Marfitude SDL

Been a while that i wanted this SDL game to be ported on Dreamcast. I know it is possible but needs quite a lot of work, so i guess some dc coders might want to join toghether to get that one done. It's a musical game just like Amplitude that is on PS2, but it's using MOD music files as music tracks. A while ago i even did a mod of the graphics to make it look even more like Amplitude on PS2.

You can virtually put as much MOD files you want and play on them and it saves your highest score as well. Anyway if anyone is interested in trying to port that one i can always provide the modified graphics and DC cd cover i did.

here's a link to the website of the game Source and Windows Binary are available there: http://www.erestar.net/games/marfitude/

here's how the cover looked for the modified version, it's also showing a little bit of how the graphics of the game were modified as well:
http://img66.exs.cx/img66/7158/dchomebrewsample39zb.png

Let's hope some people will want to work on it.

It'd be awesome if that was ported! Amplitude is fantastic :)

certainly looks nice

Hi

Here is the source to DC version of Marfitude:
http://mekanaizer.planetaclix.pt/files/marfitude.zip

-The marfitude lib is ported to DC.
-SDL part of the source is ok for DC still it needs some minor work (joy_pad)
-the main problem is that it uses openGL (init by SDL) and this part of the source needs to be re-writen for DC. glfunc.c is the file to work.

-read the *.txt over \romdisk\

sorry i didn't make it, but i don't know DC version of openGL very well. So i release this to someone complete the port. :/

-Mekanaizer-

Thanks a lot for your kind help Mekanaizer, everything is always appreciated. I knew that the use of opengl was to be a problem for many, probaby why there aint many homebrew using openGL on dreamcast.

Anyway if anyone is trying to do something with it, pm me i can send thru e-mail the graphics modifications if needed.

Upon first glance it looks like most of the stuff that isn't in bero's libGL and the standard KGL is in KGL-X.

I'll give it a try, but I'm not guaranteeing anything.

Well thanks for even trying, many could have just overlook it, hehe

Pic from game (win):

http://www.erestar.net/games/marfitu...screenshot.png

Hehe, no offense but people that really were interested probably already saw that screenshot on the link i gave in the initial post.

Anyway, that's allright, will make it easier to compare with this screen of the modification i made. What i did so far was redoing 'glowing-like' track borders, replaced some ugly texture that were in the original, added the spaceship from Amplitude game and made 3 clear targets to replace the 3 blue dots that were use to aim, also modified the text colors and effects. Overlayed menu is all new as well. I wanted to add a static background to the game, but it was looking too weird, and it took away the 3d perspective too much.

Here's how it looks:
http://img234.exs.cx/img234/7849/amplitudedcmod2uy.png

well I ended up replacing beros libgl with KGLX for use with SDL.

Here is a rough alpha scrambled binary. Some textures are missing, text and the backplane textures disappears randomly.

The game is playable with the keyboard -
U - Left laser
I - Middle Laser
O - Right Laser

Curser keys - move back and forth

ESC brings up the logo and enter brings up the menu, but the text is missing.

Everything is embedded in the romdisk right now, so you can only play the mod file that came with the source.

This binary is scrambled so I would recommend descrambling and putting it on a multisession cdr and boot it with demomenu etc, since its still very alpha.

http://www.storm-studios.net/GPF/Marfitude.rar

Well let me know what you think. Ill hopefully get the rest of sourcecode cleaned up and everything posted in the next couple days.

Enjoy,
Troy Davis(GPF)

Its not a DDR-like game, i dont know who wrote that. Its a clone of the PS2 game 'Amplitude'

GPF....omg.....sleep! LOL

I thought you didn't know OpenGL. I see you figured out what you needed to :D

Here's the modded graphic package if needed, this is the 'IMAGES' folder zipped just replace with the old one before compiling.

