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Well lets see...DO updated psa a bit, SD made a thread about why there arnt many psers(good thread btw)...so now theres this thread.  What do you think should be updated or added to psa to make it easier,less time consuming,less tedious,etc...maybe"noob-ify" it. 

So DISCUSS! What or how do you think PSA should be updated to make it easier and more convenient?

*Note some of your ideas might be taken into consideration...what i mean is that maybe black jax or some other programmer who understands the psa source code could add your ideas to it.

Well, make it where it's sorta has "basic" translations.

there are programs done in basic. maybe making it seem more basic, and making actions slightly more understandable. and having advanced options for a more advanced PSA as well.

but this is much harder that it actually is.


Another Suggestion would be actual tips and suggestions. or giving example codes on how an advanced move might work. example:

Making Marth's down-b make him spin around. show what you change inside the specials/sub actions tabs in a convenient text document. i work by example.

I'm afraid logic is as simple as it can get. Most actions are explained pretty clearly. I like the example idea, maybe set up a wiki with examples?

Maybe the OpenSA Wiki could have a page or two dedicated to that.

http://opensa.dantarion.com/wiki/Main_Page

Yes, that much would help.

i can't make heads or tails of what the program is saying.

i can modify LUA. but PSA really ticks me off.. in a i'm confused help me mommy type of way.

PSA should be merged with Brawlbox+(soon) the .dae importer
so we got all in one
can make Animations while we PSA them something like that can be awesome
so Brawlbox can Preview model then open Fit(char).pac and Fit(char)motionetc.pac

also a tab for Articles in PSA and we can edit them like GFX/hitboxes on them
instead find a subrotation

look into Blender's logic brick editor...

PSA should be set up with something like that...

and yes...
the code is complicated because most people don't know how to put the structures together >_>

not to mention there's not enough documentation and info...

Needs to focus on projectiles and AI.

I used to mod Halo PC, AI behavior and all that. I know for a fact that AI are dependent on things and that some of these things can cause them to self destruct. AI in Smash learn, but they need to be made more bolder, not just aggressive. They need to be able to jump off the stage and go kamikaze.

Actually, AI is modified using a different program. I think it needs more focus on articles.

Thankfully OpenSA helps a lot.

It should let you know when you went pass the filesize, and if you did something that would make the game freeze, it should let you know where and how.

IT would also be nice if you could see whatever the hell you are doing. Just have the model show up like BrawlBox and show you where the graphics/hitboxes are placed.

i think there should be something that would allow you to do certain coding quicker and easier...

ex. you wnna make every attack add a charge(+1) to a variable. So instead of going to every subaction and pasting the variable, you could just choose which subactions to put the variable, where to put it, and then done - it puts that code where its needed.

ex2. you wnna make a hitbox which grows(size increases). Instead of making every hitbox and changing the sizes, psa would have something where it would increase the sizes.

With what, how so, and what's it's limits?

Or is OpenSA the program you're referring to?

And I agree about the articles.

I would like to use Yoshi's fireball with graphics without the need for final smash. Yesterday, if I remember correctly, I managed to get the fireballs to show up by removing most of the final smash properties (i.e. flying), but I can't manage to do it again.

Me, I want Visual Cues of where a hit box is going to affect my animation, like how brawlbox (modset4.0+) shows clickable bones. If I can see exactly how a Hit box looks, I'd be more inclinded in building a psa since I can tell how big the the hi box is, where it's at, when it goes away, and when it shows up. That's been my biggest complaint cause it's suchs a HUGE time waister with trial and error.

What PSA needs? I guess good and simple to make additions would be:
- Second remove button that NOPs the action instead of removing it
- Paste that doesn't add an action, but replaces one

^those are actually nice simple additions, good for keeping the filesize low, and saving the time for those who actually use nops.

-hitboxes are spheres
-it goes away/shows up as soon as you want.

