Upcoming Jaguar Game Drive Cartridge

[Upcoming Jaguar Game Drive Cartridge]

5 minutes ago, phoboz said:

Just received a GD in the mail, and my first question is:

- Where can I find the software to upload a ROM to the GameDrive via the USB port?

 

(e.g. something similar to the 'jcp' command for the Skunkboard)

 

I didn't find any software here: https://www.retrohq.co.uk/products/atari-jaguar-gd-flash-cartridge

or any instructions the the leaflet: https://www.retrohq.co.uk/product/jaggd/JaguarGDInstructions.pdf

 

[WIP : Nitrous]

51 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

Getting better and better! Some nitpicking: Is it possible to make the horizon line a bit higher? For a racing game, I would like to have a bit more road, but maybe that is just me.

Cheers!

 

The horizon is a balancing act between visuals and performance. It's dancing close to the max frame time already. Changing over to the lateral road movement has used up my last round of performance gains.

I'm always tweaking and trying to improve performance though (hence partly why the game is taking the time it is) and expanding the road is always on the list.

[WIP : Nitrous]

8 hours ago, SlidellMan said:

Looks better than before. Here's a little something in return:

I look forward to seeing my logo in the final game. You can credit me.

 

While I appreciate anyone wanting to create graphics for my games, as I said previously, don't create any artwork unless I've requested it. There's colour and size restrictions, not to mention style. I don't want anyone wasting their time making things I won't use.

[WIP : Nitrous]

Nitrous has had a small but significant update.

 

Something I have been wanting to reinstate into Nitrous for years now is the lateral road movement. I took it out long ago for performance reasons.

I am now at a point where I have been able to add it back in and iron out any performance penalties.

 

The outcome? The game feels much more immersive and fun to drive!

 

 

[WIP : Nitrous]

There's 2 left a centre and 2 right frames. But that's "borrowed" vehicle graphics at present, not final.

 

As you say, it doesn't use those as skid anims. Just as perspective based on the cars position.

 

So it could be fun to animate a couple more frames in there when skidding as you suggested. But it'll come down to memory available at the end of the day.

[WIP : Nitrous]

4 minutes ago, Fadest said:

Yes I know.

In fact, I did not see it at first glance, but I thought a lens effect would be nice when sun is just in front, so I checked the sun instead of the car and road to try to imagine this effect, and I noticed the rolling background.

I also noticed you have in fact more than 1 background cycling as some clouds are on another plan. At least 2 plans ?

The 3 clouds are independent objects that can be adjusted for each stage.

[WIP : Nitrous]

1 hour ago, Fadest said:

 

Just one minor remark on this video, as the background is cycling, when it is sunset background, there is more than one sun. But after all, maybe we are not on Earth, and this explains also the light gravity and big jumps

I am cheating and just rotating the single screen image, hence it wrapping instantly. If storage and memory permit, I will extend some of the backdrops so they don't wrap as soon.

[WIP : Nitrous]

4 hours ago, Stephen said:

 

Only possible mini-complaint (sorry).  Would it be possible to animate the car when turning, to have different views?  It always looks like the car is at a 90 degree view.  Just 2 or 3 frames of animation into the turns would make a massive difference IMHO.  Other than that - pure beauty man!  I'd gladly pay for a copy of this on cart!

The vehicle graphics aren't finalised yet so this is a valid point I can experiment with

[WIP : Nitrous]

2 minutes ago, LordKraken said:

 

Glad to hear we will be able to remove the UI panel

 

No I didn't mean remove it. You'll be able to stop the panel screenshake effect though. But I'm wrestling with frametime here, fullscreen won't be viable I feel.

[WIP : Nitrous]

2 minutes ago, LordKraken said:

Thanks for sharing @Sporadic!

 

I'm not super fond of the jump (too bumpy) and I would rather have a heads-up display with the road in fullscreen but... but... apart from that, this looks  really cool and I'm really looking forward to play that one (lotus turbo esprit fan here ^^).

If you're talking about the UI panel screenshake, I'm planning on adding a strength option for that and allow it to be disabled.

 

 

[WIP : Nitrous]

Hi all, here's a little mini update on Nitrous.

