Crimson Twilight Recordings

I've spent some time recording the C64 music 'suite' that I wrote for an in-production and upcoming C64 CRPG called "Crimson Twilight", to be released by Arkanix Labs.

The music was written in and exported from GoatTracker v2.71 in .sid format, transferred to, played on and recorded using a real C64c with 8580 SID connected to a Dolby amp (with NR) in 'music' mode then input into a PC using gold leads.  The audio was captured using Audacity, with some noise reduction applied, the sound 'amplified' slightly due to lowish recording level and fade out added.

These recordings are the 8580 SID versions.  Versions for the 6581 iterations of the SID chip have also been written and will be recorded shortly.

The music track titles describe what the track will be used for in the game. All the tracks fade in the recordings fade after one play-through, but in the actual game they will loop continuously.

The music playlist should appear below, but if not can be accessed on SoundCloud here.

Tiny PETSCII Compo 2020

Late last night I noticed a new compo on CSDb called the 'Tiny PETSCII Compo 2020' with the quite simple rules of producing a PETSCII no bigger than 8x8 chars (or smaller than 2x2 chars) and 2 colours (1 main colour and a background colour).  Rules and various entries can be found on the compo page here.

After noticing the compo, I decided to enter with a couple of images that were started last night and finished this morning.  The first 2 below are mine and the final is from my grandson, who I roped into doing one too!

The first above is called "That's No Moon" for, hopefully, obvious reasons?  The second, hopefully just as obvious, is called "Yodascii".  The final is called "PETendo", a portamento of PETSCII and Nintendo - it's a GameBoy if you can't tell!

The images were pixelled in my (still unreleased) screen editor, 'ChillED' and I wrote some quick and dirty code to display them.

If you want to download them as a bundle, click here.

Alternatively, you can download them individually on their respective CSDb pages using the following linkies:

That's No Moon

Yodascii

PETendo

Arkrismas 2019

Happy Christmas!

I've spent the last three days coding, pixelling and composing a little C64 Christmas demo that was today released by Arkanix Labs.  It's cunningly called 'Arkrismas 2019'.

It's quite simple in nature with the main screen display being a PETSCII (albeit with a modified charset for the lettering).  However, there are some 'twinkles' with two chars being modified on the fly and snow sprites floating down the screen into the bottom border.

Pressing 'f' on the keyboard will switch screens to a 'roaring' fireplace, achieved simply be modifying the colour RAM.  I cannot tell a lie: the fireplace screen is Arkanix Labs having a direct dig at Stirring Dragon Games who have released their own Christmas demo with fireplace for the princely sum of $24.99!  The Arkanix Labs demo/fireplace is free!  We don't charge no $$$$$$$$!  ;)

This simple Christmas demo can be downloaded from CSDb here.  You can also download it from this blog here, complete with all the data files and ACME source code!

If you fancy warming yourself using a PETSCII fire, Moloch has created an animated gif of the roaring fire!  See below and click to enlarge!

Doctor Who Theme Recording

A few days ago, Arkanix Labs released 'PETSCII Doctors,  a new C64 PETSCII graphic collection featuring code and music by me.  Information about the collection can be found here...

I wrote the rendition of the Doctor Who theme music using a PC based tool called Goattracker.  The SID music from the graphic collection has been recorded using a 8580 SID equipped C64c, run through my Dolby amp.

I've uploaded a recording to my SoundCloud account.  Listen to the music below; if the player does not appear, hear it on it's SoundCloud page here...

PETSCII Doctors

Arkanix Labs has just released a little graphics collection called 'PETSCII Doctors', which features (funnily enough) PETSCII versions of all, at time of writing, 13 Doctors from the BBC television program 'Doctor Who', as well as a PETSCII time vortex effect complete with TARDIS accompanied with a SID rendition of the famous theme tune.

On this occasion, I've handled the code and music, while helping my Grandson, w0rm, learn the ways of C64 by producing PETSCII block renderings of the Doctors in my soon to be released C64 cross-dev screen editor 'ChillED'.  Thanks go to Moloch for continued advice and suggestions.

The whole bundle has been dedicated to T.M.R as a thanks for all his patience while I continue to grapple with 6502 coding.

The graphics collection can be downloaded from CSDb here or direct from this blog here.  Both download locations supply a .zip file containing the collection itself to run on a real C64 or emulator, as well as the 6502 source, binaries and work files.  It is also available on GitHub here.

EDIT: 100bit^NiS has added PETSCII Doctors to Pouët.  Find it here... 