I know, but be nice to know WHERE and how they are affected when I put em on a bone or som'in. It's just the hidden aspect I'm not liking about it. The Visual cues would bring the animation together much faster cause I've already had issues with Tifa's Attack11/12/13 not reaching far enough, and I can't see the Boxs, so I can't tell how to properly stretch out her arms. I dono... Just som'in That I need to see more then guess work =\

psa should have preprogrammed moves, like porting automatically any brawl movement wit only bone adjustments, THAT would be awesome ^^

I have a suggestion. The ability to preview what the graphic effect your choosing looks like. I know there's a video dictionary on youtube about it, but I think it would be better to have an in-program picture view of the graphic as well.

I have a few ideas after putting a bit of thought into it:

- I agree with Jaklub.  I think that Change to Nop is a great idea to keep file sizes down.

- The ability to preview (Brawlbox style) where hitboxes and graphics are in the program.  I believe Tabuu/OpenSA3 was doing something along these lines, but it never really developed fully.

- Some sort of "preset" clumps of coding.  For example, for a basic example, you could have a clump of coding titled "Basic Attack Loop" and it gives you a Loop, timers and Offensive Collision preset up.  All of the events should still be editable.  For newbies it would be a great and accessible way to start whilst for more experienced PSAers it would be great for convenience.

- As others have said, a much more accessible way to edit a characters Articles and Floating Points.  However, I think this would require a separate program, as well as something like a module file editor so it's easy to visualise article floating points without having to use hex

- More clearly labelled IDs, graphics, and basically everything.  For example, looking at something like Sound Effect: 45D is rather irritating and somewhat confusing.  Rather than that and having to edit the number, you get a list of the sound effects that the character can access.

For example, with Sonic, the sound effects could be listed as "Low Voice Clip 1", "F Smash Voice Clip", "Taunt Voice Clip 1" etc.

- Yeah. Tabuu never developed enough to get to that feature. It HAS a model viewer and can view animations, but it never got to the point where we can see the hitboxes like in Melee's debug mode.

- You would have to label ALL of the sounds because the sounds are not consistently organized in a ceratin order. Graphics too.
I think that you can alter the syntax a certain way to have the SFX labeled like the Body Collision values.

that what i mean with Brawlbox merged with PSA too :D for preview hitboxes

build your moveset...

that should be psa's future, just what i said before, only thing u need to do is animation swaps and click on the moves, also, PSAers like u, sDoom, could make new moves and add them to the "build your moveset", it would be awesome if it were that easy, and it only needs programming with what we already have...

-nice to know this thread didnt die lol
-i was thinking about adding some stuff to psa(you guys' ideas if no one does em)...after i figure out how it works(havent really looked at the source code yet(only got 1.3 source too )) and after im done with some stuff



edit: guess not

I restate myself...

look into blenders logic editor...

it's basically almost everything that's been talked about below >:3

well me...i have no idea about anything in blender, let alone its logic editor. So telling me to look into it without telling me how is not helping me. But since you believe its the solution....how ABOUT TELLING ME ABOUT IT AND HOW TO VIEW IT!?!!?!??!?!??! jk but srsly can you tell us about it?

alright...
when I clear up some free time, I will :)

We need to be able to make PSA more visual. It is mostly numbers, hex values, floating point values, and code structures. Me, im a visual learner, so its hard to understand PSA. Maybe something like in Tabuu/OpenSA where you can load a model into the fitcharacter.pac so when choosing a bone to attatch a graphic or something to, you can just reference the bone names instead of attempting to figure out what number/value to put.

here's something that should tide you guys over for a bit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oitxpIg9YEU

2:00 is around where he starts setting up the objects for the logic.

it's a bit long and boring, but it teaches you like heck :)
sry for bad quality though >_>

the bricks are what needs to be added to PSA, along with the layout
(talking about blender's logic brick editor only)

EDIT:
you should even be able to link to REL files like blender can link to PY files (scripts)

I may not know alot about PSA...
but I do know enough about logic and how it works ;)

A flowchart layout option might be nice. See the code visually...

yeah something like that choose a Bone on the model instead use a hex converter for find the bone

Sigh...

