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Hey All,

Me and Steve are looking to produce a demo for the coding competition this year but also to release at Breakpoint '08. We aim to make a rather simple demo that will pay tribute to Heliophobe, Steve and myself are willing to do art and music, we just need someone to tie it all together to make it run on an SMS :)

If anyone can help please let us know.

Thanks!

Also note that the SMS Power! coding competition is NOT a deadline for this demo, but Breakpoint is.

More info: http://breakpoint.untergrund.net.
We will be submitting it in the WILD compo.

I have 2 weeks of from work now so I can code some more things for the SMS.
What do you want to be done? I don't have any demo effects laying around and I'm not sure I can put that many together in those 2 week but I can probably show some cool pictures and get some music playing.

Will you use a real SMS when showing the demo? I've some ideas of a quite nice effect (at least if you know the limitations of the SMS).

FluBBa wrote

I have 2 weeks of from work now so I can code some more things for the SMS.
What do you want to be done? I don't have any demo effects laying around and I'm not sure I can put that many together in those 2 week but I can probably show some cool pictures and get some music playing.

Will you use a real SMS when showing the demo? I've some ideas of a quite nice effect (at least if you know the limitations of the SMS).

i read the compeition rules and if think it has to be run on real onsole. this have some ideas this sis good. speak to me when i am sober enou to know what im dont dong i lokkgged in when drunk and yeah,.... steve has all idea a t moment im juist an idiot, buyebye im sleepiung

Haha, Jacko :p

Well, offcourse, all effects are nice.
I'll convert some pics of Heliophobe to SMS colors (how many by the way? 15? and what resolution should i use?)

Maybe we can go for an oldskool mega-demo kind of thing?

Steve, please figure out SMS graphics limitations soner rather than later, you have been talking about this for a very long time now without doing even that small amount of work.

Well, i did make some pics but Heliophobe said they were slightly too large. I do not know how coders display them on the screen, what res. is needed, etc.

So excuse me for asking...

If you want to make a demo with just pictures and no animations or fancy stuff, then it's not that hard to answer. But of course we expect more :) I think you should plan the effects together with your programmer and he'll tell you what the graphics requirements are.

Exactly what i want to do, but first we need a coder.
FluBBa, are you up for the job then? :)

Well, as I said, if you just want some standard pics/scroll/music I can probably do it but I won't be able to do some more advanced stuff as it is now.
I have been thinking about a technique to show a bigger palette on the SMS, that could probably be used for the picture of Heliophobe.

Great!
We'll do a PM from now on then.

Flubba seems to have dissapeared from the face of the earth...
Anyone else with some time left?

SteveSMS wrote

Hi Flubba,
I'm currently talking to genevieve (Helio's friend) to get some pictures from her.
If i get them i'll convert them.

That's the only PM i've got. I had 2 weeks left on the 10th of February, not so much time right now. Though if you can get me some specs of what I should do I still might be able to help you out.

I didn't know Heliophobe well enough, but are you sure he would not mind to have his picture displayed in a demo? Actually, do you think he would prefer it? I know I would personally find it rather tacky. Maybe someone with better knowledge of Heliophobe can give a guess, but otherwise, you may consider just to dedicate the demo to him. In any case such a demo should be well done, and not "just a demo" to display at a compo, in my opinion.

I agree.

Photo conversions to the SMS palette don't work well anyway (and I've done a few). They'd have to be redrawn by a skilled artist.

Heliophobe liked making clever scene-ish demos that made people familiar with the hardware think "wow, that's clever". A tribute ought to be doing the same.

Well, it all depends what flubba can do.

It was basically just an idea to get the pics from Heliophobe...
That being said, Flubba (and everyone else), any ideas?

Edit: after checking my PM's it seems i forgot to send another PM to flubba.
Hence, i apologise for being so pushy :)

Ideas, ideas.... Let's see:

Do an autorun demo showing all his SMS works in action. In chronological order.

