User talk:Supper

Humongous Entertainment games

I was messing around with the debug console in SCUMMVM in Humongous games a few years back and found a few things. I'll try to dig up some stuff tomorrow for you. The most interesting thing I found was the anti-cheat messages in the 2nd Spy Fox. If you tried to branch onto a different path than the one you were already on, it would be like "You can't do that on this path cheater". IIRC Spy Fox 1 has an E3 mode like Pajama Sam does.

Also, I knew one of the guys who worked there since they started. Used to be an admin on Second Life, Blue Linden, but he resigned a while back and I've lost contact with him

--Oaa 22:28, 29 May 2011 (EDT)

Cool! Spy Fox 2 definitely has some weird stuff, like a rather gruesome Dragon's Lair reference. I'll probably move on to that or the Putt-Putt series next, although I'm not looking forward to trying to get video captures of some of the hidden scenes. There are pretty much no good free video editors for Windows. Also, interesting about the guy who worked there -- do you know what he did? Supper 22:41, 29 May 2011 (EDT)

Also I read on Reddit there is an easter egg in one of the Freddi Fish games where Luther can get eaten. Can't find it though,but someone in the thread confirmed it. I'd probably be able to find stuff in Putt Putt Enters the Race since I played the everliving shit out of that game when I was like 7 or so. --Oaa 23:12, 29 May 2011 (EDT)

Another IIRC, Pajama Sam demo has different looking item menu and some other stuff I think. --Oaa 23:21, 29 May 2011 (EDT)

I think he joined the company when it was founded. Worked on most of their games but I forget what exactly he did. D: EDIT: Found the Reddit post. Found the reddit post http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/hbmx0/the_biggest_most_shocking_spoiler_from_any_game/c1u56mm --Oaa 23:30, 29 May 2011 (EDT)

I actually saw the "EddieEatsLuther" thing a while back on a poorly-made YouTube video. It's one a few rather disturbing easter eggs in the series -- there's a similar code that makes Putt-Putt throw up after eating too much cotton candy in Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo (accompanied by Pep licking up his vomit -- ew). Check out http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Humongous_Entertainment/Games/INI_Settings -- it's got all of them, plus some settings I can't seem to get to work. Supper 23:54, 29 May 2011 (EDT)

Hey there!

Welcome aboard, and thanks for all the content lately! Good to see you again. =) -- Rick 17:48, 30 May 2011 (EDT)

Ha, I was wondering if you'd recognize the name. I'm glad to be here -- I've been lurking pretty much since the wiki started, but I never really got around to making an account or posting anything until now. Supper 17:56, 30 May 2011 (EDT)

Of course I did! How could I forget someone who helped me out with my lone TAS! Speaking of which, I don't really go there anymore. But in other matters, even if you hadn't helped, I still would remember a fellow whose name is an important meal of the day! :P -- Rick 18:08, 30 May 2011 (EDT)

Greetings from a fellow Humongous fan!

Just thought I'd give a shout-out to you. I've played Humongous games since I was in preschool, and I only recently became interested in the deeper part of the games' content, like the subtitles, hidden easter eggs, etc. Anyways, I still have lots of my old Humongous games and most of them are on ScummVM on my computer. Actually, I'd be willing to help you out with adding information on more Humongous games to TCRF. I'm not very skilled yet with wiki editing, but I'd be willing to provide facts, screenshots, etc. of some items. --Retrodude 11:26, 1 June 2011 (EDT)

That would be great! There's lots of stuff buried in these games, some of it deeper than I know how to reach. One thing I can name off the top of my head are some hidden error messages in Putt-Putt Join the Parade. Some time ago, I was messing around with the ScummVM debug console, using "object [x] pickup" and "script [x] run" on everything, and I got a subtitle saying something like "I can't pick that up. The SCUMM DIETY." I've tried and tried, but for the life of me I can't get it to trigger again. There's a similar message triggered by "script 10 run," but I know there's at least that other one -- possibly more? Wish I had a text viewer. If you have that game and can find a way to trigger the message and screenshot it, I'd really appreciate it. Supper 15:31, 1 June 2011 (EDT)

Cool. I saw you were having trouble getting the Eddie Eats Luther code to work. If you'd like, I can post a much higher-quality video of the cutscene to youtube and I'll give you permission to link it into an appropriate page here. Also, I'd love to help with looking for unused music in other games. Do you use the method with opening raw data in Audacity, or do you know another method?

