Messages

1

Modding / Re: World Maps in Mods (Beta Testers Wanted)

« on: January 29, 2010, 11:49:48 pm »

Good point.  Do you think it's worth the effort to hack together something to make the map ignore the mouse for scrolling purposes until it is moved, or should I just move the cursor 100 pixels to the left when the map opens?

Is it possible to get the game resolution? You could stretch the map to fit or something. Otherwise, if you're going to move the cursor I'd say just stick it in the center of the screen.

I have not been able to determine actual resolution.  As far as I can tell, the game always reports window information based on an 800x600 window.

Here's the worldmap format, as best I've been able to determine:
...

That could be useful, although it's slightly unfortunate that there's no obvious mechanism to hide a tile after it has been discovered.  Also, what exactly do the two scale value do?

I would like to integrate it in our mod, maybe with modifications too, is it ok ? We will of course mention your name.

Certainly. This isn't exactly a useful feature if it isn't integrated into decently-sized mods.

- Edwards

2

Modding / Re: World Maps in Mods (Beta Testers Wanted)

« on: January 20, 2010, 12:44:45 am »

Edwards, get a Dropbox account . As Yogoda said, Rapidshare is really annoying.

All right, all right.  I hadn't realized it was usable for file sharing in this manner.  I'll see

3) Clicking on the minimap does not produce that expanding ripple effect.

Is this really an issue? Mods don't do this anyway and I'm not entirely sure how it relates to the world map.

I interpret mods not doing it as a sign that the minimap has no functionality when clicked, so, since I've restored on-click functionality, I should also restore the ripple effect.  Also, there's a bug in widescreen mode where double-clicking to the left of the minimap will still bring up the world map, and it will be less surprising if that happens if the minimap gives an indication whenever it registers a click.

As for widescreen, there is a minor annoyance: The minimap is on the right in the 'wide' part of the screen while the world map remains at 4:3 in the middle of the screen. As a result, the mouse cursor is off the right edge of the world map when you activate it and it immediately begins to scroll.

Good point.  Do you think it's worth the effort to hack together something to make the map ignore the mouse for scrolling purposes until it is moved, or should I just move the cursor 100 pixels to the left when the map opens?

Just as a proof-of-concept, here's a screenshot of your maps 'replacing' the main game to get the real world map functioning

I never said it wasn't possible, I just said Alphasoldier's approach might not be reasonable. It's certainly overkill to replace the data files just to get a minimap.

[EDIT] That looks like a really cool and simple way to replace the maps, although it doesn't seem to be working on my system (MacOS 10.6.2).  I haven't poked it very much, so I don't know what's going wrong.  It launches, but doesn't create a window or do anything else.

- Edwards

3

Modding / Re: Jukebox mod

« on: January 19, 2010, 09:05:48 pm »

Just in case anyone's interested (or in case you're going to release that final version sometime, Edwards ) here's a modified track listing using the names and ordering from the OST. I have no comment on the looping, so I haven't touched that.

Thanks!  I'd considered going through and doing that, but didn't get around to it.  I'll throw that into the next version, whenever I get around to posting it (unless someone beats me to it...).

It also occurs to me that it should be possible to display the current time. Maybe even show a progress bar of sorts.

Eh, easy enough.  If I didn't have class in fifteen minutes I'd pound it out right now, but as is, we'll see if/when I actually get to it.  I doubt it will take more than an hour to get that working, and most of that time will be spent in deciding where to place it.

- Edwards

4

Modding / Re: World Maps in Mods (Beta Testers Wanted)

« on: December 22, 2009, 11:45:15 pm »

It doesn't crash with wait(0.5) commented out although the minimap graphics are a bit offset.

Yeah.  Unfortunately, the getWindowCenter() function doesn't actually return the center of the window correctly when the map is zooming in (it seems to be about one frame behind), so I was trying to wait until the zoom had finished before finding out where the window was.  I might be able to do something with the mouse coordinates, though- just move the mouse to the center of the window, get the world coordinates, and move it back to where it was.

[Addendum] The above method works, sort of- I think it's a hair better than getWindowCenter(), but it's also slightly off.  I still want to get rid of zooming entirely, though- I just want to clear up the problem of the map not always appearing on top first.

[Addendum 2] Or I could just have the map use the center-of-screen that I'm already getting every update after the screen stabilizes because of the pause.  I was already using it for everything but the background and the Naija gem, and now everything is working perfectly.  Link to new wait-free version here: link

I know that wait() isn't the most stable of functions but it continued to crash when I tried watch(). I've been working on a map for Sacrifice where I have an entity calling overrideZoom() every update() with nodes calling overrideZoom() on top of that when the entity is inside a specific node and it works fine.

