Fair warning to anyone trying to use it right away: The installation process is still fairly cumbersome at the moment and with any luck will get a bit simpler in the future. The parts of INSTALL.txt that describe how to install pydbg seem to be flat out incorrect based on reports I’m hearing from the first few people who tried installing it from the guide, so I’ll try condensing it down and revising at least that part of it as soon as I get some free time.
If you do get lucky and manage to get it running early in spite of the issues with the current guide as a few people I’ve talked to on IRC have, here are some considerations to keep in mind with the current version of the viewer:
– It’s still very much considered WIP, though as far as we can tell, all essential data needed to show hitboxes accurately (at 480p at least) has been discovered. Please PM or submit an issue on Github if you spot any glaring issues or things that appear questionable.
– Windowed mode is a must. Having Windows Aero enabled while the game is running (sorry XP users) is also a must. Pass the -a switch to KOF to prevent it from disabling Aero (INSTALL.txt explains how to do this through Steam).
– Start the game first, then the viewer (click on start.bat or run it from the command line).
– It’s still subject to crash at times, and some of those times it likes to take the game down with it. This seems to be more of an issue using the menus or during loading screens than during an actual round, but be forewarned. I believe I have a decent idea why most of the crashes occur however (other suggestions are welcome), and given the time I’ll experiment with fixes to hopefully improve future stability. Quitting and restarting the viewer while the game is running mostly doesn’t seem to affect it right away, but can cause the game to crash on the next round or match.
– The overlay will move around with the game window and (should) disappear when minimizing the game; however, if the game loses focus, the overlay still sits on top of your screen. You can still click through it, though I know this is annoying.
– 480p is the recommended resolution to use right now and is the closest to the “native” resolution of hitbox coordinates; it should work okay as high up as 1600×900 barring the boxes appearing slightly low, and anything higher than that (1080p or 1440p) will appear wildly misplaced on the vertical axis (anyone with a monitor large enough to take screenshots at 1440p, please contact me via PM on DC or via email if you want to help with a fix for this issue).
– No builtin freeze frame, fancy displays or TAS-related features yet unfortunately; these could happen in the future as other outstanding issues and unimplemented features get smoothed out.
– I’m not aware of anyone who’s tried taking it into an online match, and considering the current stability issues combined with the looming threat (however unlikely) of a Steam ban from doing this, I personally would not advise trying it at this stage. Unfortunately, I’m powerless to do anything if anyone is unfortunate enough to get a ban this way.
– Some things like working config file support, proper layering by box type and color customization of hitboxes are still “to be implemented”. Right now box colors are hardcoded, and the config file that appears in the source repo is completely ignored by the hitbox viewer.
Phoenix here, I’ve been helping out pdk (odabugs) with a lot of the planning, and the fact that the game knows the difference between fireballs, throws and attacks is mostly my doing. That being said, much of that was manual, and done by my knowledge of the game, which means a couple of things:
1. There might still be some mistakes, and attacks that are marked as physical hits while they’re actually throws or fireballs. Make sure to let us know!
2. We really hope that we can figure out how the game identifies those moves as being different, still a lot of stuff to do.
3. There’s still lots of work to do. We haven’t found any throwable boxes, or counters that show throw invincibility, we haven’t found good ways to identify moves that anywhere juggle, and those that don’t. Below the collision box there is a seemingly useless hittable box, which presumably is the anywhere juggle box.
The release of the Kof XIII hitbox viewer has taken the community by storm. Many people, including us, are having a lot of fun picking apart the game. However, some unlucky members were having trouble with the program. The following are messages from pdk and Pheonix, the developers behind the hitbox viewer program, to clarify some of the issues surrounding it.
The following is a message from pdk (Odabugs):
And a few words from Phoenix: