The go slow

For anybody who is interested in the Teen engine
It seems that Ive been swamped by work at university, and wont have much time to work on it until the summer, Things have become a lot easier though.
so the chances of it ever being finished have gone up significantly :)

The current state of things

Recently I made the decision to ask jvprat to join the TeenAgent engine team

due to this progress has hit full speed !

We now have full support for the game animations(jvprat) :D

partial inventory support(jvprat) :D

and VERY shoddy walking code(provided by me) :(

The code has also been refactored thanks to jvprat, things are in a much neater state.

The current state can be seen in the following video.




Overall things are looking good for Teen Agent.

Animated Union Logic Software Publishing, Inc Logo

Well I figured out how to implement the static sprites in TeenAgent, and it turns out that these contain many other images that are used for animations,

It allows me to now implement the Union Logic logo fully,
this can be seen here with a comparison of the original/ScummVM



This now also allows me to view all the static sprites held in ONS.RES
which appear to be used in loads of places :D

TextAgent?

Well, Ive located the font data.

Ive got a few thanks to make, Id like to thank salty-horse for sitting with me tirelessly working through the asm explaining things to me that I didnt understand, you've been a great help.
I'd also like to thank jvprat, He seemed to understand that I was getting very frustrated trying to figure out how to draw the font data, and stepped in at just the right time to save me, by both explaining ScummVM internals and possible approaches, He also finished the font code and tidied up the rest of my code.

:)

I now present to you the first words from the Teen Agent.



Enjoy!

TeenAgent Thoughts, Status and TODO

TeenAgent Status:

Currently the following is possible :-

*Viewing room images
*Viewing first static image resource in UNLOGIC.RES
*Viewing the Polish versions CD PROJEKT image from CDLOGO.RES
*Viewing main characters sprites
*Viewing room overlay images
*Viewing inventory item images
*Viewing and using Cursor images (PC or Amiga)
*Listening to music

TeenAgent TODO:

The following needs to be implemented before all the resource files are fully handled :-

*Implement support for animated inventory sprites
-The inventory images are mainly static, however Metropolis decided to animate six of them.
-The inventory images are stored as sprites inside VARIA.RES, specifically in resource number 4.
-The frame numbers for the animated inventory images are as follows :-

7(fan)
14(drunken chainsaw)
47(mouse)
49(nugget)
67(burning paper)
91(bird).

*Implement support for animated Union Logic Logo
-The Union Logic Logo is stored in UNLOGIC.RES, which contains 11 resources.
-The first resource in UNLOGIC.RES is a static image which fills the screen.
-The animated section of this introduction relies on support for resources 2-11.
-The code required is simple as it just cycles through the other resources.

*Implement support for the animated Metropolis/TeenAgent Logo
-This logo requires resource numbers 6,5,9 from VARIA.RES.

*Implement support for the image resources in ONS.RES
-These are apparently sprites.

*Implement support for LAN_000.RES and LAN_500.RES
-These are apparently animations.

*Implement support for sound effects from SAM_SAM.RES
-These form the PC speaker sound effects heard throughout the game.

*Figure out where the font data is, and how to implement this in ScummVM
-I would like to be able to display a few strings in the correct font/font palette

*Figure out how to handle loading of text strings/item descriptions/conversations etc..
-These are stored in the executable which is unfortunately packed with LZEXE 0.91
-This will most likely require an external data file such as with the other engines
-TEEN.DAT will contain strings, cursor image, font etc
-The conversations should not be too hard to handle, however the room items have some extra
data with them.
-I'll need to get benjamin to explain those a little more, perhaps he has
some ideas of how to handle these static resources in a better manner.

*Begin to implement gameplay code
-I would like to fully support all the English PC resources before I attempt to create a room.
-This will mean that I can then show a full room off.

*Figure out how to how to handle Czech, Polish and English demo version strings.
-Im not entierly sure if they are in the same order or not.
-In the demo there is a string to tell you that you have reached the end of the demo.
-This demo string does not appear in the other versions.