Idea's yeah i got plenty but none of them would work without build a new program/s from the ground up.

There is many things that make PSA hard for noobs, and pro's.

But here's a few things that i could think of that could really help.

1 - Save confirm/warning

I'm one of few that sometimes forget to save multiple files when doing large code changes in psa. Sometimes the coding don't work or cause freezing, then i have to remember what i changed or had deleted something i can't recreate, having a warning would help to prevent this problem.

2 - Sub-Action Change warnings

When changing code in sub-actions the ID code changes which makes goto codes in some actions not work because they we're forgotten or not changed, something to remind us that something else is connected to this sub-action that needs to be changed  would help.

3 - Storing all known info

There is a TON of  known info that isn't added to PSA from textdump, and tested coding that isn't added into PSA. Such as "If direction pressed"

I know that doing this is a ton grunt work, that no one wants to do but it needs to be done.

4 - Make the text more simple

New PSA just don't understand code, some not even hex. Making things much easier to understand will make help them.

5 - TESTER!!

Some of this codes descriptions don't do what they say they do, like if button press/ed/tap. None of these seem to work like they say, some are even used in different ways then said like "If can pick up another item" this makes things very confusing. I remember thinking the first time i saw this code think. "WTF!?"

-

The problem is the dedication of getting these things fixed, most programers tend to let projects/programs go to waste due to boredom because the work not being interesting anymore to them.

So unless people plan on getting involved i kinda don't see this going very far. I'm willing to help with grunt work, because at this time that's all i can do. I worked for ShyGuy for a while but he disappeared on me and didn't finish other work that we we're waiting on.

if this would help Psa stuff in (visually, since I too am a visual learner type of gal), I would be 20x more inclined to attempt to Psa then the net even ¼ ass attempts I've been doing as of late.

ppxexe:

1- yeh i hate when i do that. I get paranoid sometimes and just save every few minutes to make sure i dont forget >.>.
2- also know what you mean. I hate changing a subaction, then i have to check and make sure the subroutines pointing to the subaction are right.
3-mhm
4-mhm
5-you can change what they say just by editing the txt files. But "mhm"
6- mhmmmm-no...yeh...uhh -> i think that their dedication dies because of the lack of the feedback coming from the community.  IF you make something that you feel is AWESOME and release it to the community, only for people not to know or really care for the use, then it WILL most likely kill your dedication to continue.
7-mhm

Hitbox and graphic visualization would be ideal. If not that, then I would like to see a standardized 'distance/size' unit. Scaling and offsetting hitboxes and graphics is difficult when their size and location are scalar.

I would also like to see an integrated Flag maker. I made a separate application for it, but it is inconvenient (by not being integrated) and I'm still working out a glitch or two. It would be nice to be able to construct hitboxes from an in-program menu. It would be good if such a thing could be done for Special Hitbox flags as well.

Another nice feature would be a 'preview' system for graphics, sound effects, etc. It would be nice to be able to see or hear what you're selecting before it actually goes into brawl.

It would also be helpful to have a color dialog for sword glows (if possible), flash overlays, and flash lighting effects.

A minor feature that I might suggest is an in-program link to the PSA documentation wiki. Not a big deal, but it would be convenient.

Yet another (sorry for the huge list...) nice feature would be the ability to export (importing would be nice, but probably not worth the effort) code as text. That would make it much easier to post code on the forums when discussing PSA code.

I would also like to see (as others have mentioned) a code-snippet library. You would be able to save common section of code there to be pasted in when needed. It would be interesting if you could find a way to access a community database of code-snippets...I'm not sure how the best way to do this would be...can you integrate this kind of thing with the wiki somehow...? I've no clue, but it can't hurt to throw it out there.

