: Sure, those could come in handy...

Someguy:
An export to dump function would take a lot more information for full support of each ROM than the three hex offsets required at the moment.. I'll consider something like that for later versions, but it's off the top of the priority list right now...

As for im- and exporting to an own format (which also enables you to easily move around music data between supported games), I implemented that while on the train today.

The sound effects, Mattrizzle87 already mentioned earlier.. I haven't done any research on them yet, but I assume it is doable.

Music editing... works.

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blackhole89

Posted on 08-05-07 11:52 PM, in Make me admin or...

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Trashed for wrongfully placed apostrophe.

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blackhole89

Posted on 08-06-07 12:08 AM, in Alasto'Application for Administration

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*facepalm*

While I would support you on a position of full or local moderator, I can't give you my support for administration... especially not like this.

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blackhole89

Posted on 08-06-07 12:09 AM, in Alasto'Application for Administration

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[00:04] Stylish Alastor: Could you like destroy that thread
[00:04] Stylish Alastor: It'd be really convenient

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blackhole89

Posted on 08-06-07 05:35 PM, in Solar Soundtrack discussion/suggestion/whatever thread

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Is there something like a master table of sound effect track pointers, and if yes (I'd assume so), where is it?

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