Finished the Sherlock Hound project from Master Digital Color. Line-art is from Mike Worley.
Part A I’ve gotten through the big block of theory now and reached some source code, but I’m puzzled as to why I had to read the theory as there is no hexadecimal mentioned in the code. It’s a nice simple demonstration that uses the inbuilt preprocessor macros to abstract away the hex values, but with the missing key pad register description and no cross-reference/reminder of what ‘&’ does it’s a little disjointed. Perhaps we could have started with the program and then explored what the macros mean to launch into the “What is Hexadecimal” block. Here is a picture that may be the missing diagram 
I have added the first block of example code to the repository here, though it seems the code has been updated without an update to the description (“The next two lines initialize the libnds interrupt handler…” ???).
Tested code in iDeaS Emulator
Part B
Part B expands on the first example to look at reading the X button and when the touchscreen is pressed. I copied this code with a small modification, moving the declaration of the variable “held” to the start of the function. I know it is legal to put it inside the while(1) loop, but it is clearer what variables there are if they are all declared at the same time.
I compiled and loaded this .nds file into iDeaS but was unable to get any response to pressing the X button or the touch screen. I tried switching to DualiS but this too did not respond to “X” or “TOUCH”. Finally I loaded the .nds file onto my DSLite and it ran perfectly, responding to all three inputs. Not sure why both of the emulators were unable to run the code properly, but I think I have my build system set up properly as the code did run on the real DSLite.
Tested on the DS Lite Hardware
I liked the discussion highlighting the positive logic, something I hadnt paid attention to in part a. It then talks about functions advertised by input.h, a file that can be found under the devkitPro install directory, in the libnds\include subdirectory. (I have no idea why, but WordPress refuses to save if I insert a link to libnds.devkitpro.org/a00109.html here.)
The next code block is not a program, but a extract from the library source code for input.c . The macro shown is a little dense and the short explanation being that it is collecting all the information on buttons so that it is in a single register. A longer explanation, or a data flow diagram might help to give a practical explanation of the use of boolean C operators.
Part C
Because I had difficulty getting the X and Y keys to work properly I added an extra line the lower screen to show keysHeld() return value, which showed that the bits for X and Y were not being set. (This can be seen in main.c check-in cc063a27e2 which I cannot link to again :( ). This didn’t accomplish much, but it did show explicitly that the return value bits for X and Y were not being set.
I see that my posts have been making the front page on drunkencoders, even without “front page” tags, so I apologize if my posts seem trivial or amateurish to the more advanced readers. More importantly I’d like to thank Dovoto for taking the time to write the tutorials in the first place, I’m just posting my observations as I find that this helps me soak up the material if I try to re-write it.
I was initially going to write these pages as wiki entries, but I realized these thoughts are more suited to blog postings, so I’m hoping to keep posting for a while as I try out programming for the NDS. I’m sure I’ll misunderstand some issues so I’m looking forward to these being pointed out in any comments.
Special Scenery Beta 2010 version!
The most important change is that it now uses OpenGL instead of drawing directly to the framebuffer, which makes it work a bit faster. I’ve also allowed to use 3x zoom because the screen size is no longer a problem.
Changes:
-Dissasembler fixes.
-Debugger screen now gets focus when reaching a breakpoint.
-Changed to OpenGL, allowed 3x zoom. Fullscreen mode is buggy, sometimes it crash when returning to windowed mode… :S
-Rumble “emulated” (screen shakes a bit).
-MBC7 fixed (Kirby Tilt ‘n’ Tumble).
-Mapper code optimized a bit.
-Stat bug emulated (Legend of Zerd, Road Rash now work in non-color GameBoy modes).
-GameBoy Pocket screen is now white, you can only change the color of the normal GameBoy screen.
-Sound emulation code partially optimized. Also, it is more accurate now (and it can save the sound output to a wav file, but the code is disabled this version because it needs testing).
