Monkey
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File: porthole.zip (2.6 KB)
Downloaded 77 times.
License: Public Domain

Yes, another double post. I made new porthole graphics for the Foundation style. They're in the ZIP file.

____________________________
lurking

RoboBob3000
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Turns out that the porthole-lock bug I mentioned in my previous post and the false-momentum gain when standing on a single porthole bug were both the same one-line fix. When all gravity-based objects failed a teleport, it ended their turn instead of playing the turn out regularly. All I needed to fix was a Goto line in each gravity-based object.

Monkey, all I did with your cube graphic was add transparency and heart rotations. The next version will also show the cube with a black border.

____________________________
http://beepsandbloops.wordpress.com/

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[Last edited by RoboBob3000 at 02-21-2008 04:50 AM : Gah! Why is it so hard to remember that they're called portholes?!]

AtkinsSJ
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File: PortalTiles.zip (62.1 KB)
Downloaded 75 times.
License: Creative Commons

I thought I'd upload this so you can all be horrified at how awful it is. The 'mosaic' floor is edited from a screenshot, which is why it isn't awful.

I'm really quite stuck on how to do the walls. Though I realised obstacles act the same - there's a 3x1 platform using the pipe obstacle.

To get it working, for anybody not knowing, put all the files in your DROD TCB\Data\Bitmaps folder, then add Style=Portal and Portal=Portal to your drod.ini file, under the [Graphics] heading.

So, yeah. If anyone wants to make suggestions or insults, go ahead.

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[Last edited by AtkinsSJ at 02-21-2008 07:17 PM : Bah! It removes the file when you preview!]

Someone Else
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There is no attachment, just in case you wanted to know.

AtkinsSJ
Level: Master Delver

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Someone Else wrote:
There is no attachment, just in case you wanted to know.

Yeah, I didn't realise it forgets your attachment when you preview a post. Crazy.

Sillyman
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(Offtopic) Hey, I've always wondered... are you the same AtkinsSJ from Hamumu?

____________________________
Who, me?
FNORD

AtkinsSJ
Level: Master Delver

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Indeed, I am he. I doubt anyone else on this planet would have my username.

vinheim
Level: Smiter
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In this new version, how do I get past the yellow door?

Neathro
Level: Delver

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The 1st or the 2nd? The first needs the WCC on the sand. I'm stuck on the second

AtkinsSJ
Level: Master Delver

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Make the energy ball (fegundo) hit the receiver (golem).

Neathro
Level: Delver

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Ok... I'll try that.

____________________________
This is not a signature, it is a
collection of randomly selected
words. Teaspoon.

RoboBob3000
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Here's a thought regarding turning versus movement. Would it make more sense to only allow movement when you're already facing the direction you're moving? For example, imagine the player is facing west. Press east once to face east, then press east again to move east. Changing the direction you are facing would take a full turn and you would still be affected by gravity.

In the same scenario under the current rules, you will change direction as well as move the first time you press east.

It's gonna be a matter of clunkiness versus looseness, both of which have their flaws. It shouldn't be hard to alter the code to support this proposed change, so I might slap something together to get the popular opinion on it. Personally, I'd prefer the current system, but I'd like to know what you all think, since this issue has come up before in this thread.

____________________________
http://beepsandbloops.wordpress.com/

RoboBob3000
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Okay, I'm back at this.

Someone Else wrote:
I think that if you try to shoot a portal right after you leave one, it should close the one that you try to shoot. But you shouldn't allow firing immediately after a teleport.

I don't think I realized how good an idea this was when I first read it. I've currently implemented this in the latest version (on my machine only, not yet posted). This should solve all possible porthole lockup scenarios.

I'm currently running one of the beta patches which features cutscene undo. Man, it is nice to have. This has the added advantage of allowing the player to undo if they cause a porthole to disappear as a result of this new functionality.

I'm playing with the idea of incorporating turret sound clips into the engine. Something along the lines of the hellos and I-see-yous of the actual game, but without directly plagiarizing if possible. Proper voice distortion is a must. Consider this an open casting call. Feel free to post any sound clips here, but if you'd rather send them to me privately, PM me and we can arrange things.

____________________________
http://beepsandbloops.wordpress.com/

RoboBob3000
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Slowly over the past couple of months I've kept working on this. I've now got a working level editor and user's guide written. This editor was designed so that the focus of room creation would be centered around room layout rather than an overabundance of scripting edits. It is now relatively simple to place cubes, turrets, and energy balls in the rooms you create.

I've also had the time to work out several bugs (momentum issues, turn order problems, initialization issues between rooms, etc) and add one noteworthy feature: the ability to turn without moving.

The editor is not yet in a final form (I still need to figure out some graphics), but script-wise I consider it to be there. I don't want to release it to the public just yet, but I would like to share it with anybody who wants to join the beta board. I could use a couple more eyes on this to help me find bugs. I've you've got CaravelNet, PM me and I'll invite you.

