Language…
16 users online:  Ahrion, CroNo, Dennsen86, Green Jerry, Hammerer,  Lazy, Metal-Yoshi94, Nayfal, Neuromancer, OrangeRock57, Rykon-V73, Serena, signature_steve, snoruntpyro, Sweetdude, Tulip Time Scholarship Games - Guests: 336 - Bots: 375
Users: 64,795 (2,371 active)
Latest user: mathew

DKC(R) Sprite Status Bar & Message Box Expansion

(This is not a new release!)

The DKC(R) Styled Sprite Status Bar and Message Box Expansion patches are arguably my most popular resources on SMWC, so I figured I'd make a thread for them both to keep potential discussion in one place. (If this breaks the rules, then so be it.)

The main reason I'm making this thread is to collect bug reports and feature requests for whenever I get around to updating the patches. I don't plan to do that now, mind you, but when the time comes it'll be handy to have a list of issues to refer to.

If you found a bug or want to request a feature for either of these two patches, feel free to post here. (Even if you've already posted somewhere else! I might have forgotten about it.)

Keep in mind that even if an issue is listed here, I can't guarantee I will fix it. However, the converse is probably true: if an issue is not listed here, I probably won't work on it.

DKC(R) Styled Sprite Status Bar
  • Game Over returns you to the overworld with no halo, but 99 lives
  • !CounterSpeed define doesn't actually work except for the reserve item
  • Make it easier to disable the status bar on the title screen and in the intro (maybe add a "disable per level" table?)
  • (Make the counters appear when paused)
  • Make the counters appear on a button press
  • Make the counters appear on getting the midpoint/goal
  • SA-1 compatibility
  • Make the counters appear instantly
  • Incompatible with sprite message box? (at least with switch palace messages?)
  • Some tiles disappear when a message box closes
  • Incompatible with VWF dialogues?
  • Make the counters appear when no buttons are pressed for a while
  • Include the $7F8000 free-up patch?


Message Box Expansion



 
DKC(R) Styled Sprite Status Bar
- Make the HUD appear and stay in the screen when the game is paused.
- Have a button (as long as it's unused) trigger the HUD for it to appear and fade away like normal.


These two features would be really nice touches to the status bar. I have no clue how much work would they take so I assume they'll be of lower priority since they're just for cosmetics.
I have few ideas you could add if you wanted.
1. The ability to have the counters to never hide. (Except title screen.)
2. Option to have a timer.
3. Some sort of basic HP counter. Wouldn't have to to crazy, for instance in a unreleased hack I used the knockback patch and modifyed the patch to use the yoshi coin as hp. Gaining and losing hp made counter appear. (I'am sure you could do better then that though.)
Here's an dea that should work for the message Box expansion patch:
-to have the ability to display 8x16 GFX, in case the user wants to draw those.
Originally posted by Mirann
DKC(R) Styled Sprite Status Bar
- Make the HUD appear and stay in the screen when the game is paused.
- Have a button (as long as it's unused) trigger the HUD for it to appear and fade away like normal.


These two features would be really nice touches to the status bar. I have no clue how much work would they take so I assume they'll be of lower priority since they're just for cosmetics.


I definitely second these two suggestions, that would be great.
Layout by RanAS, modified by yours truly.

Thanks for the input!

Originally posted by Mirann
- Make the HUD appear and stay in the screen when the game is paused.

I've always meant to implement this, but could never get it working. I'm willing to give it another try, but no promises.

Originally posted by Mirann
- Have a button (as long as it's unused) trigger the HUD for it to appear and fade away like normal.

That on the other hand would be a lot more doable. Nice suggestion!

Originally posted by zacmario
1. The ability to have the counters to never hide. (Except title screen.)

I'm a little concerned about performance (sprite drawing takes time!) and OAM usage, but I could add that in rather easily.

Originally posted by zacmario
2. Option to have a timer.

I'm hesitant to add more counters, mostly for performance reasons.

Originally posted by zacmario
3. Some sort of basic HP counter. Wouldn't have to to crazy, for instance in a unreleased hack I used the knockback patch and modifyed the patch to use the yoshi coin as hp. Gaining and losing hp made counter appear. (I'am sure you could do better then that though.)

