CourtEngine Progress Thread : Games

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Thu Apr 24, 2008 6:14 am

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

hmmmm thatd be absolutely awesome :D

If and when you get it converted to TTF, send me a PM with a link to it, and ill do my best to make it that font thats used :)

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Thu Apr 24, 2008 7:37 am

ItsaMystery

:n1nj4:

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Hmm...yargh. I'm having a bit of trouble finding anything to help me convert the file over to ttf. I think because .fon is bitmap format and .ttf is more vectorized/made with curves, it's extremely difficult for the font type to be converted.

For now, would you be able to do anything with the .fon file if I sent it to you? I'll keep looking around though and try to find something. :oops:

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Thu Apr 24, 2008 3:30 pm

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

hmm i doubt it, BUT, ill be researching today on how to embed fonts, its something ive never done before ^^

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Thu Apr 24, 2008 5:27 pm

ItsaMystery

:n1nj4:

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Sweet. :) Just in case you do find some way of using the .fon file, I'll send it along to you. :phoenix:

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Thu Apr 24, 2008 7:07 pm

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

Because i dont have an update today, ill provide a section of my notes, regarding 3 new tags that will be implemented. As well as one of the including an example!

These may or may not make it into the prototype. But thats not saying they wont.

Spoiler: New Tags

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Thu Apr 24, 2008 9:37 pm

Katana

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Aw, sweet. With all the existing, half-baked and abandoned trial-makers, I actually have to say I'm a bit more confident about one made in ActionScript. Especially since...I'M LEARNING IT TOO!
I already know how to use XML in making a Flash file, and out of curiosity I was sort of imagining how I could make a Phoenix Wright sort of thing. I can't say I know an ENORMOUS amount about XML, but I have taken Java for a long time and ActionScript continually proves itself to be very similar. I'd really like to get a look at the work so far, to see what I might be able to do to make it more dynamic/moddable/easier to use/have more content, etc.

Obviously, you being proud of what you've written, I understand if you don't want to collaborate or anything. Good job so far, hope you don't end up giving it up.

I'm gone for so long, and the colors got all psychedelic! Woohoo!

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Thu Apr 24, 2008 10:50 pm

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

Katana wrote:

Aw, sweet. With all the existing, half-baked and abandoned trial-makers, I actually have to say I'm a bit more confident about one made in ActionScript. Especially since...I'M LEARNING IT TOO!
I already know how to use XML in making a Flash file, and out of curiosity I was sort of imagining how I could make a Phoenix Wright sort of thing. I can't say I know an ENORMOUS amount about XML, but I have taken Java for a long time and ActionScript continually proves itself to be very similar. I'd really like to get a look at the work so far, to see what I might be able to do to make it more dynamic/moddable/easier to use/have more content, etc.

Obviously, you being proud of what you've written, I understand if you don't want to collaborate or anything. Good job so far, hope you don't end up giving it up.

im not allowed to give up on it XD my local friends who want to use it would kick my ass all over the neighborhood XD

But ya, the source is closed and protected. Alot of my own blood sweat and tears as well as new concept sof how data is handled is in here. ^^ Though, ive been thinking maybe ill open-source it once everything is done. id already have the credit to my name, and the userbase can continuously expand upon it and spawn multiple different kinds of CourtEngines, hehe.

as far as progress: Just check out this thread. I post pictures when i can, and even spill internal and dark secrets now and then. :godot:

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Fri Apr 25, 2008 4:16 pm

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

no update this morning due to one fatal flaw about living: Your required to be other places at times too.
The company i work for celebrated its 9 year anniversary on a cruise boat ^^ I never even got the chance to open Flash last night before passing out from all the booze :)

Anyways, im burninating my entire weekend over this thing to make up for lost time, expect alooot of updates during that time. :)

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Fri Apr 25, 2008 5:47 pm

ItsaMystery

:n1nj4:

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xD

That's an update in and of itself.