Graphic pack:
http://jove.prohosting.com/gabou/Mar..._DC_images.zip

Link to the DC cover:
http://img66.exs.cx/img66/7158/dchomebrewsample39zb.png

Nice to know that you're getting there GPF, seems like youvery active mate. Thanks for your hard work.

Wow, that's completly awesome! I was about to ask what's up with the game cause it's been some time since I saw that cover in the DIS topic over at the cover arts & website design forum.

Thanks to all who made this possible and contribute/contributed anything :)

Thanks Vampiric ill add those to the Marfitude page later

@GPF -- I am really happy to see how you already got most of it figured out.

I knew that you were able to do it, as a first alpha version it's still nice. About the random texture disapearing, if i remember right it was doing it to me on the PC version as well,well on the texture that was right under the spaceship or red floating dot.

I know you'll be able to fix most of the problems so far. Just think about the unlimited replay value,you can basically play on all MODs file from http://www.modarchive.com weirdly enough i think that having the save function of the score on the vmu will be harder then it seems. since every songs scores are saved on seperated files instead of being all in the same file.

I know you probably planned to do it already but having the controls switched to

(X) (Y) (B) for the laser could be really nice and pretty much intuitive.

(START) to bring the menu.

Let me know if you want me to modified anything for the port graphically, let's make it shine !

cool can someone make an sbi, i want to check this game out to see how it looks and plays...neat.

[quote author=law56ker link=board=portingideas;num=1108491018;start=15#16 date=02/20/05 at 23:55:00]cool can someone make an sbi, i want to check this game out to see how it looks and plays...neat.[/quote]

Well like GPF said earlier it's in very alpha stateright now, maybe better burning it only on a multisession cd, but anyway here's an SBI i made, not tested yet. Since my cd burner is out of order. Keep in mind that only the keyboard controls are supported right now and that there's some problems that needs to be fixed right now. Oh might be a good idea to report if the SBI is working.

Marfitude_DC_SBI : http://jove.prohosting.com/gabou/sbi_marfitude.zip

Ok, looks cool so far though it's a change of genre from most ports which is really exciting.

well since this is no longer a "Porting Idea" but no a reality, i moving this topic to the homebrew forum, great work GPF and nice find VampiricS, this game does look cool

http://s101533388.onlinehome.us/GPF/chkmarfitude.jpg

Well here is a screenshot of it running under Chankast.

Troy

[quote author=VampiricS link=board=homebrew;num=1108983656;start=15#15 date=02/20/05 at 21:57:07]@GPF -- Â*I am really happy to see how you already got most of it figured out.

I knew that you were able to do it, as a first alpha version it's still nice. About the random texture disapearing, if i remember right it was doing it to me on the PC version as well,well on the texture that was right under the spaceship or red floating dot.

I know you'll be able to fix most of the problems so far. Just think about the unlimited replay value,you can basically play on all MODs file from http://www.modarchive.com weirdly enough i think that having the save function of the score on the vmu will be harder then it seems. since every songs scores are saved on seperated files instead of being all in the same file.

I know you probably planned to do it already but having the controls switched to

(X) Â* (Y) Â* (B) Â*for the laser could be really nice and pretty much intuitive.

(START) to bring the menu.

Let me know if you want me to modified anything for the port graphically, let's make it shine ![/quote]

OK i think i sort of figured out the controller, the init.cfg file was a pain but i have it configured now for.

Analog joystick - left/right , up/down in menu(if you could see it)
(X) Â* (Y) Â* (B) Â*for each laser
(A) Â* fires a laser i think it repeats the last fired ???
Start Â*brings up the menu


also the highscores are written to the init.cfg file so i can eventually just save that file and read it back in from vmu.

Also for now i ran the pc version first for the mod file and generated the wam file and saved that on the /cd/wam directory for quick loading. I might be able to have it generate it to a ram disk if its not found on the cd depends on memory free.

Since my openGL knowledge is almost nil, there are still some serious graphical issues.

