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Future of CG version 0.4, you decide it!

 
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What do you want to see in Commander Genius v0.4?
F1 Help screen would be nice
9%
 9%  [ 2 ]
Concentrate more on the compatibility of existing CK1-3 mods
18%
 18%  [ 4 ]
Your physics still suck. They still need more improvements.
27%
 27%  [ 6 ]
More audio controls, volume, mute, etc.
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Commander Keen 4-6 support
31%
 31%  [ 7 ]
Ingame Menu, like Doom
4%
 4%  [ 1 ]
Improve the performance
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Please support older OpenGL cards
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Other, please tell us replying here...
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
First support Commander Keen Dreams
4%
 4%  [ 1 ]
More effects in CK1-3 like floating points number (Similar to Keen4-6 when collecting items)
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Make the enemies of CK1-3 smarter
4%
 4%  [ 1 ]
Total Votes : 22

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gerstrong
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Joined: 31 Dec 2008
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 15:35    Post subject: Future of CG version 0.4, you decide it! Reply with quote

As version 0.3 of Commander Genius has finally been released we are working to release version 0.4. Again, we want to know what we could improve or add for the next version.

Please vote!
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tulip
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Joined: 21 Aug 2008
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 16:03    Post subject: Reply with quote

I once again voted for the seemingly easiest, and fastest-to-accomplish goal, the F1 screen.
Although we still need physics improvement. Playing mods on CG is still a lot harder than in the original.

Make enemies smarter sounds weird. Do we want to make them smarter than in the originals? But yes, I know there are some flaws with the monster behaviour in CG.
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Levellass
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 9:57    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think you should do the (hopefully) simple stuff first, F1 Help screen!
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Galaxieretter
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Joined: 01 Nov 2007
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 20:37    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ok I know it's not on the list... and it's *really* out there...

But do you think it might be possible to expand CG to support other Commander Keen engine games such as Duke Nukem or Bio Menace?
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ZidaneA
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Joined: 02 Nov 2007
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 21:21    Post subject: Reply with quote

Levellass wrote:
I think you should do the (hopefully) simple stuff first, F1 Help screen!


I think quite the opposite. I think that creating an exact copy of the physics from the original games comes first!
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Deltamatic
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 1:43    Post subject: Reply with quote

Help screen is easy, but not critical. Mod compatibility would be awesome, but not critical. More audio controls and special effects would be neat, but not critical. 4-6 and Dreams we'll want eventually, but now we're concentrating on 1-3. An in-game menu... still not critical. Performance, old card support, improved AI--not critical.

Exact physics IS CRITICAL. Hence my vote.
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DaVince
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Joined: 01 Nov 2007
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 12:36    Post subject: Reply with quote

tulip wrote:
Although we still need physics improvement. Playing mods on CG is still a lot harder than in the original.

About that... Hasn't anyone ever made any documents with useful calculations and formulae for this? I can't imagine nobody did, seeing as there are so many people who dive into the Keen executables to find and change stuff.

I voted better support for mods. Keen 4-6 should only be started on when Keen 1-3 AND mods work near-perfectly, I think.
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Levellass
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Joined: 23 Sep 2008
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 1:12    Post subject: Reply with quote

I take the viewpoint that the F1 screen will hopefully quickly get done, removing it from the list of tasks and allowing us to work on other things. Similarly, I think Keen 4-6 support should come last as it will take a long time and we haven't been able to perfect Keen 1-3 yet.

Quote:
other Commander Keen engine games such as Duke Nukem or Bio Menace?


Bio Menace, yes, Dangerous Dave, yes, heck, even Shadow Knights... but Duke Nukum? Which game are you referring to that is supposedly related to Keen?
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gerstrong
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 5:56    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
About that... Hasn't anyone ever made any documents with useful calculations and formulae for this? I can't imagine nobody did, seeing as there are so many people who dive into the Keen executables to find and change stuff.


That is something I really would like to know. There happened to be an article at slashdot, where someone reverse engineered the source code of keen1. Unfortunenately, the link is broken and I don't know if someone still has this file.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=361915&cid=21372451

I really would like to know, how the calculations are done, since CKP only bases on ideas of the forum and aprroximations which are pretty ugly.

Quote:
other Commander Keen engine games such as Duke Nukem or Bio Menace?


The good thing is that some of them share the file format that other games do (At least the concepts of a sidescroller). However, I see it more as future music, because we still need to tie up the code even for Commander Keen 4-6 and separate the engines the way, they don't disturb each other.