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Sun Apr 27, 2008 2:25 am

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

quick Changelog Type Update

Sat Ap 26th 2008
CourtEngine v.0.3

ADDED: charSwitch function now accepts panning from Laywer to Prosecutor, Prosecutor to Lawyer, Witness to Lawyer, Witness to Prosecutor, Lawyer to witness, and prosecutor to witness. Assistant and Judge screens purposfully snap to and from their positions (just like the game)
ADDED: charSwitch now accepts an initial animation to fire off right away (say you want Phoenix to be sweating when the camera gets to him)
ADDED: Automatic Objections, Take Thats, and Hold Its. Any and all characters can have their own bank of these, and in different languages!
ADDED: Gavel animation to be called at will
ADDED: text window crawls off during an objection, hold it, take that, gavel, gallery, cross-examination, witness testimony, and cinematic to start, and can be called back at any time, which leads to the next point
ADDED: once the text window has crawled off, once you initiate any type of speech node, itll crawl back on, and only after crawling back on will it type whats needed to be typed. Everything is handled automatically
ADDED: Once an objection type (objection, hold it, take that), the engine will automatically initiate a charSwitch and attempt to Pan if applicable. So instead of
<objection char="edgeworth" wait="true" />
<charSwitch char="edgeworth" anim="objection" pan="true" />
you just need
<objection char="edgeworth" />
Depending on the scene type will harbor different results
ADDED: if empty objection type is sounded, automatically points to default objection.mp3 with no voice
ADDED: Sound and Music engines are in place, unfortunately no cross-fading of music, yet
FIXED: bug where default character comes as undefined instead of a true value
FIXED: Speech bug where if called character will just start appearing to speak, even if no text is displayed.
Partial FIXED: unlimited misc characters almost possible

KNOWN BUGS:
- If you supply an invalid character for an objection type, it'll just play the objection type graphic, and wont play the sound
- If you supply a valid character that the engine cannot find the objection type mp3, itll jsut play the graphic, and no sound at all
- if you object in the middle of a sentence, the text wont dissapear
- blip noises per letter spoken, may not be possible due to software audio limitations of the Flash player. I may or may not be forced to resort to a looping blip noise in place :( (that was heartbreaking to find out...)
- Hold It! Animation graphic has an opaque white background :( (for now >_>)

SPECIAL: Changing the graphics_manifest to just set pieces and special animations. Characters will be called and referenced via an XML sheet, looks like this:

characters.ced

Code:

<courtEngine>
   <mainCharacters>
      <char name="PhoenixWright" position="lawyer" />
      <char name="MilesEdgeworth" position="prosecution" />
      <char name="MayaFey" position="assistant" />
      <char name="TheJudge" position="Judge" />
      <char name="DickGumshoe" position="detective" />
   </mainCharacters>
   <otherCharacters>
      <char name="LukeAtmey" />
      <char name="LarryButz" />
   </otherCharacters>
</courtEngine>

which serves the same purpose as this:
graphics_manifest.ces

Code:

&COMMENT=****These names are referenced right from the characters/ folder****&
&lawyer_base=PhoenixWright&
&assistant_base=MayaFey&
&prosecutor_base=MilesEdgeworth&
&judge_base=TheJudge&
&defendant_base=LukeAtmey&
&detective_base=DickGumshoe&
&victim_base=LarryButz&
&COMMENT=Allowed up to 10 Misc characters&
&misc1_base=LukeAtmey&
&misc2_base=&
&misc3_base=&
&misc4_base=&
&misc5_base=&

except due to the versatility of the XML, will allow unlimited characters to be referenced in the <otherCharacters> section.

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Last edited by DJDarkViper on Mon Apr 28, 2008 12:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Sun Apr 27, 2008 4:08 am

Katana

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Gender: Male

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Posts: 606

Good to see you've added so much in short time. Seems like you're just as eager to get this working as all of us are...

I have trouble with that on my projects sometimes...

I'm gone for so long, and the colors got all psychedelic! Woohoo!

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Sun Apr 27, 2008 10:56 pm

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

Katana wrote:

Good to see you've added so much in short time. Seems like you're just as eager to get this working as all of us are...

I have trouble with that on my projects sometimes...

Boy do i ever :D Now begins another solid few hours of work on CE before i call it a night :)

EDIT: Updates as i go today:

v.0.4

ADDED: Full music engine, including cross Fade ins and outs
ADDED: Supply a <music fade="true" /> and the music will simply fade out invoking a music stop right afterwards

actually, thats all im going to do today, i cant seem to focus unfortunately. Lack of sleep does that to a persons attention span lol.