I tried to drop your graphic pack in and the looked horible on the dreamcast because of the way it renders the graphics, Either the pallette or transparency value is different then the original graphcis and needs to be changed. but even above you can see that the transperancy is an issue also.

Troy Davis(GPF)

I was talking to Ian in the past about OpenGL and he told me he knew how to get the code working on the Dreamcast. I have no clue if thats a lie or not and he probably doesnt want me saying it but i dont care cause i am totally a supporter for DCemu and the Coders who do amazing work. Anyways i dont know if it means much to you guys but if it isnt bull atleast the game might get pushed somewhere but again there probably would be no return of the Reaper.

Eric

EDIT: I am sorry i know somewhere in the sentence i might have said something wrong. I just meant to say "it might be a little more help to get this game completed" instead of pushing this game somewhere cause i already know the coders can get it somewhere so thats not a problem.

[quote author=GPF link=board=homebrew;num=1108983656;start=15#21 date=02/21/05 at 21:15:34]

OK i think i sort of figured out the controller, the init.cfg file was a pain but i have it configured now for.

Analog joystick - left/right , up/down in menu(if you could see it)
(X) Â* (Y) Â* (B) Â*for each laser
(A) Â* fires a laser i think it repeats the last fired ???
Start Â*brings up the menu


also the highscores are written to the init.cfg file so i can eventually just save that file and read it back in from vmu.

Also for now i ran the pc version first for the mod file and generated the wam file and saved that on the /cd/wam directory for quick loading. I might be able to have it generate it to a ram disk if its not found on the cd depends on memory free.

Since my openGL knowledge is almost nil, there are still some serious graphical issues.

I tried to drop your graphic pack in and the looked horible on the dreamcast because of the way it renders the graphics, Either the Â*pallette or transparency value is different then the original graphcis and needs to be changed. but even above you can see that the transperancy is an issue also.

Troy Davis(GPF)
[/quote]


Wel i added some new functions to KGLX to support fonts with multiple displaylists, glCallLists and glListBase.

Here is a new screenshot with fonts working. Still need to figure out why the background rows disappear and fix the transparency issues.

http://s101533388.onlinehome.us/GPF/chk2marfitude.jpg

Troy Davis(GPF)

Nice progress, and you're actually doing it faster then i expected. About the transparency,i dunno, but could it be because KOS or SDL on DC aren't using the same color depth? i remember back when i was playing snes emu on my older pc, i had to be able to be in a certain color depth(16/32) to have the transparency working, could the problem be about something like that ? (Since even my mod looked horrible and wasn't looking too bad on PC version. (were you able to check if you can make it so that the MODs files can be readed from the cd instead of the ramdisk so far ?

Anyway you're doing great so far! thx for bothering working on it.

[quote author=VampiricS link=board=homebrew;num=1108983656;start=15#24 date=02/24/05 at 22:42:30]Nice progress, and you're actually doing it faster then i expected. About the transparency,i dunno, but could it be because KOS or SDL on DC aren't using the same color depth? i remember back when i was playing snes emu on my older pc, i had to be able to be in a certain color depth(16/32) to have the transparency working, could the problem be about something like that ? (Since even my mod looked horrible and wasn't looking too bad on PC version. (were you able to check if you can make it so that the MODs files can be readed from the cd instead of the ramdisk so far ?

Anyway you're doing great so far! thx for bothering working on it.[/quote]

Yes its probably something similir to that for the transparancy problem.

The MOD files are being read from cd, but it first looks on the cd wam folder for the wam files, which are the converted MOD files for the game. I now have it if you burn the MOD files to cd without the wam files, it generates them on the fly in the RAM disk. There are still some problems and most of the time, i can't play more then one MOD file without restarting my dreamcast.

Still need to implement saving cfg file to vmu and to read it back for highscore saving.

Would like to get the dpad working or to greatly reduce the sensitivity of the analog stick very difficult to move between rows now.

And most import fix the transparency and background rows disappearance.

Troy Davis(GPF)

Hi, GPF

Look for code lines like this:
...
if( ! (buffer = SDL_SetVideoMode(320, 200, 32, SDL_SWSURFACE)) )
...

if you see 16 or 8 change it to 32 like the code line above.

in all my alpha-blending examples 32 (color deep) works best, 16 may work too but it need extra work in the code for DC (or some PC gfx-cards)

-Mekanaizer-

[quote author=Mekanaizer link=board=homebrew;num=1108983656;start=15#26 date=02/25/05 at 06:27:54]Hi, GPF

Look for code lines like this:
...
if( ! (buffer = SDL_SetVideoMode(320, 200, 32, SDL_SWSURFACE)) )
...

if you see 16 or 8 change it to 32 like the code line above.

in all my alpha-blending examples 32 (color deep) works best, 16 may work too but it need extra work in the code for DC (or some PC gfx-cards)

-Mekanaizer-[/quote]

Hmmm might work, let's hope it allows my graphic modification to look ok after transparency and color depth is fixed. Thanks for the help Mekanaizer.

Hey i am glad alot of work is being put into this and cant wait to see the next release. The only thing i was wondering about was the cover and this is not at all in offense its a great looking cover but how about not using the Amplitude name do to legal reason and its used on the PS2 game. Hope to a new release soon.

Eric

[quote author=Eric link=board=homebrew;num=1108983656;start=15#28 date=02/25/05 at 18:54:56]Hey i am glad alot of work is being put into this and cant wait to see the next release. The only thing i was wondering about was the cover and this is not at all in offense its a great looking cover but how about not using the Amplitude name do to legal reason and its used on the PS2 game. Hope to a new release soon.

Eric[/quote]

Well back when i did the cover and moc for the game it was for my personal use, so i did it that way. But by the way at that rate every Beats Of Rage mods should all be named differently and use original sprites an all. But i do understand your point. So far anyway it seems that the finish game won't use any modification i made. But i will do 'original modification' if GPF ask me to do so if he wants the ported game to look different then the original PC game.

Main concern for now is fixing issues with the porting and all. And GPF is doing an awesome job so far.

I think the game looks great. The point of the cover though was to make a Dreamcast original game type of thing. Kind of like a competition even though the system is dead. I like original ideas even though things are ported over. I do like the fact that every or most ports use the name and then DC after the ports name. Makes it appealing to the downloaders and makes it more professional. I know DCemu is for fun and what the coders do is for fun aswell i just want to add a suggestion for things to see what can make DCemu more of an interesting place. Nobody has to use them if they dont want but 4 or 5 projects in the scene have had an interesting touch from my brain to your system of course all work being done by the coders cause i have no clue what to do there. I am about fun and about fun for gamers and its cause of DCemu and the coders congradulations.

Eric

[quote author=Mekanaizer link=board=homebrew;num=1108983656;start=15#26 date=02/25/05 at 06:27:54]Hi, GPF

Look for code lines like this:
...
if( ! (buffer = SDL_SetVideoMode(320, 200, 32, SDL_SWSURFACE)) Â*)
...

if you see 16 or 8 change it to 32 like the code line above.

in all my alpha-blending examples 32 (color deep) works best, 16 may work too but it need extra work in the code for DC (or some PC gfx-cards)

-Mekanaizer-[/quote]


Unfortunetly its not that easy since Im using OpenGL , the problem is in the texture loading Also. Since it uses png I have to be able to load the pngs with png_to_img using PNG_FULL_ALPHA, PNG_MASK_ALPHA(which i think is broken) and PNG_NONE_ALPHA and then load those textures using

glKosTex2D(GL_ARGB4444_TWID, img.w, img.h, txaddr);
or
glKosTex2D(GL_ARGB1555_TWID, img.w, img.h, txaddr);
or
glKosTex2D(GL_RGB565_TWID, img.w, img.h, txaddr);

In the original code, it load the graphics up as an SDL_image and then converts them to what ever the background is setup for RGB or RGBA etc.

