Scorpion Engine

[Bubba'n'Stix 2]

Yeah, I really don't know what my problem is because he seems to simply be saving his palette as a PNG.

[UltraNarwhal]

Originally Posted by Bubba'n'Stix 2

Yeah, I really don't know what my problem is because he seems to simply be saving his palette as a PNG.

I use GIMP and chose Image/Mode - Indexed, I also use GrafX2 for ordering palette properly.

[acidbottle]

I use aesprite and you can change the colour modes from RGB to indexed really easy. So if your original PNG is RGB, just save it out as indexed, should work. Remember, you can have an entirely new level palette by selecting your "png" palette picture from the maps tab (under custom pal).

If you have the index number you can type that into the scorpion main screen where the index numbers show underneath the colour. The project palette will save automatically when you shift from tab to tab.

There can be an issue when using the sprite ripper on the anim tab, sometimes it outputs to RGB, which you will need change to indexed. I just rip each anim frame from aesprite by hand, a bit of a pain but saves having to convert to indexed!

[Bubba'n'Stix 2]

Thanks a lot guys for these answers. I'll try again.
I downloaded Gimp two days ago on that purpose but failed anyway, but I'll try again.

I hope it works because I would really to be able to do something with Scorpion Engine.

[Bubba'n'Stix 2]

"If you have the index number you can type that into the scorpion main screen where the index numbers show underneath the colour. The project palette will save automatically when you shift from tab to tab."

Ho my god ! I was shocked that we couldn't choose the color inside Scorpion Engine, but we caaaaaan !
It worked ! Finally !
I typed the index code for the colors.
Thank you.

Now, I'm struggling with creating blocks on which my character can walk. He goes through them for the moment.
I'm watching the christmas game video.

[Retro1234]

What new in Scorpion world?

[Bubba'n'Stix 2]

Hello again everybody.

Now that the palette problem is solved, I'm stuck with the very simple challenge of having my main character walk on the ground.

I've been toying with the Scorpion Engine for years now but it just takes me ages to just learn the simplest things.

I've managed animations, spawning the levels and the actor.
My actor also has walking animations and idle and attacks.

I also found about tiled and making tilesets and levels.

But for the love of god, I'm still incapable of having my character walk on the ground. Making blocks solid or just making a ground level.

If anybody has an answer or a piece of advice it'd be very welcome.
Again, I've watched a few of Scorpion Engine videos but it seems that the actor is simply put in the level and automatically walks on the ground.

[ Show youtube player ]

[UltraNarwhal]

Originally Posted by Bubba'n'Stix 2

I also found about tiled and making tilesets and levels.But for the love of god, I'm still incapable of having my character walk on the ground. Making blocks solid or just making a ground level.

Edit the .tsx tileset in Tiled, you have to highlight the tiles and tickbox isSolid (for solid) isPlatform (for drop through platforms), tick both to disable drop through.

[Bubba'n'Stix 2]

That's what I thought but the option doesn't show.

I can tick "foreground" and "Amiga Ocs."
I also saw "IsSolid" and "IsPlatform" for a specific element at some point which is why I know what you're talking about, but it doesn't show for my blocks, and also both options were greyed.

Thanks for the answer, maybe I should try to re-install tiled.

[UltraNarwhal]

Originally Posted by Bubba'n'Stix 2

That's what I thought but the option doesn't show.

Greyed out as can't edit tiles shown in the tmx.Open Scorpion, choose map tab, under tilesets section choose tileset, click edit tileset.

[Bubba'n'Stix 2]

Thank you, it worked.
I had to copy paste a few things and I don't know how I could have found this on my own (I was reading the Tiled tutorial) but it worked.

Thank you.




[ Show youtube player ]

[earok]

@Bubba'n'Stix 2

Scorpion uses regular PNG files for palette. Not all PNG files are indexed (have palettes) but all good art or pixel art programs should have the ability to set a palette for a PNG.

Most Scorpion users either use Aesprite or Promotion NG, though I use Paint Shop Pro myself. With Paint Shop Pro, when I export a PNG, I can use an option to reduce colors to 256 colors, and then when I save it has that palette.

