February 12, 2010
I have been fixing up a bunch of stuff in the Doom WAD Reader utility, such as making sure the program knows where to stick the huge amount of random files that aren’t bound by x_START and x_END flags, sound files, and so on.
I’ve also added the ability to play the digital sound files as well as save them out as a wave file.
I’ve also added a rather exciting (and somewhat nostalgia inducing) feature which allows the PC Speaker sounds to be played and saved out as wave files, and I must say, from what I recall, it does sound quite accurate! 
The information for this feature was found at the Doom Wikia[1] which led me on to information on Andrew Apted and Simon "Fraggle" Howard’s work on reverse engineering the file format[2]. Good work guys!
Here are a few samples as saved out by the Doom PC Speaker Effect to Wave feature:
Edit: Checking the original Doom under DosBox, it doesn’t sound quite as accurate as I had thought. I had initially thought about continuity issues of the wave between the notes as I don’t really do anything about that, meaning it’ll sound quite rough.
I’m not entirely convinced this is the only issue, but it’s only minor stuff to fix really, but I’ll just try and do a better job at emulating the old PIT (Programmable Interval Timer) PC speaker setup[3] and see how it goes.
Resources
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February 8, 2010
Last week I said that Floppi had done other great songs, well, here is is “Aerosol”, also by Floppi.
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February 1, 2010
This is “Kumihaik” by Floppi of whom I’ve come across quite a few good songs by!
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January 28, 2010
These are the screenshots for the application thus far. Nothing special to look at, but somewhat functional.
The aim is to provide a window upon extraction to allow customization of how the files are extracted. Whether certain files are left raw, or perhaps converted to a file of choice.
Here’s what I’ve been thinking so far with regards to extraction in a few releases time:
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Maps
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Have their raw constituent components extracted to a folder
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Have their raw constituent components saved out as a single WAD file
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Have the map saved out as an overhead automap view
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Graphics
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Have the file saved out raw
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Converted to a standard image file (.BMP, .PNG, .GIF, etc)
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Sounds
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Music
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Have the file saved out raw
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Converted to MIDI, although I have no particular knowledge on this subject and I’d hate to source from somewhere else
A creature sprite resource from Hexen
A Weapon sprite resource from Heretic
A “flat” image resource from Strife
A patch image resource from Doom II: Hell on Earth
January 28, 2010
I now have the update facility working, I can parse the images (Sprites, Flats and Patches) properly and save them to a file, and the general WAD reading works just fine.
To the left is a quick mid-res mock-up of the icon to be used. I’ll probably change it a few times as the time goes on. The icons for the application will go from 8×8 to 256×256 at all levels of colour, 4-bit, 8-bit and 32-bit
I need to port over some code from an old C++ project for the map viewing, but this shouldn’t take too long.
In all, I’m quite happy with it. I do believe the hard bit is not the programming, but design of the application and how I present all of the features. That’s the bit that’s always bested me, I’m afraid to say.
I’ll post some screenshots soon and I can hopefully be critiqued!
January 26, 2010
I’ve recently been toying with the early stages of an updated, GUI version of the Doom WAD Reader / Extractor utility that I once released.
So in the meantime, I want to upload a quick and dirty (Beta) version of this application, which after feedback via the Contact Me page, I will promptly update and keep updated with cool features, possibly along the lines of the following:
Because of this, I’m adding an even quicker and dirtier auto-update facility so users will always be a click away from the latest version of the tool.
As always, I enjoy feedback whether positive or negative, so don’t hesitate to leave some at the Contact Me page.
January 25, 2010
This is “Princess” by Heretic (While part of the Destiny music group).
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January 22, 2010
I’ve put up a small (Actually, tiny) page on GameBoy Emulation for anybody who’s interested.
It’s located in the “Page” section on the right hand side under “Misc”.
Here’s a picture of the simple ROM file running as mentioned in the above page being run. I’ve only implemented enough to get this ROM working. It’s still missing quite a few opcodes, I’m not dealing with any of the interrupts, and so on.
Currently, I’m saving all of the image data to a simple buffer which I’m using a Device Independent Bitmap (DIB)to handle the rendering. There’s no rush to change this as speed really isn’t a factor.
January 19, 2010
This is “Telephone2” by (unfortunately) an unknown artist.
If anybody knows who wrote this song, or the actual artist happens upon this post, give me a shout!
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