Game Maker 64 (GM64)

[SMcNeill]

Yeah, OK. :)

Your screenshot makes the highlight seem solid, whereas it's supposed to be semi-transparent.  Is that a glitch of the screen capture method you're using, or is the alpha that solid on your display?

(Scurries off to recheck color levels....)

[bplus]

I can see the grid underneath on my screen, it's not very easy but I can make out the squares.

Append: It helps when I look at the screen at just the right angle, some angles the grid is not visible.

[SMcNeill]

Alpha levels are too high for the highlight, IMHO.  I'm thinking a change from &HAAFFFF00 to &H55FFFF00 looks much better to me, but I'm going to add it to my "To do list" to go in and make colors customizable for people, before I finish, so that'll let each person customize whatever they'd like for themselves. 

[SMcNeill]

Another update, with a nice large step forward with the project.  Changes are:

Program  now supports 4 display modes, which can be changed via the 1,2,3,4 keys on the keyboard.
1) Will show the map's tiles, once we start choosing the tileset for the map.  (To be added still.)
2) Shows the WALK PATH
3) Shows the SWIM PATH
4) Shows the FLY PATH

Clicking on a tile (or set of tiles) will now display a nice set of clickable buttons which we can use to alter the movement which is allowed on those tiles.

If you look, these are color coded buttons, which can be GREEN, RED, or GRAY.
Green says that movement is allowed in ALL the selected tiles, for that chosen direction.
Red says that movement is NOT allowed in ALL the selected tiles, for that chosen direction.
Gray says that we have a mixed set of movement; some selected tiles allow travel in that direction; other's don't.

Click the colored tile to change whether you can move in the chosen direction on the selected tiles, or not...

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Coming next:

Option for BI-DIRECTIONAL limiters, which allow us to click on the East wall at one tile, and then have the West wall of the adjacent tile to change status as well.   For example:

Tile (0,0) and (0,1) are right beside each other.   We click on (0,0) and set the EAST wall blocked.  You can't move to the right, if your hero is on that tile.  HOWEVER, since we haven't blocked the west wall at (0,1), if your hero travels there, they CAN head back to (0,0)...  A bi-directional toggle will tell the program to block passage from both directions, without us having to edit both blocks.

(Think of the difference between a One Way street in a city, versus a solid wall.  If the road goes NORTH ONLY, you can't travel down it south, whereas an actual wall would block travel from either direction..  Currently, the program only blocks travel in one direction; the next update will allow us to manually change that so we can block it from both directions with a single click of the mouse.)

And, hopefully, the next update will also allow us to SAVE and LOAD the map.  As it is, it's already good enough for some applications (such as ASCII games where we simply want to limit character movement), so adding and working with actual tiles will still be something which I'll work on several steps from now.  :D

[johnno56]

I too am feeling the effects of impatience... But, then again, a masterpiece is produced one brush stroke at a time... For me, at least, that is difficult to accept when one has been raised to use crayons... You are doing a 'great' job. Well done!

[SMcNeill]

The first version which I've shared, which I think could actually be considered a "working version".  This update:

Allows for the setting of Bi-Directional or Uni-Directional Walls.  (Bi-Directional basically says you can't walk in either direction; Uni-Directional basically says you can only walk in one direction.  Think of a uni-directional wall as being something similar to a fire exit in a building:  You can go out, but you can't come back in.  Bi-directional walls are simply walls; you can't walk through them at all.)

Allows us to scratch the current map and start over. (The NEW button now works.)
Allows us to SAVE our maps.
Allows us to LOAD the saved maps.
Updated the map display travel icons.  UNI-directional and BI-directional travel areas should now be easily distinguishable.  (Black tiles are NO-GO from either direction.  RED/GREEN tiles tell you which side are STOP/GO from travel.)

As it is, this is more than enough to create a map that simply works to limit our character's movement on the screen.  We can quickly and easily designate which areas they can, and can't, walk/swim/fly across, and then we can save that information and load it easily enough into whatever "game engine" we want to use the map with.

Included is a map I spent about 3 minutes making, called, suitably enough, "Test Map 1.MAP".  Feel free to load it and then use the number keys to toggle between which path mode is visible. (2 is to see where we can WALK, 3 for where we can SWIM, 4 is for where we can FLY.)

I pictured the little test map as being something similar to a dragon's lair, with a small stream dividing the lair in half.  Since it's a "dungeon" type map, it's underground and there's NO spot where flying would allow a hero to bypass an roadblock.  There is, however, the river which requires a hero to be able to swim, before they can get across to the other side...

And all of this information should be rather easily conveyed just by looking at the map and viewing the 3 different travel modes.

Kick it around.  Test it out.  See what you think of it, and let me know if you find any glitches or issues.

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To Do:

Expanded Keyboard/Mouse Support.
    We need keys for Load/Save/New....
    We need mouse buttons for View Modes...

Tile Support.
    We need to be able to choose and load a tile set -- even if that's the SCREEN 0 ASCII color set. 
    We need to be able to assign various tiles to the screen, where we want them.
    We need to be able to LAYER tiles (if you look, the TILE variable allows for 3 tiles) so that we can stack them, such as for Background, Creature standing on the background, Weapon in the creature's hand.... 

Script Support.
    We need to be able to specify specific scripts for certain tiles, so that when a hero walks on them, we have certain preset events occur, such as taking damage by walking on a spiked floor...

Test Support.
    We need an actual Map Engine which takes all this information, throws a goofy hero-representation on the screen, and then allows us to move it around and have a quick test run of how our game should look/work in actual conditions.


And, after all that, I'd consider this to be a "finished" project; it'd do all that I set out to get it to do, when I started with the idea of making it in my head.  :D


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One caveat:

Wednesday I go to see the surgeon about having my gallbladder removed, and that means the next several days are going to be rather busy...   And, depending on when he wants to schedule the surgery (my family doctor assures me they'll want to do it as I have multiple gallstones which he says, "has to go"), I don't know when I'll be able to turn my attention back to this project.

For now, I'm expecting at least a break until the weekend, before I can work on it again -- but that time might be longer, depending on just how things turn out and get scheduled.  Feel free to take the time and make Travel Maps for anything you might need them for, and stress-test what we have and see when/where it appears to fail for you.  Suggestions for features, bug fixes, usability, and improvements are all welcome; and I'll be happy to see what I can do to accommodate all of them when I get back to the project later.  :)

[johnno56]

I hope everything goes well for you and your recovery will be as uneventful as possible.

J

[Unseen Machine]

hi smcneill

Look forward to seeing this completed...ive attached a pic of one of my old ones that i used to make wolfenstein style levels (rendered in GL)


Unseen

[Pete]

Best wishes on your procedure. It's more of a laparoscopic surgery these days, which is so much less invasive than it used to be. I have a niece who had this done two years ago. Just tell the surgeon you want to be awake for the procedure, so you can continue to program. Hey, if I can do that during a molar extraction, you should be able to do that, too!

Pete 

[FellippeHeitor]

Hope all goes well, Steve. Have a quick recovery too.

[TempodiBasic]

Hi Steve

Good Luck for your health issue.

Waiting news of your coming back to your normal life, again Good Luck.


PS
About your project it seems to go straight to the goal.

[Cobalt]

Yeah I used to have one of those too, they took that out a long time ago when it stopped working(no stones just quit on me).. make sure they give you some good pain killers cause its sucks. Granted I was in more pain from the cath they put in my manhood than the surgery itself(swear they shoved a fire hose up there!)! But Good luck.

With your map maker will it be able to auto finish tiles? Like say you had a open plain and wanted to put a pond or lake in it, so you pick a water tile and place it would the program wrap that tile with the shore tiles? Or would the user have to select each shore tile an place them one by one?

[Dimster]

Take care of YOU first Steve. Keep the 1.


GALL

noun
1.
bold, impudent behavior.
"the bank had the gall to demand a fee"
synonyms:   effrontery, impudence, impertinence, cheek, cheekiness, insolence, audacity, temerity, presumption, cockiness, nerve, shamelessness, disrespect, bad manners; More
2.
the contents of the gallbladder; bile (proverbial for its bitterness).
synonyms:   bitterness, resentment, rancor, bile, spleen, malice, spite, spitefulness, malignity, venom, vitriol, poison
"scholarly gall was poured on this work"

[SMcNeill]

We now have Tilesets!  Well, almost... 

The program now supports ASCII tile sets so we can make "old school" style ASCII maps.   Soon(tm), we'll have full support for custom graphical tile sets as well.

There's now a second map available for loading/testing called, appropriately enough, "Test Map 2".  Feel free to load it and look at how awesome my ASCII work is!  We have a Dragon (D)!  We have traps!  We have walkable tiles, swimable tiles, and.. and... and it's a dang cheesy demo which took 5 minutes total to make; what else do you expect!   :P

It should be easy enough to sort out how to use it, so I'm not going to go into any long details, unless somebody has issues/questions about how it works.

[bplus]

Thanks Steve, hope you are getting along OK.

Coding helps take mind off things (unless it doesn't).  :)