new amiga 500 doom like !

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Samurai_Crow

Another option is to target the CDTV so the CD tracks can play in parallel to the Paula voices. That would also help the texture mapping because the CDTV's 1 meg of memory is all chip RAM. The icing on the cake would be the 2 button wireless controller with numeric buttons to switch weapons with.

OMG finally a killer app for my CDTV! Its about time

[saimon69]

We are talking about a doom clone and two track music - my speciality: i actually have a music i made for the pseudo 3D game Blask but then the coder went with another author and style, should fit your needs as RAM requirements (69k) and number of tracks if interested will send you the mod file

[ Show youtube player ]

[no9]

Originally Posted by KK/Altair

I don't say it can't be done - it just sounds kind of raw.

Well... this is Spart... I mean Amigaaa! And it has to sound kind of raw

And even with just 2 channels you could benefit from a batter replayer, with improved channel management. Also I'm really surprised, that wavetable* synthesis didn't get widespread adoption. Paula is ideal for this and it could result in smaller modules and more interesting instruments.

*) Having a few 1-cycle full volume waveforms, and changing volume and waveform every frame according to envelopes & LFOs.

This could create interesting effects. I think people abandoned this kind of approach in '90s because mod music improved quality itself with increase of available memory and storage. Who wanted sound like simple synthesizer when you could bang samples and loops. Real sounds won back then (on the side with chiptunes, which to some extent applies similar modulation you postulate). Revival of sound synthesis is the matter of more recent times.

Number of voices available was more bothersome limitation and it is hard to overcome without sacrifices. Killing music channel just to play some sound effect not always gives result pleasant to listen.

You know, maybe saving music for later is the good idea at this point...
Also, this way, we could pair it up to have 2 SFX stereo channels.

Gloom contains music in menus and during loaders. In game you hear footsteps, shoots and the rest of the sounds. I think this is just fine for such dynamic game.
[ Show youtube player ]

[Tsak]

Talking about music and sfx, I personally think that 2 channels for sfx might be an overkill, especially for an fps game. I mean besides picking up an item or opening a door or the occasional roar from an enemy at the distance, the only time there's real sfx traffic going on is during shooting your gun, getting enemies hit and killed or enemies shooting back at you. And during these times a single channel is -usually- more than enough to accommodate the action. Even shoting your shotgun and having an enemy killed does not happen instantaneously, there's a delay from action to reaction, therefore there's no real need to play the 2 sfx at the exact same time. Something you could (anyway) do by having a mixed version of the attack and death sfx (which does cost ram but provides a nice alternative).

Having said the above, there's obviously a hell lot more things you can do having 2 channels, like f.e. give stereo/audio cues to the player for the possitioning of enemies attacking you and for other ambient stuff.

[d4rk3lf]

Well, since Tsak explained sfx in a such a simple way (I could never)...
I can only add, that sometimes "less is more", in regards to music, sometimes the absence of it would made a much better atmosphere, then with it.
That being said, it's only a creator of the game choice, if he would rather choose "action drived music - serious Sam type of game", or rather "atmospheric slow, ambient music type of feel".
For me personaly, AB3D1 is one of the most atmospheric fps games of all times, with perfect sfx and lack of music, only helps.
I've heard sound track from CD32 few months a go... man.. that was such a disaster.

But then again.. it all depends what atmosphere creator wants.

[grond]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

For me personaly, AB3D1 is one of the most atmospheric fps games of all times, with perfect sfx and lack of music, only helps.

I totally agree! I couldn't enjoy listening to music within the FPS action part, it would totally distract me from the game. AB3D did a perfect job with the foot step sound changing with the ground and other SFX. I would use all four channels just for sound effects and do some stereo panning. Distant screams that fit the game map and monsters' (or NPC victim's) position can add a lot to the game atmosphere and you wouldn't want to have to mix them together with other SFX or music in that hardware setup just because you already have some cheesy music playing on two channels. It's supposed to be a game, not a demo...

[roondar]

I agree fully with the 'atmospheric SFX' crowd. If done well it can make a game incredibly tense or exciting. The same can also be done with music, but I prefer the SFX to be able to shine in games like this

[vulture]

Yup, in contrast to other genres, atmospheric SFX are usually preferable. Could have some intense music playing while nearing a big foe or an area full of enemies though.

