Scorpion Engine

[acidbottle]

Originally Posted by Mixel

KrisRetro is using a similar system to make swinging on ropes work, I think.

Now that would be a very useful routine to see. Opens up some great possibilities. Had some theories using animations, tried them, didn't quite work out!

[earok]

Checked in an emergency fix for experimental for the "weird codeblocks layout" issue experienced by @flibble42. I'll probably do a more comprehensive update later once I've done more testing today.

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@flibble42 I've got a note to add "Ability to get or set frame" to the next feature poll on the Patreon.

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@AlexH I definitely want to get back into "Scorpionifying" Tales of Gorluth sooner or later.

[flibble42]

@earok


The fix "seems" to have fixed the menu issues, but you know how these things go.


Get and set anim frame should do it, i added the anim system start/stop thing because i wasn't sure that setting the frame time to 0 was meant to play as fast as possible or to freeze the animation.


Thanks for putting it in the poll (don't worry, it won't win )

[earok]

Setting 0 is *meant* to be "infinite length" (eg, a frame that never progresses to the next frame), there was a recent bug which indeed meant that some 0 length frames were simply never played at all.

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Did another experimental update - the recent fix that I made for bottom panels higher than the 255 line broke some bottom panels lower than the 255 line, so I did a new fix that works for panels at both positions.

I'm reasonably satisfied that it's bug free, or at least as bug free as the last public update was, so I'll do a soft launch to public tomorrow, but do let me know if anything clearly needs fixing. I'm scheduled to stream in approx ~22 hours from now so I could do some live bug fixing on stream.

[UltraNarwhal]

Originally Posted by earok

I'm reasonably satisfied that it's bug free, or at least as bug free as the last public update was, so I'll do a soft launch to public tomorrow, but do let me know if anything clearly needs fixing. I'm scheduled to stream in approx ~22 hours from now so I could do some live bug fixing on stream.

I've noticed bottom panels larger than 16 pixels high no longer display now.
I also in recent experimental builds if less than 4kb is free it does a guru error, rather than the usual not enough memory error.
Just thought I'd mention just in case, not that it affects me currently.

[Adrian Browne]

Anybody interested in making Supernova in Scorpion?
Its an OCS/ECS game. All the graphics are complete. I'm on the lookout for a new coder or scorpion engine user. I'm the pixel artist and game designer.
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=109803

[earok]

@Adrian Browne I've posted that to the PixelGlass / Scorpion Engine discord - https://discord.gg/VpWBCd8TGg

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Latest experimental check in fixes issue reported by UltraNarwhal (in that other bottom panels were broken on Duckstroma), but doesn't break the other two games I was having bottom panel trouble with.

I'm hoping that's it so far as breaking bugs are concerned! I'll skip the stream and just work on some last minute checks and get 2022.5 out to public.

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@UltranNrwhal Sadly it's a little difficult to trigger the proper memory error all of the time, there's parts of Scorpion that allocate memory that are in the Blitz Basic side (eg, initializing copper lists) and if it runs out of memory there, it'll guru rather than quit with an error. That may become something that gets fixed over time (say if I rewrite those bits in my own ASM or eventually port to C etc)

[earok]

I ended up doing another experimental update for moving platform handling:

* The "OnPlatformLanded" event can be triggered by landing on a moving platform.
* There's now a few more ways to check the player's platform state:

Player_IsOnPlatform == IsOnPlatform_False - Is not standing on any platform
Player_IsOnPlatform <> IsOnPlatform_False - Is standing on any kind of platform
Player_IsOnPlatform == IsOnPlatform_Flat - Is standing on a non-slope block or tile
Player_IsOnPlatform == IsOnPlatform_Slope - Is standing on a slope
Player_IsOnPlatform == IsOnPlatform_PlatformActor - Is standing on a platform actor

Another round of testing tonight and then I might call it a day. Come hell or high water, I want to see if I can get 2022.5 to public release tonight.

[flibble42]

How do i change Scorpions file associations for editors and stuff or does it use the system ones?

[earok]

Originally Posted by flibble42

How do i change Scorpions file associations for editors and stuff or does it use the system ones?

System ones, Scorpion just tells it to open the file without pointing to a specific editor.