Seems a little specific and beyond the scope of this patch. I guess in general a "display value of specified RAM address" counter might be handy, but that's still a maybe.

Originally posted by Rykon-V73
-to have the ability to display 8x16 GFX, in case the user wants to draw those.

You could already do that by manually arranging tiles, couldn't you? (Although I get that the bottom half would be delayed because of the line-by-line display.) Seems a bit beyond the scope as well to me, honestly.


 
The suggestions I made would be performance heavy, It would have to be a sa-1 only option. I forgot that many still avoid its use. So I don't blame you if you don't add it.
Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg

Seems a little specific and beyond the scope of this patch. I guess in general a "display value of specified RAM address" counter might be handy, but that's still a maybe.


I would be *extremely* happy with a "display value of specified RAM address" counter, although I can see how this would bog down performance quickly.
Hey, I hope this dosen't sound rude or anything, but is it possible for you to have at least the DKC(R) Sprite Status Bar to be converted to SA-1? While it was once converted to SA-1 by Vitor Vilela a long time ago, that was an older version. The newer version of your patch has an improved Mario GFX DMA patch to it, but there's still no SA-1 update to it. Is it possible for you to be able to add SA-1 support for the whole patch? I would love to hear back from you.
Hey y'all, Scott here!

PFP by: https://twitter.com/GinCalico (🔞 Warning)
Oh definitely, that's a reasonable request! I've never really dealt with SA-1 conversion before, but it's something I'll add to the todo list and look into whenever I get around to doing the rest.


 
I went through PMs and the 2014 C3 thread and updated the first post with a couple more issues regarding the status bar. Any more bugs or feature requests I've missed? Now's your chance to speak up!

I'm not promising anything (including that I'll do everything on the list), but I'll try and have a new version ready by next C3. (Maybe for the message box patch as well, maybe not, we'll see.)

In the meantime, MaxodeX added SA-1 support for the current version. (thanks again!)


 
If it hasn't been implemented, I suggest modifying the search for free oam slots routine to start looking after the first three or four slots since these slots are cleared automatically by the message boxes, causing some of the tiles to disappear while the message box is on screen and/or shrinking.
Hey, since I found this thread, I thought I'd drop a very useful suggestion: the ability to remap what tiles are used by the status bar per-level in any sprite page, just like edit1754's currently-buggy sprite status bar in the patches section. I ask this because, y'know, I plan to use it, but there's no space in SP1/2 for the status bar graphics since I'm using non-dynamic custom powerups.

Also, perhaps you could support the bonus star counter in a future update? I plan to use the bonus game, but the bonus star counter won't work here.

Lastly, couldn't the tiles highlighted in yellow be optimized as they are duplicates of each other?

I mean, having as much free GFX space as possible is always a plus, and two more 8x8 tiles could be freed up if you do so.

That's all. Thanks in advance.
My Mode 0 guide.

My Discord server. It has a lot of archived ASM stuff, so check that out!

Truth be told, I'm not really planning on updating this any more. (At least not adding features to it.) Anyone is welcome to submit their own update, though!

Originally posted by AnasMario130
the ability to remap what tiles are used by the status bar per-level in any sprite page, just like edit1754's currently-buggy sprite status bar in the patches section. I ask this because, y'know, I plan to use it, but there's no space in SP1/2 for the status bar graphics since I'm using non-dynamic custom powerups.

Sounds reasonable, and anyone who knows ASM and sprite drawing could probably pull it off without too much hassle.

Originally posted by AnasMario130
Also, perhaps you could support the bonus star counter in a future update? I plan to use the bonus game, but the bonus star counter won't work here.

May or may not be easy. The "remove the old status bar" code probably gets rid of the bonus stars entirely, so you'd have to bring those back and also make sure the bonus star RAM isn't already used by something else in the patch.


Originally posted by AnasMario130
Lastly, couldn't the tiles highlighted in yellow be optimized as they are duplicates of each other?

I mean, having as much free GFX space as possible is always a plus, and two more 8x8 tiles could be freed up if you do so.

That'd be easy, but it would mean having to draw some tiles as 8x8 and taking up more sprite slots. Maybe it's not so bad of a tradeoff though.

So yeah - I don't plan to do those myself, but anyone who wants to can go right ahead!