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SCI/TODO

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Revision as of 08:07, 17 July 2012 by Md5 (talk | contribs) (Added cases where transparency is used. Updated TODO)
TODO List
Name SCI Engine TODO
Technical Contact(s) SCI Engine Team
Subsystem Engine

Missing features

SCI0-SCI1.1 missing features

Sound

  • Voice mapping. This is used by all SCI games to assign hardware voices to midi channels in the AdLib and FB-01 drivers. So, for example, if a song tries to play more than 9 notes at the same time, we need to stop an earlier note. We currently do this round-robin, while we should be respecting voice assignments. If a game sets 3 voices for piano, we should not take one away unless 4 piano notes are played, then it's OK to stop one piano note. Currently if a song were to use 5 notes at once we would just play them all, even if that midi channel was set to use 2 voices, and those 3 extra notes might stop more important notes, e.g. in the melody. This has been implemented for SCI0, but it's not hooked up to AdLib at the moment. Also we're not sure if the initial voice assignments are in the MIDI stream in SCI1 (they're not in SCI0). Of course, channel remapping has an effect on this too
  • Improve Amiga (SCI01/1) and Mac sound support (same format)
  • kDoAudio subops 12 and 13 (used in Freddy Pharkas: subop 12 is called while people are talking and subop 13 is called while the narrator's voice is heard)
  • Adapt the CMS driver to support earlier SCI versions too.
  • MT-32 is only using 10 channels (1-10), but our music code always assumes 16 channels leading to lost notes
  • The algorithm that decides what does and doesn't get played is different from SSCI, when running out of channels
  • The code that rewinds music should be reconsidered,

Kernel functions

Implement the following:

  • kMergePoly: quite rare function, used to merge polygons. Used for example in QFG1VGA when killing a monster, to prevent the player from walking over the dead body. Currently a stub, but not very important

Mac-specific

  • Support for the SCI1 Mac version of kGetEvent
  • Support for the SCI1 Mac version of kNewWindow
  • Support for SCI1.1 partially hardcoded icon bar
    • Images stored in PICT resources (tags: 'IBIN' (not-selected), 'IBIS' (selected), 'PICT' (inventory image))
    • kPlatform subop 4 is called various times for the icon bar. One call sets up the scripts for the icons, etc.

SCI2-SCI2.1 missing features

Graphics

  • Finish support for Robot (RBT) videos
    • Fix sound "hiccups" (most likely because of overlapping sound chunks, or because there's leftover header data left in each chunk)
    • Fix scaling (e.g. in the Phantasmagoria logo video)
    • Other issues(?)
  • Check the behavior of the plane/item graphics code against dissassembly (more information below)

Kernel functions

SCI2

Implement the following:

  • kCantBeHere: Add the SCI32 equivalent
  • kSetShowStyle (used for scene transitions)
  • kSetScroll
  • kEditText
  • kPalCycle (might be similar to kPaletteAnimate)
  • kDoAudio
    • Find out what the 2 extra params are used for in kSciAudioPlay
    • Implement subop 10 (was kSciAudioCD) - we need a test case
  • kPalVary: find out where subop 8 (and 7, perhaps) is used and what it does
  • kRemapColors, mainly used for transparency and adapting sprite colors (e.g. for nightfall scenes). This is also used in the QFG4 demo (SCI1.1).

Example screenshots and videos where transparency is used:

  • Screenshot 1 - QFG4: Character selection screen (the transparent bat on top of the heroes)
  • Screenshot 2 - QFG4: The fire halo (from a torch) around the hero
  • Video 1 - QFG4: Character selection screen (same as the screenshot above, you can see the bat)
  • Video 2 - GK1: Gedde tomb (the flashlight)

SCI2.1

Implement the following:

  • Finish off kScrollWindow: used in SQ6 and LSL6 (also exists in Phantasmagoria 1, but it's unused) for the scrolling text windows in the bottom
  • kBitmap: Used to preload bitmaps. In SCI3, it's also used to show them (e.g. the popup menus in LSL7)
  • kMovePlaneItems - used by SQ6 to scroll through the inventory via the up/down buttons
  • Finish off kAddLine, kUpdateLine, kDeleteLine
  • kSetPalStyleRange - 2 integer parameters, start and end. All styles from start-end (inclusive) are set to 0
  • kMorphOn - used by SQ6, script 900, the datacorder reprogramming puzzle (from room 270)
  • kSetHotRectangles - used by Phantasmagoria 1
  • Finish off kPlayVMD
  • Finish off kRobot
  • Add the rest of the kText subops (perhaps kTextColors and kTextFonts)
  • Implement the kSave() timer callback subop (case 8). Check for any other missing subops
  • Implement kList subops kAddBefore, kMoveToFront, kMoveToEnd
  • kGetWindowsOption/kSetWindowsOption (Windows only): check for subops other than 0 (title bar on/off in Phantasmagoria)
  • kWinHelp (Windows only): Opens a Windows .hlp file. Currently shows a popup info box specifying the file to open externally
  • kDoSoundPlay: find out what the extra integer param is for