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Tue Apr 29, 2008 7:18 am

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

Quick but BIG update:

v05
CHANGED: Got rid of characters being called in the Graphics Manifest.
ADDED: Character XML structure (see below)
ADDED: this is the big one: Unlimited Character Support.

Code:

<courtEngine>
   <mainCharacters>
      <char name="PhoenixWright" position="lawyer" />
      <char name="MilesEdgeworth" position="prosecution" />
      <char name="MayaFey" position="assistant" />
      <char name="TheJudge" position="Judge" />
      <char name="DickGumshoe" position="detective" />
   </mainCharacters>
   <otherCharacters>
      <char name="LukeAtmey" />
      <char name="LarryButz" />
   </otherCharacters>
</courtEngine>

The main characters have defined positions, the "otherCharacters" can list as many as you so desire.

This is what caused the version jump today :D

ps. Also, optimized the code a good.. uhh... 400 lines i think? down to 50. :) i was pretty proud of that :D

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Wed Apr 30, 2008 5:46 pm

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

No updates today, sorry.

why? one equation: 6x Friends + 3x Pizza + Drinks + GTA4 + PS3 = No productivity

i hope your understand ;)

=-=--

EDIT: I wont lie to anyone here, GTA4 wrecked another perfectly good day for productivity. No updates today. Definitely tommorrow, thats when i plan on getting back into the grove. I feel 20 hours of GTA4 was a good enough taste :)

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Fri May 02, 2008 9:49 am

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

this is kinda like Quad posting but i dont care, its my thread lol

You know what i hate about developing CE in a public place? The fact all my friends go to that place. Know what else sucks? When im dragged away from my workstation to attend random events. Todays timewaster: Iron Man movie. Good stuff,

v0.6a

FIXES: Characters are fully implemented again, this time, theres no limit to the amount of characters you can implement. Simply call them up by referencing their ID you set in their character defintion, as simple or complex as you like it, for instance

Code:

Because i set PhoenixWrights character reference in his definiton script to "p" itll identify him, instead of having to type "PhoenixWright" all the time, which would have been much simpler on me, but, i choose to endure what i must to bring you the easiest to work with, i can.

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Sat May 03, 2008 6:20 pm

Sighness

Amazing

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Posts: 1

Hold it!

Yo Dark! =)

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Sat May 03, 2008 7:27 pm

Katana

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Gender: Male

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Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2008 8:24 pm

Posts: 606

DJDarkViper, you recently submitted this screenshot to the court of your new case maker.
:udgy:

Yes...and what of it?
I suppose you don't see. This screenshot....contains a contradiction.
:edgeworth:

Wh...What! What nonsense is this?
Take a look at Phoenix's mouth here. It's wide open.
:udgy:

Yes, but that would make sense! Phoenix is pointing out a contradiction!
:edgeworth:

Something you have yet to do.
Actually, don't you remember? If someone's text is being displayed in an AA game...then their mouth is open. But once all the text is there...they close their mouth and wait for a prompt! Here we can see a complete sentence!
:udgy:

But...what does this mean?
It means...that this screenshot is a FAKE!!!
...sort of.

(Man, I took that one over-the-top.)

I'm gone for so long, and the colors got all psychedelic! Woohoo!

Last edited by Katana on Sat May 03, 2008 10:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Sat May 03, 2008 10:16 pm

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

Katana wrote:

Looks nice! One question though...Phoenix's mouth seems to be open, but the text is all there. Am I missing something?

GAK! ya got me... lol, i setup this actionshot, i used both the <speech> tag and the <animation> tag for this one, i just pressed Print Screen at the correct time. lol. Dont worry, its not that bugged, haha, purely for show :)

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Sat May 03, 2008 10:22 pm

Katana

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Posts: 606

Yay! I found a contradiction! Time to spiff up my post to make myself look smart.
^ see above

I'm gone for so long, and the colors got all psychedelic! Woohoo!

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Sun May 04, 2008 7:51 pm

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

CourtEngine: The First Objection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLHzQlbSN80 :godot:

http://www.vimeo.com/974260 << Vimeo, higher quality and better playback i find :javado:

Katana, your little scenario while simple, was a driving force behind me staying up until.. well im still up, to get this video in order. Getting my engine within the courtroom working in a semi-proper state, and getting all the hooks in place for everything else. Though, while most of the work was done at 5AM this morning, i went to sleep to wait so i could run to the store and grab a male-to-male stereo cable so my i can record audio off my computer (Vista SP1's way of going about this confuses me to no end), but ya anyways, the first vid of COurtEngine in action! whee!

