Anyone Porting Abuse?

[peca]

Why nub for aiming? The touch screen seems like a much more intuitive method.

Due to comfortability. But both methods may be good. Someones prefer nub, others touchscreen. But I guess that using nubs will be more comfortable for playing on travel (especially traveling by bus, car or riksha).

 

[senquack]

Abuse-SDL does not support the cool music files that were released later into this game's life. I am not sure if Abuse32 for Windows supports them either, as I cannot even get it to run.

But, I have found something that will let me dump this old strange .HMI MIDI format that nothing would play into a WAV file using my SB Live's halfway-decent MIDI output and allow conversion to OGG. Turns out Winamp can when all the others couldn't! So, hopefully we'll have music, too I never really knew this game had music.. it's pretty well done for MIDI!

I am very happy with how the controls have turned out on the GP2X F100. I haven't gotten around to mapping the F200 controls yet but I am sure it'll be sweet. Rest assured, even without touchscreen it is fun and perfectly playable.

 

[WizardStan]

I never really knew this game had music.. it's pretty well done for MIDI!

<off-topic mode="know too much about nothing">
MIDI music is actually really, really good, with a proper voice library. If you've ever gone to a music store and played with one of the really expensive electric organs, you'd see what I mean. Some use actual samples of the instrument, and others use FM sound chips to produce the sounds. Back when sound cards first started coming out, storage was expensive so samples were short and compressed, recorded once, and modulated to produce different notes; and FM synthesis of actual instruments hadn't had a lot of research, so sounds were just aproximations. Because of the lack of a decent library, many assume the MIDI format just isn't good. However, the last 15 years or so, that's all changed. Now an FM chip can almost perfectly imitate almost any instrument, and if you're really striving for realism, every note can be played and recorded into a sample so when you hit a key, the keyboard actually plays that exact note: no modulation required. Even the low end keyboards and the MIDI players in your computer have gained a lot of quality. Ever since Yamaha opened it's voice library in 1999, it's just been getting better.
</off-topic>

 

[senquack]

I never really knew this game had music.. it's pretty well done for MIDI!

<off-topic mode="know too much about nothing">
MIDI music is actually really, really good, with a proper voice library. If you've ever gone to a music store and played with one of the really expensive electric organs, you'd see what I mean. Some use actual samples of the instrument, and others use FM sound chips to produce the sounds. Back when sound cards first started coming out, storage was expensive so samples were short and compressed, recorded once, and modulated to produce different notes; and FM synthesis of actual instruments hadn't had a lot of research, so sounds were just aproximations. Because of the lack of a decent library, many assume the MIDI format just isn't good. However, the last 15 years or so, that's all changed. Now an FM chip can almost perfectly imitate almost any instrument, and if you're really striving for realism, every note can be played and recorded into a sample so when you hit a key, the keyboard actually plays that exact note: no modulation required. Even the low end keyboards and the MIDI players in your computer have gained a lot of quality. Ever since Yamaha opened it's voice library in 1999, it's just been getting better.
</off-topic>


Funny you mention this, as I spent a few hours figuring out how to get these old strange HMI format files into WAVs and I found this:
http://www.personalcopy.com/sfarkfonts1.htm

A collection of humongous free custom-built soundfont files. Well, I got one of the 55MB ones and converted all the Abuse music with my SBLive and lo and behold it sounds amazing, can't believe it. So I'll be turning these into OGGs and distributing them with the game hopefully, if I can pull off completely re-writing the sound engine (which isn't as hard as it sounds, the input stuff is a nightmare).

 

[voidedx]

Why nub for aiming? The touch screen seems like a much more intuitive method.

Due to comfortability. But both methods may be good. Someones prefer nub, others touchscreen. But I guess that using nubs will be more comfortable for playing on travel (especially traveling by bus, car or riksha).


The touch screen should be an option for the player, but I cannot imagine playing Abuse with it. Your hand would obstruct the screen much of the time.