____________________________
http://beepsandbloops.wordpress.com/

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[Last edited by RoboBob3000 at 07-23-2008 04:52 AM]

RoboBob3000
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File: Porthole Editor V13.hold (146.2 KB)
Downloaded 83 times.
License: Public Domain

This hold has spent a while hanging out on a beta board while I've been developing rooms. I learned pretty quickly that the editor was rather cumbersome, despite my best attempts to make it otherwise. The AppearAt script was enormous, which made moving characters around a huge pain. Also, my method of handling turn order involved specific script updates for nearly every character added. Not very user-friendly.

So what's next for this hold? Engine rewrite! Assuming that applicable RPG scripting updates are eventually ported to 3.0, I should be able to:

-Eliminate my AppearAt script. This should help with memory issues during editing and keep hold file size in check.

-Simplify platformer scripting. If I remember correctly, RPG introduces a means of detecting existence of terrain elements. If this is true, I can rewrite the script so that the move count per "turn" should decrease as much as 50% in a best case scenario, which would greatly improve performance.

-I believe I can also re-engineer my turn order system to use the in-game turn order. If this is possible, it will greatly reduce the complexity of the editing process.

Each of those three updates represents a huge amount of work, but the payoff for each is necessary if this project is ever going to be successful.

Because I'm planning on this engine rewrite, I'm going to make public my most recent (and stagnant) editor update. I had been planning on releasing it alongside the actual hold when it was completed, but it looks like that won't be for a while yet. Attached is version 13 of the editor. I'm only aware of one functionality bug: the event handler is off by one when the player character is the only moving element in the room.

Attached in the post below is the V13 editor guide and change log, which I'm hoping will also be made obsolete with a future release. If you're interested in trying to create a level, I'd love to see what you can do! And I'll also point out that I'm still looking for a pixel artist for this project, if anybody's interested.

I would also like to state for the record that the timing of this post is completely unrelated to the start of the latest awards cycle. Absolutely, entirely unrelated. Really.

____________________________
http://beepsandbloops.wordpress.com/

RoboBob3000
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File: Porthole Editor Guide V13.txt (17.8 KB)
Downloaded 112 times.
License: Public Domain

Editor guide + change log attached.

____________________________
http://beepsandbloops.wordpress.com/

RoboBob3000
Level: Smitemaster

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File: Porthole Editor V14.hold (25.8 KB)
Downloaded 65 times.
License: Public Domain

Porthole is now a 4.0 hold!

I've taken advantage of new scripting features to drastically reduce the volume of code by 95%!

This doesn't necessarily make gameplay much faster, but it does reduce strain on the editor. In 3.0, a 10000-line script would regularly hang on me as I was editing it, making actual level creation a pain. Hopefully I've alleviated that somewhat. Most scripts are now on the order of 500 lines.

Improvements to the turn-order system are a work in progress. My modifications should make it easier to add/remove elements to the level without having to edit every other script in it.

I'll post a more complete list of changes later (and update the editor guide), but I mainly wanted to post to announce that the project is alive again!

Edit: Notice the file size difference! The hold went from 146k to 26k! That's script reduction alone!

____________________________
http://beepsandbloops.wordpress.com/

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[Last edited by RoboBob3000 at 04-07-2012 02:15 AM]

mrimer
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This is really neat, Robobob!

Yes, this is definitely much nicer.

You're probably already considering it, but may I make a suggestion to try out using the new "Default script" functionality on the Character customization dialog? This way, you can have each duplicate entity use the same scripting by default, rather then have the same script duplicated for each one-one instance of an entity. This will reduce space used even further.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

---

[Last edited by mrimer at 04-07-2012 05:39 AM]

RoboBob3000
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mrimer wrote:
This is really neat, Robobob!

Yes, this is definitely much nicer.

You're probably already considering it, but may I make a suggestion to try out using the new "Default script" functionality on the Character customization dialog? This way, you can have each duplicate entity use the same scripting by default, rather then have the same script duplicated for each one-one instance of an entity. This will reduce space used even further.

I've not experimented with this before, and I'm concerned about this snippet from the help files:

Start global script - Begin executing the specified NPC's default script. To use this command, first create a custom NPC role, then give it a default script. The global script will run in each room you enter. Only one instance of each custom NPC may be run as a global script while in any given room.

Admittedly ignorant here - what's the distinction between a default script and a global script? Would I only be limited to a single instance of that particular NPC per room?

One bag of worms is my need for some objects to reference variables of other objects. For example, I need to determine if an energy ball encounters an energy ball receptor. The ball needs to query the coordinates of the receptor, or vice versa, to detect a collision. I need to collect those X and Y variables and make them available to the rest of the room to use, since _MyX and _MyY are local to the NPC, not to the room. That means I have variables like Ball1X, Ball2X, Ball3X, and so on.