Its me hitting the Next button as it goes, i just recorded that small part of the screen so Youtube would like it better than Portrait mode lol (plus the next button doens't glow yet, haha)

EDIT:
Almost forgot, heres the code:

Code:

<courtEngine>
   <scenes>
      <scene type="court" initialWitness="gumshoe">
         <music id="music_lobby" />
         <charSwitch char="e" anim="neutral" />
         <speech anim="paper">Just check out this action screenshot</speech>
         <objection char="p" />
         <speech anim="paper">DJDarkViper, you recently submitted this screenshot to the court of your new case maker.</speech>
         <charSwitch char="judge" anim="shccked" />
         <speech anim="shocked">Yes... and what of it?</speech>
         <charSwitch char="p" />
         <speech anim="confident">I suppose you don't see. This screenshot contains a contradiction.</speech>
         <charSwitch char="e" />
         <speech anim="impatient">Wh...What! What nonsense is this?</speech>
         <charSwitch char="p" />
         <image id="evidence_1" />
         <speech anim="paper">Take a look at Phoenix's mouth here.</speech>
         <clearImage />
         <sound id="sfx_realization" />
         <speech anim="confident">It's wide open.</speech>
         <charSwitch char="judge" />
         <speech anim="shocked">Yes, but that would make sense! Phoenix is pointing out a contradiction!</speech>
         <charSwitch char="e" />
         <speech anim="impatient">Something you have yet to do.</speech>
         <charSwitch char="p" />
         <speech anim="paper">Actually, don't you remember?</speech>
         <speech anim="thinking">If someone's text is being displayed in an AA game...then their mouth is open. </speech>
         <speech anim="thinking">But once all the text is there...they close their mouth and wait for a prompt!</speech>
         <music id="music_cornered" />
         <sound id="sfx_damage_lite" />
         <speech anim="point">Here we can see a complete sentence!</speech>
         <objection char="e" />
         <speech anim="angry">That's preposterous!</speech>
         <charSwitch char="judge" />
         <speech anim="shocked">But... what does this mean?</speech>
         <charSwitch char="p" />
         <speech anim="confident">It means... that this screenshot...</speech>
         <sound id="sfx_damage_medium" />
         <speech anim="point">is a FAKE!</speech>
         <charSwitch char="e" />
         <sound id="sfx_damage_heavy" />
         <animation anim="damage" wait="true" />
         <speech anim="angry">UNGH!</speech>
      </scene>
   </scenes>
</courtEngine>

a little bit of help understanding the "charSwitch" nodes and why the char="" is jsut "e" and "p". Well, i had to type this by hand, so i went into my character definition scripts, and change their character ref ID to single letters, "p" for Phoenix, "e" for Edgeworth. I left Judge as he was cause hes only up once or twice.

for example, Phoenix's Character Definition File:

Code:

// Phoenix Wright char.cec file
&char_ref=p& // the character ID
&char_label=Phoenix& // The label for which to place on the text window
&char_neutral=neutral& // characters default pose label

// Profile Information
&char_name=Phoenix Wright&
&char_age=24&
&char_bio=Phoenix is a defense attourney. Hes famous now. Nuff said&

I hope that clears some stuff up :)

also, and with this, the prototype, takes a massive leap to 69%

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

EDIT: Changelog as i go for May 4th
FIXED: When calling an objection before the text finsihed, text would continue to type until the next <speech> node is called. Now it properly clears on call
FIXED: some timing issues found within
ADDED: Skipping, jsut like the game you dont have to wait for the text to finish typing, press the button again and it'll skip to the end of that animation block

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Mon May 05, 2008 12:13 am

Katana

machinimator

Gender: Male

Rank: Prosecutor

Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2008 8:24 pm

Posts: 606

Looks pretty nice. (cool to see my own dialogue taken into the screen. Hope I didn't sound like I was actually mad or something. It's just that saying "I disproved your screenshot" made me want to completely stylize it)

I'm actually working on something similar at the moment, and while it seems like mine would take a little less user-code thus far, yours is obviously capable of a lot more at the moment. (heck, I have yet to get objections working) Even having that earlier picture was a nice touch (was it turned black-and-white by the renderer? Awesome for flashbacks.)

