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Post by Ford Prefect on Jun 8, 2009 16:32:19 GMT -6
After the recent Beta 3.2 release, here's my plan for the 0.4 release: Firstly, the AMS will become Open Source. I created a project on SourceForge, where the code and the releases will be hosted. The bad news about this is that I needed to rename the Sequencer due to possible trademark infringement (Nintendo might have some rights on the Mario character). Version 0.4 will be called "Open Cartoon Sequencer". The SourceForge project is located here: sourceforge.net/projects/ocsequencer(There's nothing up yet, but don't worry, I will start soon.) Besides the Mario character, I also need to remove everything I "stole" from Nintendo which might cause copyright trouble. That is to say: Nearly all sprites. But don't panic, I will make the sprites exchangeable, so you can simply load the original spriteset (no idea where you could get that ) in the sequencer, and you have back your beloved instrument sprites and the hopping Mario. As I wrote earlier, the next version will feature OpenGL rendering. It might even be that the instruments "bounce" on playing, like in original Mario Paint. But if I do that, you certainly can turn it off, I believe it would be rather annoying for dickspeed songs. The other great thing to come is the arranger feature. It will be a little different to MPC: There will be one file that stores all the songs you use for an arrangement, and the arrangement itself. When you load this file, you can load the songs into tabs (like in most popular browsers), so you always have everything opened you need. You can then arrange the songs, use them more than once in your arrangement, and finally play the arrangement. You will be able to import songs from a different arrangement file, if you need to. So much for planning. All the features that are already there will of course remain in the next version. Keyboard control is also planned. Let's see how long it will take me to implement all this stuff.
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Post by lih on Jun 9, 2009 1:01:49 GMT -6
Does that mean the default soundfont won't be the MP one, as it was created by unfungames based on samples from Mario Paint?
I'm happy about it being open source. I want to try to port it to Wii or something.
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Post by Ford Prefect on Jun 9, 2009 4:11:16 GMT -6
Does that mean the default soundfont won't be the MP one, as it was created by unfungames based on samples from Mario Paint? I'm happy about it being open source. I want to try to port it to Wii or something. Yeah, I can't spread the old SoundFont by default. Oh, and I'm sorry to disappoint you, but REALbasic only compiles for Mac, Windows and Linux, there's no possibility of porting the App anywhere else. I don't speak C/C++ yet, so I don't have the possibility to use one of those languages that compile almost everywhere.
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Post by TFinn04 on Jun 16, 2009 7:32:42 GMT -6
I suppose this was going to happen eventually.
By the way, what do you have in mind for instruments, sprites, etc?
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Post by Ford Prefect on Jun 16, 2009 10:25:01 GMT -6
By the way, what do you have in mind for instruments, sprites, etc? I didn't think about it yet. With the sprites, I'll probably ask some friends who are more skilled with drawing graphics than I am. For the sounds, I'll try to adapt the original SoundFont as close as possible (I might spread early versions without any SoundFont and leave it to you to get one, but the final release will definitely feature a standard Soundfont).
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Post by _ on Jun 16, 2009 19:51:15 GMT -6
As a community, we'll still refer to it as Advanced Mario Sequencer.
But does this mean I can get a Mr. Bean instrument? WIN!!!
EDIT: I could also make some sprites. I'm fairly experienced with the sprite making. I would save them as .PNG and let you do whatever you want with them. You'd just have to tell me what you want the objects to be.
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Post by Ford Prefect on Jun 17, 2009 4:14:46 GMT -6
EDIT: I could also make some sprites. I'm fairly experienced with the sprite making. I would save them as .PNG and let you do whatever you want with them. You'd just have to tell me what you want the objects to be. This would be great. I think it would be cool to have instruments that resemble the original ones - as far as possible (Mario and Yoshi can't be adopted, as it's kind of a trademark of Nintendo. But there can be cars, cats, dogs etc). I don't like to be the one who decides solely on this. Let's say this: Anyone who wants to can participate in designing nice instrument sprites. There's no problem with having more than one sprite set in the application. And by the way, you will be able to have any amount of instruments - as long as your SoundFont provides enough channels, and if not, you still can mix multiple SoundFonts. I'll provide a utility to easily create PNG files with alpha channel for instruments later this day, along with a specification of the instrument files.
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Post by Ford Prefect on Jun 27, 2009 9:07:59 GMT -6
This is an early screenshot of the next major AMS / OCS release. I already imported some of the instrument sprites that have been submitted by forum users (thanks, guys!). As you can see, the basic look-and-feel stays the same. However, there are some significant improvements - mainly due to the features of OpenGL and the fact that I'm rewriting a lot of old code which was written with much less knowledge of what it should be capable of. The main improvement on the GUI itself is smooth scrolling - you can scroll through a song the way it scrolls for playing. Near the treble clef, the chords will fade out and eventually vanish when you scroll further to the right - so the clef is always visible, but the position of the visible chords isn't fixed. This makes it easier to keep track of certain notes / chords while scrolling. Another improvement is that the Window is now resizable - partly. The height can't be changed (as everything - the staff, the toolbar etc - has a fixed height), but you can change the width of the window, which allows you to edit more or less chords at the same time. As you can see, you can now scroll behind the last chord without another one being added. The song length will only be increased if you place a note behind the last chord. A few other thing that have been improved are the sprites of the accidentals - which look better now - and the size of the white space above the staff. It will be used for chord numbers and bookmarks - the same way as in the current beta - but the animated "Mario" (which won't be Mario anymore by default) will now hop into the instrument chooser bar - just like in Mario Paint. Volume, toolbar and scrollbar aren't implemented yet, nor is tabbed editing (but there's already space reserved for the tabs), playing or arranging. So there's still much to be done.