*Figure out how to handle the Polish VOICES.RES
-This resource file is in the Polish PC version and the Amiga CD version.
-I plan to support PC Polish before I look at Amiga version.

*Figure out how to correctly load the Amiga version in IDA
-This will allow me to figure out inventory differences.

*Begin to add support for Amiga versions if feasible.
-This will require me to attempt to understand how the Amiga disk dumps work.
-Basic support should be possible since the resources are likely to match in size so I can at least try.
-It may not be worth the extra effort since the ability to dump the disks will
be required.

Thats all for now, I hope the formatting doesnt die.

Cursor Madness!!!!!!

A tiny update with something quite insignificant
Im only updating because it excited me a little bit
johndoe123 managed to find the cursor image data
what I wasnt prepared for was exactly where he found it
I was expecting to find the cursor image stored as a sprite
in one of the resource files, however it was stored hardcoded in the
executable, the most interesting part for me was that I could actually
see it there in the hex, Ive seen strange patterns in hex before but this
was clearly a mouse cursor, you wouldnt notice it unless you knew it was there.
and even then you'd need to focus on it pretty hard.

The image here shows the hex for the cursor from the executable, it also shows the cursor image
in TeenAgent in DOSBox on the left, and on the right you will find the cursor image data in ScummVM and below that the loaded cursor image data running in ScummVM.






The way I created the cursor image in ScummVM replicates the original strucutre of the cursor
image, however it contains no copyrighted material. I borrowed the idea from the AGI engine so
thanks for whoever made it obvious.

For some strange reason the cursor data in the executable shows 0xDF as the shade of gray
I run the game in DOSBox and the cursor loads up however when I load the cursor
image in ScummVM the palette uses 0xDF but the colours in DOSBox and ScummVM do not match
it seems that the cursor loaded in DOSBox is using 0xAE for gray, I have adjusted the palette
in ScummVM but it begs the question, why arent the right colours showing up?
Ive included a swatch to show the differences maybe someone can explain why..


The image below shows the cursor in the current build of the engine.






This may seem very trivial but I think I can finally get some sort of interactivity going soon.

Rob

TeenAgent rooms for your enjoyment

Well, it comes time for another update on TeenAgentIm made a little progress with the disassembly, its becoming clearer and clearer how this game works every time I look at it. with thanks to a tip off from clone2727(sorry) I was able to see that john_doe had infact made some TeenAgent resource tools before.

Now while the tools themselves werent anything new to me(I already had displaying and loading code) It was very interesting to find out that his OFF.EXE tool read and displayed the game room background resources from the file OFF.RES.
It hadnt crossed my mind that the background resources were stored in this file I was looking at LAN_500.RES for those.

so now where do I stand

TeenAgent engine in ScummVM currently loads and displays the Union Logic logo from UNLOGIC.RES in a static form(I need to figure out how to load the overlay graphics data properly and then get it animating)

after displaying this logo it then allows the user to run through the games ordering info resources held in ADVERT.RES(this is working 100% like the original) and finally when leaving the ordering info the engine allows the user to scroll through the background images in their plain form(again I need to sort out the overlays before they will animate)

Ive included a few screenshots of the backgrounds running in ScummVM, its nothing major and not really much of an achievement in ScummVM but at least I was able to map the OFF.RES resource numbers to a particular scene. this has helped me figure out which functions call which room in the disassembly and has given me a little more enthusiasm for the task.

so right now Im stuck. I keep getting mental blocks when it comes to the overlay graphics.

I'd like to get this out the way if possible so I can accurately get some animations working in ScummVM, the overlay gfx should be a big milestone too since It 'should' allow me to browse through the rest of the game graphics resources and view them. effectively allowing me to map the rest of the resources and find things like cursor image and actor images.

If anyone fancies helping out I'd be very greatful. see what I need is to take the stream of graphics data I have read in from the file and from this I need to extract three uint16's width,height and destination offset on VGA.then I need to make pixel 255 transparent.

Its not much code to write but for now either im not skilled enough or I am approaching it completely wrong, either way its stopping me from moving on.

well enjoy the screenshots..