[Suggestion] Accurate Frame Counter & A Couple More Things

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Reverie
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[Suggestion] Accurate Frame Counter & A Couple More Things

Post by Reverie »

In V5, if you added two frames, for example, 550 and 551, and then deleted 550, 551 would become 550. This may be difficult to re-implement, but couldn't there be an accurate frame counter for cases, even just on the page where the "click to edit trial" button is? Ctrl+U doesn't work on this version, so it's impossible to check there, but it would still be good if we could have an accurate number of frames in a trial rather than just whatever the highest frame number is.

One of the other things I couldn't fit in the title was having the "hide previous character" box checked by default, or being changed to a "show previous character box" that isn't checked by default. I can't really think of any time where you'd want more than one character shown on-screen like that, and it just adds another step required for each frame.

And finally, the possible ability to mute text bleeping/ speaking expressions and background music independently of each other. I'm not sure if this one is at all possible or not.
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drvonkitty
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Re: [Suggestion] Accurate Frame Counter & A Couple More Thin

Post by drvonkitty »

It's actually used for investigation locations, so that when you have the player-character talking, the person he's with doesn't have the be re-added. I'd support all the others, but I'm strongly against checking the hide previous character box by default.
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Ferdielance
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Re: [Suggestion] Accurate Frame Counter & A Couple More Thin

Post by Ferdielance »

I'm very much against automatic frame renumbering. That frame numbers would dance around in v5 made a lot of interesting programming either impossible or very risky. Now we can finally, finally use expressions for redirects! This makes it possible to have something resembling a subroutine in a case.

Now, MANUAL frame renumbering, or a button that lets you "clean up frame numbers" if you so choose, sounds great to me.
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Re: [Suggestion] Accurate Frame Counter & A Couple More Thin

Post by kwando1313 »

Yeah. If I remember correctly, the auto frame re-numbering was done away with because it just makes things messier coding wise. So, I highly doubt Unas will bring that back. That being said, it /would/ be nice to get accurate framecounts... But I don't really see that as being too necessary.
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Reverie
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Re: [Suggestion] Accurate Frame Counter & A Couple More Thin

Post by Reverie »

@Ferdie - What I meant was a counter outside of the whole engine itself. On the screen: Manager -> {Any Trial's} Edit Button. Just a counter here that updates as you save, and tells you the actual number of current frames there are. I do understand why it doesn't do the V5 thing and update itself.
Manual frame numbering would be good, but that would take a lot of effort for those who simply want to see how many frames their case currently has. Both are possible and could both work at the same time, having one doesn't render the other redundant.

@drvonkitty - Oh. I thought the engine just read whatever sprite was last and put it on the following frame until the sprite was changed. If, without it, we'd have to set the sprite every frame, then yeah, that box is undoubtedly the shorter route.
Last edited by Reverie on Fri Aug 01, 2014 8:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Enthalpy
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Re: [Suggestion] Accurate Frame Counter & A Couple More Thin

Post by Enthalpy »

There's already a way to see the total number of frames in your trial, through the v6 debugger.

Steps:
1. Open your game in the v6 editor, like: http://aceattorney.sparklin.org/V6_Test ... l_id=37891
2. Scroll to the bottom and remember the last frame number.
3. Open your trial in the v6 debugger, like http://aceattorney.sparklin.org/V6_Test ... 7891&debug
4. Enter the number from step #2 in the 'Frame ID" section.
5. The number in the 'Frame Index' section is your framecount. This includes "invisible" frames that set up for cross-examinations and investigations.

I can use this to see that the investigation in Proxy has 1871 frames.
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Reverie
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Re: [Suggestion] Accurate Frame Counter & A Couple More Thin

Post by Reverie »

Oh, so that's what Frame Index is used for. I had a feeling... Well. I still support Ferdie's idea of manual frame numbering, but for the purposes of what I was talking about in the original post, that works. Thanks.
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Re: [Suggestion] Accurate Frame Counter & A Couple More Thin

Post by Unas »

Ferdielance wrote:Now, MANUAL frame renumbering, or a button that lets you "clean up frame numbers" if you so choose, sounds great to me.
Manual frame numbering is a no-no (people would make too many mistakes with that).
Though of course, people who really want it can edit the trial data by hand...

However, the ability to optimise the trial by renumbering all the frames is planned.
You see, in a long trial where frames are not numbered in order, you might notice an important lag because the engine oftens has to search for the frame with a given ID throughout the whole trial. I made that search "clever" : if a frame's position index and ID number are close, the search will be fast. And when a frame's ID is equal to its position index, the search is instantaneous.
This is already the case for V5 imported trials (in V5, the ID is the position by definition), and the "optimiser" will be able to do renumber V6 trials to reach that optimal order.

But you make a good point about renumbering not being automatic - I'll make sure to put proper warning when I add it.


... That being said, the question of the frame count is different. It's true that the editor and player do not currently display this information, but it's actually very simple to get from the data structure. If you were to type "trial_data.frames.length" in your browser's Javascript console while on the editor or player, you'd get the result directly.
So I just need to think of a proper place to display this information.

As for displaying it in the manager, it's a little different, as the manager does not directly read the trial's data but only fetches some metadata from the database.
I did think about adding the length as a trial's metadata, but it will have to wait until later, when I'll redesign the database (which I can't do until I get completely rid of V5).



Regarding separate mute for music and effects : maybe... it's possible but it's a little more bulky (basically, now I just tell the whole sound system to mute or unmute; to do as you say I'd have to select specific sounds and control them separately), and I'm not sure it's worth it.


At last, the "hide" box already has an "optimal" behaviour : it is unticked by default, and gets ticked automatically when you set a place on your frame.
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