I'm gone for so long, and the colors got all psychedelic! Woohoo!

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Mon May 05, 2008 12:38 am

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

Katana wrote:

Looks pretty nice. (cool to see my own dialogue taken into the screen. Hope I didn't sound like I was actually mad or something. It's just that saying "I disproved your screenshot" made me want to completely stylize it)

Absolutely not, i found it humerous, and thus thats why i used the dialogue X) Thought itd be an interesting treat to see, plus i needed an utmost excuse for getting off my ass and getting the Data structure going in real time, instead of hitting random buttons with text boxes besides them to initiate events, luckily the transition went pretty smooth and befor ei knew it, things wer emoving, albeit quite buggy, but less buggy than i imagined :)

Katana wrote:

I'm actually working on something similar at the moment, and while it seems like mine would take a little less user-code thus far, yours is obviously capable of a lot more at the moment. (heck, I have yet to get objections working) Even having that earlier picture was a nice touch (was it turned black-and-white by the renderer? Awesome for flashbacks.)

Mine was originally supposed to take as LITTLE code as humanly possible to do things, but then i was originally designing this engine for me, and me alone. So the need to make it a bit more powerful was in order once i decided to post about it here, and thus prompted v03 which was the one and only complete rewrite of the engine so far. Im on the verge of getting v08 internally runnable as we speak.
Im thinking the prototype will be anything inbetween v14 and v17

The black and white image was altered with Photoshop, unfortunately flash has no capability to render things in black and white as of press time. Thats something im desperately waiting on the Flash 10 "astro" beta to give me access to (the new Hydra Filter language allows me to program my own filters)
Of course, Flash has a "negative" render type, but no black and white :-\

its also funny cause the <image /> tag and the <clearImage /> got thrown in as the very very last things. I didn't get much more time before passing out on my keyboard to get the PIP evidence working, so i settled with creating the image overlay thing. Still gotta get the fadein and fadeouts to work on it though, as it just cuts in and out sporatically lol.

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Mon May 05, 2008 1:25 am

Zero Ziat

Oh hey, I object.

Gender: Male

Location: Montevideo, UY

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Posts: 57

About the video; Whatever happened to the little bips when they talk? (Differenced by men and women too.)

EDIT: MORE IMPORTANTLY: Why is Luke Atmey being ripped a new one by Detective Gumshoe?

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Mon May 05, 2008 2:24 am

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

Zero Ziat wrote:

About the video; Whatever happened to the little bips when they talk? (Differenced by men and women too.)

EDIT: MORE IMPORTANTLY: Why is Luke Atmey being ripped a new one by Detective Gumshoe?

1. The blips are coming, i have to find a more efficient way of doing it though, as my current method slows down the text speech speed by 300%, which is making a blip appear at every letter jsut like the game, but alas, Flash is not hardware sound supported, jsut software, and very crappily. So i got some limitatiosn to work with

2. Thats a problem with v07 is that i dont have the initialWitness=""
attribute fully initialized yet, so the sprites jsut stack on top of eachother.

Besides, Gumshoe would be the man in that relationship wouldn't you agree? ;)

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Mon May 05, 2008 2:49 am

Katana

machinimator

Gender: Male

Rank: Prosecutor

Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2008 8:24 pm

Posts: 606

Actually, my speech blip noises are working pretty well. You sort of have to work with the timings a bit.

I'm using a Timer with an interval of 60 milliseconds. However, the thing is, I have a pretty intricate text parser that makes it display 3 characters at a time; and one blip sound for each of those. (the more I observed AA's own text, I noticed that the number of blips I counted was less than the number of characters displayed)

I'm gone for so long, and the colors got all psychedelic! Woohoo!

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Mon May 05, 2008 5:10 am

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

RE-HE-HE-HE-HEEEEEAlllyyyyyy...... nice observation!

ya my text parser is set to go at any speed and at any number of characters myself :D Setting it up proper for the time="" attribute in the <speech tag :)

\
hmmmmmmmmmmm with that observation im basiaclly free to play with the settings as i see fit... awesome :)

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Mon May 05, 2008 5:46 pm

ItsaMystery

:n1nj4:

Gender: Male

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Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2008 6:49 am

Posts: 20

Nice demo! Great to see something demonstrated from this, regardless of prototype stage.

