sciviewer Posted April 1, 2007 Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 Looking for enthusiasts to try new SCI resource viewer. Comments/suggestions are welcome... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusicallyInspired Posted April 1, 2007 Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 Wowsers! This is a resource viewer I've been waiting for! Kudos on the sound support!! Nice job! Also, you might want to check out the SCI programming website. There'd be quite a few people on the forums who'd be interested in this little beauty. I'd recommend visiting there if you haven't already. http://scicommunity.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pcj Posted April 1, 2007 Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 Nice work, it would be nice to be able to export pictures and sound, but this is a good start. (Y) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusicallyInspired Posted April 1, 2007 Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 I just tried it with a few games. For SQ4 CD (with NRS's patch) it wouldn't show any picture resources and crashed when I tried to view view resources. I don't know if that has anything to do with NRS's patch or what. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pcj Posted April 1, 2007 Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 SQ4 disk works fine, that's the only non-NRS version of SQ4 I have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sciviewer Posted April 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 NRS uses picture format that is different from "official" games. Though it's legal from SCI point of view, it confuses SV's version detection algorithm. Try to play with "Settings -> Version info" dialog, i.e. set graphics to 1.1 and disable automatic detection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 1, 2007 Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 Wow! Does it really show everything in SCI 0 through 32? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusicallyInspired Posted April 1, 2007 Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 Yep. I'm still having trouble with the patched SQ4 CD but I haven't fooled around with the settings too much yet. Beautiful program, dude. All that's left is to add extracting ability as Mortimer said! Of course one could always use this in conjunction with SCI Studio VGA. What would also be killer is if you put in some kind of adlib emulator like DOSBox and VDMSound have and have the option to play the sound resources through the original adlib sound rather than routing through the MIDI mapper. Is that possible? I'd also suggest something similar for PC Speaker and Tandy 3-voice emulation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sciviewer Posted April 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 I'm not a windows expert, but I don't think that it allows applications to access AdLib at the register level. I thought about adding some FM emulation by remapping everything to a "sine wave" sound, but it's not available in all GM devices :-(. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusicallyInspired Posted April 1, 2007 Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 Really? There's adlib emulation support for Winamp. Does it work differently? Oh well, too bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusicallyInspired Posted April 1, 2007 Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 Just was viewing resources in Torin's Passage and while scrolling down through the picture resources the program crashed with an error message that I unfortunately didn't write down that gave "retry, ignore, abort" options". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sciviewer Posted April 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 Oops... Don't have the TP game to debug. That's why it's not in the supported list :-). As for SQ4, you can still try to open the game directory (that contains RESOURCE.* files) on the original CD. In most cases you don't even need to install the game. At least this should work with the "anniversary" collection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurdt Posted April 2, 2007 Report Share Posted April 2, 2007 I was using Conquests of the Longbow to look at the resources and I got that "retry, abort, ignore" warning as well. I clicked "Ignore" and it let me view the sources. I couldn't hear the music, though, and some of the stuff was just black. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sciviewer Posted April 2, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 2, 2007 When you've found a bug or a "feature" that should be compiled out (like MFCs debug asserts), try to collect as much information as possible. This includes (but not limited to) the OS/SP version (i.e., "Hasta la Vista SP2"); the resource you're trying to view ("1234.p56"), the error message that you've got (the entire text, not just "abort-retry-ignore"), etc. I can not afford to buy all the games and spend the eternity trying to guess what the problem was... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusicallyInspired Posted April 2, 2007 Report Share Posted April 2, 2007 Hey I can send em to you if it helps :(. Next time I'll write it all down, though. And Kurdt, when resources are black like that try choosing a different palette from the dropdown menu. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 2, 2007 Report Share Posted April 2, 2007 Pictures in the Conquest seem to be ok. Some of them just do not have visual part, but a control one. 999.pal is totally black. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 2, 2007 Report Share Posted April 2, 2007 Nice viewer by the way. The best I've seen so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sciviewer Posted April 3, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 3, 2007 999.pal is totally black. Try to play with "Versions" dialog. As far as I was able to find on the internet, the "Conquest" game uses SCI 1.0. Try to force the graphics to "Version 1" and disable automatic detection. Please also e-mail me the 999.pal file (copy/paste it's hex dump if it does not appear in the directory separately). I couldn't hear the music, though Please check "Settings -> Version info" to see if the sound version is 1. Please make sure that your system has the correct MIDI output device selected in the "Settings -> Preferences" dialog. "System default" means "MIDI mapper", so make sure that it's set correctly in the control panel when using this option. Check the volume settings for MIDI synth. Please note that SV does not provide any sort of emulation. It just remaps instruments in according to the patch you've selected and feeds the MIDI stream to the windows sequencer. In other words, you must have an appropriate device (i.e., MT-32 or GM synth), a correspondent patch (1.pat for MT-32 clones, 4.pat for GM) and an appropriate sound track in order to get the correct sound. Patch must be uploaded to the device (at least once for an external synth and every time for a software based one). Windows uses GM, so SV will not play the sound correctly if the game was designed without GM support (started to appear st SCI 1.1). You may try to install MT-32 emulator driver, or even buy an used MT-32, although it's much easier to find a digitized soundtrack somewhere :-). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusicallyInspired Posted April 3, 2007 Report Share Posted April 3, 2007 I've tried it with the MT-32 synth emulator. It works great. The only problem is that for every time you preview a tune you always have to select the Upload checkbox so it will send the custom timbre information every time since it forgets the information once the playback stops. Whereas with a real MT-32 the information stays in the box until you reset it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sciviewer Posted April 4, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 That's expected. Hardware device holds SysEx information until it's reset or powered off. Software emulators usually clear it when a device is closed after a playback. I'll try to see if it's possible to keep the device open all the time without interfering with other programs that may want to play something. P.S. It seems to be pretty easy to redirect a MIDI stream to a file, so stay tuned ;-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusicallyInspired Posted April 4, 2007 Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 Nice! Beautiful! Will it also be possible to export the sysex data into the beginning of the exported MIDI file as well? Or maybe just as a sysex file? Just wondering. Not mandatory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sciviewer Posted April 12, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2007 Just uploaded the new version with limited export support: http://www.geocities.com/sciviewer/sv1.zip. Feel free to give it a try. While exporting sounds make sure that you've selected the right patch (to be used for instrument mapping) and "Upload" checkbox (if you want it's initialization part to be exported as well). The same is true for pictures: an appropriate bitmap, palette, etc. must be selected before exporting a resource. W. Y. S.(or H.) I. W. Y. G. This version also has debug asserts removed (since no one wants to provide me useful information anyway). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusicallyInspired Posted April 12, 2007 Report Share Posted April 12, 2007 I've provided all the information I've seen when errors arise. I just haven't used it lately. And I'll say this again, you might want to visit http://scicommunity.com/sciforums as many people there would be very interested in your program and you'd probably get more of a response if you asked for some beta testers there. People are already helping in the beta testing phase with a program called SCI Companion (sister program to SCI Studio) that another dude released a while back. Awesome new update! I'll be downloading right away and letting you know anything I find. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusicallyInspired Posted April 12, 2007 Report Share Posted April 12, 2007 Ok I gave it a try. I really like it. I've been able to extract everything so far except sound. I can export it and it has a file size but when I try to play the MIDI in Winamp it says it's 0:00 long and won't play. It does, however, play in Windows Media Player. I don't know what the difference is... Also it would be a nice feature to export each file in their native SCI format as well. Not mandatory, but it would make it as nice as the same feature in the DOS SCI Decoder that was released ages ago. I used to love putting sound resources into other games! Lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 13, 2007 Report Share Posted April 13, 2007 It would be much better to export patches as syx files. It's not easy to find a player that understands SMF0, sysex, running status, etc. But it's WAY "better than nothing". :D Is there a debug registry key, or it's just my imagination? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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