Changes:
- See Fighter Factory Studio 3.6.3 for base features;
- Improved PCX and SFF decoding to better handle corrupted files (avoiding crash and freeze on some cases);
- Texture Upload Method will reset to Delayed (some systems are having issues with Multi-threaded mode, the previous default);
- Improved texture uploading (reduced memory usage for delayed mode and fixed some random crashes/freeze that may occur in multi-threaded mode);
- Fixed Tab focus order;
- Fixed window parameter for hires stages;
- Fixed color customization in options going empty after changing something in a fresh install;
- Fixed Offset Viewer and Throw Creator not taking the frame's offset into account;
- Added two options as a workaround to the text tabulation issue on DPI settings not multiple of 100% ("Convert Tab to Spaces while opening" and "Convert Spaces to Tab while saving"), as avoiding Tab and only using Spaces fix the issue;
- Added detection of WinMugen Plus select screen (may not work in all cases because sometimes is impossible to tell);
- Added support for properly drawing parallax on Native painter rendering mode;
- Added debugging support (external debugger grabbing data from M.U.G.E.N's process memory and emulator [MUGENext internal build]);
- Added support for rendering in the Emulator for "Export to HTML" function (supports exporting stages too).
This short changelog may seem a long time for just a bit of improvement, but the brand new feature of this version is massive. The external debugger working on M.U.G.E.N's process is simple indeed, but the Emulator based on MUGENext is a great leap ahead, providing a lot more information and gives you a fast work, test, fix & repeat approach.
Emulator:
It's a new editor, where you can setup a test environment to check issues and see evertything in action inside Fighter Factory. It supports testing Chars, Stages, Storyboard and Screen Packs (system.def).
While working with Chars, more options are available like match mode (Versus and Training), enemy (Self, Random), number of rounds, round time and explod mode. In Training mode, all options M.U.G.E.N has are there.
The engine installation to be used for testing is detected by the Project's directory. If it finds M.U.G.E.N here, like working on a character in the M.U.G.E.N's chars folder, the Project's engine will be used, otherwise, a built-in custom version based on M.U.G.E.N 1.1 will be setup. Random Enemy is selected from this engine installation too.
Debugger:
Both the "regular" Debugger (Debug > Start on Engine) and the Emulator are, in fact, debuggers. So we have two modes, inspect and control execution directly on M.U.G.E.N (the original engine) or using Fighter Factory's built-in build of MUGENext. The Debug panel for both is the same, and it appers in the right side while a debugger is running.
In the Debug panel we have a hierarchical list of variables to inspect. Some of them are modifiable by double-clicking, and most are watchable (can be put in the Watch lists (right-click > Watch variable (1/2) located in the bottom of the interface).
At the top of this panel, we have a row of buttons to control execution:
- Start/resume: starts or resumes execution;
- Interrupt: Pauses execution;
- Stop: Finish the debug session and closes the engine;
- Restart: The same as Stop - Start;
- Step to the next instruction without entering into functions: this steps from one State to another, jumping over triggers;
- Step to the next instruction entering into functions: advance line by line (between State and triggers);
- Step to the next instruction out of current function: jumps out of current scope to the next instruction (from trigger to State, State to StateDef);
- Step to the next frame: self explanatory.
For M.U.G.E.N, instruction here means an entire expression line. Only the Emulator is capable of stepping by line, the regular debugger can only step by frame.
Breakpoints:
These are marks telling the active debugger to interrupt execution before that line gets executed. Breakpoints can be added in many ways:
- Debug > Add breakpoint: manually addds all kinds of breakpoints;
- Left-click in the blank area before line numbers to add one at this line;
- Right-click a variable in the Debug panel, then Add data breakpoint (execution will be interrupted when the value of this var changes).
The regular debugger only supports frame breakpoints, all other are ignored and will not work.
The Emulator supports all except "Function Name". "File Name and Line Number" breakpoints currently only work for State and trigger(all) lines, so all other lines will be ignored.
Requirements:
- Windows Vista SP2, 7 SP1 or greater
- 1 GB of RAM memory (recommended 2 GB or more for multi-character feature and memory cache mode)
- 45 MB of disk space
- Microsoft DirectX 9 End-user runtime
- Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable
