OpenLynks Update

[DCEmu_Newsposter]

binary1230 posted this news over at DCemulations forums:[br][br]I am pleased to report the Openlynks dreamcast port is about 99% done. (what?? psychology paper due tomorrow?? nah..) [br][br]I've got the source in its current state here (though its really a mess, avert your eyes..) and in this archive is also the prebuilt 1ST_READ.BIN and IP.BIN if you feel like wasting a CD-R on the alpha. [br][br]its here: [br]http://einsteinsbreakfast.com/demos/openlynks-dreamcast-0.9.5-pre2-alpha1.tar.gz [br][br]wouldn't recommend trying to compile that as I had to do all kinds of nasty stuff. I've got to write up a doc on it or something, STLport is a pain. [br][br]I ended up using KGL for most of the stuff, and writing some custom stuff to make the PCX loader use pink pixels as an alpha mask. I got STLport to work (that was nuts... I had to modify a bunch of KOS files). [br][br]Everything is working except for this last nagging issue.. [br][br]When the sprites are being drawn to the screen, it appears they are blended additively. So for example, drawing black over something else doesn't do anything, drawing white over something covers it completely, and everything in between looks like it just adds the src pixel value to the destination regardless of the alpha. (the alpha channel itself works fine, its just the real colors wont STAY opaque..) [br][br]i'm sure its my alpha blending code, but the thing that bugs me is that its the same as the PC but its not doing the same thing. I'm still playing with that. of course, it took me some time to figure out about the whole glKosFinishList() thing... gr... [br][br]oh and the fun, I was trying to use .PNG files with ARGB1555, but after that didn't work I finally found tucked in the libpng comments: [br][br]so lets see.. controller handling still a little messed up but I haven't touched it at all except for making it work with the controller [br][br]palettes don't work because I haven't touched them yet, so most everything is in black/white [br][br]and the edge of the map (which is smaller than the screen size) doesn't clip for scrolling, apparently I need to use glScissors() or something.. [br][br]this alpha thing is killing me, I can't figure out for the life of me why its not working.. [br][br]I am drawing all polygons in the second (transparent) display list, even the opaque ones. The original code from the PC just has a bunch of different 'levels' (like sky,floor,etc) that just correspond to discrete values on the depth buffer. since there is really no alpha blending going on, only masking, it gets away with it without having to sort them all first. [br][br]yet here, it is blending the sprites' opaque pixels as well. very strange.. i think im missing something obvious. i'll figure it out [br][br]other than that and the palette code (which isnt working for easier to fix reasons), the port is pretty much done. the actual gameplay is identical and runs fullspeed (tho actually for that code I gave you everything is way faster because I didn't feel like waiting to walk around) and so far I haven't seen any glitches that aren't in the PC version [br][br]next step after this is I'm going to increase the size of the tileset from 8x8 to 16x16 and have graphics much closer to the SNES zelda, and maybe throw in some 3d stuff (like monsters or something) for the hell of it if its not too weird.. [br][br]gotta port the map editor to gtk or something.. [br][br]I'm going to merge this code back in with the main tree so that the same codebase will run linux/mac/win32/dreamcast, that looks like it'll be pretty easy, suprisingly, not a whole lot changed. [br][br]If anyone makes a CD Image of this release and screenshots then please reply to this newspost via the comments :)

[wraggster]

anyone try this?

[mh777]

Actually, wraggy, I'm about to burn this to a disk. *I'll edit and update this post with a screenshot once I get it running.

EDIT part deux: Suggestion noted about pics. I don't know why I didn't think of that. ??? *

Some quick impressions:

-It runs. Fast. A little too fast.

-Yes, the colors are really like that.

-Don't press Start while in-game. It apparently quits the program.

-Press the Y button and a direction to activate some sort of debug map-checking mode.

Looks very promising, especially if the map editor gets ported soon.

[curt_grymala]

@mh77 - instead of hosting those images on Geocities, why not make four separate posts, and attach a photo to each of those posts. Then, the images will be stored on DCEmu's server, instead of being on Geocities.

[mh777]

Splash screen shot.

[mh777]

In-game shot.

[mh777]

In-game shot, part deux.

[mh777]

Hey, look. Another shot.

[Eric]

hey its looken good does this mean that its complete?

[wraggster]

Its looking very good :)

Very classic Zeldaish

[curt_grymala]

That does look really cool. I am looking forward to trying it out at some point.

[Christuserloeser]

:o That's damn fantastic! Brilliant work that is!!!


Chris

[binary1230]

cool people downloaded it nice!

thanks for the screenshots, its cool to see it running on someone else's box for a change.

I've got a newer version (alpha2) I just put up that fixes a lot of the stuff you talked about (the speed, input handling, alpha blending) this one is DONE (effectively). I added a winter tileset so everythings not gray anymore. More details I put on dceumation.com:

http://www.dcemulation.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=39436&postdays=0&postorder=asc&sta rt=40

the alpha2:
http://einsteinsbreakfast.com/demos/openlynks-dreamcast-0.9.5-pre2-alpha2.tar.gz

I'll try to get some screenshots of my own if I can sometime

-Dom

[curt_grymala]

Awesome - I'm gonna have to download this bad oscar and give it a spin tomorrow. Maybe I'll get it SBI'd, too.

[binary1230]

btw, this is my first release of any Dreamcast stuff, whats the format most people want? right now I'm just putting out the IP.BIN and 1ST_READ.BIN. I take it SBI then, I only run linux is there an SBI creator for linux (quick search would show maybe not..)

I'd check it more but I've got this nasty paper to write.

[mh777]

Most people prefer the SBI format, especially for smaller apps (I do, anyways). As for a Linux SBI creator, there isn't one AFAIK.

[Eric]

you could just use the plainfiles and the admins or someone else could create the SBI it really doesnt matter cause the SBI is kinda like a compressed file like Curt or someone said in the past change the .sbi to a .zip and you can extract the plain files from it

(NOTE)By doing it the other way around like making a zip file and then changin it to SBI may not be the same so i warn you dont do that

[MetaFox]

Nice work. I've yet to play it on a real DC, but I gave it a spin in Chankast. I've posted some screenshots here: http://dreamon.cyberdogcastle.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=101 (shameless plug :P)

But I'll post them here too. :)

http://dreamon.cyberdogcastle.com/openlynx.gif
http://dreamon.cyberdogcastle.com/openlynx2.gif
http://dreamon.cyberdogcastle.com/openlynx3.gif

[curt_grymala]

SBI available from Sbiffy!com (http://www.sbiffy.com/)

[DaMadFiddler]

One question, which I couldn't seem to find the answer to here or on the author's website. Does this program support multiple quest loading and/or scriptable levels?

[binary1230]

> Does this program support multiple quest loading and/or scriptable levels?

it does/it will

there is an event system in place to make all the oldschool zelda events happen, like pushing a boulder opens a cave, or burning a bush/etc. this isn't active in this release because I simply haven't gotten to messing with it, but will be in future releases. Basically that'll all be handled through the map editor when that is ported. I've just been really busy and this port is the first thing I've finished.

fyi, right now the game is loading in overworld.map and the tilesets which are .pcx files

I didn't write the original code, so I'm not fully aquainted with the logic as I should be, but soon I will be.

as for multiple quests, yea, basically each cave or entrance is a 'portal' that leads to other .map files (heh except there are currently no other .map files that do anything)