EDIT 2:  It seems someone has taken the time to make a video of this little PETSCII graphics collection and put it up on YouTube.  The video should appear below but if not, it's on the page here...

Stardust Music Recording

Yesterday, Arkanix Labs released 'Stardust Music', my new C64 8580 SID music collection.  Information about the collection can be found here...

I wrote the music using a PC based tool called Goattracker.  The SID's have been recorded using a 8580 SID equipped C64c, run through my Dolby amp.

I've just uploaded a recording to my SoundCloud account; listen to the tune's below. If the player does not appear, hear it on it's SoundCloud page here...

Stardust Music

Arkanix Labs has released my small collection of C64 8580 SID tunes called 'Stardust Music' which are covers of music from the Amiga game 'Stardust'.  The original Amiga tunes were written by Risto Vuori.  The SID's have been released within a little music selector featuring a C64 version of the Stardust logo, that I pixelled years ago, and a new charset font in the scroller.

The C64 code to display this was originally provided by T.M.R and was used for some earlier, simple releases.  On this occasion however, I've actually pulled my finger out, learned some 6502 assembler and added code to detect machine type the music is running on (PAL/NTSC/Drean), key detection to be able to select the tunes and sprite display to show various pieces of information.

The machine detection alters the display and the music played, since PAL and NTSC machines run at slightly different speeds.  It was a nice coding challenge.

Special thanks must go to T.M.R and Moloch for their ongoing 6502 coding mentoring, help and support!

The music collection can be downloaded from CSDb here or direct from this blog here.  Both downloads offer a .d64 disk image for C64, both PAL and NTSC SID 8580 files and the music in it's original SNG Goattracker format.  The download from this blog also contains the graphic files in their original formats.

EDIT: Rudi has added an entry for Stardust Music on Pouët here...

EDIT 2:  It seems someone has taken the time to make a video of this little music selector and put it up on YouTube.  The video should appear below but if not, it's on the page here...

Paranoimia March Recording

Yesterday, Arkanix Labs released 'Paranoimia March', a new C64 8580 SID.  Information about the SID can be found here...

I wrote the music using a PC based tool called Goattracker.  The SID has been recorded using a 8580 SID equipped C64c, run through my Dolby amp.

I've uploaded the recording to my SoundCloud account; listen to the SID tune below. If the player does not appear below, hear it on it's SoundCloud page here...

Paranoimia March

Arkanix Labs has released my new C64 8580 SID tune called 'Paranoimia March', which is cover of the classic music from the Paranoimia Amiga cracktros.

The SID has been released in a nice little 'wrapper' consisting of a 3 colour bitmap logo (drawn a few years ago, see information here) and new charset font based on the text from Star Trek:TNG, rendered in UltrafontPC.

As with the 'Loopit-C64-Ever' release a couple of days ago, the C64 code to display this was provided by T.M.R and has been used with his permission here for this release.  I did make some minor modifications to the code including fixes for screen flickers when running under NTSC (thanks to Moloch for testing), but not really enough to warrant me crediting myself with coding!

The SID can be downloaded from CSDb here or direct from this blog here.  Both downloads offer the C64 PRG executable version (PAL and NTSC flavours), a SID file and the music in it's original SNG Goattracker format.

Loopit-C64-Ever Recording

Yesterday, Arkanix Labs released 'Loopit-C64-Ever', my new C64 8580 SID.  Information about the SID can be found here...

I wrote the music using a PC based tool called Goattracker.  The SID has been recorded using a 8580 SID equipped C64c, run through my Dolby amp.

I've just uploaded a recording to my SoundCloud account; listen to the SID tune below. If the player does not appear, hear it on it's SoundCloud page here...

Loopit-C64-Ever

Arkanix Labs has released my new C64 8580 SID tune called 'Loopit-C64-Ever' which is cover of an Amiga mod called 'loopit4ever' by the brilliant composer/artist 'Zabutom'.

The SID has been released in a nice little 'wrapper' consisting of a 3 colour bitmap logo (drawn a few years ago, see information here) and new charset font based on the Mega Drive game 'Streets of Rage II', rendered in UltrafontPC.

The C64 code to display this was provided by T.M.R.  The code was originally provided by T.M.R for me to begin learning 6502 assembler (which I'm making progress on) but has been used with permission here for this release.  I did make some minor modifications to the code including fixes for screen flickers when running under NTSC (thanks to Moloch for testing), but not really enough to warrant me crediting myself with coding!

The original Amiga mod was released at Compusphere 2018 and can be downloaded from the scene.org website here...

As for my SID version, it can be downloaded from CSDb here or direct from this blog here.  Both downloads offer the C64 PRG executable version (PAL and NTSC flavours), a SID file and the music in it's original SNG Goattracker format.

Crack or Die! Recording

Back at the beginning of 2015, Arkanix Labs released a music collection called 'Sid Doing Paula', that contained my covers of some of my favourite Amiga modules written in Goattracker

Part of that collection was a SID called 'Crack or Die' by Jugi/Complex.  I've recorded the tune from my 8580 SID equipped C64c connected to my Dolby amp and uploaded it to my SoundCloud account.

If the player doesn't appear below, hear the music on my SoundCloud page here...

My Lucky Number (SID in Progress)

Here is a 'work in progress' C64 double speed SID cover of a 2018 Amiga mod called 'My Lucky Number' by Virgill.  The track is being covered using 'Goattracker'.

This is only a test recording of part of the track, taken from my real 8580 SID equipped C64c and passed through my Dolby amp.  There is still much work to be done on the remaining part of the tune and lot's of tinkering with the sounds / instruments. The SID will hopefully be used in a future C64 production of some sorts, either from Arkanix Labs or Cosine.

This cover has the 'blessing' of Virgill.  Please listen to the original Amiga version (from a 2018 Amiga intro) here...

If the player doesn't appear below, hear the SID on my SoundCloud page here...
 

Mutations Recording

Back in 2014, I remixed/covered one of my favourite C64 tunes Mutants by Fred Gray, which was then released by Arkanix Labs in a C64 demo called 'Mutations'.

This 'from scratch' remix featured a complete rearrangement of the whole tune, addition of drums and the use of heavily filtered bass, in an attempt to produce a more 'chilled' and mellow version of the original tune.

Also on the demo disk was a note file that featured my cover of the music from the SEGA arcade game 'Space Harrier'.  The 1980's C64 conversion of the arcade featured a great version of the arcade tune by Mark Cooksey, using his 'trademark' sounds. However, it didn't sound very authentic to the original and varied slightly in arrangement. My version attempted to sound closer to the arcade tune in sound and arrangement.

Fast forward 4 years and having recently hooked up my 8580 SID equipped C64c to my Dolby amp, I've recorded the SID tunes and uploaded them to SoundCloud.  Listen to them below.

If the players don't appear below, hear the music on my SoundCloud page.  The Mutations track is here and the Space Harrier cover is here.

 

Uridium 2 Music Covers (SID vs. POKEY)

Here are my C64 SID and Atari 8bit POKEY covers of Jason Page's loading music from the amazing Amiga game 'Uridium 2' by Andrew Braybrook.

The SID version was written and released in 2015 as part of a C64 music collection called 'SID Doing Paula', a collection of Amiga mod covers written in Goattracker.  It was a 'hidden' bonus tune. The SID has been recorded using a 8580 SID C64c run through my Dolby amp.  Information about the original C64 collection is here...

The POKEY triple speed cover was released in 2018 as part of the 'New Years Disk' collection arranged on the AtariAge forum.  It was written in RASTER Music Tracker so I could get my head around the POKEY chip. The original Atari 8bit demo in which the tune is featured is here...

The original Amiga version can be found on SoundCloud and YouTube.

If the players don't appear below, hear the music on my SoundCloud page. The SID page is here and the POKEY page is here.

Matkamies Recording

Back at the beginning of 2015, Arkanix Labs released a music collection called 'Sid Doing Paula', that contained my covers of some of my favourite Amiga modules.

Part of that collection was a SID called Matkamies by Heatbeat/Carillon and having recently hooked up my 8580 SID equipped C64c to my Dolby amp, I've recorded the SID tune and uploaded it to my SoundCloud account.

As a bonus, I've also uploaded an Atari 8bit POKEY version of the same tune.  At time of writing, it has not yet been used in any productions.  It was written at the back end of 2017 after T.M.R requested some POKEY music for an Atari 8bit Cosine game, namely 'Blok Copy'.  I had to learn a new application for writing for POKEY, as well as the nuances of the chip itself and out of that learning came the requested music, as well as this 'conversion' of my original Matkamies SID.

The SID version was written in Goattracker and the POKEY written in RASTER Music Tracker.  The original Amiga version can be found on YouTube - just search for 'Amiga Matkamies'.

If the players don't appear below, hear the music on my SoundCloud page.  The C64 8580 SID track is here and the Atari POKEY cover is here.

Arkracknix

Arkanix Labs has just released my entry to the 'Crack Intro Music Competition 2017'.  The C64 SID is called 'Arkracknix', a portmanteau of 'Arkanix' and 'crack'.

The competition was organised by Didi and Jammer and had the following rules:

- max. playtime 1:00 min. (PAL playing speed), then repeat or fade.
- max. size: $1000 bytes (preferably located in memory at $1000-$2000)
- single speed only
- no SID model preference (should sound good on all SID models)
- must be handed in as executable format .sid or .prg (might be embedded in .t64 or .d64)
- no graphics or even intro-like presentation is allowed to be included.
- Productions using the music might be released after the voting deadline. The voting should be focused on the music itself.
- the participating musics may not have been released or used in a public production before.
- multiple entries per musician allowed.

My entry was written in Goattracker and as per the rules, plays on both 6581 and 8580 versions of the SID chip.  The SID loops at around the 53s mark.

Information about the competition, including all the entries and any results can be found on CSDb here...

There  was quite an extensive forum thread about the competition here...

You can download my entry from CSDb here...

However!  If you download from this blog, you will get a zip file containing: the tune in SID format, the tune in PRG format that can be dropped into an emulator or transferred to a real C64 and is ready to run, the tune on a D64 image along with SIDPLAY64 ready to run and the tune in the Goattracker native SNG format so you can load it into the editor to poke around with.  As a bonus, there is also a folder called 'unused' which contains another tune that I did not enter because it was too long and I didn't have time to finish.  This tune is in both SID format and SNG format, so you can mess with that too.  Grab all that here...

UPDATE:

After voting, my entry came 52nd out of 85 entries.  That may not sound great, but it scored quite highly on CSDb (8.4 / 10), higher than some tunes that were higher placed.  The scoring system used the CSDb voting system and I didn't understand it... ;)

PureBasic Array Flood Fill

PureBasic CartographPC - Click to Enlarge

I'm coding a mapping application in PureBasic for my group Arkanix Labs, that will be used to produce maps for a C64 RPG called 'Crimson Twilight'.

Actually, a mapping application already exists called 'CartographPC', produced by Arkanix Labs to do just that job, but it is coded in VisualBasic 6, itself no longer supported by Microsoft and increasingly difficult to run on more modern OS's.

At some point (and I can't remember when or why), I started rewriting the application in PureBasic.  All the basic features are included so far, but then it was suggested that I add a 'flood fill' feature to randomly fill areas of the map with selected graphics, to produce random looking patches of dirt, grass, paths and so on, without having to manually fill whole areas.  Hmmm...  flood fill.

A bit of research on the internet about flood fill turned up quite a few theories, the most common being 'recursion'.  Basically, a routine repeatedly calls itself until a certain stage is reached at which point the routine exits itself.

In CartographPC (at least in the PureBasic version) the map data is held in an array, so I needed to find a way to fill an array with certain numbers (which represent graphic blocks) which observed other existing graphics and potential boundaries such as the edge of the map or enclosed area.  To the more seasoned coder, this may present no issue, but I'm new(ish) to PureBasic coding so it was a bit of a challenge and this is what I came up with:

Procedure floodfill(x, y)
  
If a_MAPDATA(x, y) <> blnkchar
 ProcedureReturn 0
EndIf
  
If a_MAPDATA(x,y) = blnkchar
 rnd = Random(rancharsel)
 rnd = rnd - 1
If rnd < 0
 rnd = 0 
EndIf
 a_MAPDATA(x, y) = a_RNDCHARS(rnd)
EndIf
  
If x > 0  ; fill left
 floodfill(x - 1, y)
EndIf
  
If y > 0 ; fill up
 floodfill(x, y - 1)
EndIf
  
If x < mcw ; fill right
 floodfill(x + 1, y)
EndIf
  
If y < mch ; fill down
 floodfill(x, y + 1)
EndIf
 
EndProcedure

The routine is contained in a 'procedure' called 'floodfill(x, y)' that can be called from the main program.  A quick explanation of some of the things in the code above:

• a_MAPDATA(x, y) is my array holding the map layout with 'x' and 'y' being a location in the 2D array (matrix).
• 'blnkchar' is a variable which holds the number of the graphic block which is 'blank' on the map.
• 'rancharsel' is a variable containing the number of graphic blocks the user wants to use in the random fill.
• a_RNDCHARS(rnd) is an array that contains the graphic blocks the user wants to use in the flood fill.
• 'mcw' and 'mch' are variables holding the width and height of the map.

So what does each part of that routine do?

If a_MAPDATA(x, y) <> blnkchar
 ProcedureReturn 0
EndIf

The above is the base case which basically says that if the map or area being filled is no longer 'empty', then exit the procedure, or in PureBasic terminology 'ProcedureReturn 0'.

If a_MAPDATA(x,y) = blnkchar
 rnd = Random(rancharsel)
 rnd = rnd - 1
If rnd < 0
 rnd = 0 
EndIf
 a_MAPDATA(x, y) = a_RNDCHARS(rnd)
EndIf

This section checks if the element of the array we are currently on is empty (blnkchar) and if so, it generates a random number (rnd) between 0 and the number variable held by 'rancharsel'. The element in the map array is then changed to contain the number held in the random chars array (previously filled with graphic blocks selected by the user) at position 'rnd'.

If x > 0  ; fill left
 floodfill(x - 1, y)
EndIf

Now some magic (at least in my eyes) starts to happen.  The above checks to see if we are at the far left of the array and therefore map (x > 0).  If not, our 'x' position in the array is moved left (x -1) and the procedure returns to the beginning to change the map array and draw a graphic block on the map.  If we are at the far left of the array / map (x = 0), then we proceed to the next section in the procedure.

If y > 0 ; fill up
 floodfill(x, y - 1)
EndIf

Now we start moving up the map / array, checking and drawing until our 'y' position is '0', the top of the map.  Each time the routine loops around, it check left in the array first and then up in the array.  But of course, we could also move right or down in the array until we reach the far right or bottom of the map / array.  This is checked by the following:

If x < mcw ; fill right
 floodfill(x + 1, y)
EndIf
  
If y < mch ; fill down
 floodfill(x, y + 1)
EndIf

So each time the routine loops, the array is checked left, up, right then down from the current position.  If the drawing was updated on the screen slowly for every graphic block, which in the application it isn't because that would be too slow, the fill would snake around the screen up, left, right and down until boundaries or existing graphics are encountered, eventually leading to the array / map being filled with the desired graphics.

I'm sure that more seasoned coders could refine the code further and make it better / more efficient, but in this state it works for my application and that is fine by me!

If you want the raw code to copy and paste into PureBasic, grab it from Pastebin here...

UltrafontPC V1.0

Today, Arkanix Labs released Ultrafont V1.0.  UltrafontPC is an application for designing hires character sets for the C64. This Windows application is inspired by the C64 native Ultrafont by Charles Brannon.

This version is a follow up to UltrafontPC V0.9b, an application that I coded in PureBasic.

Changes since UltrafontPC V0.9b include:

Added
- Application window no longer limited to 1975x1124 (experimental)
- Status bar shows hex number of char and which charset is being edited
- Two charsets that can be in memory at same time, displayed at bottom of the main editor window
- Import of previously save charset images in PNG/JPG/BMP format
- Simple screen editor to allow typing test of custom charset/font, with various tools
- Screen editor can switch between U.S. and U.K. keymaps
- Slide up, down, left, right of entire charset without individual char wrap
- Preview of 1x2, 2x1, and 2x2 auto-created fonts in preview window
- Preview window of 1x2, 2x1, and 2x2 fonts can now remain open while editing
- If scanline emulation is selected from main menu, this carries over to auto-create preview window
- Brightness of char edit/preview windows selectable (high, medium, low) and state saved
- Flip char vertical / horizontal
- Status bar showing original ROM symbol and number of char being edited
- Dump charset as image to clipboard
- Both x86 and x64 versions available

Changed
- Image dumps now uses name of current file instead of hard-coded filename to avoid overwrites

Fixed
- Random crashes when exporting charset as PNG/JPG/BMP image
- Redo no longer crashes when at end of list
- changelog.txt file decodes and displays correctly in 'About' window change log panel

The application can be downloaded from CSDb here...

It can also be downloaded from this blog directly using the following links:

UltrafontPC V1.0 x86 Installer (.exe)
UltrafontPC V1.0 x64 Installer (.exe)
UltrafontPC V1.0 No-Installer (.zip)

UltrafontPC V0.9b

Today, Arkanix Labs released Ultrafont V0.9b.  UltrafontPC is an application for designing hires character sets for the C64. This Windows application is inspired by the C64 native Ultrafont by Charles Brannon.

I've coded the application in PureBasic.  It was heavily adapted from code by Mark Thomas Ross (AuMTRoN), with me fixing / changing large sections as well as adding lots of new code.

Thanks for suggestions and for testing go to Jon Mines (Moloch) and Ray Lejuez (Warlock).

The application can be downloaded via the Arkanix Labs forum here...

It can also be downloaded from CSDb here...

It can also be downloaded from this blog directly using the following links:

UltrafontPC V0.9b x86 Installer (.exe)
UltrafontPC V0.9b No-Installer (.zip)