Author Topic: Super Pitfall NES (improvements) (Read 97138 times)

FCandChill · « **Reply #120 on:** May 30, 2016, 08:45:57 pm »

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nesrocks · « **Reply #121 on:** May 30, 2016, 09:17:00 pm »

"0x19CA0 - 0x19CBC = Unknown"

As far as I could tell this section belongs to the balloon music. You sure it relates to the main theme?

Great dissection so far, thanks for that!

edit: for adding a longer song I think there's 3 options:
bank 6 (where songs are stored currently): I'm almost 100% positive there isn't unused space here. So, for this bank, I think the best option is to remove one song to make room for the longer main theme. One option is to kill the balloon music. Another option is to kill the alternate theme (the one that plays when the invincibilty star is grabbed and when on the alternate overworld). A third option is to kill both and have an even longer song.
bank 7: there may be room here, and this bank is always loaded which is great. I'll investigate the unused space more carefully later. My stripped rom from fceux's code/data logger is innacurate because I haven't taken into account spawn point lists from getting killed.
bank 5: there is a lot of room on this bank, but it isn't loaded when music plays so I don't know if it's usable for this. I have no idea how to bank switch (is it as simple as calling a routine that changes the address offset?) or if it's possible for music in this game.

You say there's no need to rewrite the music engine and that may be true for the purposes of adding a new song, but I suspect the current sound engine causes extreme lag in the game. The game plays a lot smoother when 0x1FB17 is set to $01. Barely any sound comes out when this is done and that is the only side effect I noticed, so there's that. It almost feels like the game was rewritten from scratch given how smoothly it runs.

releasethedogs · « **Reply #122 on:** May 31, 2016, 01:03:43 am »

I made a thing.
Traced logo from title screen in illustrator
found goofy picture of Harry

cover still in progress

FCandChill · « **Reply #123 on:** May 31, 2016, 01:08:02 am »

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Da_GPer · « **Reply #124 on:** May 31, 2016, 02:36:32 am »

Excellent job on the lava and Quickclaw. As for the song, I do like it. It has a nice beat to it. Almost tropical. If you say that a new music engine is the best way to go, maybe you can suggest to nesrocks of someone who can help in that department. I do think better music would help a lot. It be a shame if he made the game look and play better but didnt change the music. That be like making a cake but not putting frosting on it.

nesrocks · « **Reply #125 on:** May 31, 2016, 12:35:00 pm »

That's a funny cover hehe. I had the idea to make some original art like that but I guess I have scrapped it.

Sound engine: unfortunatelly I have no idea how to do that. I'm not much of a coder, so I can't do something of that caliber. What I can do is provide info on free space on the rom and where things are. I can't even tell the difference between D-4 and D#4. Music notation being different in Brazil doesn't help either, so the very little I know (almost nothing really) servers no purpose in understanding what you pointed out. If anyone wants to do it I will give full credit. Probably by increasing the disclaimer on the title screen. If your song gets included your name will be there too. Something along these lines:

30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
2016 BY NESROCKS
MUSIC ENGINE BY _______
NEW SONG BY FCANDCHILL

(or however you want to be credited)

FCandChill · « **Reply #126 on:** May 31, 2016, 06:07:29 pm »

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SunGodPortal · « **Reply #127 on:** May 31, 2016, 06:48:29 pm »

Quote

All what you need to take away from that is that the sound engine is lazily and confusingly constructed from a composers point of view.

Could it perhaps be programmed to work similiarly to standard notation? If that were the case then a key that included both D and D# might just be standard values whereas notes that lie outside of the established key (for example, in C major the actual sharps/flats may be the only ones with special values preceeding or following them) may be the only ones that have a sharp or flat marker (just like standard notation). I haven't listened to the soundtrack but there could also be the possibility that the engine was laziliy programmed for ONLY C major (CDEFGAB) and could therefore only play 8 different notes in a few octaves.

FCandChill · « **Reply #128 on:** May 31, 2016, 08:32:18 pm »

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M-Tee · « **Reply #129 on:** May 31, 2016, 09:16:46 pm »

Quote from: releasethedogs on May 31, 2016, 01:03:43 am

found goofy picture of Harry

"goofy picture" is an illustration from the 8-Bit Dreams series by Australian illustrator, Campbell Whyte.

SunGodPortal · « **Reply #130 on:** May 31, 2016, 11:44:16 pm »

Quote from: FCandChill on May 31, 2016, 08:32:18 pm

From what I am gathering, you increase a note by a halfstep by adding 15 to the hexidecimal value. To raise it by an octave, you increase the hexidecimal value by one. So...
Code: [Select]
32 C-4 42 C#4 52 D-4
But I'll investigate further.

So would that mean that C-5 is 33 and C-3 is 31? That's really strange but in a weird way it would kinda make sense. It would be organized more by tone rather than pitch. Makes me think that the person who programmed the music engine itself wasn't a musician because that's a rather abstracted way to approach it. There probably isn't a single musical instrument in existence that organizes the notes in such a manner. It's unnatural. That would be like a digital volume knob that goes to 40 organizing itself like 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 1, 11, 21, 31, 2, 12, etc. LOL

mrrichard999 · « **Reply #131 on:** May 31, 2016, 11:44:58 pm »

In regards to music, you might be interested in this post here.

http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,21907.0.html

Making some good process in making the music sound better.

Da_GPer · « **Reply #132 on:** June 06, 2016, 08:19:26 pm »

Any new news on this?

Midna · « **Reply #133 on:** June 06, 2016, 08:37:28 pm »

It's only been a week, you know...

Da_GPer · « **Reply #134 on:** June 07, 2016, 01:59:14 am »

A lot can happen in a week, ya know.

FCandChill · « **Reply #135 on:** June 07, 2016, 02:09:08 am »

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nesrocks · « **Reply #136 on:** June 07, 2016, 07:22:45 am »

It'll be a while untill the next update. Maybe the next update will be the hack's release. I'm now in the long tedious process of planning/preparing/organizing/creating/adding background graphics. I knew this task would be a lot of work but it's more than I expected. And then there will be the same work for the darkworld.
It involves creating the tiles graphics, changing the metatiles in the rom, updating my metatiles image for map editting using PRG editor (it's my precarious map editor but it's what I've got), updating my document so I can keep track of metatiles, changing dynamic depth graphics algorhythms (tiles change graphics automatically depending on how deep the room is in the map, but I'm changing exactly where and how many times that happens), reorganizing some rooms so I can have graphics for the portals, reorganizing gold positions so they don't end up the wrong color by being positioned on top of a green background, and then the usual fine tuning and bug fixing and final adjustments.

Left: PRG editor hex editting section viewed using my custom "table" image
mid: my custom table image. each tile is a pixel art I did to represent that metatile. creating this image is a lot of work but now I can edit rooms visually.
right: the result

So, don't worry, I'm working on it and I plan to release it on the 30th anniversary (sept 05). Without any new song unless someone does it. I don't know how to do that.

Vanya · « **Reply #137 on:** June 07, 2016, 06:58:03 pm »

Your work here looks amazing. Truly an achievement to have turned this game into something worth playing from the pile of crap it was before.

FCandChill · « **Reply #138 on:** June 07, 2016, 07:41:22 pm »

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releasethedogs · « **Reply #139 on:** June 07, 2016, 08:11:53 pm »

Quote from: nesrocks on June 07, 2016, 07:22:45 am

right: the result

AMAZING!!!!
Can't wait to play it.