If it comes to it, you can also set the colors manually on the project tab on a new project by clicking on the hex codes (for example, #000000 for black) and entering one for a new color.

---

Latest updates:

Major upgrade for the melee system:

New ability to define multiple "hurt boxes" on animation frames. A hurt box is essentially the opposite of a melee box - when one is defined, Scorpion will test for collisions against those when doing a melee attack rather than the actor's usual collision volume (note that this does not change an actor's usual collision volume for collisions against walls or projectiles, just for melee attacks).

Examples of how this could be used - you could define regular melee boxes for "fist" and "foot" and then hurt boxes for "head" and "torso", giving each of those tags with those names

In your "On Melee Hit By/Against Player" codeblock, you could then do something like

if meleetag = "foot" and hurttag = "torso"
; actor was hit in the torso with a foot
end condition

"Align all frames" button added to animation tab. It simply sets the X/Y of each frame to the X/Y of the currently selected frame

Added "Replace all events" button to top of events view in animation editor (globe icon).

This replaces all events on an animation with the events on that specific frame (should be handy for making sure melee boxes are on everything, also if you make a tweak to these you can synchronise across every frame)

Various improvements for collision performance and accuracy.

---

Forgot to check in the above, but also did one more improvement that could potentially be breaking depending on your setup.

Projectiles can now give and receive melee attacks. Previously a melee attack required that one actor was the player, now it should be easier to support (for example) hadouken fireballs melee striking specific body parts.

(minor reminder regarding Projectile - the flag doesn't have to literally be used for things that are bullets etc, it can be used for any kind of non-player actor that you want to collide with another kind of non-player actor).

[Bubba'n'Stix 2]

Hello,
thanks for the tips.
I saw a video in which you saved in 256 colors in paint shop pro and that's why I didn't understand why it worked as indexed png.
I tried to convert my PNG to indexed one online but couldn't find anything that would do it properly. Then I tried on Gimp and failed. I use Promotion NG regularly but failed with it too.

Finally, I resorted to the colors index number following acidbottle's advice and it worked very well.

[maneus]

Hello everyone,

I have a question for the hud.
I want to make a border around the playfield, like for example "HistoryLine 1914-1918" have.

Here is a quick (and unfinished) example for my idea:



Has anyone an idea how to do that?

I got the image on top of the level, but the transparent screen inside is always black.
I also tried to make it as a background, but I only can choose a level as background.

[acidbottle]

It is not possible. You can have a top, middle and bottom panel only on Amiga.

Side panels exist on MD and perhaps Neo but not Amiga unfortunately.

[maneus]

Okay, thank you @acidbottle

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by acidbottle

It is not possible. You can have a top, middle and bottom panel only on Amiga.

Side panels exist on MD and perhaps Neo but not Amiga unfortunately.

Couldn't huge AGA sprites be used for side panels? Even OCS sprites are tall enough but you'd need too many for most uses if you were using other sprites elsewhere.

They'd have to be the highest priority sprites to overlap any others in use. If you really wanted to get creative, transparent pixels could be used to make side borders non-rectangular.

Of course it may not be present in Scorpion yet but it's not hard to treat 3-color AGA sprites as an interleaved 2 bitplane screen. Kickstart 3 could even be tricked into doing the heavy lifting for you!

[maneus]

Thank you for your explanation @Samurai_Crow.

But I think I will use only the top and bottom panels. Its the easiest solution.

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by maneus

Thank you for your explanation @Samurai_Crow.



But I think I will use only the top and bottom panels. Its the easiest solution.

You're welcome but it's not just an explanation. It's a feature request.

@earok
I'd made AGA sprites act like screens using AmigaE as a proof-of-concept: I allocated a SimpleSprite and copied the pointer to the buffer to a manually allocated Bitmap structure, along with the sprite's width, the second bitplane pointer (bitplane 0 plus the width) and finally, set the bitmap flags to indicate interleave (technically undocumented but easily discoverable). Passing that Bitmap structure to OpenScreen() with a tag-item for an invisible screen (to avoid actually creating a real screen with copperlists) allows making the SimpleSprite drawable. I used a console window in the sprite for my proof-of-concept.

Could you do something similar for side-panels on AGA chipset Amigas?