AMIGA CD32 Games Compilation Toolkit: create your own ultra-fast compilations!

[DamienD]

Hello Mugo,

Welcome to EAB

Back in The Zone! for you

Hey DamienD!

Thank you very much pal!
After my post, i found the files i needed in the FTP mentioned in another post in the forum.
Anyway, thank you very much for your kindness!

Best Regards.

[lennonlives]

I'm very glad you like the toolkit. Anyone created a compilation yet?

Lemme know folks

[Cammy]

I'd like to give this another go, but I haven't downloaded v1.1 yet. Can someone upload it to the Zone or Magix FTP or Aminet?

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Cammy

I'd like to give this another go, but I haven't downloaded v1.1 yet. Can someone upload it to the Zone or Magix FTP or Aminet?

Zoned.

Well, been working with the CD32Toolkit for some days now, and i must say it's very cool! Congrats Lennon!

I'll start by reporting a bug. I don't know if this is a WinUAE bug (haven't burned any CD for running on the CD32 so far) or a AMS bug. Sometimes when the AMS starts, it only shows the Zool entry in the list, repeatedly till the end of the list. I'm using your examples, and adding some more files to complete my compilation, and everytime that bug happens it's the Zool that's shown. I think it's the last .start file.

I also agree that the "chooser" is too fast. If you try to select item by item you just can't help to skip some titles. I think it would be cool, at least in the CD32 version, to have the chooser slowed down by default, and if you press a button (let's say the green button for instance) while navigating it goes faster.

I had also an idea, to include some docs related to each game/demo. It could be the manual, or a cheat book for the game, or it could be the scene release info for that game, or wheatever. Would work like this: you highlight the desirable menu item, and press another button (let's say the yellow button) and the AMS would launch the given text file in a custom text reader. Or it could be any text reader with some mouse emulation program, that's launched before the text reader. I'm not sure how is the best way to implement this, but i think you've got the idea.

By now these are my humble suggestions, as everything else is fine for me. At least so far .

Now while we are talking about AMS, i can't sucessfully create my thumbnails. Have taken some ready pics from the net (300x200x8) and changed their palette with PPaint 7. Then saved them as IFF ILBM. But they don't show up in the menu. Then i tried to save them with Brillance, FXPaint, etc but nothing changes. I think the file format may be wrong. So i would like to know: what program you guys are using to convert the pics to the right format? Also, it would be better if i could do this on my PC, as it would be faster. It's a tedious enough job by itself .

Thanks!

[tomcat666]

I have found that in WinUAE I get random freezes before the application displays the window. On real thing it works every time without any problems...

[lennonlives]

I'm gonna look into the reported bugs! I agree with you about the scrolling being to fast. I'll think about something!

Those freezes seem to be WinUAE-related. Not much I can do about.

As for the screenshots, they need to be 320x128. Resize them and make sure they are using the same colour palette as AMS.iff. All pointed out in the manual...

Hey Lennon, thanks for your reply.

As for the Screenshots, i noticed the size was wrong. And anyway i've wrote the wrong size here too. I was using 320x200.

After i noticed they were the wrong size, i resized them to 320x128x8, and i've always since the beggining used the right palette.

I've managed to make some screenshots work, but i couldn't reproduce the results after that, as i'm not sure exactly what i've done.

I tried to resize and convert PNG images to the IFF format with ACDSee, and after that i remaped the palette with Brillance 2.0. Tried to convert, resize and remap palette with PPaint7, with ADPro, with ImageFX, and all graphics package i have available here, but no matter what i do the screens doesn't shows up in the menu screen.

After some experimentation, i've managed to screw up some of your screens. Then i managed to make them show up again, but with the wrong colours. Them remapping the palette with Brillance corrected them.

So i think my images, as IFF and 320x128x8 should at least show as some garbage, or with the wrong colours. But they act as if there wasn't any pic file for that entry... I don't get the secret.

Today, i've woke up thinking about it already (so you can imagine how much this is bugging me). Ocurred me that i may have some problem with datatypes or libraries. I'll look at it.

Meanwhile, if someone that is experienced in doing these screens could write a step by step tutorial of how to create them (listing programs used and all), I would be really glad.

Thanks guys!

[lennonlives]

Hey Mugo,

would you mind uploading a ZIP containing some of your screenshots plus .start and .txt files to the Zone?

I will have a look.

Thanks,

Lenny

Hey Lennon,

Thank you very much for your help and support.
Yesterday i found out the problem!!

Well, it was simpler than i've thought, but difficult to catch.
Seems that my PC, for some reason unknown to me, created files with "ghost" characters in the files names. So the menu couldn't find the files.

Now it's a simple process: i use ACDSee to resize and convert PNG to IFF. Then i use Brillance to change the palette and save with correct names.

The problem is it's tedious work. In ACDSee i can do the resizing and converting with multiple files at once. But in Brillance i have to open the file, open the palette and apply it, the save the file with correct name. It's a very time consuming task.

I would be very happy if i could find a program that could do batch palette converting. I tried a program called NewPalette from Aminet, but it mess the palette even more. I'm not sure if i could use some dedicated palette to that program, as it support wildcards and would be much easier to convert a bunch of files at once.

If someone can help me with some suggestions, i'll be glad.

Thanks again for all your help!

[lennonlives]

Paint Shop Pro can record scripts and is therefore able to do batch palette conversion. My tool of choice.

Lennon, thank you very much.

Tried the Paint Shop, and i have to say that i'm really impressed! That's exactly what i was looking for!

Took me only 5 minutes to learn how to batch process my pictures. And in about 10 seconds i converted about 100 pictures... Amazing!

Thank you very much for all your help and kindness.

Now i just have to find what the hell happened to my CD32. Just when i got excited to play with it, he decided to stop working... only reading music CDs.

[Brakus]

Hi,

I don't seem to be able to download the Developers toolkit from the link in the manual... have googled but still can't find it anywhere, any chance someone has it and could up it to the the ftp server?

Cheers,
Marc

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Brakus

Hi,

I don't seem to be able to download the Developers toolkit from the link in the manual... have googled but still can't find it anywhere, any chance someone has it and could up it to the the ftp server?

Cheers,
Marc

Its in the zone.

[Brakus]

Thank you sir!

EDIT:
Actually, I think I didn't expalin myself in the first post...

I'm actually after the CD32 Developers toolkit needed to create a bootable CD and referenced in the manual of lennonlives Compilation Toolkit...

I see lennonlives' app in the Zone so I assume you thought that's what I was after...

[lennonlives]

The link works for me...

Anyway, you can find the Developer-Kit at the very bottom of this site:

http://www.cd32-allianz.de/entwickler/entwickler?

Direct link: http://static.cd32-allianz.de/downlo...eveloperKit.7z

Hope that helps,

Lenny

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Brakus

Thank you sir!

EDIT:
Actually, I think I didn't expalin myself in the first post...

I'm actually after the CD32 Developers toolkit needed to create a bootable CD and referenced in the manual of lennonlives Compilation Toolkit...

I see lennonlives' app in the Zone so I assume you thought that's what I was after...

Whoops, sorry. Follow lennon's links, and you cant miss em.

[Brakus]

Thanks guys but the problem with my browser continues, rather than allowing me to download the file, Internet Explorer opens it up as an html file...
Peculiar, I've tried it both at work and home PC's with same result... I've deleted the .7z file associations just in case but nada...

[lennonlives]

Try right-clicking on the link and then saving the file. If that doesn't work, use a decent browser