Well, nice to know that overrideZoom() abuse is safe.

5

Modding / Re: World Maps in Mods (Beta Testers Wanted)

« on: December 22, 2009, 09:24:00 pm »

…
Setting up map
Adjusting zoom

It gives me a Windows error stating the program has encountered an error and crashes to desktop after hitting okay (this is on opening minimap the second time). Repeat crash regardless of screen resolution or windowed/fullscreen.

Lovely.  It looks like it's crashing on one of the two most innocuous function calls in the script.  Have you ever run into problems from repeated calls to overrideZoom()?

Regardless, try commenting out the line wait(0.5) in minimapper.lua's setUpMap function (line 178, about half-way down the script).  I'm guessing that something weird is going on with another script during the half second I'm waiting for the zoom to finish.  If so, I'll solve this completely in the next version (I hope) as I intend to stop zooming in entirely.

- Edwards

6

Modding / Re: World Maps in Mods (Beta Testers Wanted)

« on: December 22, 2009, 08:18:55 pm »

Really awesome work, Edwards. It works fine the first time but crashes on me the second time I to open the minimap (tried on widescreen and regular). Nothing of note in the debugLog but "setting up map" is the last thing that gets output.

What exactly do you mean by "crashes"?  Quits to the desktop, freezes, freezes with black screen?  Are you testing in fullscreen or windowed mode?

Anyway, try this version: link.
I haven't made any changes to the code, I just added some more granularity to the debug messages in the map set-up.

- Edwards

7

Modding / Re: A small project

« on: December 22, 2009, 05:52:08 am »

...Are you...carrying... that seahorse...?

Duuuuuude...

The seahorse was actually completely incidental- a remnant of an earlier method of activating the map.  However, carrying a seahorse would be really cool- I'm just not sure if it would fit better in the inventory-based Li Mod, or a Comrade Seahorse mod ("in Soviet Russia, seahorse rides you!").

Hiro, I'll take that as a joke, cause I think Edwards was showing us a FUNCTIONAL Mini Map.

Exactly.  I'm not entirely sure about the feasibility of what you suggested- I just did a lot of work with carefully-positioned quads, and some really fun stuff with designing data structures to hold/hide the map information.  Anyway, I've posted a demo of what I have (see the first post).  I'd appreciate it if people would try it out and report any graphical anomalies and crashes, particularly if they're running on Windows, or like to play in widescreen mode (I've mostly been testing in 4:3 resolutions).

Finally, I'd like to thank Alec for leaving in (probably unintentionally) the framework for persistent storage of arbitrary data structures, by means of the setStringFlag/getStringFlag functions.  String flags really look like afterthoughts, being only used for a couple minor tasks in the editor demo, but I'd call them one of the most powerful mod-design tools available.  Simply put, they allow for storing almost any type of data across different entities, map changes, and even save/reloads- I'm using them to store most of the little icons that appear on the map.

- Edwards

8

Modding / World Maps in Mods (Beta Testers Wanted)

« on: December 21, 2009, 08:18:11 am »

After a couple days of coding (and several weeks of design work in the few minutes I had free), I have a functional replacement for Aquaria's world map feature.  If you double-click on the little minimap in the corner, the game will pause, and a full-screen world map will appear, with only the maps you've explored visible, and with little icons for items you have found (savepoints, turtles, etc.).  Click in the corner again, and the map will vanish and the game will unpause.

Demo link: here (172 kB) (Version 3)

I tried to make it as simple as possible to add a world map to a mod.  All that should be needed is to:
1) Add three scripts to your mod
2) create world map tiles from your maptemplate images
3) Change one of the scripts to list all of your maps, their relative positions, and the positions of any connecting passages (if you want them marked).  This isn't as obnoxious as it sounds, actually.
4) Change any scripts from the default game that use the pickupGem function to use one of my replacement map gem functions.
5) Add one node to each of your maps.

I'll try to write up detailed instructions for this tomorrow.  Note: I would recommend not trying to integrate this into any mods until I've gotten some more bugs ironed out.

----------
Outstanding issues (any suggestions for dealing with these would be appreciated): (Checked-off items have been fixed)
√) Hitting escape while the map is open will lock up the game for 1-2 days.
2) The map appears below layers 8, 9, and the shadow layer.
3) Clicking on the minimap does not produce that expanding ripple effect.
4) There is no ability to zoom in or out on the world map.
√) All internal documentation refers to "minimap" not "world map"- I only changed the naming convention I'm using a few minutes ago.

