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Magellan


The Codex

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Some good ideas there Matthew! I've incorporated two of them (right-mouse erase and improved hex character display) into this. I'm of two minds about the text cursor, as half of me thinks it would be nice to position it with the mouse at any time, while the other half thinks it would get messy if the mouse moved while you were typing stuff in. I'll let folks weigh in on what they prefer and do it that way.

 

I've also added the clone tool (for copying and pasting areas of a map to itself) and the binary format export (see included magellan_binary.txt file for the schema of this format).

 

In the meantime, the newest and hopefully last beta of Magellan is posted on the first post. Apart from bug fixes or last minute brilliant additions, the next release will be the official Magellan 1.0 version.

 

:party:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok guys... was playing with this great editor. I didn't realize that the docs file was in the ZIP but after I found it, no longer had to scratch my head how to set the character background color <sheepish grin>

 

What I cannot figure out is how to use ASCII text characters? It seems that all the char patterns are set to "0000000000000000"?

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Ok guys... was playing with this great editor. I didn't realize that the docs file was in the ZIP but after I found it, no longer had to scratch my head how to set the character background color <sheepish grin>

 

What I cannot figure out is how to use ASCII text characters? It seems that all the char patterns are set to "0000000000000000"?

 

I think you first have to "import" the character set.

There is a demo character set PNG file in the Magellan directory.

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I'm of two minds about the text cursor, as half of me thinks it would be nice to position it with the mouse at any time, while the other half thinks it would get messy if the mouse moved while you were typing stuff in. I'll let folks weigh in on what they prefer and do it that way.

Yes to position cursor with mouse. No to let the mouse move while typing.

 

:)

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Ok guys... was playing with this great editor. I didn't realize that the docs file was in the ZIP but after I found it, no longer had to scratch my head how to set the character background color <sheepish grin>

 

What I cannot figure out is how to use ASCII text characters? It seems that all the char patterns are set to "0000000000000000"?

 

I think you first have to "import" the character set.

There is a demo character set PNG file in the Magellan directory.

 

Ahh.. I see. That seemed to work but it over-wrote my character definitions. Oops! I didn't find a merge option...yet... but I am new to using the program. Time for some sleep...

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I haven't stopped using this program. It is really allowing me to create something that would otherwise not only be very difficult and time consuming, but it is allowing me to create something that will be of higher quality when it is done. I seriously can't thank you enough Codex for throwing this awesome tool together.

 

Right now I am having to manipulate the data into strings before I can use it in my program. It's no big deal it just adds an additional step to creating my files, but would it be possible to have an export option that exports strings directly from Magellan?

 

So currently we have this;

DATA 33,65,48,32,97,122,33,128,33 ..............

 

Would this also be a possible option for export?

DATA "!A0 az! !............."

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Woo, okay, been putting it off too long, so here it is. The first official version of Magellan can be had from my site here:

 

Magellan

 

The URL will stay the same for subsequent releases, so you'll know that whenever you click it you're getting the latest.

 

No doubt there will still be feature and bug changes, and I still need to add a proper manual with screenshots. But this baby has all the features in place, including the ability to copy and paste between maps, and it loads the default TI character set for you on startup.

 

Oh, and as for your question Bones, that's certainly possible. Can you explain the format a little more? Once I understand it, encoding it should be pretty straightforward.

 

I'll be offline for the next day or two, so if you have any questions or comments about this release, I'll follow up on them upon my return.

 

Thanks to everyone for shaping this release along the way! Hope it continues to remain useful for you!

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Another feature request. :-)

 

In working with Owen's maps, I need to shuffle characters around to get some range grouping. Since Owen had no idea how the data would be used in a program when he was making the maps, there are characters off by themselves, and others that need to move. Thus, it would be really nice to be able to not only swap two patterns with one another, but also to replace any tile "value" with another on the current (or all) map. For example, if you have a "path" tile at 104 and you now need that tile to be 112.

 

Again, just something I needed to do in the course of messing with the program.

 

By the way, do you have any plans to support Graphics 2 coloring?