I'm making the assumption that a default script will allow me to create several energy balls in the same room sharing the same script by simply declaring them to be energy balls, for example. Are those objects' variables each treated independently on a per-instance basis, regardless of shared names? Can I query variables in an object on a per-instance basis?

That kinda sounds like pie-in-the-sky Serious Business, so I was skeptical that functionality actually worked the way I wanted it to. Is there a resource somewhere in the forum that better explains default/global scripts?

Thanks for the suggestion - I hope I can find a way to leverage this functionality!

____________________________
http://beepsandbloops.wordpress.com/

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[Last edited by RoboBob3000 at 04-07-2012 07:17 AM]

RoboBob3000
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While I'm quoting the docs:

There are four general classes of script commands, as follows:

1. Placement
2. Condition
3. Interaction
4. Queries
5. Decision making

____________________________
http://beepsandbloops.wordpress.com/

Someone Else
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A global script is a script that will execute in every room. A few good examples of where global scripts are useful: Kolby's Challenge, Val Unrich.

A default script is a script that a character will have if it has no other scripts. Then you just make a character "Bob" and whenever you place "Bob" with no commands he'll execute "Bob"'s default script.

Unfortunately, with that you can't create multiple energy balls with this method.

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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RoboBob3000 wrote:
While I'm quoting the docs:

There are four general classes of script commands, as follows:

1. Placement
2. Condition
3. Interaction
4. Queries
5. Decision making

Our THREE main weapons are fear, surprise, and ...!

I can help elaborate on how Default Scripts work, and how the Global Script command works differently.

A Default Script can be defined and work independent of any Global Script commands. A Global Script requires a Default Script to work off of. Let me explain with some examples.

If you want to make something the functions the same everywhere, like a Roach2, or likely a Weighted Cube, then a Default Script is probably the best option. To make these, all you need to do is: (1) create a new custom character type, (2) define its Default Script, then (3) place them around wherever you like. No more need to copy-and-paste the same script into each instance of this element! That's basically it.

A Global Script is different -- it's used if you want to do one single thing across several rooms. Examples of this are "whenever you rotate clockwise, you get a greckle" or "Press the special command key to fire the ray gun" or "Play the currently selected tunelist from your juke box". You probably wouldn't want several instances of this logic to run in a room at once -- just one. You probably also want it to run in each room. Defining a global script to do this lets this logic persist from room to room without having to make a copy of an NPC to execute this logic in each and every room.

To make a global script, you do: (1) make a custom character type, (2) define its Default Script, then (3) place an NPC in the first room of your hold (or wherever is appropriate), telling it to run a Global Script of that character type you just defined. Now its default script will run in each and every room from that moment on, unless you have the script End itself at some point for whatever reason.

I'll make a separate post to brainstorm some ideas for how this could work for you.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

---

[Last edited by mrimer at 04-07-2012 06:26 PM]

Seth
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 264
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File: Porthole Editor V14.hold (40.5 KB)
Downloaded 51 times.
License: Public Domain

I saw this and wanted to stay up all night playing with this.

So after building 2 holds I found a couple of bugs.

After I build a little (no touching scripts) The turrets stop shooting after I move them a little they stop shooting.

After I finished my hold I played and after I took one step The cut scene goes forever.

So I made a new hold and the same thing happened.

ED:here's my hold go in and do a move the cut scene should go forever.

____________________________
997 error exceptions in the code,
997 error exceptions,
you take one down, patch it around
1278 error exceptions in the code...

---

[Last edited by Seth at 04-07-2012 07:31 PM]

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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I've looked over the scripts in your room, and I have some suggestions for using default/global scripts in order to extend the hold beyond one room.

I see there are a few scripts in the top- and bottom-left corner of the room. They are responsible for initializing some variables at the start of the room and maybe running some logic related to special game elements, like the blue/orange portals. The script running for each of these in each room will be identical to their counterparts in each other room. These scripts should each be moved to a Default Script of a unique custom NPC type. One could be called "PhysicsInit", another "Blue Portal Init", etc.

Also, these scripts each run a single instance in a room. Furthermore, as they will run in each room of the hold, these custom NPCs with default scripts are good candidates to run as Global Scripts. Just have a "startup NPC" in the entrance room of the hold set all of these to run as global scripts, and they will automatically execute in each room of the hold, starting from the top script command in each room. Easy!

For the movement controller scripts in the top-right of the room, these should also each be given a default script to define their behavior. This is because they will do the same thing in each room. It's also worth trying to run them as Global Scripts, so you don't need to place an instance of each of these same NPCs in each room of the hold.

More in a moment...

