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new entry for C4

Wemes - Jun 26, 2005

		Wemes		Jun 26, 2005
			hey, i'm very new to the whole saturn dev scene but i saw this forum and found the link to C4 and decided i wanted to give it a try. i've had an idea in my head for a while for a game and thought this was a good chance to get it out there so i'm trying get a team together. i've got a few people interested here locally (louisville, ky USA). if anyone else with some experience in this is interested in helping that would be really awesome. and i was going to wait a bit to see who all is interested before i submit my idea to the entry page. for a bit of backgrount i'm a computer engineering student at the university of louisville. i and the majoity of interested ones i have are members of the local chapter of ACM. i've taken courses in C, C++ and a bit of java, and have been reading up on some of the dev documents as well as reading the board here. so if there are people interested in hearing what i have please go ahead and let me know.

		slinga		Jun 27, 2005
			Start here: http://www.antime.org/sega/docs.html... It's Antime's site, has almost all of the developer documents available for Saturn. It's good that you know C, as it's the language of choice atm for devers. What platform will you be coding on? Rockin'B was working on a package to code for Saturn on Windows; I might do something similar for Linux if I get some time. Once you have that, take a peak at some simple homebrew games that have been released already: http://vieille.merde.free.fr/.... They should all have source code. And post here when you guys get stuck.

vreuzon

Jun 27, 2005

	
	
		
		
			Originally posted by slinga@Mon, 2005-06-27 @ 11:18 PM



Start here: http://www.antime.org/sega/docs.html...



Once you have that, take a peak at some simple homebrew games that have been released already: http://vieille.merde.free.fr/....

If you go there, I suggest you to check slinga's 12 players snake first. It's a short program, but you'll find how a saturn program is formed, (main loop and slsynch), how to access pad data; and the result is fun to play : a very good beginning.

You can take a look at floupix ping pong, wich features background screens and 32K (unpaletted) color sprites, as well as sound effects and cd functions. Le Spin is an older project that features simple 3D graphics (no textures).

These projet all use the SGL (sega game library), but this is not the only solution. Sega released the SBL (sega basic library), which is more low level and more powerfull. Zaksund, a member of this forum, released what he calls the elbesem engine, wich is the most recent and best attempt to give the saturn coder some sort of high level library (there are functions for cd loading of sprites, sounds, bitmap). It is usable, comes with some code samples, but is not finished, and might frighten the computer science student that you are.

If you need help, don't hesitate to ask here

		RockinB		Jun 27, 2005
			Welcome at segaXtreme! Good news that you want to enter the C4 -2005... :agree . You people should dev on Windows 9x or Windows XP, as most dev tools run on these OS. Download the SaturnOrbit... dev environment, it includes a lot of code examples ready to build and run. Stay tuned for the Saturn Game Tutorial & Demo which will be released this week. This is especially made for people starting to make a Saturn game, like you. I can asure you my full support to help with problems and questions. About teaming up: What kind of project/idea do you have?

		Wemes		Jun 27, 2005
			1st- yeah i've definately looked at the saturn documents and downloaded them all. 2nd- i plan to devlope on win XP and i've also got saturn orbit and installed it, though i have some people that would really like to devlope in linux. i also have an actual saturn to run on. 3rd- ok so here's my idea. this is loosly baised off of something i used to play in middly school. it's kinda a basic stratigy game where all the units would be drawn by the player. what we would do is have a piece of paper and draw little "bases" (2-4 player) in the corner. then there would be a wall in the center. we would then take turns doing rock-paper-siccors for a turn. on a turn u would either get a chance to build (draw something on your side of the paper) or attack (use something u have to either blow a hole in the wall or kill another person's unit) a person would be out when all their units are gone and their base is destroyed. the idea for the saturn game is for people to gimp or photoshop an image and then use some sort of utility (the unit editing would probably be done on a pc- i don't imagine paint would do well on a saturn though it could be build in as well) to convert the image to a sprite format for the saturn and inject it into an iso (i've been trying but would anyone know of a free program of something like winISO?). of course i don't know how much, if any, of this is possible to do on a saturn. but this is just the little snippits of ideas i have. none of this is definate. but any help or thoughts on this would be great.

		it290		Jun 28, 2005
			I've used mkisofs in combination with cat and dd to inject IP.BINs into DC disc images before; I believe all these tools are available on windows under cygwin. Anyway, I think you really should try to include the image editing part in the Saturn game. It sounds too tedious otherwise. Perhaps you could include a selection of prefabs and maybe backgrounds for those who are too lazy to draw, as well.

		RockinB		Jun 28, 2005
			Ah, a turn based little strategy game..... Sounds like Worms. Have you played that type of game (worms, scorched earth, Scorched3D, Death Tank (Zwei) ) In fact I've been thinking about starting a clone of Scorched3D (an excellent homebrew game!) It seems like you want to recreate the paper-and-pencil look on Saturn. You don't need to. You could use 2D sprites or 3D polygons for display. About injecting files into an ISO: rather recreate the whole ISO from a "cd" folder that contains all files, using mkisofs (like SaturnOrbit and others do). The conversion to hardware format can be done with SegaConverter, or 3DEditors tool "Texture List" to create a whole texture table from bmp or jpg images, or the almighty BGCON. I refer to the upcoming Saturn Game Tutorial.

vreuzon

Jun 28, 2005

	
	
		
		
			Originally posted by Wemes@Tue, 2005-06-28 @ 03:13 PM



the idea for the saturn game is for people to gimp or photoshop an image and then use ...

Good idea. And it seems easy to code (no real-time constraint, so the code can be a little bit slow).

For iso part, dont use the tools described in the sgl tutorial. It is rather easy with mkisofs and a cue file (I think i've posted this here before) :

A. CD IMAGE PREPARATION, using mkisofs

1. make a directory (here called "cd")

2. run a command ressembling to

Code:

    mkisofs -sysid "SEGA SEGASATURN" -volid "El_Faitin" -volset "Kordamp" -publisher "SEGA ENTERPRISES, LTD." -preparer "SEGA ENTERPRISES, LTD." -appid "El_Faitin" -abstract "abs.txt" -copyright "cpy.txt" -biblio "bib.txt" -generic-boot ip.bin -full-iso9660-filenames -o sl.iso "cd"

important options are :

-generic-boot ip.bin : injects the "initial program" (sega code) at the right place on the cd

-o sl.iso : output

B. AUDIO TRACKS

1. Build your sl.iso WITHOUT audio tracks (as described in A.).

2. Create the audio tracks. Each file must be saved as RAW data (no wav header)

using the following convention : 44100 Hz, 16 bits, Signed, Little endian (Intel).

3. Write a cue file...

... that looks like that :

--- file: myimage.cti

FILE "..\SL.ISO" BINARY

TRACK 01 MODE1/2048

INDEX 01 00:00:00

POSTGAP 00:02:00

FILE "sundaymachine.raw" BINARY

TRACK 02 AUDIO

PREGAP 00:02:00

INDEX 01 00:00:00

FILE "beatsuckerdeluxe.raw" BINARY

TRACK 03 AUDIO

PREGAP 00:02:00

INDEX 01 00:00:00

--- end of file

The first track is the "sl.iso"; next ones are your raw audio files (in

my example, the "sundaymachine.raw" and "beatsuckerdeluxe.raw" files).

Don't fuck around with the pregap.

4. Burn it as a ".cue" (sometimes called "bin/cue"). You can use cdrecord

and bchunk or cdrdao (or some non-free software). It should work.

----------------------------

So it is easy for people to add their own sprites, by putting it in a directory and burning the from the cue file. It works under linux too.

Rockin'B, you can use (some part of) it in your tutorial.

RockinB

Jun 28, 2005

	
	
		
		
			Originally posted by vreuzon@Wed, 2005-06-29 @ 06:28 AM



Rockin'B, you can use (some part of) it in your tutorial.



[post=135944]Quoted post[/post]

I already did, but I'm using MP3 (or WAV) audio format. That is supported by most Windows CUE burning programs. MP3 is not supported by daemon tools.

I can't burn CUE anymore, my new USB CD burner is only recognized by Burn4Free, maybe Nero, not CDRWin, not Fireburner (not DiskJuggler, not DeepBurner)!

Is there a way to convert ISO+MP3+CUE to a Nero image or something?

		lordofduct		Jun 28, 2005
			Rockin-B: If you use Nero like normal to burn a disc, where it asks what device to use there will be a drop down to select, one of them will be Hard drive-create image. Just use that and it will output a Nero Image for ya. Although I don't see the purpose... the Nero image is only useable with Nero and maybe some other freeware burners. And if Nero recognizes your cd burner then just burn the iso/mp3/cue like normal. You select to burn from image and select the .cue sheet.

		Wemes		Jun 28, 2005
			Alcohol 120% will burn nero images, though i don't know how well it'll go with the iso/mp3/cue. i found a copy of panzer dragoon 2 with the same situation and it was a bitch to get it together. i have played worms, and yeah it is sorta like that- though it's probably closer to an advance wars/fire emblum type style. and it's not so much a paper and pencil as it is some one creating an army of fucked up zombie robots with ms paint while high and pitting them aginst someone else's army of bazooka weilding raptors that was made while on crack. now, initally i had in mind where all units have an hp of 1 and attacks for 1, though if we actually get the time it would be really cool to add a bit more stratigy to the game (the unit creation system would also apply attributs baised on a point system where u have so many points to spend and everything costs so many points for stuff like hp, stength, attributes such as flying etc.) but i think i am really looking forward to this tutorial- it should really be interesting and help out alot.

		RockinB		Jun 29, 2005
			So NERO does burn CUE sheets? Then I'm in again, since it should recognize my burner. Thanks! Just need to find a nero version that does not require an internet activation. Alcohols 120% is known to burn CUE sheets, too. But it does cost money. Wemers, use the time to work out your idea in detail. The Saturn Game Tutorial & Demo for SaturnOrbit will be out this friday.

		RockinB		Jul 13, 2005
			Hi Wemes! Any news here? Problems to get started? Don't hesitate to ask for help, if you need some.