By the way, in my Humongous collection I have Putt-Putt Joins the Parade and Goes to the Moon, as well as Travels Through Time, and I also have the Pajama Sam trilogy (I agree, Life is Rough stinks. It would have been 1000x better if they got Pamela Segall to voice Sam) and Lost & Found. Then I've got the first three Freddi Fish games, Spy Fox 1 and Cheese Chase, Let's Explore the Airport, and about every Scumm-based Backyard Sports game except the original Backyard Baseball. Quite the collection, I guess, and I'm sure there are interesting tidbits hiding in each one. --Retrodude 08:48, 5 June 2011 (EDT)

By the way, I uploaded a higher-quality version of the Eddie Eats Luther cutscene. I avoided the annoying mouse-camera, but there is some slight distortion so I'm not sure if it's completely up to scratch for this site. That distortion isn't from the original file, either. Youtube did that to it. I'm also going to take some time to look through my Humongous soundtrack files today to see if there is anything worth noting. One more note. I somehow now own the Macintosh floppy disk version of Fatty Bear's Birthday Surprise, and all the data files are stuck inside a compressed folder with a format only old Macs can read. Do you know of any good Mac emulators around for Windows? I've found a place where I can legally download an old Mac OS (if you're wondering, it's somewhere on the official Apple website) and there are so many Mac emulators out there that I can't decide which one is best and easiest. --Retrodude 10:23, 5 June 2011 (EDT)

Thanks for the help! I've actually gotten EddieEatsLuther to work, but EnableFishBradSword doesn't seem to do anything. It's supposed to enable "animations of the dead fish on the sunken ship (Room 49)," but I can't find anything different. Have you had any luck with that?

Also, I have the original Backyard Baseball, so that's one gap filled. I confess that I gave most of my HE games away after I outgrew them and I downloaded most of the ones I have now, but I do still own the first four Backyard titles (and Putt-Putt and Fatty Bear's Activity Pack, for some reason).

And sorry, I don't really know much about Macs in general, let alone emulating them. Google turns up this site -- maybe it's what you need?

I almost forgot to mention -- I do just use Audacity for audio rips. My method is to go through the .he4 file and tag the beginning and end of each track, then go back and export them to WAV one at a time. It's pretty quick with a little practice. So far I've done Pajama Sam 1, 2, and 3, Putt-Putt 1, 2, 3, and 4, Backyard Baseball/Soccer/Football, and Fatty Bear. If you ever find yourself with time for a little drudgery, ripping some of the other games and checking for unused tracks would be a great help. Supper 16:32, 5 June 2011 (EDT)

Sounds good. I've been thinking of starting a page here for the first Freddi fish, but I think I'll try to get a higher-quality video of Eddie Eats Luther on Youtube first so I can link it to here. I have a feeling it might have something to do with the fact that I uploaded the original .avi file rather than putting it into an editing program (I use Windows Movie Maker, since I just need the basics) and have that format it into a .wmv file, since it seems people have less trouble with that. Thankfully I still have the original source video so I think it will be fine. I'll let you know when I get a higher-quality version. I'm still getting used to Youtube, since I'm somewhat of a noob there right now. --Retrodude 14:21, 6 June 2011 (EDT)

Hey, do you know where I might be able to download Let's Explore the Farm? I already have my own copy but one of my datafiles is scratched beyond repair. --Retrodude 15:06, 15 June 2011 (EDT)

You can find it pretty easily -- http://www.google.com/search?q=%22explore+the+airport%22. You don't have to look far. Supper 16:11, 15 June 2011 (EDT)

Quick Question

Hello again. I was just wondering -- how did you decrypt the dialog text in all of the HE games? I'd be willing to help document the many debug messages you say they have, but I need to know how to do it first. --Legoking831 (talk) 21:06, 14 November 2013 (EST)

Most SCUMM games use a very simple form of encryption (byte-by-byte XOR against 0x69) for the main data file, which is the .HE1 or .(A)/.(B) file in Humongous games. If you run HEErip with the parameter "--decodeonly", it'll make a decoded copy of the file. The text itself is plain ASCII that you can easily view in a hex editor, at least in the English versions. The problem is that most text is embedded directly in the script files, so the only way to find it (short of interpreting the SCUMM bytecode, which is ScummVM's job) is to manually flip through all the SCRP, LSCR, and LSC2 chunks looking for text. It's probably doable for small games like Putt-Putt Joins the Parade, but anything that didn't have to be squeezed onto a floppy will be a real pain to deal with. Supper (talk) 23:48, 14 November 2013 (EST)

Thank you, I'll be on the lookout for anything interesting in those. --Legoking831 (talk) 16:15, 17 November 2013 (EST)

Another Question

I know you don't really edit on this wiki a whole lot anymore, but I still wanted to ask this. I was poking around in Freddi Fish 2's files, and I came across an unused movie for the theater. It looks to be a closeup shot of the old "Humongous Presents" logo, in full 3D. I don't know if it's possible to play it ingame though using any sort of debugging or hacking; would you happen to know? --Legoking831 (talk) 14:08, 12 August 2014 (EDT)

Well, I'm not dead just yet, but I have less free time these days. To answer your question, I haven't looked at FF2 specifically, but from your description it's probably possible to swap out the unused animation with a used one (which is what I did to play the unused animations in Pajama Sam). I've only got my laptop at the moment and don't have a copy of the game on hand, so it'll be a few days before I can take a look at it. Supper (talk) 20:59, 12 August 2014 (EDT)

Thanks. By the way, you don't need to go looking through the game files for leftover sketches -- I'm already doing it. --Legoking831 (talk) 00:17, 13 August 2014 (EDT)

All right, I finally took a look at this. Like I thought, it just takes a quick swap to get the animation to play. Here's what it looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhIvbK5KmC4 (I dubbed in the sound effect -- I assume this is what it's meant for based on the length). Thanks for letting me know about it. For reference, you can do this by cutting and pasting the 0xD26A6 bytes starting at 0x65C6D5A in FREDDI2.HE1 (original release version) to 0x65985AD, then playing the Count Barracula movie. Supper (talk) 22:51, 21 August 2014 (EDT)

Thanks. I'll probably get around to adding that unused sound as well. --Legoking831 (talk) 19:29, 25 August 2014 (EDT)

Oh hey, the third question in a row

I've been wondering how you get those unused animations ripped and converted to GIFs. I'd love to decrapify Freddi 2's page but I don't know any way of doing it other than painstakingly recreating it in an image editor (which I did with that theater movie...took me nearly the entire afternoon to do that and I'm not doing it again). Do you hack the animation back in the game and then use it as a reference for recreating it? --Legoking831 (talk) 18:00, 20 September 2014 (EDT)

That's actually a new feature I recently added to the ripper. It turns out the basic animation sequence data is pretty simple, so I added an option to spit out the frames in the correct order and position (although the timing is handled externally, so that's just guesswork/whatever looks good). It's not quite ready for release yet due to some minor bugs and because I want to see if it's feasible to support the older format used in the DOS-era games. I'll put up the new version once I've worked it all out. Supper (talk) 18:31, 20 September 2014 (EDT)

Thank you, I'm really looking forward to seeing it! If I can fork out enough time while I'm in college to add the pencil graphics to the other pages I will certainly do that. --Legoking831 (talk) 23:43, 20 September 2014 (EDT)

Can you tell me what you use to make your GIFs? I've been searching everywhere to find a reliable one. --Legoking831 (talk) 18:18, 23 September 2014 (EDT)

I generally use ImageMagick to convert to PNG and add transparency, then import the frames into GIMP and manipulate them as necessary. See this tutorial. Supper (talk) 18:26, 23 September 2014 (EDT)

I apologize for never saying thank you to that last response - I gave it a try and it shortened the time it took to add transparency considerably. I was originally going into Paint.net and removing with the magic wand set to a tolerance of 0. You have been a major help.

On another note, I wanted to ask you another thing (I know, I'm being really annoying at this point, I'm sorry) -- my friends over on a forum have been trying to hack open Lego Island to no avail. Imagine their surprise when you turned up that unused cut scene, as I am sure you could tell by a few comments. How did you manage to find that, and how far have you gotten reverse engineering the game? --Legoking831 (talk) 02:04, 6 October 2014 (EDT)

That was something I slapped together in a week a long time ago and never got around to finishing. IIRC it does sound and movies just fine, but a lot of the graphics stuff doesn't work right. I'll upload what I have whenever I can get the source off of my currently broken computer. Supper (talk) 17:43, 6 October 2014 (EDT)

Thank you. Even if it isn't much, my friends will be VERY happy to see something like that. You have no idea how much they've been tearing their hair out trying to hack open that game. --Legoking831 (talk) 18:31, 6 October 2014 (EDT)

Music ripping from Humongous games a little fuzzy?

I've noticed in many areas that the sample rate used (and according to OfficialWindowsTV) for .HE4 music is 11025 Hz, which seems to be the best quality available and I sometimes take note of minor fuzziness using your current HEripper because they are at 11000. --BreakingBenny (talk) 07:48, 6 October 2014 (EDT)

No, for almost all audio formats in all games the sample rate is stored in the header for each audio file. Most games use 11025 or 11000 Hz, but some games will use lower rates on certain sound effects to save space. The only time the sample rate isn't explicitly specified is for music in the oldest games, which I measured as playing at 11000 Hz. Supper (talk) 17:43, 6 October 2014 (EDT)

You see, the rips contain some noticable fuzz if one listens carefully. I can tell from the sound files heard, as if they were recorded in-game or something...a common mistake because it's not the best way to do so. --BreakingBenny (talk) 08:40, 5 November 2014 (EST)

If there's a bug in my program I'm all ears, but you're going to have to give me something a bit more concrete to go on here. All the extractor does is copy the waveform data exactly as-is from the game files and add an appropriate RIFF header. The sample rates come straight from the file headers, and for early games without headers, I've verified against game recordings that the correct rate is 11025 Hz (the number in my previous reply is mistaken, but the program is correct). There's not really much room for things to go wrong, so you'll need to point me to something specific that you think sounds off. Supper (talk) 17:56, 5 November 2014 (EST)

No bugs from what I 've experienced (though you can tell there's some static if you listen very carefully, I don't think that is ever heard inside the actual games), besides it doesn't support sequence-ripping from post-Pajama Sam games properly (Otto's sad faces cannot be rip-n-compile'd together). If we're lucky, OfficialWindowsTV will eventually release his HE utilities for the public so we can all de- and re-encode our raw sound files. --BreakingBenny (talk) 10:47, 7 November 2014 (EST)

I have noticed that when importing the raw audio data into Audacity (8-bit unsigned PCM, 11025 khz for pre-Backyard Basketball and 16-bit signed PCM, 22050 khz afterwards) is pretty much the best quality without fuzz, but I think the problem is it's trying to export into the original encoding...which is 8-bit unsigned when it really wants to use 16-bit signed PCM, otherwise there's that audible static. --BreakingBenny (talk) 18:06, 24 December 2014 (EST)

GUI-based application

I have a question however, do you intend to make HEerip GUI-based? It's hard trying to find the resources one's looking for while rooting through all the "Rooms", like the many kids' mugshots in the Backyard Sports games because it extracts everything it can. --BreakingBenny (talk) 20:09, 1 January 2015 (EST)

Not anytime soon. I've moved on to other things for now, and since the source code is basically trash I wouldn't even consider trying to extend it short of a total rewrite. I might revisit it sometime in the future if I feel like it, though. Supper (talk) 20:20, 1 January 2015 (EST)

Humongous Concepts

Hey Sup, thanks for making pages for HE games and good job ripping the games apart as a way to learn a bit of code. What could be more aligned with the cognitive-learning spirit of Humongous? Nothing, I tell you!

I'll keep uploading concept stuff (in the correct prerelease categories) as time permits. I have more from some projects than others. Lots and lots of Fox, not much Freddi. Fortunately, after the evil Infogrames decided to trash a ton of archived art, brave Humongoids rescued most of the Sam concepts I'm uploading now from a dumpster. Infogrames truly is legendary in its bastardliness.

But as you've probably heard, the Humongous Studio itself was a very tight family and we're all still super close so if you're curious about anything, you can usually just find one of us and ask. If we don't know, we probably know who does. TomVerre (talk) 11:28, 7 October 2016 (EDT)

Well, thanks again for doing this. I'm really glad you and others cared enough about your work to go to such lengths to preserve it. If there's one thing I've learned reading TCRF's hidden messages from disgruntled programmers, it's that the gaming industry can be pretty ruthless and not all companies give their employees the chance to make work they can take pride in, so it's really refreshing to see how there were places with a more positive atmosphere like HE (before the buyout, anyway).

I think you noticed when you looked at the Pajama Sam page that I've misused some animation terminology – I have no background in the subject, so I just made my best guess on applying labels like "storyboard" and "test animation". Any light you can shed on how things generally progressed from concepts to rough drafts to the finished in-game animation would help me make things more coherent, and it's just pretty interesting to know besides. Don't worry about it if you're busy, of course. Supper (talk) 05:50, 8 October 2016 (EDT)

Thank you for working on the regional differences of Lunar: Eternal Blue

Hello, Supper. I just wanted to thank you for cleaning and adding stuff on the regional differences of Lunar: Eternal Blue. I usually contribute to this site by adding regional differences to games but I can never figure out how to place images and so I usually just resort to writing some texts instead.

P.S. I liked how you took a jab at Working Designs. I thought it was hilarious. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mr. Kite (talk • contribs)

Thanks, I try to be reasonably thorough when I cover a game. Personally, I find that trying to format stuff nicely is the most tedious and miserable part of the job, so don't worry about it too much and just do what you can. Supper (talk) 20:38, 12 November 2016 (EST)

Hi, Supper. Thank you again for working on the regional differences of Lunar: Eternal Blue. Just had a question though. Are all the differences that Working Designs added in incorporated to other console ports like the PS1 version? Mr. Kite (talk) 02:05, 8 January 2017 (EST)

I've only ever played the Mega CD versions, so I have no idea. Sorry. I might look at the ports if I ever actually manage to finish the MCD page, but I'll see how I feel when I'm done. Supper (talk) 02:13, 8 January 2017 (EST)

A random inquiry

Heya. It's been quite a while.

So, I have a quick question, and a favor to ask. I've been still keeping up with HumongousSoundtracks (Now Humongous Fan Soundtracks) after all these years, and right now I've hit a bit of a wall. I've made it past the final Yaga game, and am trying to do the 3D Renderware games (I know that you will probably want to run away from this really fast after hearing that, but please hear me out)...but the only problem is, I have no way of being able to extract Backyard Baseball 2005. I get that you're probably not familiar with that game at all, but don't worry; there's a utility called Game Extractor that used to be updated fairly consistently. It lists Baseball 2005 as one of its supported games alongside all the other Renderware Backyard games...but for whatever reason, Backyard Baseball 2005 is the ONLY ONE it doesn't extract. It throws up an error saying it's not able to extract it, and I've tried both the PC and PS2 versions and both give the same result. This is curious because it can do the games past it just fine; I've successfully extracted Hockey 2005 and Skateboarding and I assume it should be able to do Football 2006 as well, but it doesn't do Baseball 2005 for whatever reason. The utility runs on plugins that feeds it values based on the architecture of whatever game archive you're trying to extract, and does so in a pretty easy to understand text format; if you want to volunteer (and you can say no, please don't feel obligated just because I asked), would you be willing to look into it? You're the only programmer I know who might be willing enough to check it out. I'd be willing to supply necessary files; I imagine all it would take is a quick plugin re-write. Game Extractor hasn't been updated in eons and I already tried asking the guy behind it, and never got a reply.

Again, this is totally optional. Do not be afraid to say no if you would rather not. --Legoking831 (talk) 02:37, 3 January 2017 (EST)

I don't know if I can fix GameExtractor, but I might at least be able to get the files for you. Send me what you have and I'll take a look. No promises, though. Supper (talk) 02:57, 3 January 2017 (EST)

Alrighty. I will go ahead and email about it, thank you very much. And I have no expectations, so don't feel bad if you aren't able to get it extracted. --Legoking831 (talk) 14:53, 3 January 2017 (EST)

Hidden Outtake in the English versions of Lunar 2

Hi, Supper. Good job on working on Lunar 2's regional differences. I just wanted to tell you that I found a hidden outtake audio. Link is in the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDunXSSQu9o. The voice is actually working designs' founder Victor Ireland providing this hidden audio. We should probably add this to the regional differences list. Also I read the literal translations for some of the Japanese dialogue, and I actually know Japanese and the original Japanese script seems the same as the literal translations. Mr. Kite (talk) 02:30, 13 January 2017 (EST)

That's from the PlayStation version, which we don't actually have a page for at the moment. I believe it has some other extra stuff added by the localizers, like a short documentary on the game, that also needs to go on there whenever the page gets made. I haven't decided whether I'll actually go through the PS version once I'm done with the Mega CD version. Supper (talk) 02:35, 13 January 2017 (EST)

Elemental Gearbolt's Regional Differences

Hey, Supper, thank you again for helping me out with regional differences. I was trying to find more differences between US and JP version of Elemental Gearbolt and I heard that working designs added secret items in the game in order to support a promotional contest that they were hosting, and I'm pretty sure if we find about more about this promotional content then we would be able to figure out a lot more on the gameplay changes.Mr. Kite (talk) 10:46, 24 April 2017 (EDT)

Doesn't the working design save feature in eternal blue use skill points rather than magic exp?

Hey, Supper. I was reading more into the save feature that working designs added for eternal blue and it said that you need to use skill points, although is skill points the same as magic exp? Also it says that everytime you save the skill point amount gets scaled. Is this actually correct or not? Mr. Kite (talk) 05:15, 20 May 2017 (EDT)

Hot Wheels Stunt Track Driver credits

Hello, I've seen this page related to Hot Wheel Stunt Track Driver. You uploaded this screenshots from credits some time ago - my only question is: is that the only screenshot from this Credits.PCX file? I mean, is that the full list of credited people?