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

---

[Last edited by mrimer at 04-07-2012 07:50 PM]

Seth
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 264
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IP: Logged

File: Seths Porthole Editor V14.hold (16.2 KB)
Downloaded 54 times.
License: Public Domain

Here's my second hold go in and do a wait or a move the cut scene should go forever.

____________________________
997 error exceptions in the code,
997 error exceptions,
you take one down, patch it around
1278 error exceptions in the code...

---

[Last edited by Seth at 04-07-2012 07:33 PM]

RoboBob3000
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Seth wrote:
I saw this and wanted to stay up all night playing with this.

So after building 2 holds I found a couple of bugs.

After I build a little (no touching scripts) The turrets stop shooting after I move them a little they stop shooting.

After I finished my hold I played and after I took one step The cut scene goes forever.

So I made a new hold and the same thing happened.

ED:here's my hold go in and do a move the cut scene should go forever.

Thanks for the feedback, Seth! I know exactly what you're running in to here. There are issues to be expected when you add/remove elements with the way they're currently scripted. I'm working to improve that, specifically so you don't run into that endless cut scene problem. I have ideas for how to fix that, so hopefully we'll see it work better in a later release. Thank mrimer for his excellent suggestions as well.

____________________________
http://beepsandbloops.wordpress.com/

mrimer
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The Chell NPC is likely best implemented as a Default Script. It's going to behave the same way in each room, so there's no need to copy-and-paste the same scripting into each room of the hold for the Chell NPC. Hmm...maybe because one Chell runs automatically in each room, that would make it a good candidate Global Script as well.

I'd expect standard elements like cubes and turrets to be defined by Default Scripts. You can have a variable number of these placed in a room wherever you like, and they each will automatically execute the same logic. Also, it should be obvious that fixing a bug in such a game element is *much* easier when you only need to fix the bug once, in the Default Script, instead of having to copy-and-paste the fix to each instance of a game element everywhere.

Now, you mentioned the power globes, emitters and receptacles. I would have these each operate as Default Scripts too. You might need a custom version of each of these, i.e., numbers 1 through 5, in order to get them to maintain variable state and to pair up correctly. So, you'll have Emitter1, Globe1, Receptacle1. And also triple custom NPCs defined for types 2 through N. By defining each as a custom NPC type, each with its own Default Script, then all you have to do in order to create an emitter, globe and receptacle (#1) in each room is to place an instance of each of these custom NPC types. Their default scripts will automatically execute the same way in each room.

You probably will need to have separate variables for each combination of these. I'm not seeing a way around this with the current scripting capabilities. I'm guessing all emitters can't share a single Default Script, since each needs to track a separate and distinct energy globe. However, it might be possible to have the energy globes operate generically. I'm guessing that you'd like to design the game rules so that any energy globe can fit any receptacle. In this case, you can have the Default Script for Energy Globe #1 check whether it has landed in any of the five receptacles. If it touches Receptacle 1's position, then it will set a var "Receptacle 1 Powered" (or whatever you call it). Do the same check for each of the five receptacles. Then have the Default Script for Globes 2-5 each do these same checks.

If you ever need more than five of these element triples, then you'll probably have to create a new custom NPC type for the new ones, and give these analogous default scripts to match. That's as simple as I can think of making things right now.

Edit: But, anyway, with these scripting changes, all elements should be workable as Default and Global scripts. Possibly the only one-off scripts will be one in each room, setting where Chell starts. Hmm...actually, that could be a Default Script too. Wherever you place the "Starting Point" NPC in the room could define where Chell gets placed on turn 0. Could do the same thing with an Ending Door.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

---

[Last edited by mrimer at 04-07-2012 08:20 PM]

Seth
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 264
Registered: 02-17-2012
IP: Logged

Aww man.


____________________________
997 error exceptions in the code,
997 error exceptions,
you take one down, patch it around
1278 error exceptions in the code...

Seth
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 264
Registered: 02-17-2012
IP: Logged

File: Energy ball.png (388 bytes)
Downloaded 54 times.
License: Public Domain

I'm working on the graphics.


ED:Here's a very rough draft.

____________________________
997 error exceptions in the code,
997 error exceptions,
you take one down, patch it around
1278 error exceptions in the code...

---

[Last edited by Seth at 04-08-2012 04:32 PM]

Seth
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 264
Registered: 02-17-2012
IP: Logged

File: Portal tiles.rar (13.5 KB)
Downloaded 51 times.
License: Public Domain

Here's the final product! I still need to do bullets but here is a turret, 7 signs, open and closed energy pellet receivers, launching and closed energy pellet launchers, energy ball (pellet) (I'm proud of this one), and energy pellet faded.

Sample,


____________________________
997 error exceptions in the code,
997 error exceptions,
you take one down, patch it around
1278 error exceptions in the code...

---

[Last edited by Seth at 04-09-2012 01:04 AM]