DKC Atlas Forum

[Simion32]

SubwareSoft GoFundMe

https://gofund.me/d121b1e2

[Simion32]

DELTA MK2 MINI UPDATE VIDEO

Decided it was time for an update, so there you go guys (and gals)!

[Simion32]

DELTA MK2 MINI UPDATE VIDEO #2

Decided it was time for an update. This time I review the audio lists functionality.

[Simion32]

I've made a bit more progress, but things are going slow due to the massive amount of planning that needs to take place to get things going properly.

Here's a little teaser screenshot...

EDIT: The Klumps in this screenshot are animated, which are also responsible for most of the performance hit.

Spoiler!

EDIT2: I've spotted some clipping errors on the klumps that's cutting off part of his hand(s). Just so you know I'm aware of the issue!

EDIT3 (on 9/3): The clipping errors seem to stem from incorrect update rectangles under heavy load or something. I used an update-rectangle debug, and the rectangles don't always match the size and position of the current Klump frame being drawn. The clipping system is fine, it's actually an error located mostly in the rendering loop and related calls.

[Simion32]

As it turns out the performance hit is some kind of issue with the rendering loop; the actual drawing routine is still fast. If I disable only the drawing call using a keypress debug, the performance hit is still there even though no actual screen update is taking place. I'm still working on figuring this out.

I haven't been able to crack the shell of the update rectangle error yet either, though it looks to be a more involved problem than the performance issue.

I really look forward to getting DELTA MK2 completed, so that we can finally begin work on the DKCLB. I know it's been a long wait and I feel bad about having to rewrite the program so many times, but hopefully this time will be the last. I've done my best to ensure that the GUI is rock solid against errors, and finding that one memory allocation corruption bug knocked out a critical issue that was plaguing the program right from the first release. I kinda feel like I could have went back and added bugfixes to the old version, but the truth of the matter is that the first version of DELTA simply wasn't up to par in the usability department.

I've decided to do a full-on image editor with undo/redo support, so even if this takes a bit more effort, hopefully DELTA will be better at doing what needs done.

EDIT: I fixed the performance issue. Turns out the rendering needed some adjustments along with a check for visibility in a very specific place.

[Super Luigi!]

I don't mind the wait, and I'm glad to hear that you're still making progress.

[Simion32]

I was able to fix the clipping problem, which turned out to be a very complex issue with the rendering loop. The way it was handling which item to render and what update rectangle to use, was totally wrong (even though at a glance everything seemed OK).

It took me a few days since I had to re-arrange the entire element/widget class layout in order to support putting in the bugfix.

I'm still grappling with leftover bugs that resulted from the large changes that had to be made.

But, the main problem is fixed now, so bugs of this nature should hopefully be gone.

EDIT (9/9): I can report that the majority of the side effect bugs have been eliminated. Some of them were actual bugs that only surfaced because my element/widget redo caused correct behavior to happen (from an engine standpoint).

[Simion32]

Progress Update: Basic Functions CODED, First Sprite Screen Complete

I've managed to get the very first sprite screen completed with working functionality for all the menu options.

This here is a preview of the basic options for animations manipulation:

Surprise!! RotSprite makes it into the program!!!

Screenshot 2025-09-20 141448.png (53.48 KiB) Viewed 3918 times

Screenshot 2025-09-20 141017.png (15.13 KiB) Viewed 3918 times

[Simion32]

Progress Update: Second Sprite Screen, the Animation Builder

I've done a fair amount of planning and coding since the last post.

You double click or hit enter on an animation and it sends you to this screen... which is almost completed:

Spoiler!

There's something not entirely clear that I might want to mention -- the images displayed are being scaled up or down according to how the whole sprite fits into a square, unless of course the whole sprite fits without scaling, in which case it just does basic scale based on the GUI setting (as you can see with the bananas).

This is why Klump is not entirely 100% pixelated; the resize algorithm is doing its magic.

EDIT: Of course the sweet thing about that animation bar is that it automatically scrolls via mouse hover when there isn't enough room to squeeze in all the frames.

[Simion32]

Progress Update: Third Sprite Screen of 4, the Palettes Editor

I've done a significant amount of work here, with a palette editor that can deal with DELTA's per-image palettes setup.

Spoiler!

It was a lot of effort but the work paid off!!

It's not apparent by the screenshot but debugging mode makes this screen extra slow. In release mode it's fine though.

There used to be an alignment and timing screen, but my previous work on the animation editor screen took care of those issues.

Next up is the image editor. This one's gonna be a doozy...

[Super Luigi!]

I hope it goes well for you.

[Simion32]

Progress Update: Technical Improvements

I've been working on the lists to construct a GUI-wide generic list implementation, and it all works!!

This allows me to fix bugs and make improvements in the lists using only up to 3 code files (depending on what's being done). This turned about 54 code files into just a few.

The lists now use fancy C++ lambda expressions to plug in the code that handles list items directly where the list is invoked, making everything way more flexible and customizable. It also prevents the need to have around 7 different code files just for each individual list, cutting on code management issues by a lot!!

I used the opportunity to add in a new configuration dialog: HotKeys! This will allow user customization of certain nonstandard key shortcuts.

In addition to the big changes with the lists and stuff, I've also made a ton of smaller adjustments, and I've knocked out a lot of my sticky notes for various things to do. For example I've added most recently used folders as a dropdown button in the file open/save dialogs, amongst other improvements.

The graphics editor is still pretty much where it was since my last post, but don't let that bog you down - I've done quite a lot of work on other parts of DELTA. Progress is still being made, and I'm now in a position to proceed with that GFX editing design+code.

Oh, and no dice on the MINIUSF music plugin issue. It's really weird what happens - the DLL spawns two threads instead of one, and I guess this causes some type of unexpected situation which then promptly crashes (as soon as DELTA gives one of the threads the OK to write audio data, it crashes).