After I found out Toasty was on Twitter, I decided to berate him about it.
However, I did find 1 (one, exactly one, no more) thing that Twitter has done properly.
http://twitter.com/awesometf2names
My name is on that list, about halfway down. Suck it Toasty.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Open Source SMTC Level Editor? It cannot be!
Following some experimenting with Mercurial at my workplace, I've done some toying around and am now using it for the Level Editor. What does this mean for you? Well Google Code hosts Open Source projects and has support for Mercurial, so where better for me to try it out?
You don't know what Mercurial is? Find out!
And, then, if you wanna give it a try, feel free to check out the editor source code! The Google Code project is located at http://smtcleveleditor.googlecode.com/. For those who want a direct link to see the source, here you go. For checkout instructions, please click on 'Checkout' just below the Source tab.
I have tested the project file with Visual C# Express Edition with the XNA Game Studio 3.1 package installed. However I have not compiled it, but as far as I know it should be good-to-go.
This post, like my previous, is likely to fall on deaf ears.
Maybe if it doesn't we can convince Salty to make his Open Source =P
Edit: Oh. And I signed up for Twitter. Follow me if you want.
You don't know what Mercurial is? Find out!
And, then, if you wanna give it a try, feel free to check out the editor source code! The Google Code project is located at http://smtcleveleditor.googlecode.com/. For those who want a direct link to see the source, here you go. For checkout instructions, please click on 'Checkout' just below the Source tab.
I have tested the project file with Visual C# Express Edition with the XNA Game Studio 3.1 package installed. However I have not compiled it, but as far as I know it should be good-to-go.
This post, like my previous, is likely to fall on deaf ears.
Maybe if it doesn't we can convince Salty to make his Open Source =P
Edit: Oh. And I signed up for Twitter. Follow me if you want.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Ohh no another damned readme!
I've updated the readme to reflect the changes made in the latest version.
As always you can find it at http://www.g0dsoft.com/smtc/EditingReadme.htm
As always you can find it at http://www.g0dsoft.com/smtc/EditingReadme.htm
Sunday, November 22, 2009
The One That Sounded Good
Today's release has been coming for two freakin weeks but I'm sure you guys will like it.
This one includes music!
Yes yes, hold your applause.
Here's a quick changelog. And by quick I mean not quick at all.
Music and Sound has been added. I've gotten all the sound effects I can think of, and they're in ogg format in the Sound folder. Might be missing a few.
The Room file format has been updated to version 1.2. As before, the Editor is backwards compatible but SMTC is not. Please load your custom rooms in the editor and save them back out to update their format.
The Editor now supports Objects. Objects consist of Enemies, No-Clip, Explosions, Items, and the Samstart object. It also has the objects that change the level's music but those don't work yet, as I only have the Brinstar music anyway.
Note: You must place a Samstart entity in your level to cause the Brinstar music to play. If you load into a room with no Samstart, Samus will begin at position 64x64 (top left corner) with no music and no intro music.
The entities are pretty obvious. No-clip makes the tile unclipped and can be moved through, the explosion makes the block a breakable, and the items/enemies are, uh, items/enemies. Note that placing an item inside a block will turn that block into a breakable and place the item inside of it.
SMTC itself has received several upgrades.
Gerutas and Sidehoppers now work. The existing maps do not have any in them but you can place them in the editor.
A new program called Detector.exe is bundled. Running it will cause Allegro to see which screen modes your graphics card is capable of. It sometimes hangs until you press Esc a few times, not sure why. Be careful when using it.
Several rooms have been fixed with their minimap problems. Several remain unfixed.
You should no longer get jumped by a Geemer when opening some doors.
Some of the items have been placed in their respective spots in Brinstar. Since Norfair is not done yet that's as far as you can go.
Palettes have been improved. There are now 4 palettes, activated by 1 2 3 and 4.
Press 5 to give/remove the equipment. Some rooms in BrinRed were designed for the High Jump Boots so you might need those to get around. Alternately, look around for breakables!
Hidden items have been implemented but only in BrinRed (since Metroid didn't have a lot to begin with). Find them all!
Toasty said he'd post a readme for the editor later on, so be on the lookout for that. Comments or complaints go in the comments section. Please also tell me about bugs you find.
Download it here.
As always, the latest SMTC Release can be found at
http://www.g0dsoft.com/smtc/Downloads/SMTC_Release_Latest.rar
This one includes music!
Yes yes, hold your applause.
Here's a quick changelog. And by quick I mean not quick at all.
Music and Sound has been added. I've gotten all the sound effects I can think of, and they're in ogg format in the Sound folder. Might be missing a few.
The Room file format has been updated to version 1.2. As before, the Editor is backwards compatible but SMTC is not. Please load your custom rooms in the editor and save them back out to update their format.
The Editor now supports Objects. Objects consist of Enemies, No-Clip, Explosions, Items, and the Samstart object. It also has the objects that change the level's music but those don't work yet, as I only have the Brinstar music anyway.
Note: You must place a Samstart entity in your level to cause the Brinstar music to play. If you load into a room with no Samstart, Samus will begin at position 64x64 (top left corner) with no music and no intro music.
The entities are pretty obvious. No-clip makes the tile unclipped and can be moved through, the explosion makes the block a breakable, and the items/enemies are, uh, items/enemies. Note that placing an item inside a block will turn that block into a breakable and place the item inside of it.
SMTC itself has received several upgrades.
Gerutas and Sidehoppers now work. The existing maps do not have any in them but you can place them in the editor.
A new program called Detector.exe is bundled. Running it will cause Allegro to see which screen modes your graphics card is capable of. It sometimes hangs until you press Esc a few times, not sure why. Be careful when using it.
Several rooms have been fixed with their minimap problems. Several remain unfixed.
You should no longer get jumped by a Geemer when opening some doors.
Some of the items have been placed in their respective spots in Brinstar. Since Norfair is not done yet that's as far as you can go.
Palettes have been improved. There are now 4 palettes, activated by 1 2 3 and 4.
Press 5 to give/remove the equipment. Some rooms in BrinRed were designed for the High Jump Boots so you might need those to get around. Alternately, look around for breakables!
Hidden items have been implemented but only in BrinRed (since Metroid didn't have a lot to begin with). Find them all!
Toasty said he'd post a readme for the editor later on, so be on the lookout for that. Comments or complaints go in the comments section. Please also tell me about bugs you find.
Download it here.
As always, the latest SMTC Release can be found at
http://www.g0dsoft.com/smtc/Downloads/SMTC_Release_Latest.rar
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Patch'd
This is a patch for the latest SMTC version. It's a new .exe, so overwrite your old one.
I've applied this patch to the SMTC_Release_Latest as well as the 04112009 release.
This patch should fix the camera scrolling error that some have been reporting.
To find out which screen modes you can run the game in, download this utility.
The utility may need to be run more than once as it sometimes hangs for reasons uncertain, but it will attempt to set all the screen modes and report which ones work and which don't.
I've applied this patch to the SMTC_Release_Latest as well as the 04112009 release.
This patch should fix the camera scrolling error that some have been reporting.
To find out which screen modes you can run the game in, download this utility.
The utility may need to be run more than once as it sometimes hangs for reasons uncertain, but it will attempt to set all the screen modes and report which ones work and which don't.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
The Post that Seems Impressive but Really Isn't
Today we have a version of SMTC that seems to be leaps and bounds ahead of the old version but, in fact, is not. Okay so it is, and I'm being humble.
The latest version can always be found here.
What's new? What isn't!
Minimap support has been implemented, and if you press ENTER you will be taken to the subscreen (since Metroid had none, I've used the Super Metroid template) you can view the full map. Sadly, there's no support for scrolling on this map, but there will be, I swears!
Press W on the map screen to switch to the inventory subscreen. Press X to enable/disable the item your cursor is on, and use the arrow keys to select items. Press Q to return to the map screen. Remember to press 4 to enable the improved loadout.
Full maps have been made for Brinstar Red and Brinstar (The one from Metroid) and work in conjunction with the subscreen. They can be found in the Images\\Maps folder if you're curious.
Full support for Enemies has been added. And by "full support" I, of course, mean the bare bones minimum. Rather than design a seperate mode, I told Toasty to turn them into tiles. So simply select the Zoomer tile in tiles mode and, uh, place the Zoomer! Note that Gerutas (the purple one on the right) don't work.
The Editor now supports DOORS! As a result, the Parser, Deconstructor, and Shell programs have been removed as the main editor now does all their jobs (more or less).
Rather, I have included a program called Updated.exe. This will update all your custom made .mcl rooms into the new 1.1 format (which supports the minimap). According to Toasty, his editor is backwards compatible but SMTC ISN'T.
Brinstar is finished, including enemies. A few things still need to be fixed (like making the pipes in some cases unclipped) and the minimap isn't perfectly aligned yet, I'll fix that at some point. Also the room to the Ice Beam isn't there for reasons I cannot recall.
More rooms have been added to the Brinstar Red series. The blocked off door in Brin0 is blocked off for a reason.
Water has been improved and looks better in pretty much every way. It should also no longer slow the system down by drawing it.
You can now select screen modes and color depths in the CFG file. Change the line
Cvar.screen_size 0 to change it.
0 is 256x256, the bare minimum.
1 is 512x512
2 is Fullscreen.
Also, you can change the color depths with cvar.color_depth to 0 and 1
0 is 24 bit
1 is 32 bit
As near as I can tell they're compatible, but I'd recommend leaving it at 1.
If you find the program cannot run a particular screen size, try changing the color depth.
Lastly, improved a few things concerning camera bounding.
Known Bugs:
Running the game, then quitting back to the main title, then running it again, causes the room to scroll back to the start. It looks cool, but it's not supposed to do that.
The minimap doesn't sync with some of the rooms in Brinstar. Cause is known, but it's a pain to fix.
If you have a bug concerning the editor, please check here. This is a google thingy Toasty uses to track bugs.
Also note that the current dependencies of the Editor are
.NET Framework 3.5
Microsoft XNA Redistributable 3.0
Post stuff in the comments. I tell you to do that but whether or not you do is unaffected. One might wonder why I do that at all.
The latest version can always be found here.
