Worklog for Neochrome
Worklog 1
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Been working hard with the movies and and background animation, im
working towards a demo now, so hopefully i'll have something up and
running tonight. the file is going to be a big download im afraid visit http://www.neochrome.co.uk/ for updates.  neochrome.co.uk |
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WOW WOW WOW! just got a Variable Speed working! i dont know why its
take so long to work THAT bit out, bit i had to rewrite some of the
TimeLineStream a bit! in the end i had to over come this program using
two Streams... i checked the cpu usage and it didn't even jump a bean!
at least nothing to worry about anyways Cant Realise a Demo at all now, everything is messed up and i need to clean it all up again!, still a fair amount of bugs too! neochrome.co.uk |
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Demo not going to happen for a while, i think i need to get the game
finished, if a demo turns up i'll post. I have a movie clip of a level
and been playing about with a DirectMovie stuff... http://www.neomancer.co.uk/files/ddr2.mpg (40mb) 2 Minutes long neochrome.co.uk |
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| Been on holiday, so i haven't been able to get a working demo I am without internet at the moment, but im working towards a demo now, sorry for the delay! :( neochrome.co.uk |
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| I think i can get a playable demo ready soon! the game isn't finished but at least it will give you an idea of what i've been doing! (watch this space) the keyboard can only do 1 player, keys will be the numeric key pad arrows (not the arrow keys) Enter (select) and Tab (cancel) this game IS designed to work with USB dance mats and not a mouse and keyboard (but for system admin, i needed keyboard, NO MOUSE). this is a home brew i built for this game ( http://www.neochrome.co.uk/dancemat/ ) This game SHOULD addapt to other types of USE PC dancing mats, Press F1 for the system config menu. i still have a lot of USER interface cleaning to do. So this could be a mess. I'll add a READ me file, and unfortunatle this demo is the fraction of the size it currently is, (300Mb) thats the music and sounds combined, the graphics wont take that much HD UP, but this game is designed to run off a DVD rom drive. (yes it works, iv'e tried it on 4 machines. even a dinosaur!) So in a few Days i'll start packing the files into something you can run from a folder. neochrome.co.uk |
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PUTTING all the game together is a tough job, the code looks a complete
mess, on there own the code looks nice, once i put the code together,
im going to have to do some house cleaning! neochrome.co.uk |
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I BUST MY FOOT! i cant test my dance mat !! its going to take me about 2
weeks to fully heal again! well i guess it gives me chance to write the
rest of the software! This wouldnt take so long but i have day job! neochrome.co.uk |
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I noticed a clight CPU increase on each song i played, turns out when i
was cleaning up the level, i wasn't actually freeing the old entity
pivots, I sorted it, and it seems like the CPU have become stable again! Starting the "practice" programnming now, this could be fun! i can learn them realy HARD songs! i may need to expand the mat abit more by sticking a bar on the thing! neochrome.co.uk |
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| Paint job left to do on the dance mat it self! otherwise the thing works like the arcade!!. doesn't need alot of pressure, only a small tap! all i have to do is now finish the software! haha i tested it and i did a number of songs and i did perfect on my fave song! http://www.neochrome.co.uk/dancemat neochrome.co.uk |
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Had to pull all the work up again from the Dance mat, problem was that
the electrics started become shorted out by the metal, SO i had to redo
the whole electrics! sort it now, but this time iv put PITS into the
wood where the wires need to go, at this point i had the chance to stick
Lights in there, this needed an upgrade so i had to put Reley switchs
is, because the power for the LEDS requiry more Current and Voltage! this all works perfect, the problem i face is now, is the USB controller i used seems to work for about 3 minutes then freezes! im guessing the relay switches are generating small radio interference! GAH! back to electronic princaples!! where did i put all them BTEC deploma papers! haha neochrome.co.uk |
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| Just finished the first stage of making the actual dance mat! its made of wood, some electronics, and plastics! the pad works fine! altra sensitive too! there is still a fair bit of work to do, since this is a prototype im ironing out some design flaws!, i need a second layer of plasic, which i now need to cut out some more! wasn't fun the last time, BUT the underlaying plastic doest neeed to be perfect, just needs to keep the graphics in place and to stop the metal from under neither that from scratching that graphic! 18mm thick ply is just about right! i was lucky their! neochrome.co.uk |
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Im still combining the games title and ingame sequences, im nearly
done, but i just keep finging small issues like score board not loading! I haven't even setup the end game sequence yet! i want to build that when the game is united. i build my dance mat tomorrow, well most of it anyway! neochrome.co.uk |
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Combining the title and the main game is easier than i thought, but its
like with anything, nothing glues together straight away! got some
minor bugs, some of the scoreing doesn't reset and i havnt coded the
practice round yet, still alot of work, but my levels of patients needs
to go further! loading time is only 10 seconds BUT it feels like
forever!! need some advice on the game it self graphics http://www.blitzbasic.com/gallery/view_pic.php?id=1097 neochrome.co.uk |
