Project Oogie 0.2.8

Project Oogie 0.2.8

The Fire King is whole again, cutscene cameras no longer look "stuck in the
floor", the Casino Clash roulette scene is clear, Shadow Oogie is solid with
the HD pack, and everything from the three 0.2.8 tests: better sound balance
with new volume sliders, and the PS2 HD texture and button packs now load
wherever the game is.

Graphics

• The Fire King is whole again (GitHub #10). In the Fire and Ice King
  fight only his fire pieces showed. The game paints animated lava onto his
  body texture while it plays; the port started that painting from an empty
  picture instead of the body, so the body disappeared. Fixed in the fight
  and in the cutscene before it.
• Cutscene cameras no longer "stuck in the floor" (GitHub #10). When a
  cutscene camera sat low, the ground right in front of the lens, which the
  Xbox never draws, covered the screen in flat grey (Fire and Ice King
  cutscene). The port now clips what is too close to the camera, as the
  Xbox does.
• Casino Clash, Oogie's roulette table: at "What are we gambling for,
  you ask?" the screen was a green sheet and Oogie could not be seen. A
  playing card behind the camera was being drawn in front of it. Fixed.
• Face culling: the game's own setting for which side of a surface to
  draw is now followed (it was ignored). The game uses it for its shadow
  effects.

PS2 HD textures

• Shadow Oogie is solid black again with the HD pack. The pack's
  Shadow Oogie pictures store their see-through parts differently from the
  Xbox ones, which left him partly see-through. He now keeps the Xbox
  pictures. A check of all 847 pack pairings found four more to correct
  (a small Jack texture, Hinterlands moss, a screen noise filter and a fire
  glow). F1 > Mods now shows 827 HD textures (831 before).
• A picture that is fully solid on the disc now always stays solid with a
  pack picture.

From 0.2.8 test 3

• Packs switched off by mistake work again. Test 1 listed the texture
  packs among the ordinary mods with their own On / Off switch; turning one
  off there left a file inside the pack that later builds obeyed, so the
  buttons pack stayed off with every setting on. The packs are no longer
  listed as ordinary mods and that leftover file is ignored: they are
  switched only with F1 > Mods > PS2 HD Textures and Button Prompts.
• Long names no longer cover On / Off in the menu: they shrink, then are
  cut short with "...".
• Tested in a copy of a Quiver Launcher install (a folder deeper than
  Quiver's) with both packs dragged into mods: all 831 HD textures and the
  Modern Xbox buttons in use.

From 0.2.8 test 2

PS2 HD textures and button prompts, fixed

• The packs now load wherever the game is. The packs' own folder names
  are about 130 characters long. Unless the game sat in a short folder, the
  path to each texture went over Windows' old 260-character limit, so the
  game saw the pack but could not open one file in it: no HD textures, and
  the button choice did nothing. Packs are now read from any depth.
• Dance battles follow the button choice. The dance icons (and the
  dance gauge) now show Modern Xbox or PlayStation buttons as chosen. The
  PlayStation dance icons come from the HD pack, so keep it in mods\ for
  those; it no longer has to be switched on for them.
• The packs' PNG editions work as well as the DDS ones.
• F1 > Mods now says what the packs give, for example "HD pack: in use
  (831 HD textures)", instead of only that a folder is there.

Download the packs from RetroGenerica's page:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/the-nightmare-before-christmas-oogies-revenge-ps2-hd-texture-pack-xbox-button-texture-pack-100-complete-updated-2024.623200/
and put both folders, as they are, anywhere inside mods.

From 0.2.8 test 1

Sound balance (GitHub #9).

Sound

• Voices are easier to hear. The game's cutscene sound is in 5.1
  surround, with the dialogue in the centre channel. When the port turned it
  into stereo, the rear channels came in at full strength and the bass
  channel was mixed in loud, so they covered the dialogue. They now use the
  usual stereo downmix, which brings the dialogue 1 to 2.5 dB forward.
• Sound effects no longer drown out the rest. Every ordinary sound effect
  was also played a second time through the reverb channel, as a plain copy,
  so effects came out about 3.5 dB louder than the game asks for. In fights
  the sound hit the loudness ceiling and distorted: 64,689 clipped samples in
  one Mega Spider fight, now about 2,000.
• New: Music, Voices and Sound Effects volumes (F1 > Audio, 0 to 200 %
  each). Jack's singing is part of the song tracks, so it follows Music.

These were measured on Windows, not yet heard on a Steam Deck. If the voices
are still too quiet, raise Voices, and please say where.