[Scummvm-devel] GSOC, Z-Engine and stuff.

[Filippos Karapetis]

Frankly, I expected Zork to be an order of magnitude more complex, but a

> closer examination of the sources has showed me the work involved may
> not be much greater, as I find the existing Zork code somewhat more
> readable/portable.
>

It is, yeah. The main problem with the existing code is that it's badly
written, IMHO, and needs refactoring into something more sensible.


> I assume porting could be rather trivial when it comes, for example, to
> Puzzle.cpp (IIRC there is no graphics or event system involved, just
> some string functions from the standard library), although parts of the
> code may or may not benefit from a refactor.
>

Some parts will definitely need refactoring. E.g. I'd like to have a more
generic kind of resource manager, something like what the MADE engine has.

I am less optimistic about, e.g., Graph.h or the whole avi_duck thing,
> but if you say that my utter lack of experience with video playback and
> anything but simple 2d graphics and geometry is not a show stopper as
> things can be picked up on the way and/or the mentor would be willing to
> help if - no, when I get stuck, then I'd seriously consider it.
>

Graph.h is straightforward enough, IIRC. As for the DUCK Truemotion 1 AVI
encoding, we already support it in common code, as part of our VideoDecoder
class - Phantasmagoria 2 uses videos with the same video encoding.
Have a look here:
http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=Duck_TrueMotion_1

These two Zork games also use a specialized audio decoder - a sort of
modified PCM. I've got a local patch to support this, but it's still not
finished, as you can still hear static for some reason.
My work is based on FFMpeg - have a look here:
http://cekirdek.pardus.org.tr/~ismail/ffmpeg-docs/libavcodec_2pcm_8c-source.html
lines 179 - 185 and lines 400 - 407

I've got some very initial code for a ScummVM engine, which right now shows
a game screen and a video, with the special Zork sound decoder. It's at the
point where a proper resource manager is needed - which is where I stopped,
because of lack of time. I'd be happy to send the code over.


I will be on IRC tonight and tomorrow night after 8PM GMT+1, with the
> nickname t0by, if you happen to be there I'd love to hear more from you
> so that I can make up my mind once and for all.
>

Great :) I'll try to be around at that time, I'm on GMT+2 (Athens, Greece),
so the time slot should be fine.



> Thank you so much!


You're more than welcome. Thanks for offering to help our project :)

Regards
Filippos

-- 
"Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes" - Oscar Wilde
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