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Post by Youne on Jul 11, 2009 9:50:43 GMT -6
Will the final .4 release be compatible with Windows 7 when it comes out?
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Post by Ford Prefect on Jul 17, 2009 12:31:49 GMT -6
Will the final .4 release be compatible with Windows 7 when it comes out? If Microsoft doesn't completely fuck up its operating system (which is already enough fucked up), it should be no problem to run the AMS on Windows 7. However, I have no intention to test it, I will rely on reports of users who get the new Windows when it comes out.
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Cat
Plane
Zoroark fanatic
Posts: 973
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Post by Cat on Jul 17, 2009 19:17:22 GMT -6
Wow, that's actually pretty creative with the sprite and open source idea. Open Cartoon Sequencer is kind of funny though.
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Post by Colin Comard (Delay) on Jul 18, 2009 10:47:46 GMT -6
Nice sprites there. I don't like the idea of putting instruments as sprites, because then changing what instrument would go there is confusing, and SF's are not meant to be standarized to one format. I think you should keep the animals (like same animals, but different sprites) and stuff. Like, make it close, but not too close, y'know?
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Post by Savvn on Jul 18, 2009 14:32:38 GMT -6
Nice sprites there. I don't like the idea of putting instruments as sprites, because then changing what instrument would go there is confusing, and SF's are not meant to be standarized to one format. I think you should keep the animals (like same animals, but different sprites) and stuff. Like, make it close, but not too close, y'know? I totaly agree.
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Post by TFinn04 on Jul 19, 2009 8:26:34 GMT -6
Nice sprites there. I don't like the idea of putting instruments as sprites, because then changing what instrument would go there is confusing, and SF's are not meant to be standarized to one format. I think you should keep the animals (like same animals, but different sprites) and stuff. Like, make it close, but not too close, y'know? I agree. It would make alternate soundsets a bit confusing. Speaking of soundsets, what do you have in mind for a default soundset?
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Cat
Plane
Zoroark fanatic
Posts: 973
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Post by Cat on Jul 29, 2009 18:19:18 GMT -6
I think for the sprites, having two sets in the open version would be nice: one with sprites similar to the Mario Paint ones, and one with sprites similar to the instruments they represent.
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Post by hatchet2k4 on Jul 30, 2009 15:03:45 GMT -6
Any news or progress to report? Not to sound impatient, but, I do like this program. Much more usable for me than Mario Paint Composer.. and I'm definitely looking forward to the OpenGL rendering. I definitely love how easy it is to pretty much make a custom soundfont by pulling from multiple sources. And since I'm here I'd like to throw in a few random feature requests that you may/may not have already thought of.. I don't think they'd be too hard to implement. -Seperate volumes per instrument per line.. should be easy to store in each entry I would think. -Ability to globally mute an instrument or set its default volume. This would help when editing and triying to pinpoint a particular sound without having to erase sections. Speaking of.. -Undo would be nice. -A way to make speed bookmarks be based on a percentage of the current tempo.. so if I have some sections that needs to double the speed I can just say 2x instead of having to modify them all. Sometimes' I'll work on a section at half speed just to be sure it sounds right. Also a bug.. the bottom scrollbar doesn't really scroll with you so when playing a song and you want to stop to edit a part.. it won't stop at that part of the song which is annoying.. I don't know if you've already fixed that or not, but thought I'd point it out too. It also really doesn't like soundfonts with a . in the name. Okay I'll stop now or I'll go overboard. I do appreciate the work, your program is what inspired me to start sequencing again.
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Post by Youne on Jul 30, 2009 16:20:26 GMT -6
Only thing I would like to see in the final is the arranger feature from MPC v.2. Or something along those lines of it, because sometimes a file just gets way too long.
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Post by hatchet2k4 on Jul 30, 2009 17:03:57 GMT -6
Well I didn't mention it because he already said he was working on one.. with tabs even! Can't wait to see that in action.
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Post by Youne on Jul 30, 2009 17:54:27 GMT -6
Sounds good then. My problems so far are solved.
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RalDamage22
Boat
I, Georgie, am Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and you're Georgie... So, now we know each other!
Posts: 68
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Post by RalDamage22 on Oct 29, 2009 23:51:07 GMT -6
Are most problems from AMS going to be fixed when OCS comes out? I have found these bugs so far: 1) More notes will appear when the song is played, yet the extra notes do not. 2) I have a glitch where if the song is larger than the beggining bar, it won't save. 3) I can't open any songs that I've made in AMS, period. Plus, I also have these questions: 1) How far from a possible release? 2) Can we still open MPC or AMS songs? 3) Can more bars for notes be added? 4) Will it retain all the current features of AMS? 5) Will a 'patch' be available to have the old sounds and sprites again? 6) Will it have an audio/video recording function? 7) Will you be able to set the volume for multiple notes on the same chord? (Ex: A Mario Head and Goose on one chord, yet different volumes forr them.) Well, please answer these to the best of your abilities, Ford, and thank you for you time. You've been so much more then kind.
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