- Edwards

9

Modding / Re: Guide to Creating New Songs

« on: December 20, 2009, 09:07:12 pm »

Sorry abut not noticing these posts for a couple of months- I was completely swamped with schoolwork until a couple days ago (you really don't want to see what my RSS reader looked like...).

This is great, very helpful.  I want to make a song where it reloads the current map (I can get it to load a specific map).  Is there a code for getting the current map?  It would be helpful to have in a mod if you got to a place where you were stuck and didn't want to go through the whole dying sequence.

I actually use this one a lot when testing new entity scripts:
-- Reload level (debug song)
elseif songIdx == 105 then
    loadMap(getMapName())

Very good work, thanks for consolidating this, Edwards! If you're who I think you are, I'm pretty sure I saw you on the ASW forums.
Mainly hacking SKF4KA and EV Nova.
Impressive, I must say.

Yep, that's me.  *Bows*

- Edwards

10

Modding / Re: Entities or nodes that 'fall' when Najia clings to them

« on: December 08, 2009, 07:49:30 pm »

Check out the Grouper script- I know it has different in-game effects when you sing depending on whether you're clinging to it or not, though I don't know how this was implemented.

- Edwards

11

Modding / Re: Tile effects on a mac?

« on: October 29, 2009, 03:18:52 am »

Yeah, they took out the fn-key numpad a couple of years ago- Alec probably has one of the last MacBook Pros to have the feature (in fact, I was unaware that anything past the Intel transition had numpads).  Your best bet is either to get an external keyboard, or copy the maps to another computer late in development to add all the tile effects in one fell swoop.

@Alec: I don't suppose you could add an option to re-map the tile effects to different keys (perhaps shift-number row)?  It would really help development on Mac laptops... :puppy eyes:

- Edwards

12

Modding / Re: Adding an entity, can't see it

« on: September 03, 2009, 05:03:15 pm »

Whenever the entity gets initialized, it rotates one revolution very quickly before beginning its idle animation. I cleared everything but a single key in the animation (so that the idle animation is complete inactivity) and it still does this. Anybody know why this would be?

That sounds like the "unfolding" animation that everything that has an animation file goes through when it is initialized- all the bones start out at a single point, and then rotate out to their final positions.  Try adding a Mithalan or some other complex entity to the map, and see if it unfolds in sync with your entity's spin.  If it does, there's nothing you can do about it- fortunately, initialization usually occurs off-screen.

- Edwards

13

Modding / Re: Adding an entity, can't see it

« on: August 31, 2009, 07:21:35 am »

Sounds like a syntax error somewhere in bob.lua.  I can't see what it is for sure right off-hand (although it looks like you have either an extraneous comma or a missing argument at the end of your setupBasicEnt function), but you can find out where it is by commenting out large sections of the code (as I see you've already tried, but you should comment out the function headers as well), and reloading the level to see if the entity shows up.

- Edwards

14

Modding / Re: Jukebox mod

« on: August 28, 2009, 07:15:37 am »

Well, it's the same problem again. So this is related to game version 1.03 after all? Darn, I have been too lazy. I should update this game, for the extras and this great mod as well.

Naturally I selected the newest 1.5b3 version, as it saids quite clearly OLD VERSION, SEE BELOW up there .But I tried older version 1.5b2, and it didn't work either.

I'd just been wondering if you'd downloaded the older version back in May- I'm trying to figure out if 1.0.3 supports the appendUserDataPath function. Unfortunately, I can't download a fresh copy of version 1.4, so I don't know if that function is used there (if you want to check, just open up one of the script files that doesn't have "include" in the name, and look at the first line).  Anyway, you may be getting the same error, but the cause seems to have changed.

In this case, I made a stupid mistake while packaging the test version I gave you- rename the folder and xml file to be called "jukebox15b" and try it again, please.

Sorry for the troubles, but this surely is Service with capital S .

No problem.  Also, this caused me to notice a minor bug, at least on the Mac version, that's causing the log file to grow by several KB/second.  I'm going to need to track that down and fix it before I release a final version.

- Edwards

15

Modding / Re: Big Energy-Form Battle

« on: August 28, 2009, 07:05:47 am »

RapidShare mirror of version 1.2.1 can be found here.  Perhaps we should set up some sort of central mod hosting location?

- Edwards