Scorpion Engine

[domkid]

Happy New Year? everybody Scorpions !

[acidbottle]

Originally Posted by Mixel

This also happens to me, I thought it's maybe what happens if you don't have enough Chip RAM to run it? CMO still runs if you boot with no startup sequence but doesnt boot at all from workbench currently. (it doesnt report errors, its just like nothing happens at all)

Ahh thanks for confirming Mixel, guess a simple script to reboot through wb works fine to, though do have 1.9MB of chip available! I think some Clickboom games needed a no wb reboot to, though they hardly ever ran, for me anyways, with them

[earok]

Sorry for the radio silence! Been having a very sleepy few days. Also getting Disco Elysium for Christmas hasn't helped my productivity at all!

Welcome @griffon. I'd recommend using melee collision detection for the whip, if that's not going to be possible (because of how many animations etc would need to be made with different whip sizes), cpu parent lock would be the way to do it, using spawn_actor from a codeblock attached to the actor's attack event.

I believe ElectricCafe's intention is to use cpu parent lock for melee weapons in double dragon, he successfully used it to separate the legs from the bodies but ultimately decided against that approach for performance reasons (eg, having two actors instead of one actor was too costly performance wise)

@mixel here's how 4 color sprites are allocated.

https://wiki.amigaos.net/w/images/6/62/LibFig28-2.png

6 and 7 are used for parallax when present but otherwise available for game use.

I can't remember exactly but I'm 90% sure if there's a range assigned to multiplex sprites, it'll use the top three colors for generating the sprites. In any case, it shouldn't be throwing that error, so I wouldn't mind receiving a copy of the project in a broken state so I can find and fix the issue

---

Spent a fair bit of time reworking how files are loaded for today's experimental update, I've ditched Blitz Basic's built in "bank" system, instead using OS level AllocVec/FreeVec. Unfortunately it still seems to crash without explanation at least on my workbench setup if there's not enough chipram (maybe something weird overriding those OS functions?), but otherwise running from the CLI it should be less prone to crashing on startup (and displaying a more concise message than "unknown error" if there's simply not enough memory).

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by earok

Sorry for the radio silence! Been having a very sleepy few days. Also getting Disco Elysium for Christmas hasn't helped my productivity at all!

Awesome though! Hope your holiday period has been good, play alllll the games.

Welcome @griffon. I'd recommend using melee collision detection for the whip, if that's not going to be possible (because of how many animations etc would need to be made with different whip sizes),

If he goes this route i'd be very interested how he gets on with smashable blocks, as they're one (though not the only) reason I don't primarily use the melee box for attacks.

cpu parent lock would be the way to do it, using spawn_actor from a codeblock attached to the actor's attack event.

I'm going to try that now too! hahaha. (i have an uncanny ability to find dumb ways of doing simple things, it seems)

@mixel here's how 4 color sprites are allocated. ..
any case, it shouldn't be throwing that error, so I wouldn't mind receiving a copy of the project in a broken state so I can find and fix the issue

Thanks, and yup just uploaded a broken build. If i can get some working I'll switch to 4col sprites for quite a few projectiles.

[acidbottle]

Ahh Mixel, going to direct this question for you again, my sincere apologies and thanks in advance

To cut a long story short, have built a new pc, which is great! I backed up all my project files ... BUT ... forgot about tiled

Now when opening the project and going to edit map, have no access to actors, blocks or tilesets associated with the current map ... noooooo!!

A google for an answer has proven fruitless, so far.

If there is a way to save this project I would sure appreciate it!

[Mixel]

Congrats on the new PC.

You've tried loading them from within tiled, not including scorpion in the process at all? blocks and actors.tsx tileset files should be in your project's root folder I think.. (mine are anyway) and my other tilesets are in my levels folder.

If you've got a backup of your project folder you should have everything you need? I think?

[acidbottle]

Thanks for replying, sorry to pick on you haha

Yes, have all the files (.tsx) actors and blocks. When I load them into tiled they go to a new tab next to the level maps, not in the bottom right corner as I remember.

I think scorpion associates them using magical space dust or something! I guess I can re-generate but would have to start all levels from scratch, which would be no small task

[Mixel]

Eek. Making sure everything's backed up first.. But if you go Map/Add External Tileset and choose the .tsx files that way, do they work/appear in the right place then? (sorry im suggesting things you probably already tried)

[acidbottle]

Thanks for suggesting, think I tried all sorts from tiled menu, probs made it worse

Maybe someone else has had this issue and fixed it, I hope!

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by acidbottle

Thanks for suggesting, think I tried all sorts from tiled menu, probs made it worse

Maybe someone else has had this issue and fixed it, I hope!

While nobody else is chiming in.. This might not be helpful but can you open the .tmx file in notepad++ or whatever text editor you use and set it's tileset to the relative path of the .tsx files?

In mine they're like

 <tileset firstgid="1" source="../Actors.tsx"/>
 <tileset firstgid="257" source="../Blocks.tsx"/>
 <tileset firstgid="513" source="mastertiles.tileset.tsx"/>

(because my map files are in the project/levels/ folder, as is the master tileset, but the blocks and actors are in the root project folder above) maybe yours got jumbled in the move somehow? (i have no idea how, lol) https://doc.mapeditor.org/en/stable/...obal-tile-ids/ - i guess because the actor and block tsx are always a static size those GIDs should maybe be the same for you too?

[acidbottle]

Nice one Mixel, was something to look into there.

My map file has:

<tileset firstgid="1" source="Actors.tsx"/>
<tileset firstgid="257" source="Blocks.tsx"/>
<tileset firstgid="513" source="area_1.tileset.tsx"/>

blockfiles are in a separate folder but actors and maps all in root.