-CPU fixes: Zero flag for opcodes RRA / RR A, RCLA / RCL A, etc…
-Added a filter to make colors more “realistic”. You can enable it in the menu, and you can also enable or disable the frame mix filter that comes with GiiBii since first version.
-Discovered why Alleyway didn’t work: GB Printer was enabled Ù_Ú.
-Fixed a bug in ICON_EN SGB command that made graphics have serious glitches in some games (DK2, DK3).
Downloads:
Binaries (linux) You need SDL and GTK+ (and OpenCV for the GB Camera).
Notes:
-Emulation may be more accurate if you put the gb boot roms in the “boot” folder of the emulator (see the readme.txt). They aren’t included with the download.
-You can load a rom by grabbing it to the GiiBii exe file (or using the command line “GiiBii myrom.gb”).
-If you want free roms, go to PDRoms. If you are looking for comercial games, I can’t help you.
-This emulator will be mixed someday with GiiBiiAdvance.
Screenshots:
Intro
Another daunting large block to tackle, but hopefully by breaking it into the seven sections shown in the index it will look more achievable.
What is Hexadecimal
This section is an introduction to using registers to control the different subsystems of the NDS. Luckily I already know all about this so it’s a little hard to tell what is a good intro and what is impenetrable technobabble.
I think that introducing registers it may have been more beneficial to think about them as banks of switches hidden away in the computer subsystem that we can turn on and off by writing numbers to them, and then building up to binary numbers from there. Here we can talk about adding and subtracting binary numbers and a quick sidebar to hexadecimal notation.
Returning to discuss boolean operations NOT, AND, OR & XOR and finally talking about rotations and shifts. After this talking about the C implementation of these operations and finally returning to the syntax of the C declarations using volatile, const and preprocessor macros.
Resource Links
| Title | NASA – What is the “secret code” used by the Voyager spacecraft? |
| Subjects | Binary Numbers, Hexadecimal Numbers |
| Ages | Elementary School |
| Location | http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/vgr_fact1.shtml |
| Title | Computer Science Unplugged – Binary Numbers |
| Subjects | Binary Numbers |
| Ages | Elementary School |
| Location | http://csunplugged.org/binary-numbers |
| Title | Williamson Labs – Boolean Logic |
| Subjects | Boolean Operators |
| Ages | Middle School |
| Location | http://williamson-labs.com/480_logic.htm |
| Notes | Ugly 90s style site, but the animations to illustrate concepts are nice |
| Title | Venn Diagrams for Boolean Logic |
| Subjects | Boolean Operators |
| Ages | High School |
| Location | http://www.mountsaintvincent.edu/library2/venn.htm |
| Notes | Venn Diagrams illustrating boolean operators as used in internet searches |
Summary
As this tutorial is again quite long, I’m going to make several small posts rather than getting waylaid with a long meandering piece . I think that libnds has changed since the author first wrote the tutorial, and perhaps the hexadecimal theory is no longer as critical as the time of original writing. It will still be required to understand registers, but could be ‘masked’ (bad pun) by a macro till later.
Hello!
Since GiiBii works really well for what I expected, I wanted to do a GBA emulator. I’ve been working on it since July, and after 2 months of work, here are some results:
“Kirby – Nightmare in Dream Land” and “Need for Speed – Underground 2″
Obviously, there is still a lot to do, most games are unplayable (in fact, NFS runs very slowly, there is a problem with CPU timing, I guess), have graphic glitches (where is the needle of the velocimeter? :P) or just can’t pass from the initial splash screens (if they can show them…).
What is done:
- CPU emulation (ARM and THUMB), but it is still buggy.
- DMA channels (except special modes).
- All BG modes and regular (non-affine) sprites are emulated. No special effects or window effects, though.
- VBL, HBL, VCOUNT, DMA and KEYPAD interrupt requests.
- Disassembler, I/O register viewer (both aren’t finished) and memory viewer.
A capture of the debugger:
Yeah, that’s a Tonc demo.
