Classic Console Coding Contest 2005

[wraggster]

This isnt Dreamcast but as we are fans of Sega consoles its interesting to us all, heres the news from the Rockin-Bs site:

This is the second SEGA Saturn coding contest ever. It's never been so easy to get into Saturn coding, because with SaturnOrbit, the all-in-one Saturn coding package that recently appeared on the internet, getting started is child's play.

The contest runs from june 6th 2005 untill november 31st 2005. There are no restrictions on the type of demo or game you submit. The only goal is to make something that's fun to play.

New entries can be registered online at the C4 - 2005 entries page. For christmas all valid entries will be put together on one Saturn demo CD.

Use your chance to win one of our attractive prizes and download SaturnOrbit right away.
There is an award for the best newcomer, too.

This contest is run by http://www.rockin-b.de with the support of other people.

[Christuserloeser]

The Saturn is one of my favorite system so kudos to Rockin-B :)

[wraggster]

yep any support we can give to the comp we will do :)

[RockinB]

The Saturn is one of my favorite system so kudos to Rockin-B :)
It is for me, too ;)


yep any support we can give to the comp we will do :)

Yeah, thanks wraggster. I'm really happy about the support the contest gets from others.
There are actually 4 different persons donating prizes, for example.

But hey, I'll support the DCGP 2005 with an entry, too!

[warmtoe]

How much work would it be to port something written using KOS to work on the Saturn? I have a load of games that, if the porting were straightforward, I could do...

Don't have a real Saturn though... Rockin' B - any idea?

[RockinB]

How much work would it be to port something written using KOS to work on the Saturn? I have a load of games that, if the porting were straightforward, I could do...

Don't have a real Saturn though... Rockin' B - any idea?

You would have to use different libs for GFX, SFX output and checking buttons. Some #ifdef's and different initialization... All data is usually pre-converted, although runtime conversion is possible in theory, too. Don't know if threading is possible on Saturn.

You don't need a real Saturn, using emulators like Satourne, Saturnin or the cracked GiriGiri works, too. But you can win a Saturn :) .



I got some experience in making stuff that uses Saturn libraries on Saturn and which uses SDL on other platforms.

What would you want to do in a game? Displaying backgrounds, sprites, polygons, playing sound FX and CD-Audio and accessing the controller status.

All these things are easy to do.
I'd like to do a little how-to together with a complete code example which explains these things the simple way.

If you got any specific question, I can point you to a code example or tell how to do it.

Well, if you decide to port something over, you can be sure to have my support.

[warmtoe]

What would you want to do in a game? Displaying backgrounds, sprites, polygons, playing sound FX and CD-Audio and accessing the controller status.
Well - that pretty much covers it! I currently have PNGs for the textures from which I display polygons that represent my sprites (I could change the whole thing over to using actual sprites, but I suspect that would be harder work than sticking with my current DC scheme).

Otherwise - that's about it...

Joggle on the Saturn sounds cool!

Is playing an MP3 for background music do-able?

[RockinB]

Well - that pretty much covers it! I currently have PNGs for the textures from which I display polygons that represent my sprites (I could change the whole thing over to using actual sprites, but I suspect that would be harder work than sticking with my current DC scheme).
There is a program called 3DEditor that aids setting up a texture table which imports .bmp and .jpg images. It's included in SaturnOrbit.
Of course you could do it with polygons, the difference between polygons and sprites is seamless on Saturn.
But I think positioning sprites with screen coordinates is a lot easier.
For screen placement of polygons, I recommend playing around with existing apps on a Saturn emu.

For object placement:
hidden 3D menu, activated by holding START at startup
(included in SaturnOrbit)
Saturn SoundPlayer (http://www.rockin-b.de/saturn/downloads/SATURN-downloads.htm#2)

For camera placement:
saturn 3D racing game project (http://www.rockin-b.de/saturn/SATURN-RacingGameProject.htm)

One thing to deal with is the different screen resolution. Saturn got a high resolution mode, too.




Joggle on the Saturn sounds cool!
It sounds great, indeed!



Is playing an MP3 for background music do-able?
You would play it as CD-Audio. Convertion of the mp3 files not neccessary, these are burned together with an ISO defined by a .CUE sheet with CDRWin or a similar proggie.

[RockinB]

About the tutorial on how to make a Saturn game:

I had some nice progress on it.

Already working in the demo is background display, sprites and animation, CD file access, CDDA playing, PCM playing.
Only need to add some polygon stuff and write the tutorial.

I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible and mark out all pitfalls you can stumble over. Some advanced techniques will be included that I started to develop in WinterSports Eins and further stuff that has never been used in a Saturn homebrew game, too.

The CDDA playing stuff is taken from my Saturn SoundPlayer app and has been modified to be a small high level lib, which behaves like a normal CD player.


Stay tuned for a release next week!

[RockinB]

@warmtoe
I hope you are still interested.

It's been much work, but here it is:
Saturn Game Tutorial
+ Saturn Demo
+ sprite/animation preprocessing script for GIMP

http://www.rockin-b.de/saturn/SaturnGameTutorial/SaturnGameTutorial.htm

Anouncement on my site:
http://www.rockin-b.de

[RockinB]

Hello guys,
here is a little update of the C4 - 2005 Saturn Coding Contest (http://www.rockin-b.de/saturn/C4_2005/C4_2005.htm).

The contest has motivated a couple of new people to have a look into Saturn development. I've been in contact with them and tried as good as I can to guide them through. Let's hope they keep up the good work, I've already seen some promising results D) .

We had a nice prize upgrade, too:
One component of the 1st prize has been 15 USD, which has been increased to a 30 euro purchase at www.frikidonia.com.

When the contest is over, all entries will be put on a C4 entries CD. So gamers who want to try out these Saturn homebrew games just need to burn one CD-R.

The Saturn application used for this CD is already developed and is called:
Atlas
It's a fully customizeable multi game boot disc application, SEGA would call it internally "demo demo loader" :) .

Here some screenshots:
http://forums.segaxtreme.net/uploads/post-1572-1128742793_thumb.jpg
big (http://forums.segaxtreme.net/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=1523)

http://forums.segaxtreme.net/uploads/post-1572-1128824588_thumb.jpg
big (http://forums.segaxtreme.net/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=1533)

So if you want to support the contest, it's still not too late to start making an entry. You can support it by being a judge, too.

Stay tuned,
Rockin'-B

[Christuserloeser]

Sounds (and looks!) very promising :) Good luck to everyone!

[RockinB]

On the way to the finish line:
last month of the C4 - 2005 Saturn Coding Contest (http://www.rockin-b.de/saturn/C4_2005/C4_2005.htm)!

The competition is heating up! Within this month, all entries must be submitted to [email protected]. So hurry up!

You know all entries will be put on one C4 CD for SEGA Saturn. People who make an entry can provide custom media to present their game on the C4 CD:

* a screenshot thumbnail (64x64 pixel, a transparent color can be used)
* a fullscreen image (352x224 pixel) showing controls and further info
* short textual description (8 lines of 20 characters each) for title, version, author, features, ...
* an audio file that's played when your entry is highlighted
* a readme text file

All of this stuff is optional, but I recommend to at least provide a thumbnail and text description. If you don't provide the data, noone else will create it for you. Instead ugly "Not found!" messages are displayed.

Good luck!
The better one wins :D ...