Beats of Fire

[turrican3]

thanks to dlfrsilver,boo boo an akira for advices...
If you run the demo please give feedbacks even if you think that this is a shit, but then you should say why.
please give feedbacks, it's the only to way improve the game, this demo is not perfect that's why we need you.
For myself i think this is one of the best beat-them-all on amiga, for those who doesn't try the demo yet, you should.
Please give feedbacks, good or bad, don't care, but it's vital to have your feeling about the demo.

ps: all uploaded versions have been updated, they all should work now.Please give it a try.

[BippyM]

Originally Posted by turrican3

thanks to dlfrsilver,boo boo an akira for advices...
If you run the demo please give feedbacks even if you think that this is a shit, but then you should say why.
please give feedbacks, it's the only to way improve the game, this demo is not perfect that's why we need you.
For myself i think this is one of the best beat-them-all on amiga, for those who doesn't try the demo yet, you should.
Please give feedbacks, good or bad, don't care, but it's vital to have your feeling about the demo.

ps: all uploaded versions have been updated, they all should work now.Please give it a try.

Calm down.. You'll give yourself a hernia

[turrican3]

it was just for fun, don't take my post too seriously.

[tomcat666]

This is great. Plays wonderfully (noticed everything mentioned here, but this will be ironed out since it is not a biggy) and can't wait to see more levels.

btw. how much of the code is Amos and how much is ASM ... cause I can't believe any of this is done in amos Unbe-fucken-leavable

[NovaCoder]

Hiya,

Just got it working in WinUAE.

First off....great job!


Things I noticed (may have already been mentioned).

I don't think it should stay on the title screen forever, if the user doesn't press a button within a minute then either auto start (or even better), run a demo-loop.

The player characters don't seem to hold the weapons correctly.

I think the palette changes on the enemy characters isn't right (when the walk through a door and into the main play-area).

The aspect-ratio is a little different to the arcades but it still looks really nice.

The sound was a bit scratchy but that could have been a WinUAE thing.

Keep up the good work!

[Codetapper]

Originally Posted by tomcat666

btw. how much of the code is Amos and how much is ASM ... cause I can't believe any of this is done in amos Unbe-fucken-leavable

Blitz Basic not AMOS!

Apart from what everyone else has mentioned, I would like the walking distance/speed made more accurate as your character walks very fast but only moves a tiny amount on the ground!

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by Codetapper

Blitz Basic not AMOS!

Sorry... same question applies

[leathered]

@tomcat666
There's not much ASM right now. Only the player walking/punching routines and updating the integers for the scrolling. I'd like to convert some of the other routines but that will have to wait until the whole thing is more solid. It's only simple stuff I'm doing like substituting the program control stuff. You can't be sure how tidy the ASM will be after compilation, so anything you can do will reduce the CPU load. I 've only really noticed a pronounced effect when converting the scrolling routine – it immediately became less prone to judder, so I was pleased with that.

Blitz is a lot more prone to crashing than AMOS and the manual is badly written, but let's you get a bit more into the Amiga without having to install extensions. I think the thing to realise here is that this game is not a technical powerhouse, it's just scaling things and compromising to try and keep an arcade feel within the limits – mostly of my coding!

@Codetapper
Yeah, that and the slight 'head-banging' Haggar does when he walks. I could speed up the scrolling or slow down the animation. To begin with my plan was to speed up the scrolling, the only problem with that is what to do with Guy & Cody, who are supposed to be faster. The scrolling updates by 2px every 2vbl (I'm afraid I've not been able to work out the scrolling trick you mentioned before), increasing it to 3px will better match the animation speed but is about the limit for keeping the scrolling reasonably smooth – maybe. Maybe 3px is enough for all characters, and Guy and Cody can just attack faster. I'll do some tests.

@Novacoder
Re. the demo loop I was thinking the same. I've never tried that but I have some idea how it could work. The title screen/ other screens were a very late development, along with the goons emerging through doors. I tried to get them looking good – but yeah, there's got to be some room for improvement there. Any quick suggestions? I was hung up as to how bright they should be before emerging. There is just 1 colour changing – I might be able to free up another. The final frame is the emerged goon.
The aspect ratio is going to be tricky to improve. I played with the bitmap fetchmode and adjusting the display but this seemed for now to be the best compromise – and isn't even the fastest fetchmode.
Without copper tricks I need the 8 sprites – or lose the far background. I'm going to look more into that (a pleasant deviation from the other slog; maybe) so there's still hope, but I can't harp on it.

The sound is scratchy – I used Goldwave to reduce the arcade samples to the lowest I could get them – just to save memory. There may be room for improvement later on, but I still reckon they sound better than the poor Megadrive, which seems to struggle with samples.

But I guess you still had no luck running it on your 060?

[dlfrsilver]

@Lielo : I have started to convert sfx, musics and voices in IFF format check the zone

i have upped the prologue part. this game has 36-38 voices samples and 1-8 musics.

