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Topic: Castlevania 1 + VRC6 = Sweet (Read 1471 times)
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Sliver X
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« on: March 27, 2007, 08:09:17 am » |
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Setz (a.k.a Skiffles) and I are in the beginning stages of a Castlevania hack; it will have entirely new graphics (Setz is an extremely talented pixel artist), level design, code changes, and a new soundtrack. And the soundtrack is what made me decide to do this post. Disch did us a massive favor and hacked CV to use VRC6, among other things such as enabling CHR-ROM support. I've been toying with his expansion channel engine (As well as figuring out the last few bits of the standard music format I never bothered with before), and have a song for Stage 1 well under way: It Begins (Ogg/Vorbis Format)The sawtooth is too loud (Still getting familar with this engine), and the two expansion squares aren't utilized, but you should get the idea. The possibilities for music this presents make me want to giggle like a schoolgirl, or something. |
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dormento
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« Reply #1 on: March 27, 2007, 09:15:56 am » |
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Sweet indeed! Especially 25s. and up. Given that you're a nice and talented sound stuff type of guy, and I already saw some of Skiffles stuff, I bet this is gonna rock  Disch once hacked FF1 too to use a new sound engine (dunno if it has to do with VRC6 or not) . He even released a sample of the town music on IRC, IIRC (ha). Has he ever released his notes? |
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Sliver X
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« Reply #2 on: March 27, 2007, 09:22:36 am » |
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Yeah, he hacked FF1 to use Namco 106, which has even better sound hardware than the VRC6. I don't know if he's released notes on it, but I remember his rendition of the town theme as well, and it was amazing.
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Disch
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« Reply #3 on: March 27, 2007, 12:16:28 pm » |
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Disch once hacked FF1 too to use a new sound engine (dunno if it has to do with VRC6 or not) . He even released a sample of the town music on IRC, IIRC (ha). Has he ever released his notes? While we're on this subject -- if anyone has a copy of that NSF, I would kill the pope for it. I lost mine in a big old HD crash a few years back, and nobody in #rom-hacking seems to have a copy anymore. Back on the original subject: I am really looking forward to this hack as well... even if only for the music  . |
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Numonohi_Boi
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« Reply #4 on: March 27, 2007, 02:10:52 pm » |
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where can I find this Final Fantasy I hack! also I can't wait for this castlevania one, sweetness.
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Disch
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« Reply #5 on: March 27, 2007, 02:26:07 pm » |
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where can I find this Final Fantasy I hack!
I never got around to actually slipping the music engine into the game... so the hack never really existed. The most it ever was was an NSF (which I've since lost). However the music engine was (theoretically) compatible with FF1, so I could have just dropped it in with relative ease. Plus I only finished scoring one song (the town theme), and started another song (battle theme). But anyway -- enough about this. This thread is about Sliv+Setz' CV hack |
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optomon
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« Reply #6 on: March 28, 2007, 12:25:37 am » |
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I am immediately excited about the announcement of such a project. Having lots of experience hacking this game, I am very interested in seeing how it develops.
I am very interested in the implementation of a different sound engine. It was something that I thought about learning how to do. I hope it turns out very well and encourages other hackers to do this kind of thing. I will have to wait to hear the musical piece, as I am browsing from a very public facility.
So what exactly does it mean now that this game uses the VRC6? I feel like I should already know, but I don't.
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Disch
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« Reply #7 on: March 28, 2007, 01:37:31 am » |
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So what exactly does it mean now that this game uses the VRC6? I feel like I should already know, but I don't. rough breakdown of the stuff I did: - 3 extra sound channels: 2 squares and a sawtooth (with a driver to run them in conjunction with the original game's music engine driving the normal NES sound channels). - switch to CHR-ROM with 1k pages... freeing up loads of PRG space, and allowing for more CHR - CHR-ROM pages swapped in twice a frame... once for the status bar and once after the screen split. This means: 1) the graphics you use for the status bar don't need to be used in the map (allowing for more map tiles) 2) you can have backgrounds animate by changing CHR pages each frame - got rid of the Sprite-0 hit wait loop and have VRC6's IRQ trigger the split... freeing up some CPU time. Although the newly added music engine probably eats up all the CPU time gained. - VRC6 usually has RAM at $6000-7FFF whereas UNROM typically does not. Although most emus put RAM there anyway so it doesn't matter. that's about it really. I do plan on releasing my VRC6 changes as a "general improvement" hack sometime in the future. When all the kinks are worked out of the music engine and when I actually get around to re-scoring the tracks to use the additional channels. |
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Sliver X
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« Reply #8 on: March 29, 2007, 03:58:21 am » |
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Completed the second song just now: The Dark BeneathI need to touch up the primary NES' Square 2 (It cuts out during a certain part), but other than that, it's complete. I love this mapper. Also:   |
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« Last Edit: March 29, 2007, 04:40:46 am by Sliver X »
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hap
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« Reply #9 on: March 29, 2007, 04:57:46 am » |
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It looks good, I'm looking forward to trying it out when it's released.
Impressive changes there, Disch.
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Spikeman
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« Reply #10 on: March 29, 2007, 05:40:05 am » |
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The music sounds really nice! I'm looking forward to this! |
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setz
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« Reply #11 on: March 29, 2007, 10:38:52 am » |
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I thought I was already regged here... oh well :/  (mockup, of course) small size due to being constructed in YY-CHR. I haven't had a chance to touch up those other graphics to take advantage of the increased tilespace yet, but that should happen soon enough. but since its been announced I guess I'll have to work on it now  |
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deespence2929
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« Reply #12 on: March 29, 2007, 11:08:01 am » |
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It's amazing to see CV1 getting Sonic hedgehog calibre hacks. First Dr Marios hacks, now this one. Good job on the song composition. It'll be great to see it in game.
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optomon
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« Reply #13 on: April 10, 2007, 12:00:20 am » |
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Good music... The first theme used for the first song is very catchy. Second song also has a very nice opening, good orienting melody to it and I love the "pluck" sound. Bass works well in this song. Can't wait to hear more. I'm curious as to what the sound effects are going to be like.
More CHR room is a blessing. And so there can be animated backgrounds too... yeah, you've got to take advantage of that (like make some grass blades blow or something).
Keep working on this guys, I'll follow it closely.
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Spinner 8
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« Reply #14 on: April 11, 2007, 05:49:12 pm » |
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my god man that first song is amazing and totally Castlevania, in fact you need to make a longer version of that sound file for listening purposes
I am totally excited for this
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