Eight Mages

links

pico8 cart - go check out the code for the visuals! bandcamp download ultrabox url

epic big thanks to

wyrl - for sharing insperation that led to the equation based backgrounds in the music video Miss Mouse - for showing coming up with this method...

draw to one half of the screen
remap spritesheet to 0x60 (see manual)
sspr one half of the screen to the other (using the mirror arguments)

creation log

2025-05-04 yay! finally just decided to use kdenlive to finalize the video. ... bro don't do this to me export the video with audio you the only one its exported has crushed audio and video bitrates XD ... thats my bad i was using the mp4 screen cap not the mkv screen cap thank the gods for trash bins ? video formats confuse me

2025-05-03, 22:32 job all day today. got back, had dinner. going on a hike tomarrow with firend ,that should be fun :) Reaper is being a big stupid. Trying to export the final video and reaper won't export the video. Really don't want to have to use shotcut or kdenlive, both those apps suck mega ass. (not in a fun way) Honestly hate editing video, can't seam to find a good stable video editing app that dosn't feel like sandpaper to use. Reaper was my best option. Finish the audio in reaper finish the audio in reaper. It seams like the best option. fuuuuuuuuck. i'd really like it all to be done with. this efn sucks

2025-05-03, 00:43 Its all done. just need to edit the video and audio together and publish and stuff might need to just head to bed :(

2025-05-02 Trying to get some help on the Pico8 Discord. I am creating a music video with Pico8. I want Pico8 to be in sync with the music. Here is the current way im doing tempo calculations.

local bpm = 170
local oldt = 0
function _update()
    local t = bpm/60*time()%7
    if t < oldt then
        sfx(0)
    end
    oldt = t
end

I recorded this into Reaper. Set Reaper's tempo to 170 and 7/4 time signature. First picture. Lined up the first beep with the second bar of the Reaper project, 2.47 secs in. Second Picture. After 4ish minutes we can see that the beeps have gotten noticeably out of sync with the tempo grid. (outside of the 1 frame variability of Pico8's 30fps) Seams something is on Pico8's side is slightly slower. I'll try just using time() to see if we get the same problem? What ya'll think? What could I be missing. 12:06 PM The song is 16.5 minutes, so this is quite a problem. The most promising idea so far is to ratio the time stretch of Pico8 with the tempo of Reaper, then use that as a scalar for time() since it seams to be consistently slow. This is just plan weird. Yup, having the same problem with this.

local oldt = 0
function _update()
    local t = time()%1
    if t < oldt then
        sfx(0)
    end
    oldt = t
end

Guess we'll try the scaleing option. ok we have our ratio

--[[
Samples from Reaper's recording of Pico8
Time        Pico8 beep
8:00.00     8:00.422
8:30.00     8:30.424
7:30.00     7:30.370
7:45.00     7:45.376
8:15.00     8:15.419
8:20.00     8:20.391
7:40.00     7:40.354
]]

local samples = {
    8.0070333333333333,
    8.50706666666667,
    7.50616666666667,
    7.75626666666667,
    8.25698333333333,
    8.33985,
    7.67256666666667,
}

local targets = {
    8,
    8.50,
    7.50,
    7.75,
    8.25,
    8.33333333333333,
    7.66666666666667,
}

local average = 0
for i,sample in ipairs(samples) do
    local ratio = sample / targets[i]
    print('sample '..i,ratio)
    average = average + ratio
end
print('average',average/#samples)

--[[
This program prints out...
sample 1    1.0008791666667
sample 2    1.000831372549
sample 3    1.0008222222222
sample 4    1.0008086021505
sample 5    1.0008464646465
sample 6    1.000782
sample 7    1.0007695652174
average    1.0008199133503
]]

ratio = 1.0008199133503 now we do...time()*ratiofor the correct value. i'll let the recording run for 16 minutes to see if it works ok XD There's no way that just efn worked. After 17 minutes its just a tiny bit to fast. More samples for a more accurate ratio and I think we'd be golden. yup! this works! Its confirmed up to 16 minutes multiplying time() by 1.0007962696777 makes it more time accurate.

local ratio = 1.0007962696777
local oldt = 0
local t = 0
function _update()
    t = (time()*ratio)%1
    if t < oldt then
        sfx(0)
    end
    oldt = t
end
function _draw()
    cls()
    circfill(64,64,t*10,7)
end

2025-05-01 alright guna go on a walk while listening to people talk on my phone. then we finish the final touches to make it jucy. so glad we figured out how to make 30fps work alright all animations and backgrounds done! (..except for the flowers boackground, might need to spice that one up, mabye) >:| main issue. Ultrabox and Pico8 are getting out of phase. One of them has bad tempo calcs. Pico8 is slower than Ultrabox at the moment. Falls a beat behind after a minute or two. Really don't want to have to time sretch a video of pico8 for this to work. I want the math to line up and be in sync. Rg. tomarrows problem im guna get ready for bed time >:)

2025-04-30 alright job over, three days of art time babeeeeee yay :) thank you Miss Mouse " - draw to one half of the screen - remap spritesheet to 0x60 (see manual) - sspr one half of the screen to the other (using the mirror arguments) " - Miss Mouse they came up with an eic way to mirror the screen now we run at 30fps! its so smooth

2025-04-28 yeah not happening, working there from 9 to 6 is the whole day. guna try taking the bus tomarrow, see if it works good :)

2025-04-27 yesterday was work, the job that makes money today we finalized the song, all the parts have simular lyrical quality now! yay :) finishing up the music video, slow goin but it looks cool not really finding any new interesting equations for the backgrounds without using pow or somthing (pico 8 would slow down bellow 15fps if i used that) mabye ill get it done by tomarrow? have 8 hours of job two days in a row tomarrow and the next need to get my sleep so im not rushing in the morning life needs to be takin slow not rushed gota be mindful thinking about makin a array mibria with a sylysed making of video

2025-04-25 Pico-8's PSET() function is real slow. Using it on the whole screen (128x128) brings the frame rate down to 15fps, whichlooks kinda sad in a music video. :( The code editor is a pain to use as well. The friction of adding some new part of a song makes it real slow progress, just mentally wise. Seams to take alot of mental focus to create things this way.

2025-04-11-ish Started work on the music video for a song that was in the makings for a while.