congrats on MirrorMagic etc.

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filbo
Posts: 647
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:06 am

congrats on MirrorMagic etc.

Post by filbo »

Regarding the two announcements:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2534 'Rocks'n'Diamonds 4.1.0.0 released!'
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2535 'Mirror Magic 3.0.0 released!'

(1) I see these same announcements on the front page of www.artsoft.org. However, those have embedded images and live links to 'Now available on the download page!' etc. The forum software is entirely capable of these effects, so I am curious why the imports into the forum are just flat ASCII.

(2) I did `git pull` and successfully built RnD 4.1.0.0 (it looked like there wasn't even a single warning in building SDL1 & SDL2 binaries -- nice). But it won't run, not finding RocksMM.png. I can see that this was built in ./graphics/gfx_classic/RocksMM.png, and probably wants to be copied to /usr/share/games/rocksndiamonds/graphics/gfx_classic/RocksMM.png; but it would be nice if there was a `make install` or `make install-linux` or -- most likely -- `make install RO_GAME_DIR=/usr/share/games/rocksndiamonds RW_GAME_DIR=/var/games/rocksndiamonds` -- to do the work.

Instead I am downloading the Linux install tarballs for the two games and will munge something together for my system.

(3) the RnD announcement mentions integration of Mirror Magic, but there doesn't seem to be any level data except in the separate MM download. Should there be broken-out Deflektor & MindBender levelset archives under www.artsoft.org/rocksndiamonds/levels ? If I extract the MM archive and lay down its levelsets under /usr/share/games/rocksndiamonds/..., I expect I'll see those levelsets available in the RnD levelset hierarchy...
filbo
Posts: 647
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:06 am

Re: congrats on MirrorMagic etc.

Post by filbo »

I ended up copying the following files into place manually:

/usr/share/games/rocksndiamonds/...:

conf/gamecontrollerdb.txt
graphics/gfx_classic/RocksDF.png
graphics/gfx_classic/RocksDoorMM.png
graphics/gfx_classic/RocksMM.png
sounds/snd_classic/bong.wav
sounds/snd_classic/fuel.wav
sounds/snd_classic/holz.wav
sounds/snd_classic/hui.wav
sounds/snd_classic/kabumm.wav
sounds/snd_classic/kink.wav
sounds/snd_classic/kling.wav
sounds/snd_classic/laser.wav
sounds/snd_classic/quiek.wav
sounds/snd_classic/slurp.wav
sounds/snd_classic/warnton.wav
sounds/snd_classic/whoosh.wav

(the game controller DB was missing for months, caused a startup message every time, but no other harm -- I use exclusively keyboard control which apparently doesn't actually use that file)
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Holger
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Re: congrats on MirrorMagic etc.

Post by Holger »

(1) I see these same announcements on the front page of www.artsoft.org. However, those have embedded images and live links to 'Now available on the download page!' etc. The forum software is entirely capable of these effects, so I am curious why the imports into the forum are just flat ASCII.
Because it was much faster, just copy and paste. Otherwise, I would have to fiddle in those graphics and links manually...

And then you still would only have the thumbnail images of the screenshots, because the forum does not have the required CSS/JS to make it work.
But it won't run, not finding RocksMM.png.
If you start the resulting binary as "./rocksndiamonds", it should run from the build directory and should find it.
it would be nice if there was a `make install`
This would indeed be nice. :-)
(3) the RnD announcement mentions integration of Mirror Magic, but there doesn't seem to be any level data except in the separate MM download.
That's right, only the game engine was integrated, not the game itself (levels and artwork).
Should there be broken-out Deflektor & MindBender levelset archives under www.artsoft.org/rocksndiamonds/levels ?
Probably yes, even though they maybe do not fit too well into all those other "BD/EM/RND" style level sets. But I think I will add it as a separate level set for R'n'D, too.
If I extract the MM archive and lay down its levelsets under /usr/share/games/rocksndiamonds/..., I expect I'll see those levelsets available in the RnD levelset hierarchy...
Yes, that should work fine. Optionally, you could also add the custom artwork (which would then be part of the level set package for R'n'D, too).
(the game controller DB was missing for months, caused a startup message every time, but no other harm -- I use exclusively keyboard control which apparently doesn't actually use that file)
It's only used for game controllers.
filbo
Posts: 647
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:06 am

Re: congrats on MirrorMagic etc.

Post by filbo »

>> But it won't run, not finding RocksMM.png.

> If you start the resulting binary as "./rocksndiamonds", it should run from the build directory and should find it.

I do run it from the build directory, but it doesn't find the artwork files. (Well, now they are in system directories so I'm no longer able to reproduce it...)

It might be because:

$ ls -l rocksndiamonds rocksndiamonds-sdl2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 filbo filbo 19 Apr 10 17:38 rocksndiamonds -> rocksndiamonds-sdl2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 filbo filbo 35 Apr 10 17:38 rocksndiamonds-sdl2 -> ../bin/20180410-sdl2/rocksndiamonds

-- if it tries too hard at runtime, figures out that the binary actually lives in /usr/share/games/rocksndiamonds/downloads/src/rocksndiamonds-git/bin/20180410-sdl2/, it might be looking for artwork files below there.

... but no, I re-created the error conditions and resolved the symlinks (moved the actual binary to ./rocksndiamonds), and it still doesn't find it in the build hierarchy. `strace ./rocksndiamonds` shows that it looked for these paths (in this order, but with some duplication which I have removed):

/usr/share/games/rocksndiamonds/levels/Tutorials/rnd_tutorial_niko_boehm/graphics/RocksMM.png
/usr/share/games/rocksndiamonds/levels/Tutorials/rnd_tutorial_niko_boehm/graphics/RocksMM.pcx
/usr/share/games/rocksndiamonds/graphics/gfx_classic/RocksMM.png
/usr/share/games/rocksndiamonds/graphics/gfx_classic/RocksMM.pcx
/usr/share/games/rocksndiamonds/graphics/RocksMM.png
/usr/share/games/rocksndiamonds/graphics/RocksMM.pcx

(((

This also demonstrates a frequent failure mode in which it has fallen back to the default tutorial levels, forgetting what levelset I was actually on... ah, I see: after one run the contents of ~/.rocksndiamonds/levelsetup.conf are:

# =============================================================================
# levelsetup.conf
# =============================================================================

# the following level set may have caused a problem and was deactivated
# last_level_series: emc_eagle_mine_14

and after two,

# =============================================================================
# levelsetup.conf
# =============================================================================

# the following level set may have caused a problem and was deactivated
# last_level_series: rnd_tutorial_niko_boehm

and after fixing the actual problem (renaming RocksMM.png.hide back to RocksMM.png), there are no comments, just:

# =============================================================================
# levelsetup.conf
# =============================================================================

last_level_series: rnd_tutorial_niko_boehm

)))
rsn8887
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat May 26, 2018 3:33 pm

Re: congrats on MirrorMagic etc.

Post by rsn8887 »

I can confirm that a compiled Rocks'n'diamonds executable becomes Mirrormagic if you just replace the data files with the files from the Mirrormagic Windows zip release. E.g. after compiling it, you have to replace the folders
music
sounds
graphics
levels
conf

with the ones from the Mirrormagic Windows zip file!

This is absolutely amazing, because a single game executable really becomes two games.

I used this for the Vita release of Rocks'n'Diamonds and Mirrormagic here:
www.github.com/rsn8887/rocksndiamonds/releases/latest
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