Post by Ford Prefect on May 25, 2009 14:05:07 GMT -6
Hi folks,
I released a new beta version of the AMS. As there have not been much changes, I numbered it 3.1. You may ask why there are only few new features, as I announced quite a lot. The reason is simple: I found a neat open source framework for REALbasic that makes it possible to render the AMS animation via OpenGL. This will make the animation smoother, require less CPU usage (thus making recording easier), and hopefully will finally get rid of the sound problem at dickspeed. Of course, this will need a lot of code rewriting, and will result in more and more work with every new feature I add BEFORE switching the GUI to OpenGL. So I decided to freeze the current development state, release it as new beta version and get the OpenGL implementation done.
As I made this decision quit abrupt, I didn't invest much time in testing this release (in fact, I didn't test it on Windows at all - I just ensured that it starts properly), so it is quite likely to contain bugs. If you find one, be sure to report it - I may still update this beta version for fixing bugs while I'll write the 4th beta with OpenGL rendering.
So what's actually new in this version? The first thing is, I moved the SoundFont list to the menu. You'll also find the menu item "Custom", which opens the custom SoundFont editor. Here you can drag any instruments from any loaded SoundFonts to any of the Mario Paint instrument channels. This enables you to use sounds from different SoundFonts at once. Your configuration is also saved in the song file. This has the effect that you cannot open a song file with customized channels in a beta version prior to 3.1 (if you use only one SoundFont, you won't get problems).
Another change is that the Boo and the Coin notes won't get cut off when the next note comes. As you can manage the instruments on those two channels, you can use this effect on any instrument - simply assign it to Boo or Coin. This feature will become more user-friendly in future releases, so you can decide which channels you want to hold the notes.
I also played a little with the volume implementation. The range covered by the volume levels is now greater.
As FluidSynth 1.0.9 has been released recently, I updated my application to be able to use this new version. However, I didn't have the time to compile a FluidSynth 1.0.9 dll on Windows, so the AMS still comes with the old one. Using the new version doesn't make any significant change on the user side anyway.
The last thing is: I tried hard to get note playback at dickspeed less crappy, so this release will hopefully play more notes than the previous one . But as I said above, the best solution to this issue will come with OpenGL.
Download link didn't change:
www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=b46c52f041c1b1f791b20cc0d07ba4d269ec631b362f1bdf
Cheers!
I released a new beta version of the AMS. As there have not been much changes, I numbered it 3.1. You may ask why there are only few new features, as I announced quite a lot. The reason is simple: I found a neat open source framework for REALbasic that makes it possible to render the AMS animation via OpenGL. This will make the animation smoother, require less CPU usage (thus making recording easier), and hopefully will finally get rid of the sound problem at dickspeed. Of course, this will need a lot of code rewriting, and will result in more and more work with every new feature I add BEFORE switching the GUI to OpenGL. So I decided to freeze the current development state, release it as new beta version and get the OpenGL implementation done.
As I made this decision quit abrupt, I didn't invest much time in testing this release (in fact, I didn't test it on Windows at all - I just ensured that it starts properly), so it is quite likely to contain bugs. If you find one, be sure to report it - I may still update this beta version for fixing bugs while I'll write the 4th beta with OpenGL rendering.
So what's actually new in this version? The first thing is, I moved the SoundFont list to the menu. You'll also find the menu item "Custom", which opens the custom SoundFont editor. Here you can drag any instruments from any loaded SoundFonts to any of the Mario Paint instrument channels. This enables you to use sounds from different SoundFonts at once. Your configuration is also saved in the song file. This has the effect that you cannot open a song file with customized channels in a beta version prior to 3.1 (if you use only one SoundFont, you won't get problems).
Another change is that the Boo and the Coin notes won't get cut off when the next note comes. As you can manage the instruments on those two channels, you can use this effect on any instrument - simply assign it to Boo or Coin. This feature will become more user-friendly in future releases, so you can decide which channels you want to hold the notes.
I also played a little with the volume implementation. The range covered by the volume levels is now greater.
As FluidSynth 1.0.9 has been released recently, I updated my application to be able to use this new version. However, I didn't have the time to compile a FluidSynth 1.0.9 dll on Windows, so the AMS still comes with the old one. Using the new version doesn't make any significant change on the user side anyway.
The last thing is: I tried hard to get note playback at dickspeed less crappy, so this release will hopefully play more notes than the previous one . But as I said above, the best solution to this issue will come with OpenGL.
Download link didn't change:
www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=b46c52f041c1b1f791b20cc0d07ba4d269ec631b362f1bdf
Cheers!