Alright, that's it.

 for those people who ignored the point of the video I posted earlier >:O
(http://blender3dtutor.com/uploads/tutorial/healthbar-Heart/LogicBricksWhole.JPG)
the logic editor (PSA) should look somewhat like that

there was some nice ideas posted below though ;)

I really need to start making that post -.-*

wtf is that??? xDD

i saw the vid, and - i was typing..but i haveno idea how to describe what i wnna say about the vid.  Mainly i guess is that psa would never be as simple as to click a button to be a "rigid body" (example) because it would be pointless/too big of a task to be meaningful?,....i dunno im confused

also i dun understand the image

I do agree that PSA needs to be more visual.

I've been planning to build PSA into Brawlbox (Along with loading external animations in the model previewer, you could open a psa to edit) AFTER I'm done with finishing the dae importer; one thing at a time.

But rendering hitboxes like bones would be easy to do and you'd be able to actually see when and where the hitbox appears. Rendering gfx would be straightforward like rendering a model, you'd just need to load the gfx file it uses. It'd be pretty cool to just go to the frame you want a hitbox at and select the bone you want a hitbox on, and be able to drag the hitbox around so you know exactly where it is.

Same thing with sound effects. Load the brsar, locate the called sound from the psa, and play it during the animation. The only problem with that right now is that brsar support isn't complete...

*says in rapid session* This! This! This! This! This! Omg this! Exactly what I was thinking

that would help for a few thing but would only be useful to make a more cleaner and polished psa.

theres still the difficulty of coding and animating

for me psa coding is out of the way, but everything else is much more harder

brawlbox needs better key frame controls, more key board action keys, and if possible an way to add new animations without replacing others

You can add animations as long as the psa has subactions with "NONE" as the animation name. Just change that to whatever you want the name to be and then add an animation to the motion pac with the same name.

i mean adding new animations to the motion.pac

Right click the BRRES - Import/New - Character Animation

o_O

-__-

There's so much i still have to learn

Sorta off topic but: Undo Button for BrawlBox is a friggin MUST lol.

For someone who knows how to use PSA, that looks like a foreign language to me.

That's almost done, I've just been too busy with other things in Brawlbox to work on it XD
You'll be able to have unlimited undo's and redo's

tbh, I don't really even know what that does...
but from the looks of it...
it looks like it might be the logic for a life-bar made of hearts...
(something like Minecraft)
^amazing game btw ^_^
EDIT: I was right :af:
http://blender3dtutor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6:health-bar-extended-hearts&catid=4:status-indicators&Itemid=2

~_~

how is that supposed to help with psa?

because PSA is a logic editor...

that's just what the visual implementations should look like...

yes they do look foreign, but they're extremely simple once you work with them ;)
take it from someone who's progg'd blender logic before (including python scripts)

you guys look at blender as confusing as heck...
in fact, it's just as simple as pressing a few keys to get what you want...
and you don't have to go through as much as what 3DS offers
3DS has a few nicer features though >_>

anyways...
back to topic now :P

so that's what I would like PSA to be...
a simple logic editor...

right now there's just WAAAY too much to learn about the code ):>
the idea I have should simplify almost all of that down to nothing :)

okay, i thnk i know what your saying, you want to make psa so simple it would only take a few click to pull off what you wanted

exactly :)

psa need to ne visual

i hope every code/event for psa hasnt been found out YET. mainly because there are some simple but powerful code 'snippets'(as well as just brawl events in general) that could be used to make better coding.  Also a while ago, i remember trying to open something in psa... i think it was a kirby copy ability pac, but it wouldnt open >.>...not really sure what i was trying to open, but the point is to have more compatibility for "psa"(not just for brawl characters)files.

you mean REL scripts??

i wasnt trying to open a rel...but i hope whoevers working on rel figures that out too.

PW's pretty much 50% completed with it <_<
I'm only tapping at it... heh

hopefully we'll get a good decompiler out of the deal :D

The only thing I want with PSA is to easily edit articles and special GFX... The kind of stuff you would need to hex but without needing to hex it anymore is basically what I mean... I just suck at article editing and if PSA had a simple easy system for doing so without the articles going all over the place (as in wrong GFX showing up, no sound, silent freezes, wrong flags, everything else that I usually screw up when hexing) I'd be very happy :af:

Shyguy was working on that Floating Point Editor before he left, I'm the only one with a copy. Can't give it away without permission, sorry.

He was also working with the GFX too, but i don't think he ever finished it.

is anyone actually gonna do sumthing with this suggestions????

black jax - hopefully

PM it to me :)
I was a partner with him when he was working on his BTE...

or you could PM it to BJ...
that's all I'd do with it once I got it... heh

BJ could get better use out of it than I could :P


...wait...
did you say float editor??
like converting 1.0 to '3F 80 00 00'??

if that's so, then my byte calculator already does that :D

it's not too user friendly though >_>
you have to run it using IDLE for one...

yes a floating point editor, for like articles and stuff

in Python:

import struct as S
print struct.pack('>f' , float(input('type your float here: ')) )[0].encode("hex")

>>> type your float here: 1.0
'3F 80 00 00'

at least that's around what it should look like... heh
I did all that from memory :P

~_~

no....

just... no...

talk to someone else about it, i don't understand that at all,

off-topic: and wheres that pichu you keep going on about

working on it...

I keep running into an error that uses WAAAY too much memory... :-\

>_>
I suppose you want the psa coders to walk on water next? Imo
Give it time and it will come...

:srs: was that really neccesary

Lol
I'm just being realistic here XD
You're asking someone to take extremely complicated coding (as it is now anyway) and make it picture book level? Not saying it's not possible, but seriously, that's going to take a while, probably even longer than it's taken the whole brawl hack community to get where it is today...

my converter anyone <.<

== scenario :P

if we have some good coders who know how the logic works,
it should really be as simple as structuring inputs and counters is all

not really too much programming going on <_<

he's an none believer, the only problem really is the program itself, the psa coding into simple on-off buttons would be a lot more simple it's just a ton of grunt work.

lol narus still the same as b4................>.>

ppxexe n tcll's right.  The hard part of psa is already done( by pw)...the things that you guys want to improve it with is ALOT easier than it would be to make psa itself.

I'm not saying it's not possible, I'm saying it still won't be done just like that.
Making a program still isn't easy even if you have a good headstart. Otherwise us brawlhackers would be already editing stage hazards and such with psa. Because we already have brawl, a full game to work with.

The problem is FINDING those hard working programmers, that's my point. what with bj busy with his importer, PW pretty much disappeared other than the clone engine. You know, I never said it wasn't possible at all. I don't know how the hell you people got that impression...

umm, i think your forgetting that they're are programers talking in this thread naruzelda

>_>
Yes, they're programers already busy with their current projects talking about updating something bigger than what they're currently working on.

I know what kinda mistake it is to try and take one too many projects on at once, it's a killer on insperation and motivation sometimes.

tell me about it XD






_________________________________________________ _________________________________________

no-one ever said it wasn't possible :P
you just said it was extreamly hard...
and I told you you were wrong :P

invalad argument is invalad :3

Oh, boy.
I thought this would give me a little insight, but I guess not.

Invalad statement is invalid
Read my statement again.
I said it would take a while (IE: it took a while to get to the part where jesus walked on water ...lol)
I never said it was "that" hard, just that it wouldn't be easy, in my opinion probably more time-consuming rather than actual difficulty in itself. XP

Guess I shoulda stated that a little better lol

@hollow :>.>palm:

making a program in general is different than "editing stage hazards and such". Editing stage hazards has to do with what you know about them and NOTHING to do with programming.  You don't need a program to edit stage hazards(besides a hex editor, but I hope you know wut I mean), you need the program to make it easier.

fixed...i think

I'm sure that making a program requires knowledge of programming.

