Topic: What I've been working on (iq_132's work in progress)

[dink]

I've damn near fallen in love with this alpha transparency feature
.. and I've come up with an idea..  How about a mode that displays a very tiny sprite# on every sprite on the screen?
This will make the creation and tweaking of bld's a breeze!

best regards,
- dink

[iq_132]

I've damn near fallen in love with this alpha transparency feature
.. and I've come up with an idea..  How about a mode that displays a very tiny sprite# on every sprite on the screen?
This will make the creation and tweaking of bld's a breeze!

best regards,
- dink

That is doable. Might get a little busy for pgm though, but I'll implement it and let you take a peek.

[iq_132]

Ok, so I hand-crafted a font and added new routines to make it draw some text overlays.

[KaNyErO]

wow... awesome.

Iq if i remember correctly there was a limitation in nebula and kawaks that didn't allow to use transparencies in neogeo 8x8 tiles (s1 rom) making impossible to add transparencies to the most part of lifebars in games. Would be possible to remove that limitation?

[Barry Harris]

Nice work iq.

[iq_132]

wow... awesome.

Iq if i remember correctly there was a limitation in nebula and kawaks that didn't allow to use transparencies in neogeo 8x8 tiles (s1 rom) making impossible to add transparencies to the most part of lifebars in games. Would be possible to remove that limitation?

It's pretty easy. What do you suggest for the format (of the blend file). There will have to be a slight modification.

Nice work iq.

Thanks!

Here's a quick update:
I fixed the title for Toki with the standard m68000 musashi core and cleaned up the driver a lot!
I also ported Yie Ar Kung Fu and Shaolin's Road.

[dink]

iq_132 is da man!!
for real

[JacKc]

i'm agree with you dink when you are saying iq_132 is da man...But i don't forgot you're da man too dink

[Arcadez]

There's only one guy thats the man and thats Ric Flair LOL All joking aside Nice work IQ as always

[dink]

thanks JacKc   I've spent the past couple days nonstop working on these new drivers, testing, and making them perfect for everyone
There were lots of problems with the Mystic Warriors driver (Violent Storm, Gaiapolis, Monster Maulers, etc).  tracking down 1 bug took like 20 hours.  Another took all night last night and today!
But things like this are to be expected, iq_132 ported a huge HUGE amount of code for this driver, its incredible and he did a great job, and bugs like the ones I've encountered are to be expected for the amount of code written and ported.

best regards,
- dink

[Arcadez]

thanks JacKc   I've spent the past couple days nonstop working on these new drivers, testing, and making them perfect for everyone
There were lots of problems with the Mystic Warriors driver (Violent Storm, Gaiapolis, Monster Maulers, etc).  tracking down 1 bug took like 20 hours.  Another took all night last night and today!
best regards,
- dink

Thanks for taking the time to trackdown those pesky bugs it's guys like yourself that put in the hours so everyone else
can enjoy all the classics in FBA and for that Sir i tip my hat to ya

[KaNyErO]

It's pretty easy. What do you suggest for the format (of the blend file). There will have to be a slight modification.
Thanks!

I'm not sure, but i think the compatibility with old .bld files should be present, so they could be used in nebula and winkawaks too, while the enhanced format could be added to fba. Maybe the transparencies for s1 rom should be stored in a .blde file (blend extended) and fba could try to load both files?

for example

kof98.bld
kof98.blde

FBA could load the .bld file (compatible with nebula,kawaks,and fba) and then the .blde file too (only compatible with fba), and then use both tables to add transparencies.

This can help to recicle the old blends while the extended blend could be improved to add new posibilities for other drivers like cave, pgm or konami (someone said simpsons, sunset riders and tmnt with transparencies ? )

Or maybe everything under the new format should be after a # simbol in the beggining of every line, so with just a .ble file it could be possible to store all information and a converter could be written to convert between the new and old format ....

or maybe you could add the new lines compatible with the new format after a ; at the begginin of each line, but a mark of $ or # at the end of that line would mean enhanced data and accepted by fba but ignored as a commentary by nebula and kawaks...

Who knows ...

[Freddy]

thanks JacKc   I've spent the past couple days nonstop working on these new drivers, testing, and making them perfect for everyone
There were lots of problems with the Mystic Warriors driver (Violent Storm, Gaiapolis, Monster Maulers, etc).  tracking down 1 bug took like 20 hours.  Another took all night last night and today!
But things like this are to be expected, iq_132 ported a huge HUGE amount of code for this driver, its incredible and he did a great job, and bugs like the ones I've encountered are to be expected for the amount of code written and ported.

best regards,
- dink

You guys are doing an excellent job, 4 sure. The next FBA version will be sweeeet!

[iq_132]

I'm not sure, but i think the compatibility with old .bld files should be present, so they could be used in nebula and winkawaks too, while the enhanced format could be added to fba. Maybe the transparencies for s1 rom should be stored in a .blde file (blend extended) and fba could try to load both files?

for example

kof98.bld
kof98.blde

FBA could load the .bld file (compatible with nebula,kawaks,and fba) and then the .blde file too (only compatible with fba), and then use both tables to add transparencies.

This can help to recicle the old blends while the extended blend could be improved to add new posibilities for other drivers like cave, pgm or konami (someone said simpsons, sunset riders and tmnt with transparencies ? )

Or maybe everything under the new format should be after a # simbol in the beggining of every line, so with just a .ble file it could be possible to store all information and a converter could be written to convert between the new and old format ....

or maybe you could add the new lines compatible with the new format after a ; at the begginin of each line, but a mark of $ or # at the end of that line would mean enhanced data and accepted by fba but ignored as a commentary by nebula and kawaks...

Who knows ...

Implimented .blde in the support/blend/ directory using the same format as .bld for Neo-Geo.

[dink]

iq_132, some requests (sorry!)
Remember I asked about the sprite#'s and you added it to pgm - I was hoping you could do this with CPS1&2 & neogeo also.  There's some bld's that need tweaking to look a little better and this would help tremendously!

best regards,
- dink