[no9]

I also think that looped background mechanic drone or wind sound can contribute more to general location atmosphere than music.

Besides menu and loaders music can also escalate boss fights tension, if you plan such thing.

[saimon69]

Little dirty secret: sometimes ambiance is made using a protracker mod with effects; together with in-game effects that should make it

[waldiamiga]

Krzysztof, can you release a demo / preview in such a form as in the film so that everyone can test?
BTW: Very good job!

[b0lt-thrower]

This is so cool - I'd have thought I'd died and gone to heaven back in '89 when I got my Amiga 500 if someone had created such a game. As it is I think "rot3d" was the first time I saw texture-mapping, first-person "gaming" on the Amiga, and it barely ran on my friend's 030/16 A3000. It was a slide-show on my A500.

The engine implementation reminds me a lot of Legend of Valour, which was available across all Amiga platforms, and had variable-height buildings (you could go upstairs in a room and look out over the city, something you still can't do in Bethesda's Elder Scrolls games, which cite LOV as an inspiration!)

When Legend of Valour came out in the early 90s I thought, man, if the Amiga can do this (and it could, obviously) why couldn't we get a port of at least Wolf3d?!

Anyway, this is just amazing and I'm so glad to see a project like this. Carry on and up!

[KK/Altair]

When do you plan to share a demo and tools to help you with the stages ?

It's more a question of "how" than "when". I'd very like to start a Patreon page for this project, and this demo is all I've got so far to potentially offer, so I'm kind of stuck with the decision of how to play this out best.

what is your medium target ?? hard disk, df0 . how much disk do you think will be needed ?

DF0 is the king. It's meant to be playable on a stock A500, so there is no other way. But I'd like to support HDD play as well, because it would be also an enjoyable option for those who have one.

As for the size - looks like it will be definitely multidisk, but at this point there's really no telling how much content will be there in the end. But as enabling modding is one of my top priorities, there hopefully will be some additional content. Or maybe even additional GAMES (e.g. like Heretic & Hexen), if there will be people willing to go this far. Object scripting is already at least partially working, so it should enable having quite some fun with the engine.

Yeah, I also tried shifting every odd line, and came to the same conclusion that it just looked a bit too messy.

I just have to say that your Wolf clone was very brilliant. Too bad it wasn't better received at Revision.

could the dithering method be selected by the user?

At one point I'd like to have that option. As well as changing the viewport resolution (even small border could speed things a bit). But for any of those I'll have to clean up some mess I currently have in the engine (namely, stopping the engine and initializing it again). And having a menu would also help to allow user actually make the choice.

my speciality: i actually have a music i made for the pseudo 3D game Blask

Not bad at all, but limitation to 2 channels is really audible - especially when in the MODs you can't really use the tricks I used to make 2-channel VCS music.
(and on a side note: I really liked how Blask came out)

Who wanted sound like simple synthesizer when you could bang samples and loops.

I wouldn't consider it a simple synthesizer. You could basically load any waveform imaginable and morph (switch) it on the fly to really put some life into the track. MODs are fine, but if you want to add any kind of LFO modulation beyond tremolo/vibrato, things start getting really tricky. And this approach doesn't exclude using samples together.

Killing music channel just to play some sound effect not always gives result pleasant to listen.

That's why I was talking more about priority management than exact channels.

In game you hear footsteps, shoots and the rest of the sounds. I think this is just fine for such dynamic game.

I'm more and more inclined to use this approach, at least for now.

Something you could (anyway) do by having a mixed version of the attack and death sfx (which does cost ram but provides a nice alternative).

There are too many combinations to get away with this without software mixing.

I also think that looped background mechanic drone or wind sound can contribute more to general location atmosphere than music.

That's actually a good idea to utilize the 2 channels probably not required by (non-stereo) SFX.

Krzysztof, can you release a demo / preview in such a form as in the film so that everyone can test?

As I've said in the first answer of this post - probably, but, not having anything else at the moment, my idea about starting Patreon for this project might be as good as dead. But I don't want to limit the availability too much, on the other hand, so I haven't quite yet decided what to do next so far.