PS: A new version of GiiBii is comming in a few days :P.
Been a while. A very loooooooooooooong while. I’ve been mostly busy trying to find a job, get something done this summer, not much came of it.
Still don’t have a new laptop. Kind of annoying, but whatever.
Anyways, school’s coming back up again, I’ve opted to return to high school. Which means much internet access. Except I’ll be aiming for 90s, so I might still be a little inactive.
~Supreme Dirt
Wintermute has just posted some news over at his personal blog, looks like he’s found a pretty neat way to get homebrew running in DSi mode. Check out DSi mode homebrew, anyone? then hop over to #dsdev on irc.blitzed.org to celebrate with the rest of the homebrew crew.
Here comes the second release of my project 2ds+.
I used the time after the last release to get more involved in calculation of 3D coordinates and vectors and in using the openGL stuff. I added and updated the following objects and scenes:
- A satellite spinning around Earth (added)
- A waving plane (added)
- Some rotating cubes (updated)
- A photograph
The satellite scene is new and it contains a satellite (of course) that’s flying around an Earth object. Additionally the satellite’s path and a starry sky is displayed. You can control the flight direction of the satellite by using the NDS keys: B and X or you can rotate the entire scene by dragging it on the touchpad.
picture: Satellite
Controls:
SELECT – switch between the scenes
Touchpad – rotate the objects manually
B – turn the satellite to the left
X – turn the satellite to the right
Binary and sources files:
Regards,
damicha
Finished the rendering chapter of Hi-Fi Color for Comics. I took way to long. It got much faster towards the end.
I think it turned out pretty well but I still need to work a lot on everything. Color, value, anatomy, style.
Also its not my line art. So I still need to learn how to make line art. haha.
UPDATE: major bugs have been found. previous demo is still the most valid. The new update is still there in case it helps someone help me.
Some reported filesystem exceptions with the previous release. Now, I’m using the latest (last) PAlib and NitroFS. EFS is gone for good. Maybe it works now.
You may test it. Works on NO$GBA for sure, though.
Other than that, it’s the same thing as before.
And here I’m again. (still using PAlib :( )
to make some people happy and my game ready for the NEOFLASH Compo, I made another fix.
Changelog: - there are now three modes: - adventure mode: unlock the next level by getting through - infinite: the "play all"-mode - own levels: play your own levels - if you only play one level (everything except infinite), the time is your score - each level has its own highscorelist - you can play the level direct in the leveleditor - added an easier Stylus-Control (the second in option-menu) - slower scrolling (if you need to scroll further, press UP) - italian translation by Nhoya - spanish translation by fincs - fixed some other bugs and improved other things
I also changed the folder structure:
new levels are now in sj-levels
missions are in sj-missions
highscores are in sj-highscores
Missions have this format (no mission-editor yet): level1;0;level2;0;level3;0;level4;0;
download: http://cojobo.net/~s_hansse/download/scribblejump/index.php?action=download&lg=en
Welcome Drunken Coders to drunkencoders, posts tagged as ‘drunk’, ‘drunk_news’, ‘Homebrew’, ‘dsdev’ or ‘wiidev’ will be posted to the main news site…please use this feature to keep drunkencoders going strong!
In this post I’m talking about the page located at http://www.dev-scene.com/NDS/Tutorials_Day_2
I’ve started reading this several times previously, but I think I get distracted by the big complex diagram at the start of the article. I think it might be easier to show the connections between the systems first, and then talk about the details of each system similar to the picture below.
Simple block diagram showing interconnections of NDS systems
I’m pretty sure I didn’t get this diagram correct as I wasnt sure about the 16bit main bus between the two ARMS, Main Memory and the VRAM Control in the original diagram.
The rest of the page is quite long to get through, and although I thought that the table of contents showed a good separation of the subject material, it would have been nice to have a horizontal rule or something similar between each Major Heading to remind you to take a quick break to digest. I’m not sure that I took in everything that was presented, but it looks like a quick reference page that can be referred to later on if you learn all the details but forget them and need a refresh.