Good Advice (2000) (src available!)
Tetracycline (2000) (src available!)
Damiana (2001)
Copyright Violation (2002)
SMS Power 7 (2004) (src available!)
Nine Pixels (2006)

For the music I propose a medley of the featured tracks.

Tetracycline and Damiana don't have music... Damiana has some pretty good sound effects though. For Tetracycline he mentioned that he wanted to use the Teddy Boy Blues (J) music:

Heliophobe wrote

>About the sound one could use: if u've no own music it's okay to include some faves of other games to Tetracycline or
> Damiana I think, no one will ever complain about that : p

Somehow I think the song from Teddy Boy Blues would do well in a Tetris game.

You can download the SMS Power 7 source code from here:
http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=32233#32233

Heliophobe wrote

I've cleaned up the 7th Anniversary demo source code (a little bit) and uploaded it here:

http://www.smspower.org/heliophobe/sms7sources.zip

Everything you need to compile should be here -- the batch file assumes wla is in the "Wla" folder in the current directory, so update paths if you need to.

Except for Damiana, his other releases along with its source code are available here at smspower.org/dev.

Damiana-by-Heliophobe.zip (6.04 KB)

Damiana - no source, no release notes, just the game itself

I imagine that this will be hard to do without the source code to Damiana, Copyright Violation and Nine Pixels...

Heliophobe wrote

I'll also release sources to Copyright Violation and Damiana if I can find them. [...] Unfortunately I can't see to locate the last version of the source code. Must be on this PC somewhere...

Maybe he uploaded earlier versions to his FTP at http://www.smspower.org/heliophobe/ ??? - Maybe one of the admins can check it ?

Attached is ninepixels with its rainysum.mod (although it's probably easier to just rip the VGM from the ROM?)

NinePixels.zip (28.79 KB)

ninepixels.sms + rainysum.mod

There's nothing much in /heliophobe/ beyond what you've linked, just a private test version of SMS Plus for Dreamcast and his SMS Power anniversary painted egg. And I feel really uncomfortable poking around like that.

I think I can understand that. Sorry. >_<

It will be hard to do but if one can partially reproduce the graphics without having to rebuild the entire game itself, it might still be possible..

- Alternatively one could just show screenshots of Heliophobe's work. Adding in a scroller and that medley would still make a nice tribute.

Basically, building a multi-part demo out of a bunch of existing demos would be very hard due to the need to switch between different interrupt handlers and any other interrupt vectors currently in use. When things become timing-sensitive - eg. HBlank usage - it starts to require serious modification to compensate for the extra time takes to switch. Having the full source code makes little difference.

An original effort, done with some sensitivity, would be more respectful anyway.

Very true. - I think I got a bit carried away there...

Author	Message
Jacko Joined: 01 Feb 2004 Posts: 1464 Location: Sunny ol Tamworth, New England NSW AU	Looking for z80 coder... yet again Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 12:19 am
	Hey All, Me and Steve are looking to produce a demo for the coding competition this year but also to release at Breakpoint '08. We aim to make a rather simple demo that will pay tribute to Heliophobe, Steve and myself are willing to do art and music, we just need someone to tie it all together to make it run on an SMS :) If anyone can help please let us know. Thanks!

SteveSMS Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 220	Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 12:27 am
SteveSMS Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 220	Also note that the SMS Power! coding competition is NOT a deadline for this demo, but Breakpoint is. More info: http://breakpoint.untergrund.net. We will be submitting it in the WILD compo.

FluBBa Joined: 21 Jul 2005 Posts: 412 Location: GBG	Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 11:17 am
FluBBa Joined: 21 Jul 2005 Posts: 412 Location: GBG	I have 2 weeks of from work now so I can code some more things for the SMS. What do you want to be done? I don't have any demo effects laying around and I'm not sure I can put that many together in those 2 week but I can probably show some cool pictures and get some music playing. Will you use a real SMS when showing the demo? I've some ideas of a quite nice effect (at least if you know the limitations of the SMS).

Jacko Joined: 01 Feb 2004 Posts: 1464 Location: Sunny ol Tamworth, New England NSW AU	Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 1:34 pm
	FluBBa wrote I have 2 weeks of from work now so I can code some more things for the SMS. What do you want to be done? I don't have any demo effects laying around and I'm not sure I can put that many together in those 2 week but I can probably show some cool pictures and get some music playing. Will you use a real SMS when showing the demo? I've some ideas of a quite nice effect (at least if you know the limitations of the SMS). i read the compeition rules and if think it has to be run on real onsole. this have some ideas this sis good. speak to me when i am sober enou to know what im dont dong i lokkgged in when drunk and yeah,.... steve has all idea a t moment im juist an idiot, buyebye im sleepiung

SteveSMS Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 220	Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 7:18 pm
SteveSMS Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 220	Haha, Jacko :p Well, offcourse, all effects are nice. I'll convert some pics of Heliophobe to SMS colors (how many by the way? 15? and what resolution should i use?) Maybe we can go for an oldskool mega-demo kind of thing?

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14750 Location: London	Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 2:34 pm
	Steve, please figure out SMS graphics limitations soner rather than later, you have been talking about this for a very long time now without doing even that small amount of work.

SteveSMS Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 220	Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 5:45 pm
SteveSMS Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 220	Well, i did make some pics but Heliophobe said they were slightly too large. I do not know how coders display them on the screen, what res. is needed, etc. So excuse me for asking...

Martin Joined: 04 Nov 2004 Posts: 273	Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 6:27 pm
Martin Joined: 04 Nov 2004 Posts: 273	If you want to make a demo with just pictures and no animations or fancy stuff, then it's not that hard to answer. But of course we expect more :) I think you should plan the effects together with your programmer and he'll tell you what the graphics requirements are.

SteveSMS Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 220	Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 7:40 pm
SteveSMS Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 220	Exactly what i want to do, but first we need a coder. FluBBa, are you up for the job then? :)

FluBBa Joined: 21 Jul 2005 Posts: 412 Location: GBG	Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 8:00 pm
FluBBa Joined: 21 Jul 2005 Posts: 412 Location: GBG	Well, as I said, if you just want some standard pics/scroll/music I can probably do it but I won't be able to do some more advanced stuff as it is now. I have been thinking about a technique to show a bigger palette on the SMS, that could probably be used for the picture of Heliophobe.

SteveSMS Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 220	Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 12:59 pm
SteveSMS Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 220	Great! We'll do a PM from now on then.

SteveSMS Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 220	Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 1:15 pm
SteveSMS Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 220	Flubba seems to have dissapeared from the face of the earth... Anyone else with some time left?

FluBBa Joined: 21 Jul 2005 Posts: 412 Location: GBG	Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 4:50 pm
FluBBa Joined: 21 Jul 2005 Posts: 412 Location: GBG	SteveSMS wrote Hi Flubba, I'm currently talking to genevieve (Helio's friend) to get some pictures from her. If i get them i'll convert them. That's the only PM i've got. I had 2 weeks left on the 10th of February, not so much time right now. Though if you can get me some specs of what I should do I still might be able to help you out.

MarcK Joined: 10 Apr 2002 Posts: 212 Location: Denmark	Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 5:16 pm
MarcK Joined: 10 Apr 2002 Posts: 212 Location: Denmark	I didn't know Heliophobe well enough, but are you sure he would not mind to have his picture displayed in a demo? Actually, do you think he would prefer it? I know I would personally find it rather tacky. Maybe someone with better knowledge of Heliophobe can give a guess, but otherwise, you may consider just to dedicate the demo to him. In any case such a demo should be well done, and not "just a demo" to display at a compo, in my opinion.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14750 Location: London	Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 6:07 pm
	I agree. Photo conversions to the SMS palette don't work well anyway (and I've done a few). They'd have to be redrawn by a skilled artist. Heliophobe liked making clever scene-ish demos that made people familiar with the hardware think "wow, that's clever". A tribute ought to be doing the same.

SteveSMS Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 220	Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 1:36 am
SteveSMS Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 220	Well, it all depends what flubba can do. It was basically just an idea to get the pics from Heliophobe... That being said, Flubba (and everyone else), any ideas? Edit: after checking my PM's it seems i forgot to send another PM to flubba. Hence, i apologise for being so pushy :)

Christuserloeser Joined: 26 Dec 2004 Posts: 295 Location: Pangea	Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:44 pm
	Ideas, ideas.... Let's see: Do an autorun demo showing all his SMS works in action. In chronological order. Good Advice (2000) (src available!) Tetracycline (2000) (src available!) Damiana (2001) Copyright Violation (2002) SMS Power 7 (2004) (src available!) Nine Pixels (2006) For the music I propose a medley of the featured tracks. Tetracycline and Damiana don't have music... Damiana has some pretty good sound effects though. For Tetracycline he mentioned that he wanted to use the Teddy Boy Blues (J) music: Heliophobe wrote >About the sound one could use: if u've no own music it's okay to include some faves of other games to Tetracycline or > Damiana I think, no one will ever complain about that : p Somehow I think the song from Teddy Boy Blues would do well in a Tetris game. You can download the SMS Power 7 source code from here: http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=32233#32233 Heliophobe wrote I've cleaned up the 7th Anniversary demo source code (a little bit) and uploaded it here: http://www.smspower.org/heliophobe/sms7sources.zip Everything you need to compile should be here -- the batch file assumes wla is in the "Wla" folder in the current directory, so update paths if you need to. Except for Damiana, his other releases along with its source code are available here at smspower.org/dev. Damiana-by-Heliophobe.zip (6.04 KB) Damiana - no source, no release notes, just the game itself

Christuserloeser Joined: 26 Dec 2004 Posts: 295 Location: Pangea	Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:54 pm
	I imagine that this will be hard to do without the source code to Damiana, Copyright Violation and Nine Pixels... Heliophobe wrote I'll also release sources to Copyright Violation and Damiana if I can find them. [...] Unfortunately I can't see to locate the last version of the source code. Must be on this PC somewhere... Maybe he uploaded earlier versions to his FTP at http://www.smspower.org/heliophobe/ ??? - Maybe one of the admins can check it ? Attached is ninepixels with its rainysum.mod (although it's probably easier to just rip the VGM from the ROM?) NinePixels.zip (28.79 KB) ninepixels.sms + rainysum.mod

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14750 Location: London	Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:18 pm
	There's nothing much in /heliophobe/ beyond what you've linked, just a private test version of SMS Plus for Dreamcast and his SMS Power anniversary painted egg. And I feel really uncomfortable poking around like that.

Christuserloeser Joined: 26 Dec 2004 Posts: 295 Location: Pangea	Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:29 pm
	I think I can understand that. Sorry. >_< It will be hard to do but if one can partially reproduce the graphics without having to rebuild the entire game itself, it might still be possible.. - Alternatively one could just show screenshots of Heliophobe's work. Adding in a scroller and that medley would still make a nice tribute.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14750 Location: London	Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 3:59 pm
	Basically, building a multi-part demo out of a bunch of existing demos would be very hard due to the need to switch between different interrupt handlers and any other interrupt vectors currently in use. When things become timing-sensitive - eg. HBlank usage - it starts to require serious modification to compensate for the extra time takes to switch. Having the full source code makes little difference. An original effort, done with some sensitivity, would be more respectful anyway.

Christuserloeser Joined: 26 Dec 2004 Posts: 295 Location: Pangea	Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:51 pm
	Very true. - I think I got a bit carried away there...

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