Aspect Ratio Correction on FM Towns Games

[Muyfa666]

My application is in, but those waiting times thou...

[elvisish]

I did read through the last comments on this very thread, I didn't encounter any issues that seemed to be exclusive to this version.

Good to know it's just delayed.

Raziel is right...

Please see my unanswered question - viewtopic.php?p=94845#p94845

Elvisish, the PR is ready, I'm just waiting for your answer to my question, and confirmation that Loom is ok.

I can confirm the whole game works flawlessly from start to finish, besides that bug in the dragon's cave which I'm not sure is a bug with the game in general.

[ZvikaZ]

That's great news!

However, I'd like to take a look at that dragon cave thing.
Do you have a save game in there? Or better yet, just before entering the cave?
Also, can you please describe again the problem?
And one last question - which of my versions did you use?

[Muyfa666]

Still haven't had the time to play. How it going with the dragon? When can we expect this in the nightlys?

[elvisish]

That's great news!

However, I'd like to take a look at that dragon cave thing.
Do you have a save game in there? Or better yet, just before entering the cave?
Also, can you please describe again the problem?
And one last question - which of my versions did you use?

It was just when in the cave, it was the version that was available at the time I posted on January 2nd:
https://imgur.com/CgDRTug

[eriktorbjorn]

I gave it a quick (literally, as I was using "fast mode" a lot) playthrough, using the "z_zm_height_200_v9" branch. There were three things I noticed, though at least one of them may be deliberate.

• Object names were written at the top of the object image, not the bottom like the EGA version does it. Maybe this was deliberate to avoid the frame around the object, but it looks a bit odd for objects where there is a large open space at the bottom, e.g. the closed clam or the undyed cloth.
• The tombstone text fits nicely on screen, but is no longer centered.
• One of the credits screens doesn't fit on screen.

The quickest way to get to the end credits if you don't want to play through the whole game: Play to the point where you get the distaff, open the debug console and type drafts to get a list of all the drafts, type drafts learn to learn them. Now you can unmake the Loom, which automatically moves you to the end of the game.

Credits screen untruncated:

scummvm-loom-fm-00018.png (9.3 KiB) Viewed 12771 times

Credits screen truncated:

scummvm-loom-fm-00017.png (9 KiB) Viewed 12771 times

[Muyfa666]

I'm following this thread with interest as I hope we one day through hacking will have a prefect version of Loom.

A perfect hack would have voiceover and music, plus all removed or censored text and graphics along with this ratio hack.

https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=378995
https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=802320

Ah, one can dream. At least this is a step in the right direction.

[eriktorbjorn]

I'm following this thread with interest as I hope we one day through hacking will have a prefect version of Loom.

A perfect hack would have voiceover and music, plus all removed or censored text and graphics along with this ratio hack.

That would mean re-recording the whole thing, since the voiceovers from the talkie versions don't match the text from the original, and I doubt you'd be able to find soundalikes for all of the actors.

Also, I think there'd be a lot of disagreement what the "perfect version" would look like. Would it adopt any of the changes from the talkie version? There are some additional close-ups and expanded scenes. A lot of the characters have additional animations too, though i find some of it distracting.

What about the changes the FM Towns version made? Some of the additional sound effects are nice, but I'm not a fan of the way it handles the music. You'd think playing music non-stop would be a good idea, but it doesn't add anything new (in fact, the musical cue when the lightning hits the tree seems to be gone), and the versions it keeps looping are usually inferior in my opinion.

For me, the EGA version is probably as close to a perfect version version as I will ever see, with the other ones being interesting variations of it. Here's how Brian Moriarty described his ideal version in an interview some years ago:

If I was asked to “remaster” Loom, I would leave the original 16-color art and animation untouched, using hard-edged upscaling (with aspect-ratio correction) to fit HD monitors. The big upgrade would be the sound design, which I would re-imagine from scratch, using fully-voiced characters, ambient surround and Tchaikovsky’s score played by a real orchestra, presented in Dolby Atmos.

A few lines of dialog might be trimmed. I was a bit verbose in a couple of scenes (DO IT – Ed).

If I could actually RE-DESIGN Loom for modern PCs, the result would bear little resemblance to the original game. It would look like Kubo and the Two Strings, and play like conducting a symphony.

I guess now that Ron Gilbert is working on a new Monkey Island game, anything is possible... but I'm not holding my breath. (By the way, this interview was probably part of my inspiration for making it possible to replace the Loom music with recorded versions, though it's still subject to the same limitations as the original music. E.g. sound effects will interrupt it.)

[Muyfa666]

The EGA version is nice, and the PC CDROM version kind of sucks.

I tend to play the FM-TOWNS version as it has the least compromises to me thou.

[almeath]

Is there an update or estimate on how soon compatibility with Loom will make it it into the release build / master source code?

I notice that compatibility with the other FM Towns LucasArts games made it across. I can see from this thread there are some lingering minor issues, which is fully understood .. just wondering if there is any news to date.

[eriktorbjorn]

Is there an update or estimate on how soon compatibility with Loom will make it it into the release build / master source code?

I notice that compatibility with the other FM Towns LucasArts games made it across. I can see from this thread there are some lingering minor issues, which is fully understood .. just wondering if there is any news to date.

If you mean cropping the game to 320x200 pixels, I don't know. If you mean running it in its original resolution, I'm not aware of any issues with it. As best as I could tell, it worked fine the last time I tried it. (I only played the English version, since I don't speak Japanese.)

[almeath]

I meant running it in the cropped format.

For example, when I run the FM Towns version of Zak McKracken in ScummVM 2.6, I can tick the option to "Trim FM-TOWNS games to 200 pixel height".

When I load Loom, this setting disappears from the list of options. I presumed it was specifically disabled for being buggy or non-functional with Loom.

So I was wondering why that is the case and how long it may be before Loom becomes compatible with the pixel cropped format.

[eriktorbjorn]

When I load Loom, this setting disappears from the list of options. I presumed it was specifically disabled for being buggy or non-functional with Loom.

So I was wondering why that is the case and how long it may be before Loom becomes compatible with the pixel cropped format.

I don't think anything has changed since what I wrote earlier, in which case the issues are:

• Some object names are awkwardly placed.
• The tombstone text is not centered.
• One of the end credits screens is truncated.

As for when, I guess that depends on when someone who has this version of the game has the time and motivation.

[almeath]

I appreciate the update, thanks.

[Muyfa666]

No news on this being implemented in the standard builds?