I have written a custon png loader so I can get the #of channels, rowstride and w,h before i load them so I can perhaps select the correct loading method.

but once I am actually displaying the bouncing star or what every it on the screen.

I think I have to set it up differently. Again my OpenGL skill or nil so i dont know how to set up transperancy when I render the image.

I think it has something to do with this call
glColor4f(1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0);

Other biggest problem , is that I can't play more than one mod file, attempting to retry or selecting another song blows up in the KGLX displaylist code, I think its related to the fact that there is no gldeletelist function and when it goes to create more its running out of available displaylists. but I could be wrong.

Troy

From what i found out, in openGL the transparency uses a 4th color as alpha. so:

Quote:

---

glColor4f(1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0);

---

All i found is that 1.0 is an opaque color and 0.0 is completely transparent.

Anyway maybe having a look there could give you some ideas.

http://nehe.gamedev.net/data/lessons....asp?lesson=08

Vamps,

[quote author=VampiricS link=board=homebrew;num=1108983656;start=30#32 date=02/27/05 at 21:18:03]From what i found out, in openGL the transparency uses a 4th color as alpha. so:




All i found is that 1.0 is an opaque color and 0.0 is completely transparent.

Anyway maybe having a look there could give you some ideas.

http://nehe.gamedev.net/data/lessons....asp?lesson=08

Vamps,[/quote]

Yeah thats what i figured but i cant get it to work. I think it has to do with the way you have to send stuff to the pvr inorder to do transparency.

Iv implemented glDeleteLists, so now i am able to play a couple of different mods now. I need to try compiling the SDL_mixer included with the marf source so mods that play on the pc version are not playing on the dc, right now im using the default SDL_mixer thats with KOS.

Still have the problem with the background disappearing, but its still fun to play with just the notes showing :).

Troy

Nice to see that you even enjoy the game yourself now hehe,always less of an hassle when you enjoy what you're working on. I was thinking about some trick that we could use if the texture and transparency never work hehe. Was wondering if it was possible to just had some kind of static background without having blitting problem, kindda like to fake the tracks and to give some kind of GUI to the top part where the score is and name of the song. As long as it's at least playing well, the rest could be just to make it look different..

Was thinking about maybe having a Dreamcast shooting the notes hehe, since the DC is a square, it could at least save us from using transparency for it ;) could make the game looks like REZ but with a DC instead of a character hehe.

Well i guess i could do a mock-up of it if you're interested in doing it that way, if the transparency and texture disapearing can't be solved later, just let me know in private message or something.

[quote author=VampiricS link=board=homebrew;num=1108983656;start=30#34 date=02/28/05 at 14:49:58]Nice to see that you even enjoy the game yourself now hehe,always less of an hassle when you enjoy what you're working on. I was thinking about some trick that we could use if the texture and transparency never work hehe. Was wondering if it was possible to just had some kind of static background without having blitting problem, kindda like to fake the tracks and to give some kind of GUI to the top part where the score is and name of the song. As long as it's at least playing well, the rest could be just to make it look different..

Was thinking about maybe having a Dreamcast shooting the notes hehe, since the DC is a square, it could at least save us from using transparency for it ;) could make the game looks like REZ but with a DC instead of a character hehe.

Well i guess i could do a mock-up of it if you're interested in doing it that way, if the transparency and texture disapearing can't be solved later, just let me know in private message or something.
[/quote]

Yeah thats always a possibility :)

Well I tried to use your graphics again and they look alot better now, but for some reason your title.png graphic is missing half the graphic, or maybe it was done for a reason i dont know.