VM

  • Future TODO: Merge the SCI0-SCI1.1 and SCI2-SCI2.1 string/array handling code, if possible

SCI3 missing features

This list is VERY incomplete, SCI3 support is still in very early stages

Graphics

  • Duck video CLUT's (optional)
    • Currently can be parsed, but not used

(TODO)

Sound

(TODO)

Kernel Functions

Implement the following:

  • kPlayDuck
  • kMessageBox
  • kMinimize

VM

  • Support for scripts larger than 64kb. Previous SCI versions used a 16-bit memory addressing scheme, which has been changed to a 32-bit one in SCI3. There are two ways of doing this: either switch to a 32-bit memory addressing scheme (a fairly big change), or create an overlaying mechanism for such scripts


Known bugs

SCI0-SCI1.1 known bugs

Graphics

  • KQ6/CD: several sync resources aren't available in the resource files. The windows version does only use the additional sort of "raw-data" appended to those sync resources. We are currently using the sync resources inside kPortrait instead of the raw data, that's why lip sync isn't working for those cases. We need to find out how this raw data is interpreted, probably we could even create virtual sync data out of it for the DOS scripts to use

Sound

  • The Tandy/PCjr driver needs more work
  • Castle Dr. Brain: In the programming puzzle room 280 the music is using one bad instrument
  • Castle Dr. Brain: in the first room, some notes aren't played during the memory puzzle
  • KQ5: End credits song is broken (resource 699). we are now filtering out invalid channels, but at the end of the song it plays back garbled somewhat. This video proves that it worked fully in original sci http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GerEZ68YSzc - the resource is uncompressed inside resource.000 right at the end, this is definitely no decompression or resource size error
  • LSL6: when saving when music is fading out (and restoring) the music will stay on that level and keep playing - we should check for fading and modify selectors to the endpoint

VM

  • LSL6: =NOT OUR BUG= sometimes the tram does not stop. This is a game script issue and not an engine one, but we should still figure out what goes wrong and fix it. To make it work -> see SCI bugs
  • PQ2: Room 26 isn't exitable - happens if you warp from inside the car at the start into room 26 - happened to me during the game although I'm not unable to reproduce it anymore. I guess I did something differently last time.
  • QFG1 EGA: when buying something from the shop and the merchant is reading at that time, it will get bought twice
  • QFG1 VGA: When winning any random monster fight, the game uses the unimplemented kMergePoly function. This means that the hero can walk over the bodies of slain enemies (though it's a purely cosmetic issue)
  • QFG1 VGA: ending music isn't played at all. no sound calls are done, so I guess it's VM.

Known Warnings

  • KQ5: Warning - kStrAt with offset 0xFFFF is called when graham gets the staff, also happens when getting the heart in the forest
  • KQ5: Warning - try to peek at 0:0, 0:2 and 0:4 most of the time when dialogue windows appear
  • LSL5: Warning - Invalid character in kReadNumber input (happens right at the start of the game)
  • LSL6: WARNING: Attempt to read character from non-raw data! during end credits
  • PQ2: WARNING: ADLIB: Invalid patch 124 requested!
  • PQ3: During End Sequence, WARNING: kDoSound(setHold): Slot not found (0026:0fc4)! and WARNING: Unhandled SCI MIDI command 0x51 (parameter 1)!
  • QFG1EGA: Invalid adlib patch 1xx used, occurs several times in the game
  • SQ4: During intro - "WARNING: Unhandled SCI MIDI command 0x0 (parameter 0)!"

SCI2-SCI2.1 known bugs

This list is VERY incomplete, SCI2-SCI2.1 support is still in very early stages

  • GK1: When leaving Madame Cazanoux's house, Gabriel will walk through the wall to get to the door. Madame Cazanoux walks around the door, however.
  • GK1: Save/Restore menus do not work properly.
  • GK1: Sometimes sprites are not erased from the screen.
  • GK1: In very rare cases, the background picture is not updated.
    • This happened to me twice: Moving from the Gedde tomb left and from the Schloss Ritter bedroom to the hallway.

SCI3 known bugs

Support for SCI3 is non-existent

(TODO)

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