I noticed one thing in the video, though...was it just me, or did the animations themselves seem kinda fast? It looked like Phoenix was talking at the speed of 1000 Zeus' Thunders! (k, maybe not that fast, but it was faster than the game it seemed :P).

Also, I was thinking/wondering if it'd make sense for the "wait=true" tags to be defaulted to true. Most of the time, I figure you would have to wait, so perhaps it could automatically wait unless you put in "wait=false"?

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Mon May 05, 2008 7:07 pm

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

the current framerate right now is 20fps, i dunno it seemed to match pretty well, ill try experimenting with framerate when i get home though, maybe they are going too fast

and yeah i was thinking about the animation tags wait="true" and i think i will default it to true because you are right, most of the time you will want to wait, like when Angel Starr does that looking maneuver,

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Wed May 07, 2008 3:26 pm

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

sorry for the lack of updates, i think nows as good a time as any to inform, that i do do other things (than hang out with friends and make CE), 2 days ago i had a bit of an art attack that got me to plug in my wacom for the first time in months, and yesterday i needed to get some animation stuff out of the way.
I plan a big update tonight though :)

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Fri May 09, 2008 4:22 pm

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

Nothing new to report, been super busy with other pressing matters. I may or may not get a chance to work on it this weekend, being mothers day and all (and by mothersday i mean mothers weekend, in my family at least lol)

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Fri May 09, 2008 5:56 pm

ItsaMystery

:n1nj4:

Gender: Male

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Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2008 6:49 am

Posts: 20

Your mother's day gift should be releasing a beta version of CE. :godot:

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Fri May 09, 2008 6:19 pm

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

..i really dont think youd like it in its current state XD youd get a fancy white background with nothing showing up on top of it, ;) Im tyring to get the scenes infrastructure working right, all the hooks are there, just got to tie some loose ends. if i play the cards right, the moment i do one or two thigns, a cutscene will play, a scene in Phoenix Office will play, and then the lobby, then the court, then the lobby, then the court, then To be Continued, abse don the scene scripts ive fed it for testing (but of course, unlimited scenes are accepted)

im also trying to throw in support for multiple episodes for this prototype release too, so that if you want to release episodic content, just gotta provide a 'patch' of sorts that updates the Episodes.xml and provides the new scene script and assets that it needs :)

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Mon May 12, 2008 12:00 am

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

CourtEngine Prototype v09a
You gotta love, when things just "work out". So ive had my engine broken for the past few days now trying to get scenes to work out properly, building up the appropriate infrastucture.
So yesterday i put a final touch on the infrastructure and compiled it.
It works. Instantly. lol.

so anyways the big update is: Scenes work now. Unlimited. Theres some optimizations that need to be put in place as its lagging on this .. shoddy computer, but thats easily fixable. Only thing thats broken right now is the music playback, shouldn't take long.

Instead of just a changelog ive decided to provide this partial list:

Prototype TODO LIST:
- 'Investigation' Scene support (HUGELY necessary, only partially working, lol)
- XML Episode Support, complete with bg art (allows episodic content and extensions :) )
- XML Menu Scripts
- Special Effects (screenshake, white flashes, character fading, etc)

RECENTLY COMPLETED:
- Cinematic Support via animated SWFs
- Photo Evidence
- Unlimited 'Scene' Support (feel free to make your fictions as long and path twisting as youd like)
- unlimited custom character support (for example: feel free to involve the entire cast of the PW series as well as any number of custom characters for an episode)

Final v1 Release TODO:
- FLV Support for complex motion sequences
- Animated Evidendce Sequences
- Myraid of bug fixes from Prototype Feedback
- CourtEDIT, a tool that gives you a GUI interface for creating episodes, scenes, and organizing assets, as well as previews. Has the ability to be customized via its own Interface for special options (for example: animation sequence listing per character for easy population via dropdown menus, instead of manual typing)
- CourtSCRIPTER, a tool designed to easily edit and manage the various script file types that run CourtEngine

FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS
- CEHydraScript, When Flash 10 gets an alpha or becomes available, ill be using Hydra to make scriptable filter effects for pretty much anything, such as B&W flashback sequences, or if you want, make your character wear HeatVision Goggles for example. Itll be viable (i hope)
- COURTMODE2, basiaclly transforms court sequences into actual courtroom sequences with Testimonies, Evidence Presenting, etc
- INVESTMODE2, allows investigation and transportation via a scripted roadmap
- CourtHYDRA, a CEHydraScript interface for designing custom filter effects, with preview

again, this list is pretty incomplete in some areas, but should give a clue as to where CourtEngine stands right now

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Mon May 12, 2008 2:04 am

Super Judge Bro.

A fad in a castle

Gender: Female

Location: The Gavelshroom Kingdom

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Wed May 30, 2007 9:55 pm

Posts: 3503

I was just wondering about some things,

So this is for animated fanfiction right? Does it work like CM3 where there's an editor or is it done all by coding? And can music be uploaded? If so, what format? Sorry if these were already asked before, I can't remember.

It's just I had thoughts of maybe using this to make a music video with PW sprites..... :yogi:

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Mon May 12, 2008 5:29 am

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

Yes, this is indeed for animated fan fiction. Interactivity will be limited to pressing the Next button and checking out the court record. The major point behind CourtEngine is provide a platform for giving a face to stories both with original characters or not, a direct inspiration from my own experience. I have my own fiction id liek to give a face to with custom characters, and im not up for learnign a new complex system to tell them, but i still wanted it to be end deliverable.

Yes, there will be a couple editors actually. A goal of the SDK is to provde enough intuitive tools too make sure you never really have to see the code yourself. However, these wont be present in the Prototype release however, but for the final release.

As for 'uploading', this is allll local :D This may be made in flash but i have zero intention of making this work on a website to be completely honest. Im designing an Animation Engine that can be ran and viewed from the desktop, and be played back at the users pace if they download it, or recorded via Camtasia (or other screen recording software) and upload to video sites like YouTube. Adding in your own music, is as simple as putting the path to it in the sounds manifest and referencing its ID in the scene script

Code:

&linkin_park_song=music/linkin park faint.mp3&

For music, its MP3. Nice and easy :)

As for a music video, hell yes, totally possible AND easy :), id make sure to sandwich the entire scene inbetween <sequence></sequence> tags so you can get precise timing the whole way through, hehe

for example, check this out

Code:

<courtEngine>
 <scenes>
  <scene type="court" initialWitness="gumshoe">
   <music id="linkin_park_song" />
   <sequence>
     <!-- everything inbetween the seqeunce tags just happens all at once while looking for duration wait tags to time things out -->
     <charswitch char="judge" />
     <wait time="2000" /> <!-- wait for buildup -->
     <animation char="judge" anim="headNod" wait="true" /> <!-- begin headbanging to the beat, making sure to wait for the headnod to finish -->
     <animation char="judge" anim="headNod" wait="true" />
     <animation char="judge" anim="headNod" wait="true" />
     <animation char="judge" anim="headNod" wait="true" />
     <charSwitch char="edgeworth" />
     <animation char="edgeworth" anim="fingerpoint_talk" /> <!-- edgeworth sings the rap while pointing his finger -->
     <wait time="4000" />
     <charSwitch char="maya" />
     <animation char="maya" anim="side_angry_talk" /> <!-- Maya sings the lead singers lines for a bit -->
   </sequence>
  </scene>
 </scenes>
</courtEngine>

something like that anyways hehe, this response is a little long winded (im like that), but i think its been high time and overdue for a code example.

I hope that answered your question and quenched any thirst for concerns regarding your potentnial project :D

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Mon May 12, 2008 2:45 pm

Super Judge Bro.

A fad in a castle

Gender: Female

Location: The Gavelshroom Kingdom

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Wed May 30, 2007 9:55 pm

Posts: 3503

Sweet! :D Sounds very promising then!

This will work perfectly for whenever I decide to parody a certain song... oops, did I spill the beans already? My bad.

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Fri May 16, 2008 5:50 pm

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

ZOMG?! WHAR PROGRESS?!