[flibble42]

Understandable. I use IrFanView to view all GFX images as i don't want to launch a heavy duty editor just to view an image, so i am reluctant to change, for example, PNG to open ProMotion. Any chance of an INI file?

[earok]

I'll keep it in mind but I'm not sure how easy it would be to maintain a separate list of editor applications in Scorpion from the system.

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2022.5 has been soft launched! I'll announce publicly in a day or two if there are no breaking issues, then I'll prepare the feature poll and get to work on 2022.6

[flibble42]

Tiled and Open Office have unique-ish filetypes so won't have conflicts. Maybe just do the same for PNG files as you do when launching WinUAE for the first time, i'm guessing that doesn't use a system association. No need for an INI file that way.


It just occured to me that a change like this could mess up workflows that people are quite happy with.


Maybe on First opening a PNG you could have a prompt that has CANCEL, WINDOWS,SELECT EXE. If you want to change it later use the reset paths option.


Well, me asking for another feature that will be to my benefit and maybe a few others at the expense of many, sounds about right.

[Mixel]

Congrats on another soft launch earok! Looking forward to another one of those feature roundup videos to remind me what’s new, you add so much stuff and it all becomes a bit of a blur..

Flibble: I didn’t even realise that edit animation image button exists, I never use it.. I use the edit map button to regenerate the actors/block lists but everything else I get to from within Aseprite (usually) .. So it wouldn’t harm my workflows at least, however it ends up working. (I can totally see why many people wouldn’t want pngs associated with their image editor, makes sense)

[foleyjo]

Originally Posted by acidbottle

Now that would be a very useful routine to see. Opens up some great possibilities. Had some theories using animations, tried them, didn't quite work out!

Haven't been here for awhile as been using the discord server instead (krisretro over there) but yes I'm using anim frames rather than actors for my rope.
I have 2 animations. 1 an empty rope and the other a rope with the player attached. I needed to check the frames when the player jumps on the rope to see which one the new animation starts at and needed to check the frame when the player jumps off so that the jump is performed from the correct place on screen.

[acidbottle]

Thanks for stopping by and sharing this information foleyjo.

It certainly sounds like I was in the right ballpark, my execution of the idea probably needed a bit more care! Used anim frames to get the rope swing working but the jumping on and off was the issue. At least you confirm its totally workable

[earok]

[ Show youtube player ]

Scorpion Engine for Amiga 2022.5 is out now!

Sponsored by Bit Beam Cannon, and thanks to our generous Patreon backers, 2022.5 includes expanded control of sound tones, a new parallax demo, editor improvements for easier development, the ability to swap level backgrounds on the fly, bug fixes and more!

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@Mixel Sadly I don't make the videos any more! It's very time consuming and there's not an even amount of cool stuff to show every month. But there's usually only a handful of key features (mentioned above), and everything else is minor fixes.

[Mixel]

Makes sense that’s really something that’s a waste of your time considering the huge list of other stuff you have on your plate.

Ooh that could be a bit of a gap in the “market” though, scorpion feature reaction videos, haha. If not just showing them all.. I’d enjoy explaining how certain new things might be useful to me, too. Interesting thought.

And congrats! This is a really big update, for QoL improvements.

[flibble42]

@Mixel


Shhhh, don't get me started on QoL things for the editor, i'm not sure Unity would be the right platform to do them on, C of some type maybe.


@Earok


Talking of videos, any idea when you will be able to stream again? Given all the parallax projects of late i was wondering if you could do an A500 starfield effect. I'm concerned that the HW sprite method could be to repetative and BOBs to slow.

[foleyjo]

Originally Posted by acidbottle

Thanks for stopping by and sharing this information foleyjo.

It certainly sounds like I was in the right ballpark, my execution of the idea probably needed a bit more care! Used anim frames to get the rope swing working but the jumping on and off was the issue. At least you confirm its totally workable

For Jumping off I'm using a hidden player actor. Everytimr the frame changes I move the actor to roughly the position where the jump will take place. It's a few pixels out but not noticeable.

For Jumping on I just have a melee box at the bottom of the rope on each frame and when the player hits it they grab the rope. I'm not really happy with the way this works but I think that's more my art work than the code.