Pac-man CE DX+ Rotation proof of concept

[Howard_Casto]

So before I left I mentioned the idea of rotating the sprites in this game to make a vertical version that plays well on real pac-man cabs.  I decided to do a little test tonight:



Yeah it needs work and a few things like the timer look funny, but you'll notice that all the gameplay sprites look just fine.  This was just a test.... the menus especially will take a long time to edit. 

So if anyone wants to jump in on this let me know. 

[Howard_Casto]

So is this one of those ideas that nobody is into?

I thought about it last night and it might be simpler to write a little wrapper that rotates the screen once you are in the game.  I can rotate all the gameplay screen stuff without looking too odd no problem, but I might run into difficulties with the menus. 

[abispac]

Ive always had the idea of building a multipacman themed cabinet with all posible pacman games on it, i have not tried this game but it looks fun. I think the wraper would be a simple solution for you and also for the gamer.

[juggle50]

I'm into it!  Looking to run it on 800x600 arcade monitor on a pacman cocktail machine.  Can't help with development but happy to help with a paypal contribution.   


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[Howard_Casto]

Well let me see how the game handles the window being stretched around.  I know it supports windowed mode which is a massive help.  I hit the wall trying to hack pac-man museum because it doesn't up the resolution when you manipulate the window. 

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah so I took a look and there is a variable that turns to 99 every time a maze starts, so that would be a good enough indicator for a wrapper.  The only thing I worry about is the constant screen rotation.  I know old crts take a few seconds to sync when you rotate the monitor.   

[Howard_Casto]

I did a quick test, just letting a program rotate the screen every 10 seconds or so while the game was running.  It works really well... shoot it even resizes and centers itself, so I'll have to do very little. 

About the only thing I'll have to do is flip the controls when in the game screen. 

[juggle50]

Awesome Howard!! Looking forward to trying it out!  Let me know how I can contribute. 


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[Howard_Casto]

I'll set something up soon.  For the record I'll never charge for this stuff so nobody owes me a dime, but if someone wants to be nice and send a donation towards more hardware that's fine. 

I played around a bit more.  Actually editing the menus might not be 100% out of the question.  The guei files in the pc folder are essentially layout files for the game.... I'll have to take time and mess with them, but it looks like simple float values saved to a file to denote x,y, width and height for all the stuff on the screen.  I might try and reverse engineer the format with the title screen file (since it's very simple) just to see how far I can take it. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok so I've just been playing around to find out what I can find out. 

A several things of note:

Obviously the sprites in the game are just png images, so they are easy to re-skin.
The ".bgm" files for the game are actually ogg files, so again, pretty easy to change the background music.
Although I don't know the exact format, maze layouts are stored as simple csv files (renamed of course like the bgm files).  It's important to note that the maze graphics are static pngs though.
The geui files control sprite layouts.  Again, I haven't figured out the format but I have managed to move some stuff around, change some sprites, ect....
The text in the game also seems to work on a very basic scripting system... unfortunately rendered text instead of sprite based text means I'll only be able to rotate the game itself and not the menus. 
The game board also has a geui file called "skin"  With enough trial and error, I should be able to move things like the timers around so when rotated they don't look goofy. 
I found the memory locations that determine the character and maze skins.  I managed to manipulate them to load the locked classic skin and also a new test skin I made.  I should be able to remove the upward bounds of the skin arrays so we can add more skins. 

[juggle50]

Sweet!


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[Howard_Casto]

So an update on this.  I want to post another video once I've completely flipped the gameplay screen....... I've been at it a couple of days and I'm still not at that point yet.  So be patient. 

[juggle50]

No problem Howard. Take your time. Available to test whenever you are ready. 


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[Howard_Casto]

NP man. 


I actually need something from you guys if you can track it down.  I need a copy of the game's dlc as a dlc package and not already included like the dx+ edition.  There is mention of a dlc.ini within the game exe and if we want to add stages properly without hacks I need to see this file in particular to see what it adds.  Other than a rather hairy set of entries in the main text file (which I'm hoping the game does itself) All a dlc skin consists of are a couple of sprite sheets in one folder, a few maze sprites in another, and a background music track.  I would like to make some real simple skins that add in Ms.  Pacman, Junior Pac-man, maybe baby pac and 2600 pac and the galaxians. 

[juggle50]

Sure. Where is the best place to look for this file?  Would it be in the original 2007 CE game?  I've got time tomorrow to poke around. 