A little explanation is in order: COurtEngine progresses very slowly on a day to day basis very recently, lots of personal stuff has gone down and has actually put me in sudden bouts of depression which causes me to not want to do anything. Past that ive recently joined a crackteam of flash professionals to work simultaneously alongside CE and a new project, so my times being divided as well.
HOWEVER!!!!!!
theres a light at the end of the tunner and im not so Emo as to not DO anything. Instead of working on the CourtEngine core, ive been tinkering away at the editor and tossing the idea back and fourth of releasing the CourtEdit prototype alongside the CourtEngine prototype, so no ones gonna have to code the XML via their hands. The CourtScripter prototype may not be available though, but who knows, the full CEDK Prototype may be released alongside as well. Im STILL tossing the idea left and right cause i want CE out the door as quick as possible, so well see.

Sorry for the leave of absense, this thing hasn't 'eft' or is 'dead' nor is it even on 'hiatus', its jsut takena backseat to some personal issues i needed to deal with :\

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Sat May 17, 2008 9:41 pm

ItsaMystery

:n1nj4:

Gender: Male

Rank: Suspect

Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2008 6:49 am

Posts: 20

You can do it, Viper! I'm sure everyone here understands that personal life should come before something like this, as awesome as the project is/is becoming! No worries; we've got your back and can be patient. Take care of yourself first! :godot:

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Thu May 22, 2008 3:10 am

DJDarkViper

CourtEngine Programmer

Gender: Male

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:10 pm

Posts: 76

Hey Man thanks for hte kind words :D

Ive just overcome one of the most stupid obsticles in making CE ive ever faced. It was a rather annoying bug and a big one, there were issues with the giant "Next" button and hitting it sometimes jsut wouldn't, well, do anything. So ive been debugging it for the past 4 days or so now so going my code with a fine tooth comb, even so much as reprogramming certain chunks of functionality, and basaiclly driving myself nuts to the point of one hell of a bad alcohol issue, jsut to stumble on what was really going on. I found it wouldn't progress when you click on certain.. areas of the button. And oh boy silly me, its the exact coords of the "New Game" and "Select Episode" buttons, ya, the phantom buttons were overlaying my next button and i passed a null to their callback stupidly thinking that would have erased the buttons press functions alkltoger. I was wrong.

Protip for Flash (skip to the bottom if you dont care about flash mumbo jumbo):
When using onPress callbacks within Actionscript

Code:

var newGameCallback = function() 
{
  trace("Start a new Game");
  // do stuff here
}
path.to.button.onPress = newGameCallback;

do not under any circumstances think doing

Code:

path.to.button.onPress = null;

will get rid of the buttons pressing functionality, like every FREAKING article ive ever read on them said. This is what drove me nuts. So upon figuring this little issue out, i promptly tried the other method, it looks like this

Code:

delete path.to.button.onPress;

Thats it. Same line, no extra junk, but the "delete" will actually rid the button of any interactiveness, and thats exactly what were looking for. The asset still exists so you can place a new callback on it at a later time, but the "delete" keyword is the only way to erase the ability to click on it. Passing a null to it, jsut makes it so it doesn't do anything.

*AHEM*

Anyways, so now im confident CourtEngine will pick up pace again, BUT i have an extra special SUPER DUPER request to ask any and all members of the Court Records forum!!

Could anyone find me the courtroom background art pieces from Apollo Justice? The character sprites look so weird against the GBA/DS PW backgrounds

WHELP! Off i go to continue my actionscripting adventure!

=-=-=-=-

EDIT: BLAHLAHLAHLAHLAHLAHLAH
Witnesses show up in the witness stand but they arent talking or playing animations, they jsut come back as undefined, why... yay for more obsticles lol

CourtEngine Prototype: 69%

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it."

Re: CourtEngine Progress Thread

Thu May 22, 2008 10:07 pm

ItsaMystery

:n1nj4:

Gender: Male

Rank: Suspect

Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2008 6:49 am

Posts: 20

Those are the best, yet worst, kinds of bugs. Silly things that you spend hours working over trying to solve something you think is a huge problem, but it turns out to be a missing equals sign, or something small like that. xD I feel your pain, man. :P

Fortunately, you fixed it! Horray! :) Glad to see things are picking back up again. I still have the weird file type version of the PW font...I have to find a way to convert it to a useable type for you. D: