Lace

o.O
For reals?

Yeap, I'm back, and I've noticed a bit of slowness, waiting to see Cave Story on my Wii already XD I already put what happened on one of my posts, so no need to clutter your stuffs up

Yes, that's correct (though technically C to C# would be an augmented unison (A1), not a minor second (m2), though that's a small technicality which we haven't gotten to yet).

How about the level editing/creating? Any success there? I asked Fabulous to try to play the game to see if it works on Mac, but he said the link was broken ... I think I'll try to get one of my IRL friends who has a Mac to do it.

So, Lesson 4:

The interval qualities (diminished, minor, perfect, major, and augmented) are basically just names assigned to intervals which create a convenient pattern when dealing with inverted intervals (which are something we haven't covered yet). For now, I'll just tell you that diminished and augmented intervals are always inversions of each other, as are minor and major intervals, and perfect intervals are always inversions of other perfect intervals. You'll understand why this is the case later, once we cover what inverted intervals are.

Okay, so now we know all of the basic (smaller than an octave) minor, major, and perfect intervals, but what about the diminished and augmented intervals? A diminished interval is always one half step smaller than either a minor or perfect interval, and an augmented interval is always one half step larger than either a major or perfect interval. In other words, minor intervals can be made diminished by decreasing the size by one half step, major intervals can be made augmented by increasing the size by one half step, and perfect intervals can be made either diminished or augmented in the same way.

Remember how on that chart in the previous lesson, we covered all possible numbers of half steps except 6? Well, now we know how to name an interval with six half steps. You could either name it an augmented fourth (because a P4 is 5 half steps so an A4 would be 6) or a diminished fifth (because a P5 is 7 half steps so a d5 would be 6). This interval is also known as a "tri-tone" or "the Devil's interval" because of its very harsh and piercing sound.

Notice that, once you have augmented and diminished intervals, you have many redundancies in the numbers of half steps in each interval. For example, you could take a m7 (10 half steps) and diminish it to get a d7 (9 half steps), but 9 half steps is the same size as a M6. So, just like you can have enharmonic notes (such as F# and Gb) you can also have enharmonic intervals (such as d7 and M6). In such cases as this, how do you know which name to call the interval by? To answer this, let's look at two examples:

First example: find the interval from C# to Eb.
If you look at C# and Eb on a keyboard, you'll see that they are 2 half steps apart, which might lead you to say that the interval is a M2. However, you would be incorrect if you said that. The way you would go about figuring out the correct answer would be to first ignore any sharps or flats in the notes (i.e. just think "C" and "E"). Take these two notes, and count the white keys from one to the other (including the notes themselves). There are 3 white keys in this range (C, D, and E). This tells you that the interval must be some kind of a third. It's not a M3 because that would be 4 half steps, not 2, and it's not a m3 because that would be 3 half steps. It's 2 half steps, which is one fewer than in a m3, so it must be a d3.

Notice that a d3 is enharmonic to a M2. Also, if I had called the C# a Db instead, or if I had called the Eb a D# instead, then the interval would have been a M2.

Second example: find the note that is an augmented sixth above F#.
A M6 is 9 half steps, which makes an A6 10 half steps. If you start on F# and count up 10 half steps, you land on E, but again you would be incorrect if you just said E is the answer because in the range of white keys from F to E are 7 keys (F, G, A, B, C, D, E) not 6. There are however six keys in the range from F to D (F, G, A, B, C, D) so the note we are looking for must be some sort of a D (Db, D, or D#). So let's try them all. The interval from F# to Db is 7 half steps, so it's not a Db. The interval from F# to D is 8 half steps, and the interval from F# to D# is 9 half steps. But... none of them work?? WELL SHIT WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO NOW!?!?!? Hey now, relax hotshot, I've got it all under control. All you have to do is use a thing called a "double sharp". The note we are looking for is "D double sharp" which is written "Dx" and is enharmonic to E. There are also such things as "double flats" (so "Dbb" would be enharmonic to C).

Alright, as soon as you've read all this and think you understand it, let me know, and there will be a quiz :eek:

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How's the reading of the lesson coming?

On DB's profile.

meta is a reall fucking idiot sometimes, ya know?

Click to expand...

Anyway, I wasn't the one who change it since it also affected my post count too. I watch as it went from 1948, to 18xx to 17xx and then back to 1915.

So whoever was doing it was turning posts counting in sections on and off.

I'm pretty sure that's beyond her scope of power, unless she's the moderator for that section.

Either way, I don't trust her.
She's always at the center of EVERY 'bug' or 'glitch' on the forum.

Yeah, your theory is correct. My post in the free hax was ineffectual.

I haven't changed anything. But thanks for blaming me once again without any proof on DB's profile.

MS is on an egotistical powertrip and is moving EVERYTHING event SLIGHTLY off topic to the SPOT.
Oh, and because of her 'specialized person' status, she can not lose posts herself.

I really don't know. I certainly didn't have near that many posts in any one thread, so whatever it is was widescale.

1 + 1 = ?

Hm I though I lost alot but you really took a plunge, what, like 600 posts? Dang.

So you did manage to run the level editor successfully? And did the *.tkn file work fine?

Probably the reason you didn't get the quality thing is because I didn't get to that yet . Since I only explained two of the qualities (perfect and major) and it's not really apparent what the difference is.

And you meant qualities of intervals right? 'Cause a note and an interval are two different things. An interval is the distance between notes.

So, now I'll explain the quality of intervals.
Music Theory Lesson Three!

First of all, lemme explain something that I probably should have explained earlier. Another way you can think of an interval besides a combination of quality/size is just simply as a number of half steps. For example, you could call the interval between C and D a major second, or you could call it two half steps (because if you start on C, you have to go up two half steps to get to D). Knowing this, it becomes easy to see how to find other examples of major seconds (or any other interval for that matter). For example, we can take any note on the keyboard and figure out what note is a major second above or below it by going two half steps up or down from the note. Take E, for example, and go down one half step to get to Eb, and go down another to get to D. This tells us that the interval from D to E is a major second. You could also go up two half steps from E to get F# (E to F# also being a major second). But wait a minute, how do you know whether to call it F# or Gb, since they're enharmonic to each other? Well, we'll get to that later (probably in the next lesson).

Okay, so we've seen the basic major intervals (M2, M3, M6, and M7) and the basic perfect intervals (P1, P4, and P5), now we'll look at minor intervals. For every major interval, there is a corresponding minor interval, which is one half step smaller than it. So, since M2, M3, M6, and M7 are 2, 4, 9, and 11 half steps respectively, m2, m3, m6, and m7 would be 1, 3, 8, and 10 half steps respectively. There is no such thing as a minor unison (m1), minor fourth (m4), or minor fifth (m5). Examples of minor intervals would be E to F (m2), G to Bb (m3), C# to A (m6), and D to C (m7).

So, to summarize the intervals we've covered:
Long name Abbrev # of half steps
perfect unison P1 0
minor second m2 1
major second M2 2
minor third m3 3
major third M3 4
perfect fourth P4 5
perfect fifth P5 7
minor sixth m6 8
major sixth M6 9
minor seventh m7 10
major seventh M7 11

And remember that we can have intervals larger than these by taking any of these, adding an octave (12 half steps) and adding 7 to the size number (i.e. P4 (5 half steps) becomes P11 (17 half steps)). This means that, if we have intervals with all of the number of half steps from 0 to 11, we can create any interval with n half steps by starting with n mod 12 and repeatedly adding octaves. We can almost do this now, but notice there's one number missing (namely 6).

And that's all I have time for now. Sorry for this sorta abrupt stop; I didn't get to cover as much as I'd hoped to .

I fixed the bugs, made all 6 of the tutorial levels, made a level editor and made a few cosmetic changes.

game
source code
level editor

In order to use the level editor, you will first need to download Liberty BASIC. The leveledit.zip folder contains two files: leveledit.bas (the source code) and leveledit.tkn (the *.tkn format is essentially Liberty BASIC's equivalent of Java's *.jar format). I've included the *.tkn file just so you won't have to go through the "counting down" that you have to go through if you don't purchase the full version of Liberty BASIC (which you probably don't want to do). I'm not sure if the *.tkn will work or not because I compiled it on an older version of Liberty BASIC (I think it's backwards compatible but I'm not totally sure). If it doesn't, you'll just have to open the source in the IDE anyway and run it using the IDE.

As for how the editor itself actually works, first of all, it's essential that whichever file you're using (leveledit.bas or leveledit.tkn) is in the same directory as the level you're editing. When you run the editor, it will ask you for the filename of the level you want to edit. If the file doesn't exist, it will be created automatically. In the editor, normally the left mouse button is for editing tiles, and the right mouse button is for moving NPCs around. This is not the case if the "add/remove NPCs" checkbox is checked. The rest should be easy enough to figure out on your own (let me know if it's not).

Finally, notice that the source code for the game is now in a zip file containing three separate source files. I split the code into three files to make it more manageable/organized. "Main.java" contains only the Main class. "NPC.java" contains all NPC classes and interfaces (namely NPC, ForegroundNPC, Arrow, Text, Enemy, and Gold). "JJPanel.java" contains all other classes (namely JJPanel, KeyListen, TimeListen, AudioThread, and FileMaker).

The two bugs are:
1. When you complete a levelset, and the game overwrites the first byte of "levelset.dat", it also deletes the remainder of the file, making the game unplayable the next time you start it up.
2. My detectCollision() method always seems to detect a collision, even when there is none. If there is any gold on the screen it immediately disappears even if you're not touching it, and if there are any enemies on the screen they immediately start sapping your timer even if you're not touching them.

I have tried using switches and they work beautifully.


Yes, the black keys would be sharps/flats.

Okay, Music Theory Lesson Two!
(again let me know how much of this stuff you already know).

So, since you brought up sharps and flats I'll cover those. Basically, the sharp of a note is the note one half step above it and the flat of a note is the note one half step below it. So the black key between C and D could be called either C-sharp (C#) or D-flat (Db). Note that the symbol for a flat is not really a lowercase b, but unicode doesn't have a flat symbol char, so lowercase b is about the closest thing there is. C# and Db are examples of enharmonic notes, meaning that they are two different names for the same notes. Sharps and flats don't always have to be black keys. For example, there is no black key between E and F, so E# would be enharmonic to F (a white key) and Fb would be enharmonic to E (also a white key).
So now you know at least one name for every note on the keyboard. You also know two intervals: the major second (abbreviated "M2" also known as a whole step) and the minor second (abbreviated "m2" also known as a half step). There are two parts to any interval: the quality and the size. There are five qualities an interval can have. They are (with abbreviations in parenthesis):
diminished (d)
minor (m)
perfect (P)
major (M)
augmented (A)
There are seven basic sizes of intervals. They are listed here (with their abbreviations and their most common quality in parenthesis):
unison (1, perfect)
second (2, major)
third (3, major)
fourth (4, perfect)
fifth (5, perfect)
sixth (6, major)
seventh (7, major)
You can have intervals larger than a seventh by taking any of the basic intervals and adding 7 to the number (size) and keeping the quality the same. For example, we know from our previous lesson that the interval between C3 and D3 is a major second (M2), so the interval between C3 and D4 would be a major ninth (M9). Also, the interval between any note and itself is a perfect unison (P1), so the interval between any note and the note one octave above it (i.e. F2 and F3) would be P8 (called "perfect octave", not "perfect eighth").
The seven basic intervals (P1, M2, M3, P4, P5, M6, M7) are the intervals between C3 and all of the white keys between C3 and C4 (including C3). So the interval between C3 and itself is P1, between C3 and D3 is M2, between C3 and E3 is M3, etc. But you'll notice that all of these intervals are either perfect (P) or major (M). We haven't covered the other three qualities (diminished (d), minor (m), and augmented (A)). Those will be covered in the next lesson.

Ehm... that's not really what I meant by progression. I meant the triads (aka chords with three notes). In that particular song all the chords have three different notes, but they won't always in all songs.

Alright, I'll start with the very basics, if you're that hopeless :/.

When you open orgmaker, notice the piano keyboard on the left with numbers on some of the keys. Every note on the keyboard can be named by a note name and an octave number. All of the white keys have note names of either A, B, C, D, E, F, or G. We'll get to the black keys later. The key approximately in the middle of the orgmaker window with the number 3 on it is called "C3" (note name: C, octave number: 3). It is more commonly known as "middle C". Likewise, the key with the number 4 on it is C4, the key with the number 2 on it is C2, etc. All the notes between C3 and C4 are in octave 3, the ones between C4 and C5 are in octave 4, between C5 and C6 is octave 5, etc. The notes are named very logically in alphabetical order, so starting on middle C and going up playing only white keys, you would play these notes: C3, D3, E3, F3, G3, A3, B3, C4, D4, E4, F4, G4, A4, B4, C5, D5, E5, etc. Notice that some pairs of consecutive white keys have a black key between them but some don't (there is no black key between E and F, nor between B and C). The interval (distance) between two consecutive white keys such as E and F with no black key between them is called either a "minor 2nd" or a "half step". The interval between two consecutive white keys such as C and D with a black key between them is called either a "major 2nd" or a "whole step". The interval between any white key and one of its neighboring black keys is also a half step. The names "minor 2nd" and "major 2nd" are abbreviated "m2" and "M2" respectively.

I'll get to more stuff later, that's all I have time for now. Out of curiosity, did you already know any of that stuff or is this totally new?

I must also report that there are two pretty major bugs in my Java version of your game. I'll fix them soon.

http://www.cavestory.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=2248&view=findpost&p=80827
There you go.