 

All GFX, SFX, track layouts/length and general design are still work in progress.

 

Quick video to show a few of the new features;
- Screen shake on jumps.
- New HUD.
- New larger full colour horizons.
- Fuel gauge to show distance to stage end.
- Nitrous flames. Slipstream to replenish the Nitrous tank.
- Other things have also been completed but aren't shown yet in the video.

 

 

[Upcoming Jaguar Game Drive Cartridge]

10 minutes ago, phoboz said:

No I am not, but without bringing something new to scene (like optical drive emulation) it is a little bit hard for me to consider it a game changer.

 

Although I hope that it will motivate more people to start developing new games for the Jaguar, otherwise you will just sit and play the same old games, year after year...

Regardless if you play them (or people deveop them) using an Emulator, the SkunkBoard, Gamedrive, or whatever comes next, it's the games that makes a system interesting. Then you may buy them on cartridge, or use backup copies of them (hopefully only for the games you own, or from games that are freely available) It doesn't matter to me, as long as you enjoy the games.

Uploading a 4mb ROM via USB to the Game drive takes roughly 8 seconds vs something like 45+ for a Skunk*. For developers, the Game drive allows much faster iterations when you get to the stage of uploading a ROM each build.

 

* Times taken from rough mental note, I didn't time it as not at computer right now.

[Gridsprite demo]

Great that you're playing around with JS.

Will check out that line you highlighted.

 

Credit goes to ggn for that example. It was one of the original RB+ examples (as are a lot of them).

[Dynamic sprite properties]

That is indeed something that cannot be changed just by that property. I will update the docs.

 

There might be a workaround we can do to update that property which we will look into in due course.

 

Thanks for finding that.

[Dynamic sprite properties]

18 minutes ago, LordKraken said:

Hello,

 

So I have been playing around last evening and I'm wondering which sprite properties are static (i.e defined at compile time in rapinit.s).

 

Let me use an example:

sprite[sprBugIndex].scaled = R_spr_scale;
sprite[sprBugIndex].scale_x = 64;
sprite[sprBugIndex].scale_y = 64;

This code actually does not work, unless the scale flag is already set to spr_scale in rapinit.s for this sprite.

 

Are there other flags that can only be define at compile time? Maybe we could update Table A in the doc?

 

thx!

I'm pretty sure that should work, as all properties are definable at runtime now.

 

So you may have just found a bug

 

I'll investigate and report back.

 

[JagStudio]

1 hour ago, LordKraken said:

Really like the multiple example, best way to learn the lib

 

@CyranoJ Are you open to contribution to add new C examples into the lib?

Contributions would be great for C examples. As long as theres no copyright material included.

 

The C side of things is beta at the moment so will be good to have some more examples and tests in there.

[JagStudio]

6 minutes ago, masteries said:

Awesome!

 

The engine appears to be pretty mature;

 

And the sound engine? How many mixing voices? Is there support for compressed audio formats?

 

Be prepared for many questions; I downloaded the Jag Studio package

 

Please have a read through the old Raptor Basic+ sub forum here.

There are loads of great posts and hints and tips on how things work.

JagStudio was based on RB+ so fundamentally they are the same. Most of the commands have been renamed, but the principles are the same.

There's good information in there on Sprite formats, audio, all sorts of things.

 

RB+ is no longer maintained though. So if you have any questions, post them in the Jagstudio forum.

 

Have fun!

[JagStudio]

39 minutes ago, masteries said:

 

Thanks for your quick response,

 

hmmm... 4 bits based graphics... can these graphics be used on an 8 / 16 bits colour depth?

 

I mean, use a general palette of 8 bits, or 16 bits (equal to infinite colours for pixel art, and no worry about general palette);

but use different 4 bits based palette per sprite (to reduce total size, and load tons of graphics). Similar to NeoGeo, where each sprite usually has its own single 16 colour palette.

 

On this way; I can manage to load a high detailed game such Metal Slug port into the 2 MB RAM size of Jaguar 

 

A 6 MB cartridge can be enough, if scenarios are based on 16 colour palettes... the same trick as for MegaDrive, where you can split a map in two parts, and use two palettes.