I haven't had time to implement the help screen, as I'm still fixing issues with some mods. I have improved the story section using more C++ code and a new class which will also be used for the F1-help text.

I still have one Problem with the Help text. The Input howto is different in CG than in Commander Keen. F3 and F4 which are mentioned don't exist here anymore, as everything is setup in the menu. I'm thinking about just taking a small part of the original help text and fill the rest up with some own text about the CG itself.
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tulip
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Joined: 21 Aug 2008
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 14:44    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you do so, remember that some mods use the helptext to describe certain changed conditions or new monsters in the mod. So the CG help should read from the original helptext file.
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wiivn
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 16:52    Post subject: Reply with quote

What's up with this project? Not a single word for a long time here.
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tulip
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 19:24    Post subject: Reply with quote

The whole engine is redesigned at the moment, to be faster, easier to understand and to get rid of all the workarounds that were in the older version.
That takes a lot time, yes, and it's not done yet. But don't worry it's still being developed. You can check the clonekeenplus homepage, it also has it's forum, there you can see which issues are dicussed at the moment.
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lemm
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Joined: 03 Jul 2009
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 23:59    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:


That is something I really would like to know. There happened to be an article at slashdot, where someone reverse engineered the source code of keen1. Unfortunenately, the link is broken and I don't know if someone still has this file.


http://files.commanderkeen.org/users/omp/keen1.c.txt

I'm keeping this file and adding comments to it as I go along.

The original is http://www.quantumg.net/keen1.c.txt, but I've added a fair number of annotations in my copy, which might be helpful.


handle_ctrl at $5A39, move_left_right at $2B9A, and draw_level at $4B69 would be good places to start looking. Unfortunately I haven't really looked at the timing of everything. I do know that for each loop, the game records what buttons you have pressed down for that loop as well as the loop prior to the current one.

Code:

#define input.direction   0x7FCA
#define input.jump      0x7FCC
#define input.pogo      0x7FCE
#define input_old.direction      0x7FD0  // these three appear to be the input from the previous frame
#define input_old.jump      0x7FD2
#define input_old.pogo      0x7FD4



I do know that keen has a velocity_x located at 0x6EFA in data segment and what I would guess is if the left/right keys are pushed down, one of the "think" functions (try think_13 for starters) that keen uses would notice this and add whatever to his x velocity.

Code:

   // seg000:391F (This is within think_13() )
      if (reg_bx <= 6) {
         // seg000:3924
         switch(reg_bx) {
            case 0:
            case 1:
            case 2:
               // seg000:392B
               PUSHI(2);
               EMU_CALL(a_move_left_right, 3932, think_13);
               reg_sp += 2;


So here, "2" is passed as a parameter to move_left_right....

Code:

void move_left_right()
{
   PUSH(bp);
   MOV(bp, sp);
   PUSH(si);
   PUSH(di);

   reg_di = MEMW(reg_bp + 4);
   reg_si = 1;

   // seg000:2BD5
   while (reg_si <= MEMW(sprite_sync)) {
      // seg000:2BA7
      W_MEMW(sprite_copy.vel_x, MEMW(sprite_copy.vel_x) + reg_di);
      if ((short)MEMW(sprite_copy.vel_x) > 120) {
         // seg000:2BB2
         W_MEMW(sprite_copy.vel_x, 120);
      } else {
         // seg000:2BBA
         if ((short)MEMW(sprite_copy.vel_x) < -120) {
            // seg000:2BC1
            W_MEMW(sprite_copy.vel_x, -120);
         }
      }

      // seg000:2BC7
      if (reg_si != MEMW(sprite_sync)) {
         // seg000:2BCD
         reg_ax = MEMW(sprite_copy.vel_x);
         W_MEMW(sprite_copy.delta_x, MEMW(sprite_copy.delta_x) + reg_ax);
      }

      // seg000:2BD4
      reg_si++;
   }

   // seg000:2BDB
   POP(di);
   POP(si);
   POP(bp);
   RET;
}


Delta_x, which is the offset per frame in 256'ths of a pixel keeps getting vel_x added to it, until si which starts at 1, equals sprite sync...

And that's all I can tell you. Don't know how this sprite sync works though...
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gerstrong
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 11:52    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's really interesting. When I get the new physics ready, I'll take a look. This might be a good help for mods.
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gerstrong
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 18:38    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sorry for the delay guys. As I can say, the engine is redesigned and will take a bit of time now.

The next version will something very special... Happy
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