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Its time to put the whole game together now, i wrote the title and the
game seperate just to save loading for developement, this is the bit i
always dread, BUT it turns out it all comming togehter easyer than i
thought. I did however forget to write in a bit for the Song Difficulty section!. but thats not going to be a problem! hehe Wish me luck! neochrome.co.uk |
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| VID Clip available! http://www.neomancer.co.uk/downloads/beta_dance.mpg its only the ingame vid clip, so you cant realy expect to much! it was done using FRAPS and an actual dance mat!!  neochrome.co.uk |
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| RIGHT: I said it was gonna be a tough one! and it was!! im pretty sure that i managed this recode just by the seat of my pants! it works better and the out come of the recode made the combo's and ranking of a step far more simpler! So thats a plus, and i squeezed another 2% out of my CPU with this method! neochrome.co.uk |
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OK, i just done a dance sequence and the arrows work but they dont
respond very well to multiple arrows, SO i have to RE-CODE the arrow and
interface again! This bit was confusing the last time. im not looking forward to re-coding this one! neochrome.co.uk |
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| Ok, i just finished coding in the player two's interface and the arrows their for. im using the sprite engine and my CPU seems to be lower than 30% !! neochrome.co.uk |
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| Ok, most of the title page's are done. I experimented in making the two player mode and found that the framerate was killed by lots of sprites! bad choice i made... I worked on a sprite engine using a single surface and with some help from the forum i have an engine that will probably only work for this game, its fast and it can use textures as if loading an animtexture and no hassle! so far the coding design of the game appears to be how i want it, the 3D graphics are being taken care of by the Video card and the Music and making sure everything is still in sync is done by the CPU. i have all these things going and the CPU (1.9Ghz) never uses more than 65%. using the old sprite engine (no single surface) the cpu was about 83% with two players 100% neochrome.co.uk |
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| Coding the title page and settings is boring! Im starting to loose interest in the project!!! PLEASE HELP! Got the game setting page done and i have music for the main screen and the settings screen so INTRO main screen : done settings menu : done player 1 and 2 controller setup screen : done -> even got a reset control settings too!! sound setup : 40% done GAME engine Found a bug in the arrows some of the arrows are moving over the top of the others!! entityorder fault! need to reset them! neochrome.co.uk |
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| NUMA NUMA DANCE! http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/numa.php this was sent to me through a friend, this guy is famous! haha SO, i thought... well make the steps for this song too! [MORE] Well just got the joyports sorted now, im still concired that if someone sets up there keypads wrong they could kill the game for play! i need to have a way of guaranteeing a RESET function using 1 or both joyports! I want to avoid all contact with mouse and keyboard cos i "could" make this into a slot machine type game! neochrome.co.uk |
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OK, little problem with PNG files!!! sorted and now i have a title
page! 5 hours!!!.. all because the pngs wouldn't export correctly... I got two joypad controllers stuck in my computer now and i need to create a setup screen for joysticks and buttons!! neochrome.co.uk |
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Ok, trying to creat the title page, and yes i suck at graphics and its
stopping me doing the title page!! I Wish i didn't suck so much are
artwork!!! i'll come up with something i hope neochrome.co.uk |
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| 16-JUNE-2005 This is hard!!! i got an analogue joystick and doing the steps on that is rather amusing! but i have 6 buttons so i can use them instead! it works too! the sprites respond to the joystick buttons realy well!!! 2am in the morning now: i have work in the morning!! ran out of beer too!!! ON TO THE COFEE!! Looks like Player 1 can play properly now, and they CANT hold the buttons down, they have to step on it. Even works with the LONG step functions! 1--->2 Ok hehe cool!!! Need some help with a BPM reader again :( i cant work out the BPMs on some songs :( neochrome.co.uk |
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| 15-JUNE-2005 Using bass.dll after finding it has its own way of tell me the position of the song it is! all i need to do is work out the size of the sprites/singtime/position... [EDIT] I GOT IT!! seems to be working well in time with the music! Just been to My friends house. and her computer appears to work in time to. my works computer it still in sync and my mates house his computer is slow and it still worked!!! neochrome.co.uk |
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| 14-JUNE-2005 These arrows seem to move at different times on different computers! Is there a deviation problem on the sound cards?? GAH! i hate sound hardware!!! neochrome.co.uk |
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| 12-JUNE-2005 Well, the hard part is getting the Arrows to move intime with the music. Doing lots of guess work here to get the song BPMs correct! at this rate i'll know the steps before i get to play my own game! neochrome.co.uk |
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| 9-JUNE-2005 After spending hundreds of pounds in to a machine i thought was daft! Dancing Stage Euro Mix!? Me and my friend have it on her play station and now i want it for the PC. SO im gonna have a go at knocking out a Clone of the Game! so far iv had some promosing results!!! obviously this it just a project. You godda love Konami for this peace of work!!! im gonna try to get this game work on PC-TV gfx cards... TVs are cheaper! ;) neochrome.co.uk |