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[Howard_Casto]

I honestly don't know... my google-fu failed me on this one.  Steam isn't going to work I don't think, it'll automatically update the game.  Like the dig-dug or rally x dlc in a separate package is what I'm looking for... now they are included with the all you can eat edition, so it doesn't help me.

[Howard_Casto]

Ok I've got about 90% of the rotation for the gameplay area done... check it out:



(note:  youtube is taking it's sweet time rotating the video for me, so it might be on it's side for a few)

[Howard_Casto]

I'm just taking my time with this, playing around and discovering stuff as I go. 

Here's a Ms Pac-man skin I made:



Still a few things to fix on it, like the live tally and the infamous diagonal 100 points.   I'll eventually do it in other styles as well.  The plan is to do a full set of sprites for Ms pac and Junior pac.  Baby will get a single skin because he/she really just looks like pacman anyway.  I'll make it to where you can swap skins via the press of a button or something. 

[juggle50]

Awesome!


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[Howard_Casto]

Junior Pac-man:



Yes I know the "fruits" are hideous... it's not my fault, Junior Pac-man is just a really ugly game.

[Howard_Casto]

Since I don't think a lot of people are viewing this anyway, I won't beat you over the head with another vid.... I'll use a pic instead. 

The baby pac-man sprites really don't work as it just looks like a c64 port of pacman or something so I made my own.  Take Junior Pac-man add a pink bow and a tuft of hair.. BOOM!  Baby Pac-man.  With an altered color palette, Junior's "fruits" actually work better for Baby.... why a kid who seems fairly old from the side art would have a pacifier and bottle is beyond me.

Anyway, enough fooling around.  I need to work on the wrapper program next.....  Blocking and remapping the controls is turning out to be more work than rotating the screen, so this may take a while.

[Generic Eric]

Since I don't think a lot of people are viewing this anyway, I won't beat you over the head with another vid.... I'll use a pic instead. 

...I care....

Keep calm and keep on keeping on...

[Howard_Casto]

I appreciate it man. 


So I found the code that changes pac's direction and sets the bombs.... I blocked the code that writes to it and now I can remap the pac controls.  The only problem is the menus and what-not seem to run on some different functions.  I'd really like to fix this because one of the really annoying parts of this port is the fact that it's a typical Namco "You'll use the controls we give you and like it too!"  hard-coded mess.  Eh... at least it's progress. 

[yotsuya]

I admire your brilliance, Howard!

[juggle50]

Ditto


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[Howard_Casto]

I'm not sure what's so brilliant about digitally hitting the program with a hammer until it works, but sure. 

Ok so on the skinning end I found something out that is probably old hat for professional photoshoppers, but it was news to me and might be for you guys.  The sprites are plain old pngs... no problems editing those, but if you open up the maze backgrounds, you'll find large holes cut in them.  It turns out they are using a rather unusual method of transparency.  Within photoshop go to:  layer>layer mask>from transparency   Now a little mask box will be added in the layer properties toolbox next to layer 0 (the main image)  Right click the new box and select "disable" and boom, you get the whole image back so you can edit away! 

I appears that the way maze images are created is you take the "top" of the maze walls, where pacman can't travel, and make them transparent.  The paths remain solid.  Now when I get time I can make classic mazes for ms pac, baby and junior. 

Anybody know of a trainer/game save hack that unlocks the classic skin?  The requirements to unlock it are ridiculously hard, so I'd like to write code to just unlock it. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok so I found all the instances of "data\" and "data/"  within the game in memory.  I can change these on the fly without issue so this is one way to add more skins... I can swap out the entire data folder with another folder thus loading new sets of graphics and sounds.  The only issue is that this doesn't always reflect changes until you change things within the game (like change skins, start a game, ect).  I also found the names of several key files in memory, so I can do it that way as well.  Swapping the entire data folder might be a better way to do it though, because as-is the game doesn't allow you to have new sounds for a skin... it'd be nice to use authentic sounds for classic skins.

I've still got to write a wrapper (I know, I know... I'll get to it) but once I do I can start plugging in all these memory locations and we can go nuts with the modding. 

I'm slightly more optimistic now about tearing this game apart and rebuilding it for our use.

[Howard_Casto]

So just a status update.  The longest part of this project is actually rotating the sprite sheets.  I've done about half of them at this point.  Also the main game graphics need to be rotated as well..... I've done about 95% of those (minor junk like the "demo" and "replay" signs still need updated) On top of that, all the maze skins have a timer graphic that needs rotated... many share the same sprites though. 

Then there are my new characters.  I've made classic skins for ms pac, junior and baby.  I want to make each style of skin for these characters as well.  With the exception of the 3d skins this is fairly straight-forward as Namco's dirty little secret is that those fancy skin effects were all made using rather standard photoshop effects. 

On top of that, I'm going to make "guest" skins to fill in the dig dug and rally x slots (and probably pac-is-back since I can't convert that one) I've already made a galaxian sprite set for dig dug ... galaga would also be a good choice... then I dunno.... maybe go outside of the Namco family?  Zelda?  Any game with square sprites will work.

[abispac]

wow you are taking this game to another level

[yotsuya]

I'm not sure what's so brilliant about digitally hitting the program with a hammer until it works, but sure. 

We can all hit it with a hammer, but only you seem to be able to make sense of the pieces.

[Howard_Casto]

Or it could just be that I'm the only one crazy enough to put this much work into a busted port from 2 years ago... either way...

So I came to a realization last night that is a minor setback... rotating the ghost sprites isn't enough... I've got to swap them as well.  I forgot about the eyes looking where they are going..... when you put them on their side they are looking the wrong way, so the sprite order needs to be re-arranged.  It isn't the end of the world because I already have a grid set up to align them properly, but I'll have to go back and fix it.  The only positive thing is I should be able to do this with the pac-mania and pac is back skins as well. 

[Howard_Casto]

So I'm going to have to post a vid of baby pac later tonight.  I finally decided on a death animation and it's too cute.  She has her roots in pinball, so I made a drain open up under her and she falls, leaving her bow behind warner bros. style.  I'll post some galaxian goodness as well if you keep in mind that galaxian would need a total reskin (mazes, sounds and all) to be viable. 

[juggle50]

Holy cow man. You are going all out.


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[Howard_Casto]

Baby Pac:



It should be noted that I'm playing badly on purpose so you can see all the animations.  Mind you I'm pretty terrible at the game, but not THAT terrible. 

[Howard_Casto]

And Galaxian:



At the very least I would need to reskin the mazes for galaxian.  I'm thinking a generic star field for the background and the maze walls could actually be the asteroids from the bezel since there aren't any barrier objects in the game.

[Howard_Casto]

Ok so good news.  I whipped up a crude wrapper by modifying ultimate mortal kombat and I seem to be able to rotate the screen fairly accurately.  Let me explain what I mean by that:

I haven't found a rock solid memory address that indicates when the game is playing as opposed to when you are in the menus.  What I did find was a memory location that gets reset to 0 when a game is started and remains that way until you pause it or go back to a menu.  Unfortunately it also resets to zero briefly during the menu transitions and after a game, it doesn't return from zero until after the results screens.  I managed to put a frame counter in to make sure the variable is zero for X frames before rotation, which seems to fix the false rotations, but I haven't found a solution for the results screen yet. 

So basically it works  but the results are on their side and you may have to adjust the ini a bit to avoid false positives depending upon the speed of your pc. 

Of course that's only half of the functionality.......  because the screen is rotated only on certain screens, the joystick movement needs to sometimes be flipped as well.  As I mentioned before, I already have the variables for that, it's just a matter of plugging them in.  I haven't done that yet because I'll have to add a joystick module, which will take a little while. 

[headkaze]

What I did find was a memory location that gets reset to 0 when a game is started and remains that way until you pause it or go back to a menu.

What software are you using to search for this value? Something like Cheat Engine?

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah cheat engine is what I use almost exclusively these days. 

The problem with finding the value that I probably want is the fact that the game auto-pauses if the window loses focus.  Cheat engine has hot-keys, but when it's a completely unknown value like this they aren't much help. 

[Howard_Casto]

More tests... again, pretty positive results. 

I put in code to No OP the line that copies over the control data into the wrapper and have it block the line when in the gameplay screen and unblock when in the menus.  It all works great so now it's just a matter of adding in the joystick and keyboard code.  I probably have it here somewhere tbh..... ultimate mortal kombat, this wrapper, and all my memory-related hacks are all based around my troubleshooter 2 code, which had a joystick function for obvious reasons. 

[Howard_Casto]

I found the rumble timer that has a number when a rumble starts and counts down to 0.  So I can use that to define an output for mamehooker amongst other nice variables people might find useful.