 

Matthew

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Here's another request for a feature version :)

 

Most emulators (classic99, MESS, meka, ...) offer the possibility to dump the full 16K VRAM to a binary file.

It would be cool if you could import such raw VDP memory dumps into Magellan.

This would be an easy way to "convert" between computers/game consoles runnning the 9918 (TI-99/4A, Colecovision, MSX, SEGA, ...)

 

It would allow for an easy import of patterns, colors and tiles.

 

When doing the import, Magellan could ask you to specify the offsets where the corresponding tables are

located in the binary dump. This ofcourse the user has to enter. So how does the user know what to enter?

Again, most emulators allow you to view this type information in their debugger (or by dumping the VDP register values).

 

If the above is not possible, would you consider opening/documenting the map data file format ?

 

 

:D

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Another feature request. :-)

 

Hey, I'm like a DJ - I love requests, as long as it's the kind of stuff I want to play. :)

 

In working with Owen's maps, I need to shuffle characters around to get some range grouping. Since Owen had no idea how the data would be used in a program when he was making the maps, there are characters off by themselves, and others that need to move. Thus, it would be really nice to be able to not only swap two patterns with one another, but also to replace any tile "value" with another on the current (or all) map. For example, if you have a "path" tile at 104 and you now need that tile to be 112.

 

Yep, that's easy enough to do with a pop-up dialog ("swap character ___ with ___"). Let me get a little clarification on how exactly it should act:

 

1) Should it swap characters, so that all character A instances become B, and all B become A? Or do you want just unidirectional swapping, wherein all A become B but existing B stay put? (Of course, I can implement both options, but I want to see what makes more sense for general use.)

 

2) Should the character patterns swap as well? I'm guessing that's a yes. :)

 

By the way, do you have any plans to support Graphics 2 coloring?

 

Is that the character mode which acts a bit like bitmap mode, where you can color each 8-byte line separately? If so I may not support it right away, but could look into leveraging some of the stuff from Tadataka to implement it later. It would require a different file format to support this though, as colorsets are done in a very XB-like way in the datafiles currently.

 

Here's another request for a feature version :)

 

Most emulators (classic99, MESS, meka, ...) offer the possibility to dump the full 16K VRAM to a binary file.

It would be cool if you could import such raw VDP memory dumps into Magellan.

This would be an easy way to "convert" between computers/game consoles runnning the 9918 (TI-99/4A, Colecovision, MSX, SEGA, ...)

 

Sure, I'm game to allow any kind of import and export. All I need is a sample file and a short explanation of how it stores data and I'm happy to do the filter for it. I still want to implement DSK saves and ColecoVision data formats as well.

 

If the above is not possible, would you consider opening/documenting the map data file format ?

 

I can do that as well. In fact, I'll probably release the source for Magellan. There's no reason to keep that secret, and if folks want to learn from it or improve it, that's cool with me too. I'll likely release that the same time I put out the proper manual.

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Yep, that's easy enough to do with a pop-up dialog ("swap character ___ with ___"). Let me get a little clarification on how exactly it should act:

 

1) Should it swap characters, so that all character A instances become B, and all B become A? Or do you want just unidirectional swapping, wherein all A become B but existing B stay put? (Of course, I can implement both options, but I want to see what makes more sense for general use.)

 

If I had to pick only one, I would say swap. If you can offer both, then that would be great.

 

2) Should the character patterns swap as well? I'm guessing that's a yes. :)

 

Well, like #1, if I had a single choice then swap patterns too. However, having the option to swap or not swap patterns would make it more flexible. Every situation will be different.

 

Is that the character mode which acts a bit like bitmap mode, where you can color each 8-byte line separately?

 

Yes, each tile 1x8 pixel row can have its own foreground and background. Yes, it does require a lot more data, and there are hybrid variations of the mode as well which complicates things. I was just wondering if you were thinking about tackling this at some point.