This is so cool - I'd have thought I'd died and gone to heaven back in '89 when I got my Amiga 500 if someone had created such a game.

I would probably too. All I've got back then was Cytadela, Behind the Iron Gate and Death Mask (not counting RPGs like Ishar). They all were great, but still left a bit to be wanted.

... every positive comment I've read here so far...

Thanks you all for such an amazing response!


Take care,
KK/Altair

[no9]

Originally Posted by KK/Altair

I wouldn't consider it a simple synthesizer. You could basically load any waveform imaginable and morph (switch) it on the fly to really put some life into the track. MODs are fine, but if you want to add any kind of LFO modulation beyond tremolo/vibrato, things start getting really tricky. And this approach doesn't exclude using samples together.

By writing that I presented 'spirit of the times' back then when people wanted to hear better quality and more real samples and more polyphony instead of basic synthesis. That's why I think (Pro)tracker music didn't evolve to much on Amiga. But I'm more than welcome to see and hear effects that didn't make to the mainstream of the demoscene.
Like Turbo Imploder Music [ Show youtube player ]

There were early trials to enrich Protracker sounds with wave modulation. EFx command is an example but the way it was implemented made it almost unusable (in most cases).
It is explained in details by Wasp here: [ Show youtube player ]
Interesting use of that command in track by Zabutom [ Show youtube player ]

I can imagine other modulations that could/can be implemented without putting to much burden on CPU. Like for example access to loop frame parameters (start, end, length) on the fly - that suit more for today's glitchy music.

I think there are quite a lot things left to discover in sound of Amiga but that's... really wide topic for another place and time, and I don't want to takeover this one which is about your very much promising game so I just stop now

Keep up great work!

[KK/Altair]

I can imagine other modulations that could/can be implemented without putting to much burden on CPU. Like for example access to loop frame parameters (start, end, length) on the fly - that suit more for today's glitchy music.

Not really. Paula has a nice (for this case) feature, that it uses internal registers for playback, and updates start/length only when previous sample is read. While it causes some troubles when you try to stop or play something else on an already playing channel (you have to stop the channel, wait few scanlines and only then start it again), this behavior is perfect for wavetable playback - you simply change the address, and Paula will seamlessly change the waveform (assuming both waveforms start/end with zero-crossing).

[no9]

Yeah. I think that's what most chiptunes do while switching looped sample number.

By that 'CPU burden' I meant it's something that A500 could manage contrary to software channels mixing or realtime instrument generation (more complex than basic ones). I believe that would require some coding wizardry as well. But that goes to much out of the topic here so I don't want to elaborate it further.

[Samurai_Crow]

SynthSounds on MedPlayer.library do short waves scripted with a waveform list and an envelope list. ProTracker doesn't.

[NorthWay]

Originally Posted by KK/Altair

you have to stop the channel, wait few scanlines and only then start it again

This being something I have absolutely no experience in, I thought the 'trick' to stop samples was to set the period to max, wait until a new scanline starts so the new period kicks in, and then point to the sample you want?

[chb]

Musicline Editor has quite advanced wavetable synthesis features, and there is also some replay routine for Eagle Player with source code .

it might be a bit CPU-heavy for an A500 game project, tho, and the format seems to be rather sparsely documented.

[KK/Altair]

Yeah. I think that's what most chiptunes do while switching looped sample number.

I'm not sure how exactly switching sample number works, but isn't is supposed to swap the sample immediately (introducing an audible click)? Also, to make full use of wavetables, they could be swapped every VSync - and I don't expect too many MODs with 1 tick per step.

This being something I have absolutely no experience in, I thought the 'trick' to stop samples was to set the period to max, wait until a new scanline starts so the new period kicks in, and then point to the sample you want?

The problem is AFAIK that Paula keeps shadow copy of start/length registers, and any new written values won't be used until Paula runs out of data. So you have to disable channel DMA first, set high output frequency and wait a few scanlines until Paula runs out of data (it keeps up to 2 samples internally). Only then the DMA is really disabled and enabling it again will force new start/length values to be used.