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[DrPetter]

For what it's worth, there might be another indie alternative to pxtone. I've got this music editor I've been working on over the last year or so, and it's especially geared towards retro music. It should be pretty easy to compose in, and I'm going to make a playback lib one of these days anyway - might as well make it sooner than later. At the moment it uses portaudio for output, but anything streaming should do fine. An average song uses about 4% cpu on my 1.9 GHz machine during playback. Song files are rather small, say 50k if you don't use samples.

The songs I posted a few pages back were made in it.

Here are some links:
http://www.cyd.liu.se/~tompe573/hp/tutorial_musagi1.html
http://www.cyd.liu.se/~tompe573/musagi01prebeta.zip
http://www.cyd.liu.se/~tompe573/musagi061008.jpg

Possible issues with this are that other music guys would have to learn how to use the app, and that I probably won't be able to produce a working playback lib for a monday release (though you never know, I can work pretty hard when I have a reason to )

Of course the first milestone release could use sampled music for simplicity, replacing that with a proper format later on.

Animations look awesome btw, folks!

[Alec]

OMG I'm learning pxtone. This is really fun...

First try!

Oops, didn't see the post above. 

[Slash - Santiago Zapata]

I dont know why, but this project heavily reminds me on "Monuments of Mars"

[DrPetter]

Alec: Hey, that's awesome, first try or not!

pxtone songs are also way smaller than what they'd be in musagi format. That app is kind of cute, maybe I should try it too... I don't suppose it does arpeggios though?

[BMcC]

QUICK REPLIES

@Arne:  The platforms are drawn in front of the player, but the ladders will be drawn behind.  I've got some sweet layer ideas for the effects and scenery...

Side ladders like in Fusion could be cool, too.  Not necessarily ladders, either -- maybe climbable surfaces (like vines or a rockface) depending on the theme of the map.

@Alec:  Hah hah, Russians. 

I found pxtone easy to figure out coming from an FL background.  Would you mind working with it?  I mean, whatever you think you could do the best work with.

@DrPetter:  The thing about pxtone is it's made by Pixel, creator of Cave Story.  Which makes it, like, super indie.  But that's another alternative, thanks!

EDIT:  I think it does do arpeggios, but I'm not sure.

[Alec]

I think it'd be awesome... can totally match the retro sound, and its a really well designed lil' app.

[PoV]

Magic magenta tall strips.  40x16

   

 

Do you want frame timings as well?  If so, how do you want them?  In frames (of 60 fps) or some other time fraction?

As for the format, I'd appreciate a high color windows bitmap file with the frames aligned in a horizontal row.  So the size of the bitmap should wind up being 16 times X number of frames by 16.

Oh wow, I extra got it wrong. :D.  I used vertical PNG's.

[Edit]
Open Animation Time:
8, 4, 2, 2, 8, 8

Close Animation Time:
8, 4, 2, 2, 4, 8


Though, the outer 8's are also the same frames as being open or being closed.  If you do loop points in your animation system, the last frames would be the ideal ones to loop to.

[BMcC]

I think it'd be awesome... can totally match the retro sound, and its a really well designed lil' app.

Rock, rock on.  Now, er... does anyone know where I can find how to integrate pxtone playback into the game?  I can't read Japanese.

Oh wow, I extra got it wrong. :D.  I used vertical PNG's.

Haha, that's OK, I can figure it out I'm sure.

Yeah, frames at 60 FPS would be swell.

EDIT:  DrPetter!  I forgot to say, your app looks insane (in a good way). 

[Alec]

I'd say start by guessing?

Include the .h file and the .lib...

The .h will tell you what the parameters are. Looks like HMODULE is the handle to the pttune, but I don't think you need to pass it to play...

I'd guess...

HMODULE hthingy;
pxtone_Tune_Load(hthingy, 0, "something.pttune");
pxtone_Tune_Start(0,0);

[BMcC]

D'oh, I just noticed the pxtone_include directory.  Maybe Shih Tzu or someone could translate it's readme?

So yeah, I'll just link it and start fudging around, I guess.

[Bezzy]

http://www.bezzy.net/Images/Prom/griptocrouch16x16.psd

Okay. I'm going to do the magic pink things, but after that I'm really sorry, but I don't think I can do anymore. It's been fun, but I have my own game to worry about. Sozzles. Also, no hard feelings if you don't use this stuff. I'm the first to admit that I'm no artist.

[Alec]

I'm guessing it just deals with one pttune at a time (none of the start, isStreaming type functions take a handle), so I'm not sure why it wants to give you an HMODULE when you load. Maybe its just for more advanced things?

[PoV]

Made an animation for the Top Claw, just so it looks more fancy mechanical.  However, if it actually works like a grabbing claw, it'll have to be broken up in to it's top and bottom parts, and not to mention, have a rope.





24x16



Timings here are pretty straight forward.  Probably 2 frames per frame of the animation, but that could always be adjusted to 1 or 3 if you want a faster or slower one.

[DrPetter]

BMcC: Yeah, you sure can't beat Pixel in terms of indieness these days.

Oh, and my app *IS* insane
I'll just chill back for a bit, see if you guys can work out the pxtone api. My initial reactions to ptCollage were that it's kind of awkward to use, but I might get used to it with some practice. Otherwise you always have Alec to provide music, and he seems both competent and quick, so I'm sure the bases are covered

[Bezzy]

And these I've done with and without the climbing blocks, just for reference:






And working with that pink fucking hurts your eyes 

Peace. I'm out. Good luck everyone, and it was lots of fun :D. In many ways it recharged my batteries for my own stuff!