 

If the response to these questions is satisfactory... you shall view me around Jaguar soon!

 

 

 

 

 

You can mix and match all colour depths.  There is only a single CLUT of up to 256 colours. You can use that as 1 large 256 colour palette or you can split that up to multiple smaller palettes. So you could have 16 X 16 colour palettes. Multiple sprites can share the same palette too.

 

You can also use 16 bit graphics at the same time.

[JagStudio]

36 minutes ago, Lavalamp said:

Sorry I'm bit of noob with Jap development, so I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking at here. There's no installer  or IDE that I can see. Is this aimed at a different level of developer? I found the BCX Help file but displays no content...

 

 

The blank chm help file is a security feature of windows. You have to right click > properties on the file, then one of the tabs has a checkbox at the bottom to tick to "unblock" it. I can't remember the actual wording.

 

I suggest reading the quickstart guide in the docs folder. That walks you through setting things up.

[omfs syntax highlighting OK or no?]

Here's an updated style file.  It should work with dark or light background colours.

 

Thanks to @omf for providing the original file and for his permission to include it with future releases.

 

Please note: this might not work on a Notepad++ version higher than 7.9.1 as they may have changed the format.  I'll look into that another time.

 

Instructions;

 

1. Open Notepad++
2. Click the "Language" menu, then "Define your language..."
3. At the top of the pop-up click "Import..."
4. Browse to where you saved the JagStudio NP++ Syntax.xml file and double click it to open.
5. It should pop up to say "Import Successful" - click ok.
6. Close and reopen Notepad++

7. With a .bas file open, click the "Language" menu again and at the bottom you should now see "JagStudio" listed.  Select it.

 

You should now see that all your .bas files contain pretty colours.

 

 

If you don't like any of the colours;
1. Click the "Language" menu, then "Define your language..."
2. At the top in the "User Language" drop down, choose "JagStudio".
3. In the tabs below that, find the section for the items you want to change and click the "Styler" button.
4. In the Styler, you can pick a new foreground text colour.
5. To ensure your text looks correct against a light or dark background you should right click on the "Background Colour" so you see diagonal lines through it.  This will make the text background transparent.

JagStudio NP++ Syntax.xml

 

EDIT: I might tweak some of the colours myself at some point, make things a bit more uniform.

[omfs syntax highlighting OK or no?]

I'm going to try and update omfs syntax script today. I'll post it here when done

[omfs syntax highlighting OK or no?]

OMFs syntax highlighter will need the commands updated within as they have been renamed.  If that's done, then there's no reason why it wouldn't work.

[JagStudio]

21 minutes ago, SlidellMan said:

So far, I tried building it with an added "Built With Jag Studio", but keep getting this error:

zero_audio.s 3: Warning: CLR.L opcode ignored...

build/ramassets.inc 6: Error: cannot open: "build/Built_With_Jag_Studio_160_Trans.png.gfxdata"

Build error!

This has highlighted a gap in the docs

 

You need the graphics file to be a .BMP image, PNG won't work.

 

I have attached a converted one for you.  I just opened in Paintshop Pro 7 and saved as BMP.

 

If you convert it to a bmp and then use something like this in your assets.txt then it should build;

 

ABS,SPR_NAME,gfx_clut16,ASSETS\GFX\Built_With_Jag_Studio_160_Black.bmp

 

Built_With_Jag_Studio_160_Black.bmp

[JagStudio]

2 minutes ago, LordKraken said:

Great work! This is going to boost the homebrew community!

 

Thanks for adding C, Basic is fun but well, I'm getting to old to go back to basic

 

I've noticed a small issue, the first time I compile a project, virtual jaguar starts with a black screen. Then if I kill VJ and rebuild the project it works. I'm suspecting that VJ starts before the ROM is actually copied at the expected location, but I'll check that later today. By the way are you open to contribution?

Did you just test with one of the example projects to see that issue? Any in particular? 

[JagStudio]

12 minutes ago, SlidellMan said:

Does it include Pro Controller support for those who wanted to develop with it in mind?

The Pro controller extra buttons just map to standard Jag pad buttons. So it works by default. Eg. The shoulder buttons map to number pad 4 and 6 iirc.