It's 11025hz 8 bits 64-88kbps

what's the limit with music and sound playing ?

[edd_jedi]

Can anybody add a Youtube video? I would love to see it but my Amiga isn't set up at the moment.

[dlfrsilver]

I made three folders called : Music, sfx, voices

Voices are actually 290kb for all the characters in the game. the idea would be to compress them, and decompress before running a level

Music are actually 16,7Mb uncompressed (again, with compression it would be 9,4mb for the all game musics)

SFX will be like the voices, as much as 290kb.

Do you think it's good ?

[Amiga1992]

Using a wave for music would be retarded, what this needs is the original tunes to be re-tracked using the original instruments, sampled.
But Lielo said this is more like a proof of concept and wants to turn it into something new, so I for one won't embark on retracking all Final Fight tunes for this. Would help with music on whatever this turns into, though.

[dlfrsilver]

i'm not talking about wav files ! I have converted the whole thing in amiga IFF Sound format.....

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

i'm not talking about wav files ! I have converted the whole thing in amiga IFF Sound format.....

I said wave, not WAV.
Amiga IFF is the same shit, uncompressed raw waves with a header. What good is that for? 16.7MB? are you kidding?

[leathered]

@ dlrfsilver Thank you! I’ll have a check when I get home tonight – but I’m sure it will be helpful. Without being at the computer I can’t confirm what the actual sample rate is – but I think the lowest in Goldwave is 5500Hz – which based on your 11025 might mean that actually 5512 would convert better during the re-sampling – but I can’t remember if Goldwave has that setting. I think the total size for the samples is currently around 150Kb – uncompressed. There might be a few weird and unused samples in there though. I’m going to try using compression for the objects (known as ‘shapes’ in Blitz) files after coming across some new commands that were added later in the life of Blitz docs, which also includes commands for doing the same with sounds if I remember rightly.
It’s important now to allocate memory properly, only about 170-250Kb left in the tank, which I need to increase. Bank initialization worked to store the various images used, but I have to work out something similar for the re-loading of the various objects needed. I’ve come across some helpful tips in the old BUI mags, so fingers crossed. If I can do that then I should also be able to do the same thing with sounds, and have a nice tidy chunk in there for them.
I’m thinking that some of the sounds can be a lower frequency – the punching sfx etc. It’s mainly the voices that could do with an overhaul.

The music is too large for vanilla AGA which is the target, but it’s good to have it ripped and maybe sometime down the line it could be used – you never know.
But I think to get the best out of the Amiga tracked music is the way to go. It’s one of the things that makes the Amiga special.

@Akira.
I’d definitely want to use the engine for a new game if I don’t get fed up – but what I really intend is to make a conversion of Final Fight, with a bit of adaptation and largely just to get the best results possible. – I’ll still be looking at all the levels from Final Fight, whether bits are adapted here and there or not.
I think original tracked music would suit it best – it’s in keeping with making it an Amiga game, which is what I really want. I also think that the best way to go to really make the most of the Amiga version, we can’t reproduce CD version like the MD, and it will always be compared to that – . That said if someone comes up with some quality reproducing of the original tunes I wouldn’t waste them. There are a couple of really good ones. I wouldn’t go re-sampling the original instruments though – the mega-cd version was waay better without it.
The game uses 2 channels for sound, both intermittently cut out the music while they play – using channels 3+4. For me it’s most important not to interfere with the Drums or Bass, and I can switch to using different channels for the samples if it’s going to sound better ‘in the mix’.
Basically I just want there to be freedom to create some awesome Amiga tracks – and the same ethos for the rest of the game. If it can be bettered within the limits of what we’ve got then go for it.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

It's 11025hz 8 bits 64-88kbps

what's the limit with music and sound playing ?

That should be fine for a classic, I wouldn't go much higher

[dlfrsilver]

there could be one solution: how to get the instrument files out the roms ? And then make smaller files for music.

[Amiga1992]

INstrument files? The CPS-1 machines have an FM synthesizer. And I believe other versions like the X68000 used MT32 sound canvas or some such shit. Gotta check what the CD version used, but it was probably one of those sound modules and they are already sampled (and in my hard drive).

A lot of rework has to be done anyway because we're talking 8/16 channels against 4 (2 of which will be interrupted by sfx). Gotta take a listen to the full original soundtrack and the CD one and see what's up.

Another "deluxe" option is that for those with a MIDI interface to actually use an FM synth to listen to the audio.

[Jack Burton]

@Lielo. Very good job ! Your adaptation really rocks !

Originally Posted by Akira

Another "deluxe" option is that for those with a MIDI interface to actually use an FM synth to listen to the audio.

And the "dream" option would be an YM2151 clockport card.

[hansel75]

I just tried the demo out on my A1200, really nice work guys!

Looking forward to the finished product