Geometry Wars: Galaxies on DS works with the bottom touchscreen, but the action is on the top screen where your hand isn't covering.

 

[gruso]

Had a play on PC last night, quite good! As for Pandora controls, I think analogue nub with USB mouse option would be just fine.

 

[ledow]

Go SenorQuack!

Seriously, I've looked into porting Abuse-SDL several times myself and it's nothing but a nightmare. I think I got up to the "LISP crashing" point eventually myself and even that was a work of art because I didn't have anything but the Abuse-SDL source... none of this "let's use Debian patches" stuff. For such a great, simple game it's incredibly bad and complex code. You have absolutely no idea what's going on half the time. I'm amazed that the original versions run as well as they did.

Anyway, if you pull off a playable, stable Abuse port, you will hereby be classed as a genius, MIDI music or not. And thanks for the F-100 compatibility if you do end up with some - the F-100 tends to get put as a second-thought now that the GP2X isn't manufactured any more.

I've reserved some space on my SD card especially for Abuse, so I'll be eagerly waiting.

 

[zaoin]

QUOTE


The touch screen should be an option for the player, but I cannot imagine playing Abuse with it. Your hand would obstruct the screen much of the time.



Dreamway in zodiac plays great with stylus over screen. Stylus simple "dissapears" from screen when playing.

 

[WhiteFalcon]

...
But, I have found something that will let me dump this old strange .HMI MIDI format that nothing would play into a WAV file using my SB Live's halfway-decent MIDI output and allow conversion to OGG. Turns out Winamp can when all the others couldn't! So, hopefully we'll have music, too I never really knew this game had music.. it's pretty well done for MIDI!
...

Just googled a bit, but have you tried this HMI2MID tool or maybe even the converted MID files? (have to search for Abuse there, I was not able to grab a direct link)

 

[senquack]

...
But, I have found something that will let me dump this old strange .HMI MIDI format that nothing would play into a WAV file using my SB Live's halfway-decent MIDI output and allow conversion to OGG. Turns out Winamp can when all the others couldn't! So, hopefully we'll have music, too I never really knew this game had music.. it's pretty well done for MIDI!
...

Just googled a bit, but have you tried this HMI2MID tool or maybe even the converted MID files? (have to search for Abuse there, I was not able to grab a direct link)


Good find regarding HMI2MID.EXE, I'll see if it provides any benefit to the conversions I've already gotten.

I am still working on Abuse most of my spare time. The game is fully playable on the F100 (controls are quite nice) with full music and sound. It used to crash after 10-20 minutes but is stable during my limited testing after I replaced the pseudo-garbage collecting heap in the lisp interpreter with a real one-- Boehm's libgc. Touchscreen has a bug or two to work out, and I haven't tested USB mouse/keyboard yet but it should work. I am moving so it might take a bit longer to finish because I'll be away from Internet.

 

[PsoBloke]

Senor Quack, you are awesome. A big thank you for the many, many hours you must have put into this so far! I'd certainly love to play Abuse on the pandora

 

[icurafu]

Yeah, amazing work. Would be great on the GP2X as well.

 

[Vince2501]

Funnily enough, I was just about to start a post asking about this. Great game. Do you have an ETA for it? Keep up the great work man.

 

[senquack]

Funnily enough, I was just about to start a post asking about this. Great game. Do you have an ETA for it? Keep up the great work man.

It's pretty much done, I spent all last night doing the tiny little fixes that get put off to the end. It just needs some final work on making sure the right music gets played at the right time. It's a lot of fun to play it on both the F100 and F200. Playing with the stylus gives you complete control, perhaps even a bit more than the traditional mouse/keyboard combo, and the stylus really doesn't get in the way as someone else had worried.

I got lucky and have a laptop with wireless for the weekend I am fixing, and I am able to steal wireless from a neighbor if I put the laptop at just the right height in the right spot. (I just moved and have no Internet)

 

[PoisonedV]

So this will be on the Pandora? Will you be able to use the stylus as well as a directional analog stick control?

 

[Parkydr]

It's out