SF4CMM update v0.5a
v0.5a is out;)
Bulk import/export is the big add-on to this version.
Enjoy;)
I’d look into a way to get rid of the voice, and have small yellow text appear on the bottom left of the screen - so like a graphic that overlays the window.
I know these graphical overlay things can be done, because with a game-recording tool I have, it displays the FPS in a little box in the top left of the window, overlaying the game.
You’re talking about FRAPS, and yes, graphical overlay is possible, but I don’t know how to do it, and every example I could find was over complicated for me to understand without any graphical background. If you can help, let me know;)
Greeeeaaaat!
I’m very curious about the zip functions, so I’m going extensively test it now. Since maybe you already have some answers for me, I’m gonna ask you about it. If you have no clue let me know and I give a report later.
- what happens if you have the costume files in a folder inside the zip?
- what happens if you have more than one folder in the zip?
- how the program behaves if you have more than one preview pic in the zip?
- how the program behaves if you have unsupported files in the zip? i mean, html, txt, etc.
- can you add png support later?
Regarding keys…
- my normal/alternate cycle key is blank by default and cannot be selected. is this normal?
Here’s my suggestion for keys. I like this setup because all functions are centered on the left side of the keyboard. Also, you don’t need to use both hands nor stretch your fingers to much and the pattern is very natural and easy to assimilate (crtl+shift top rows and ctrl+ lower rows).
-
FIRST 3 ROWS OF CHARACTERS
ctrl+shift+…
qwer - fei long, cammy, akuma, gouken
asdf - dhalsim, blanka, chun li, ryu
zxcv - honda, zangief, guile, ken -
SETH
ctrl+g - seth -
LAST 3 ROWS OF CHARACTERS
ctrl+
qwer - bison, sagat, vega, balrog
asdf - abel, c. viper, rufus, el fuerte
zxcv - sakura, rose, dan, gen
f1 - apply costumes
f2 - back cycle
f3 - select original costumes
f4 - normal/alternate
f5 - on/off
Oh! Forgot to mention…
Since 0.5 there was a change in the announcer. When we cycle characters the sf4 sound goes of and then returns, so now the synth announces the costume as we hear the game music. Is this intentional?
It worked different before. The sf4 music would go off as the announcer speaks.
I do hope you test it extensively, as I didn’t have time to do so, and with the increasing amount of complexity, SF4CMM is becoming hard to maintain, so I expect to give it a source code refactoring an optimization once I have the time.
Now, on to your questions, respectively:
-
Don’t know, probably error or won’t import them, but he searches for the first col file inside the zip’s entries. When he finds it, he looks for cos, vfx and jpg files, but I have no means of verifying the correctness of the files, that is why the bulk function is dependent on correct zip assembly by the user (or by exporting through SF4CMM). On the plus side, no special naming is required, just put col, cos, vfx and jpg, whatever names, zip it, and import it. SF4CMM will do the hard work for you;)
-
Like I said, a costume is represented by a zip file, so no need to look for dirs inside the zips.
-
only the first jpg picture will be considered (alphabetically speaking)
-
all other files (txt, html, …), it will just ignore them
-
I am only supporting one file format for simplicity reasons, and jpg is the most widely known and used format, so it seemed an obvious choice. I don’t see a particularly strong reason for supporting png, and due to the complex wiring of SF4CMM, it wouldn’t be an easy task to do at this stage. Maybe when the code is refactored, we can think about that, but I think that clearly that option is one of the least significant for now.
It’s a very good key layout;) I’ll apply it in the next version as the standard;)
Oh, and by the way, your normal/alternate key is disabled because the feature hasn’t been implemented yet. It’s the trickier one, remember? But I should have a solution for it tomorrow (I hope)
Happy testing! I’m hoping for lots of feedback, because I need help testing this thing, that is becoming a beast:P
Damn win XP Voice synth. I set it to asyncronous so you could press it several times without having to wait for it to finish, but that way the music will return because it continues the processing even during the announcer’s speech.
I’ll think of a way to deal with that tomorrow. Worst case scenario, back to sync mode, and you’ll have to wait until the announcer finishes what he is saying.
I can imagine. The benefits of improvements are proportional to the problems they cause. Keep in mind that you’ve already done a great job, so you don’t need to freak out because of the program. We can wait. Thank you very much for your dedication!
the program wont import’em. it works flawlessly.
yup, but the program considers that letters comes first than numbers
between these two files:
- 214434124213.jpg
- balrog doraemon
sf2cmm chose the second for preview pic.
between these two:
- a214434124213.jpg
- balrog doraemon
sf2cmm chose the first for preview pic.
this is no big deal, but I think its interesting to know.
yup, it did.
yes, i agreed, don’t worry about png. i was only curious, hehe.
that’s nice! hope people like it too.
tomorrow? you’re a machine, hehe. good loucl.
i see… look what i noticed during “check voice” tests.
if you press “edit color” for a two words name scheme, than the name that will appear in the “short descripition” field will include the underscores used for replacing blank spaces. so, if you press the “check voice” button the synth will announce the underscores instead of doing a pause between words.
example
- doraemon balrog.zip
- imported as “DORAEMON_BALROG”
- if you select it in the color manager, press the “edit button” and than “check voice”, the announcer will say “doraemon underscore balrog”
-however, even if you press “change color” and apply it, that will not happen in-game. the announcer will say “doraemon balrog”
sorry if I sound repetitive, but I feel the urge to say again - this obviously is not something to worry about, but I think it is good to let you know that this sort of thing happens.
holy crap… this looks like hard work…
you know, if you asked me now if I prefer to skip announces or to have the sound off, I would chose the first…
since i’m going to play all night, tomorrow i’ll let you know my definitive opinion about having the sound on during announcements.