Another long gap between posts but today I put together another wiki page at http://code.google.com/p/new2nds/wiki/DevEnv that describes the current, sub-optimal, development environment I am using to work through the DevScene tutorials. I guess I plan to eventually try to pull the basic edit/build/test tools into Eclipse or something fancy, but at the moment I launch File Explorer and MSys. After that I use the file associations to launch Visual Studio and iDeaS.
Beyond the essentials for creating and running the .nds files, there are several support tools that it is good to have on hand, such as utilities to compare files and version control. I’m sure there are more I’ll find I need, but I have enough to proceed further into the tutorial and record my progress.
made a first fix (probably the latest in PAlib).
fixed:
- used PA_CreateSpriteFromGfx also for items and monsters
- if you play twice, your name is saved
- some other little glitches
you can download the game again here: http://cojobo.net/~s_hansse/download/scribblejump/index.php?action=download&lg=en
I also added this game in the neoflash compo 2010 (http://www.neoflash.com/forum/index.php/topic,6239.0.html).
s_hansse (learns now libnds)
MunchiToy is a physics application for DS that allows the user to interact with our character “Munchi” by using Touch and the Microphone. it is currently in development at the moment so we released DEMO 1 (CodeCrimson)
yes he can talk to you.
Image:
Munchi happily bouncing around on a DSi
Progress on Demo 2 for DS: (Coming soon after Demo 1 on iPad is released to Cydia store (we hope)
Demo 1 is just an Inital start up. Demo 2 will include microphone recognition and touchscreen interaction and a background changer.
Enjoy this fine (old) release from StudioPlatinum (PlatinumWindows)
We are still alive yes and still making DS games. and we left for 5 months on working on videos and business. but here’s a status report on our projects.
MunchiToy Demo 2 – 50% complete
MinimiteLife – 12% complete (NEED TILERS)
and thats about it.
we are working on MunchiToy on iPad at the moment! :D
(pictures are not coming up that often when we post :/)
I recently mentioned that I was thinking about making a secondary project, likely a rpg with tile based movement (i.e: easier coding, more “what should the game do” thinking instead of “how the fuck do I do what it’s already obvious it has to do (and make it efficient)” thinking).
Well, this is already settled. Just like Tanuki Tail will be able to be considered a L.O.Zelda ripoff with lots of twitches, this new game is planned to be a Pokemon ripoff with lots of twitches. No shame, no regrets: a ripoff.
In other words: turn based fighting (or something similar, here is where I want to innovate, since it’s the most important gameplay), the overworld is a grid and you move from block to block (uncare for corner collisions, circles, volumes, etc. unlike in the super-geometrical Tanuki Tail), you ‘catch’ and ‘fight’ monsters, you probably played pokemon so you know the long etc.
I’ve though about some aspects of the game (concepts) but won’t tell much until it’s solid. Just that the current ‘project name’ is Channelers and involves people summoning souls and controlling them.
This game, however, doesn’t mean an end to Tanuki Tail, which, on the other hand, gets tedious over time, because of library switchings, and the need to optimize already, with only 2 moving characters on screen and 3 frozen ones, and lots of things to implement. The plan is that the games help eachother. The tools will be used in both, or the tools’ code will be reutilized when necessary (for example, map editors would be too game-specific). Also, having more friendly coding goals allows me to rest from TT for short periods of time, and work with the other game.
Over at The Moon Books Project we are celebrating documentary week and making available a varitable flood of documentaries in both DPG format (for viewing on the Nintendo DS with Moon Shell) and MP4 format.
So far we have made available the following documentaries, so head on over and enlighten yourself:
BBS: The Documentary (if you are unfamiliar with BBSes and want to know what people did before the Internet, check this out!)
Zeitgeist and Zeitgeist: Addendum
Also, we have launced a review website for games, movies and other cool stuff called Moon Books Magazine, we know it’s not very original, but it works… :p