 

Matthew

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Hey, I'm like a DJ - I love requests, as long as it's the kind of stuff I want to play. :)

 

Here's another request for a feature version :)

 

Most emulators (classic99, MESS, meka, ...) offer the possibility to dump the full 16K VRAM to a binary file.

It would be cool if you could import such raw VDP memory dumps into Magellan.

This would be an easy way to "convert" between computers/game consoles runnning the 9918 (TI-99/4A, Colecovision, MSX, SEGA, ...)

 

Sure, I'm game to allow any kind of import and export. All I need is a sample file and a short explanation of how it stores data and I'm happy to do the filter for it. I still want to implement DSK saves and ColecoVision data formats as well.

 

If the above is not possible, would you consider opening/documenting the map data file format ?

 

I can do that as well. In fact, I'll probably release the source for Magellan. There's no reason to keep that secret, and if folks want to learn from it or improve it, that's cool with me too. I'll likely release that the same time I put out the proper manual.

 

I'll get you a few VDP dumps and the settings required for processing

Great stuff! This thing is getting better and better :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'll get you a few VDP dumps and the settings required for processing

Great stuff! This thing is getting better and better :)

 

Thanks! Feel free to send them on, I've got a bit of time to do some additional work. Also send any ColecoVision materials you think would be useful, or anything else that is compatible with the TI palette and data types, and I'll be glad to support those too! :thumbsup:

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Enclosed in the attached zip file are 2 VDP dumps I took from the Colecovision game "Gorf".

I wanted to get you a SCREEN1 dump (as bitmap mode is not yet present in Magellan).

 

The VDP dumps were taken with MEKA (still my favourite Colecovision and SEGA SG-1000 emulator).

I took each dump 2 times (raw mode + text output).

VDP register dump and 16K VDP memory dump are in separate files.

 

VDP dumps.zip

 

Dump 1: GORF title screen
=========================

Name       >1800    (tiles)
Color      >2000    (color table)
Patterns   >0000    (tiles patterns)
SPG        >3800    (sprite patterns)
SAT        >1B00    (sprite attribute table)

Dump 2: GORF game screen
========================

Name       >0C00    (tiles)
Color      >3600    (color table)
Patterns   >0000    (tiles patterns)
SPG        >2800    (sprite patterns)
SAT        >1800    (sprite attribute table)

 

This comes with no warranty :D

Dumps were taken while watching

...

.... you have to watch the full video to understand :love:

Edited by retroclouds
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Hey Codex, I gotta say, I really can't think of anything to suggest for improvement. You've implemented about every conceivable upgrade I could have asked for-- i know we talked about SPRITE support at some point--- with Beryl I'm working on several tiles, over which SPRITEs are laid to create a multi-color effect--. I have made excellent progress in map development for LoBR due to Magellan, and I wouldn't be near as far along without it. Thanks Codex!

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Hey Codex, I gotta say, I really can't think of anything to suggest for improvement. You've implemented about every conceivable upgrade I could have asked for-- i know we talked about SPRITE support at some point--- with Beryl I'm working on several tiles, over which SPRITEs are laid to create a multi-color effect--. I have made excellent progress in map development for LoBR due to Magellan, and I wouldn't be near as far along without it. Thanks Codex!

 

So true, Codex really has done a great job on Magellan!

These are the things I'd love to see in a future version:

 

* Sprite support (multicolor effect)

* Bitmap graphics support

* Gallery: Overview screen with thumbnails of screens in map. Would allow an easy selection without having to cycle through each individual screen

* Gallery: Possibility to reorder screens in map

* Gallery: Possibility to add description/notes to screens in map

* Undo for last operation(s)

* Option to clone the same object multiple times without having to re-select the object boundaries

* Built-in help and documentation/tutorial

* More default fonts (e.g. TI title screen font, colecovision font)

* VDP raw dump import

Edited by retroclouds
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You'll love it once you try it. :) Im handicapped now... Spoiled by this app. :)

Agreed. I have made almost zero progress on my new game since Magellan came out. All I seem to be doing now is looking for perfection in my screen designs. Don't know how many times I have re-done them, but it would be a lot!

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