What's new? What isn't!
Minimap support has been implemented, and if you press ENTER you will be taken to the subscreen (since Metroid had none, I've used the Super Metroid template) you can view the full map. Sadly, there's no support for scrolling on this map, but there will be, I swears!
Press W on the map screen to switch to the inventory subscreen. Press X to enable/disable the item your cursor is on, and use the arrow keys to select items. Press Q to return to the map screen. Remember to press 4 to enable the improved loadout.
Full maps have been made for Brinstar Red and Brinstar (The one from Metroid) and work in conjunction with the subscreen. They can be found in the Images\\Maps folder if you're curious.
Full support for Enemies has been added. And by "full support" I, of course, mean the bare bones minimum. Rather than design a seperate mode, I told Toasty to turn them into tiles. So simply select the Zoomer tile in tiles mode and, uh, place the Zoomer! Note that Gerutas (the purple one on the right) don't work.
The Editor now supports DOORS! As a result, the Parser, Deconstructor, and Shell programs have been removed as the main editor now does all their jobs (more or less).
Rather, I have included a program called Updated.exe. This will update all your custom made .mcl rooms into the new 1.1 format (which supports the minimap). According to Toasty, his editor is backwards compatible but SMTC ISN'T.
Brinstar is finished, including enemies. A few things still need to be fixed (like making the pipes in some cases unclipped) and the minimap isn't perfectly aligned yet, I'll fix that at some point. Also the room to the Ice Beam isn't there for reasons I cannot recall.
More rooms have been added to the Brinstar Red series. The blocked off door in Brin0 is blocked off for a reason.
Water has been improved and looks better in pretty much every way. It should also no longer slow the system down by drawing it.
You can now select screen modes and color depths in the CFG file. Change the line
Cvar.screen_size 0 to change it.
0 is 256x256, the bare minimum.
1 is 512x512
2 is Fullscreen.
Also, you can change the color depths with cvar.color_depth to 0 and 1
0 is 24 bit
1 is 32 bit
As near as I can tell they're compatible, but I'd recommend leaving it at 1.
If you find the program cannot run a particular screen size, try changing the color depth.
Lastly, improved a few things concerning camera bounding.
Known Bugs:
Running the game, then quitting back to the main title, then running it again, causes the room to scroll back to the start. It looks cool, but it's not supposed to do that.
The minimap doesn't sync with some of the rooms in Brinstar. Cause is known, but it's a pain to fix.
If you have a bug concerning the editor, please check here. This is a google thingy Toasty uses to track bugs.
Also note that the current dependencies of the Editor are
.NET Framework 3.5
Microsoft XNA Redistributable 3.0
Post stuff in the comments. I tell you to do that but whether or not you do is unaffected. One might wonder why I do that at all.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
New items and improvements update
Today we add a bunch of useful items to the game as well as fixing the older physics bugs that were giving me a headache. Here's a changelog:
Most of the game's items have been implemented, including extra items like the Gravity Suit. So far, Space Jump, High Jump, Long Beam, Wave Beam, Ice Beam, Varia Suit, and the Gravity Suit are ready. To activate them in game, press 4, and press it again to deactivate.
Samus now runs at a speed closer to the original game's speed.
Samus now jumps the same height whether she is moving or not.
Samus's jump is now about the same as the original, and higher with the High Jump Boots on.
Water has been added but has no impact, it just looks kinda cool.
Backgrounds have been added, or at least support for them has. Since the original had no backgrounds, this feature may or may not stick depending on how much I care about it.
IPF and ISF files have been upgraded to a new version. Please don't use the old version or the game will crash on startup.
Several new sprites added, some not implemented yet.
Projectiles have been updated and no longer fire past the screen's edge.
As always, the latest version of SMTC can be found at
www.g0dsoft.com/smtc/Downloads/SMTC_Release_Latest.rar
or by clicking here.
Leave comments if you have questions.
Also: I need suggestions on what exactly to do next. Should I concentrate on adding the remaining (handful) of enemies, or work on the newer content, or what?
Most of the game's items have been implemented, including extra items like the Gravity Suit. So far, Space Jump, High Jump, Long Beam, Wave Beam, Ice Beam, Varia Suit, and the Gravity Suit are ready. To activate them in game, press 4, and press it again to deactivate.
Samus now runs at a speed closer to the original game's speed.
Samus now jumps the same height whether she is moving or not.
Samus's jump is now about the same as the original, and higher with the High Jump Boots on.
Water has been added but has no impact, it just looks kinda cool.
Backgrounds have been added, or at least support for them has. Since the original had no backgrounds, this feature may or may not stick depending on how much I care about it.
IPF and ISF files have been upgraded to a new version. Please don't use the old version or the game will crash on startup.
Several new sprites added, some not implemented yet.
Projectiles have been updated and no longer fire past the screen's edge.
As always, the latest version of SMTC can be found at
www.g0dsoft.com/smtc/Downloads/SMTC_Release_Latest.rar
or by clicking here.
Leave comments if you have questions.
Also: I need suggestions on what exactly to do next. Should I concentrate on adding the remaining (handful) of enemies, or work on the newer content, or what?
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