Troy

Well, about the title.png, if it looks like on the screenshot i posted on page 1 of this thread,it was intended to be like that,it has a top left corner fade effect to it, but i guess that if the transparency isn't working, maybe it looks like if it was cut even more in half ;) . And there was a place where i had to make a little space with nothing on it because the game is displaying a little box for the menu. Maybe the box isn't displayed on the port right now.

Do you already have it writting the .cfg file to vmu and have it reading it? If you're planning on using the initial modification i can always do a version of the title.png that isn't using any fade in it if it looks better. How is the new target.png looking now?If you have some time, would be nice to see a screenshot of it to know what i could do to make it look better (try making one where we see the title.png as well if possible). Could it be possible that Chankast isn't displaying stuffcorrectlyas well but could be different on the Dreamcast directly?

[quote author=VampiricS link=board=homebrew;num=1108983656;start=30#36 date=02/28/05 at 22:06:56]Well, about the title.png, if it looks like on the screenshot i posted on page 1 of this thread,it was intended to be like that,it has a top left corner fade effect to it, but i guess that if the transparency isn't working, maybe it looks like if it was cut even more in half ;) . And there was a place where i had to make a little space with nothing on it because the game is displaying a little box for the menu. Maybe the box isn't displayed on the port right now.

Do you already have it writting the .cfg file to vmu and have it reading it? If you're planning on using the initial modification i can always do a version of the title.png that isn't using any fade in it if it looks better. How is the new target.png looking now?If you have some time, would be nice to see a screenshot of it to know what i could do to make it look better (try making one where we see the title.png as well if possible). Could it be possible that Chankast isn't displaying stuffcorrectlyas well but could be different on the Dreamcast directly?[/quote]

yes its reading and writing to the vmu now its hardcoded for /vmu/a1

http://s101533388.onlinehome.us/GPF/chk3marfitude.jpg

i moved the menu text down because the title.png file was hiding the menu, as you can see the layer work differently on the dreamcast so stuff is on top that should be behind the title screen.

Troy

Ok great, i think i will be able to trick the graphics to make it looks ok now.
Just some needed stuff to know:

- from what i see all the text layer areon top of everything huh?
- do you think we can use a title.png that cover the whole screen? and if so is the resolution 640*480?
- right now i will chane all the background of the different images to black, should at least look better since the background is black in-game.

I will post the updated image pack tonight.

**update **

Since there was some comments on the cd cover and name,due to copyrights or whatever, here's the new cd cover i came up with:

CD cover
http://img178.exs.cx:81/img178/7987/...ccover44qu.png

Cd Label
http://img11.exs.cx/img11/9980/marfitudedccd5ti.png

Now, GPF, i made a new "title.png'", i tried it in the original PC version and it seems that it's limited to a specific size. but i guess you could modify it's source to fit the whole screen. So here's a mock-up of what it's suppose to look like:

Menu (Start menu)
http://img59.exs.cx/img59/4078/marfitudedcmockup7km.png

In-game
http://img47.exs.cx/img47/2416/dcmarfitudescreen2lh.png

Ok so i am adding black background to all the seperated sprites for the game now,so the issues in-game should be less visible. The new package should be available here soon.

Ok the new graphic modifications are ready:

http://jove.prohosting.com/gabou/Marfitude_DC.zip

So in that package here's the modifications:

- No more Amplitude space ship, now it's a floating DC
- Tracks have been streamlined and don't use texturing anymore, this is hiding most of the gfx issues.
- New menu is in (needs GPF to make is display full screen)
- Every single object have a black background, so should blend easier with the already black background.

I know it's not good like a commercial professionally made stuff but some tweaks were needed to get it working on DC. Should makes it good enough tho.

Now i am waiting for GPF to know if stuff is working or not, the i can see what i can refine.

P.S.: @ GPF : How about removing the Quit option from the menu, anyway it's doing nothing good on the DC version ;)Oh and is it just me or the 'notes' on the dc version are just showing in plain white? Oh and feel free to tell me if what i did is ok , i wanted to do something looking different but i had no real ideas so far hehe.