Oh!
Any chances of a rar support in the future?
- Interesting results here…
I imported a zip with the following files:
AGL_01_04.col
AGL_01_10.col
CMY_01_05.col
readme
preview pic
No errors. One color was imported successfully. SF4CMM chose the "AGL_01_10.col"
It is good to know that multiple files in a zip don’t cause a crash.
Thank you for your support. It keeps me motivated as well;) The tool exists for the users!
Good to know.
Indeed it is;) You are a very meticulous tester, which is great;)
Thanks;) I’ll need it.
This one is an easy fix. I’ll get right on it. Thank you for noticing it;) And no, you’re not sounding repetitive, just meticulous, and that is what a tester should be.
Hmmm, are you sure? Maybe I could put a little checkbox for you to select the behavior of the announcer… That way both situations are covered;)
Unfortunately, not thinking about rar. Similar to png and jpg files, I would need to write a new bunch of code just to support another format, when zip is easily the most widely accepted compression format. Even rar (winrar) allows for zip compression, so no, I’m not thinking about supporting rars in the near future.
That is why I also added the export feature, that creates the zips automatically for you, per character and for the whole library.
Once again, great job testing this tool! I’ll start working now and see if I can get v0.5b out later in the day.
SF4CMM update v0.5b
Ok, just posted v0.5b with minor changes, because I don’t have XP installed anymore and I need someone with XP to test the new announcer, to see if it checks out.
Once I finish the alternate costume feature, I’ll release v0.6. If you can test it until then, it would be great;)
Ops… Although the file is named 0.5b the actual content of the zip is 0.5a. You did a little confusion there. Can you check that and upload it again?
I noticed that the program imports the zips folder by folder and in alphabetical order, which is great! I had a crash during a big import because I don’t have too much space in the c: , but I was able to see exactly where did the import stop.
Supposing I would import the whole folder again, would it take less time to complete? I have half of that folder already imported. I did some tests and noticed that the program don’t create clones, but I don’t know if the program “wasted” time redoing the import. I mean, does it imports again and rewrites the color schemes or does it identifies the already imported zips and moves on to other files?
- Improvement - zip support in the color manager
Is it possible to select to browse to a zip in the color manager? Is it worthy to do? It would be nice, since now our libraries of mods consist of zips.
Done. Megaupload messed up the zips, don’t know why…
Since I have no way of determining where the operation stopped, it will redo all the operations, and overwrite any files previously written.
Note: When importing from zips, if you have a costume with the same name, it will be overwritten!
You can already do that by selecting a folder with just one zip file in it. I’ll add support for you to select a single file too.
- correction
when using the export zip function the program will include the name of the character in the zip. since the synth already announces the character, this kind of name will result in a repetitive announcement.
example:
sagat-ufc.zip
will be announced “sagat one sagat ufc”
it would be better to make the program use only the name of the color scheme.
this could mess the organization of the “export costume library” function, but in this case the program would create a folder for each character from the library and put all zips for that character inside it.
That is a good idea;) I’ll implement it right away;) And I’ve had success with the alternate costume! But now I have to refactor lots of code in order to take into account that there are now two original color files: normal and alternate.
By the way, did the voice synth announcer worked properly with XP? I would really like to know that before releasing the new version.
Hi again! Was out for few days, but I see there was a lot of changes since then! So, I did not have time to test the 0.5a thoroughly but the zip import seemed to work properly, good job :D. I had the same problem as Gorecorpse with the sound of the game interfering with the costume announcement. Another strange thing was the key mapping which was not registered the first time, but then it went alright so I don’t know…
Some more general details appliable to all versions:
- I don’t know if the dialog box saying the costume has been created successfully is very useful (maybe just put a message written direcly on the color dialog box?)
- Same thing for the dialog box asking if the change in color name is acceptable (I never answered “No”)
- Closing the costume switcher shuts the whole program, which was generally not my intention (I just wanted to change and use the color manager)
- Why is there a button “read file info” in the color dialog box, maybe the thing could be done directly?
- Could it be interesting to have a way to create a new costume from the color creation panel? It could be interesting if you realise you forgot to create the appropriate costume beforehand
- Could it be possible to have a way to launch only the costume switcher (maybe with an option on the exe file), when you want to play without adding a new costume?
I’ll try the new version (0.5b) as soon as possible and will do some more tests on zip import. And by the way, thanks a lot for the “about” message in the program 
SF4CMM update v0.6
Finally, finished;) v0.6 is out;) Go give it a try!
PS: What about those jpg previews? Anyone?
No it isn’t… As a matter of fact it is crashing now (0.5b) gonna try 0.6 to see what happens. Also, the ctrl+shift are not working anymore and ctrl+a is selecting abel now. Did you change something regarding the key mechanism?
EDIT:yup, it crashes on xp. When i press the key for the first time everything goes well. The second time the costume is announced with game sound and then the game sound goes off. The program keeps running but with no sound in game.
Agreed with all suggestions.
I’m doing this today at night.
Too bad… I’m going to make it sync in XP, then, until I find the cause of the crash. In vista/7 everything is ok.
I didn’t get one thing, does the tool crash or does it continue to run but without game sound?