Trust me, it's easier than it looks.
You just need to be able to think the right way.

@ hollow, wow I hope ur being sarcastic.

thats true, to someone who doesn't know what they're looking at, it looks like mumbo jumbo, shyguy had got me started, the farthest i had gotten was the "Hello World" test, which i passed, but I had gotten lost in overdrive again.

Shyguy knew C#

but I want to learn C--

What is this I don't even...........nevermind.

You said that making a program to edit stage hazards didn't require any knowldge of programing.

herpderp much?

I LOL'd :af:

And I think it needs better understandings. Some things are really messed up.

Yeah, like what the F do all the "posture" events do??
And stuff like Module, or model changer...
I'm aware it has to do with models within the fitcharactermotionetc or fitcharacter.pac but still.

Also, by editing stage hazards and stuff. I mean MAKINg NEW hazards through psa, wouldn't that be just epic :af2:

I may not be a programer, but I do know the complexities of the languages and the fact we're reverse engineering the brawl code to run in a "dev" style environment is already a leap. Having Psa do this step would be both a difficult and easy task. The tricky part is, if no one has the BB source, we have to "reverse engineer" that too (in a way) to get the new code for the hit box display. Gui's, Radios, and switches are the easy part. You guys who are attempting to do the things said here (or more/less) have my up most respect and i shall ring with joy when I can finally Psa ^_^

@ hollow........................................... ..........
 
No. and lol.

i said you dont need to have knowledge of programming(as in making a program) in order to edit "stage hazards". All you need is a hex editor and manually edit the hazards byte by byte.

now..plz dont come at me("herpderp"), again...trying to be polite .  And the palm was me being half serious/half joking.

@kit- people(including bj) already have BB and psa source. They just need/are learning the way kyrals and pw's source code works so they can add stuff to it without it 'breaking' or creating errors in game.

also- imo, once you learn both source codes, you can, yourself, implement bb stuff into psa and vise versa. As in making psa have a 3d viewer like bb.  And making a hitbox viewer seems simple, seeing as its only a sphere that moves doing the animation.  The hitbox could be an added fake/temp bone to the model and act as the hitbox, moving with the model and its keys frames would be the frame theyre call in psa.

I would but I only know how to program BASIC (yes, laugh XD Cause I do). This stuff has went way over my had in the past 20 years since I started on the Commadore 64.. I'm leaving this to the pros and I do wish you the best of luck ^_^ and, to quote an old saying (showing more of my age lulz): I hope you don't Spill anything ^_^

Try learning Pythin, ots much easier from what i heard, i am

Somehow I thought this was about PSA....

Guess not.

Nah, it is....just steering off topic w/o realizing it xD

/back on topic guys.

Here's an idea for a PSA update.

PSA should be modded so that it has a drop down menu with each graphic, and their ID's. Next to the drop down menu, there should be a button that says "click here to see an image of the selected graphic". When you select a graphic, and click that button, well, you get the point.

PSA should have a help file/log too. The topic on wiki by dantarion doesnt really get updated. If all the PSA'ers/knowlegable members get a compilation of FAQs, Q+As, Explanations, and Data on what everything is/does together, all we would have to do is insert it into a txt file, and modify PSA's coding to look for and take data from that file.

IMO it shouldn't be that hard, just tedious. But if we truly all took the time and effort to do this, i think it would create a much bigger group of ambitios PSAers/Moveset hackers.

Please, all of you take this into consideration.

i think psa should have somethign for a bit advanced people who know coding a bit more.  Ex a window when you can type in code etc. Where as i would include the parameters of the hitbox within parentheses. And the undefined parameters would be "default" settings. 

I agree with the graphic picture idea.
For the FAQ thing, I think a txt included in the download would be enough. We can modify it as we go/