Think it should be as is it should. Earok .... help

On the positive side, the exe does run in wb from shell, on my wb 3.1.4 you can set the icon tooltype to run the exe from shell automatically to so it does work! Maybe could even try generic whdload ..

[earok]

@acidbottle That's.. interesting. I might need to have a look at the icon file bundled in Scorpion to apply that fix.

From memory I never had any problems opening Wonderboy on my own computer *except* there might have been one or two maps that were linked to an absolute hard drive path for the tileset rather than a local one, those were fairly easy to fix (since Tiled itself pointed out the issue and allowed me to correct the path). Otherwise I have no clue what's going on.

Feel free to send me your latest project, but if it works on my computer as did the last one you sent through, I'm not sure what can be done to fix it at your side.

----

Minor check in, fixed compile bug with sprites reported by mixel. It seems that I had never finished properly setting up 4 color mode on sprites that are wider than 16 pixels. I'm not actually sure if sprites wider than 16 pixels are going to work on 4 color mode on the current Scorpion (and if so, if they work with multiplexing, probably not)

[acidbottle]

Thanks earok, will send it across later

Will also try a reinstall of tiled, in case something went screwy.

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by earok

Minor check in, fixed compile bug with sprites reported by mixel. It seems that I had never finished properly setting up 4 color mode on sprites that are wider than 16 pixels. I'm not actually sure if sprites wider than 16 pixels are going to work on 4 color mode on the current Scorpion (and if so, if they work with multiplexing, probably not)

It makes for an interesting lightshow as some of the frames of animation switch between the different colour sets (maybe one palette when its <16px, another when it isnt?). It works correctly in the 2-1 slot though already. All good to know.

Is it possible that something odd is happening with chipram? When I go from anywhere in cmo to my main menu (which is admittedly a memory hog) i get kicked out.. but it feels odd that it happens immediately after the intro with this error - that implies there should be tons of memory to spare? (I run 2MB Chip/1Fast)
- my library is getting biiiig though, so maybe i've reached some sort of limit?

[earok]

@mixel

Re:sprites - That's not too surprising - Amiga sprites are 16 pixels wide, so when you've got something wider than 16 pixels, it needs two sprites to render etc, potentially all 8 sprites if your frame is 128 pixels. If your frame is wide enough, it'll cross the threshold between palette bands.

Re:memory - it seems the combined total of everything (including space set aside for music and levels etc) was pushing it over the 2MB threshold, but I did do a check in that might be useful.


Update to experimental. I'm getting fairly close to the point where I'm happy to release to public, so *please* feel free to report anything that's clearly broken (if you're not sure if it's the engine's fault or not, please let me know anyway and I'll advise).

- Some UI tweaks to the editor
- Fixes for loading on Kickstart 1.3
- Minor tweak for slopes
- New "CPU_Platform_Acceleration" type. Might be useful for "raging bull" type enemies.
- Memory optimisation, which hopefully might be useful for Mixel (and hopefully anyone else having difficulty getting everything within memory limits). Previously a space in memory for the level GFX would be reserved even if a full screen panel was loaded. Now they essentially share the same "slot" (eg, loading a fullscreen panel will replace the map gfx and vice versa).

[acidbottle]

Nice update earok, welcome anything that helps with memory management!

Relief to for tiled issues! I reinstalled it and set up the exact same directory structure I had prior to new computer setup. Loads in fine again. Saved it all out, moved folders about, still working .. one big massive phew!

Thanks all for helping me try and troubleshoot this

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by earok

Re:sprites - That's not too surprising - Amiga sprites are 16 pixels wide, so when you've got something wider than 16 pixels, it needs two sprites to render etc, potentially all 8 sprites if your frame is 128 pixels. If your frame is wide enough, it'll cross the threshold between palette bands.

That makes a ton of sense. TY!

Update to experimental. I'm getting fairly close to the point where I'm happy to release to public, so *please* feel free to report anything that's clearly broken (if you're not sure if it's the engine's fault or not, please let me know anyway and I'll advise)

Weirdest persistent bug is when I load Scorpion the text in the list of Commands appears tiny.. until i resize/maximize the window and they become a more logical size. ... I'm stumped trying to think of any real bugs though.

- New "CPU_Platform_Acceleration" type. Might be useful for "raging bull" type enemies.

Haha! I know exactly what to use that for!

- Memory optimisation, which hopefully might be useful for Mixel (and hopefully anyone else having difficulty getting everything within memory limits). Previously a space in memory for the level GFX would be reserved even if a full screen panel was loaded. Now they essentially share the same "slot" (eg, loading a fullscreen panel will replace the map gfx and vice versa).

Yay! Solved, for now at least, until i add a load more stuff. I was worried what that might do to the jukebox but it doesn't cause any problems at all. Everything working great as far as i can tell!

UI tweak maybe? Would swapping "On Platform Edge Reached" with "On Timer Expired"? be okay? It feels really odd having the timer not below the timer option.

[earok]

Minor check in, there were a couple of bugs that popped up when I was checking some of the 'unofficial' projects, so I fixed those, and did the UI fix so that "On Platform Edge Reached" isn't at the bottom.

I may do a soft launch of 2021 final tomorrow and a video in the next day or so after that.

[Jack Burton]

Hi, I would like to try Scorpion Engine. I went to Github to download it, but I couldn't find any complete program, only lists of dozens of files (sorry, I'm not used to Github). How do I download it ? Is there any .exe or .zip file somewhere that contains the full Scorpion Engine ?

BTW the link (https://github.com/earok/scorpion-engine-demos) on the first page of this thread gives a 404 error.

Thanks.

[UltraNarwhal]

Originally Posted by Jack Burton

Hi, I would like to try Scorpion Engine. I went to Github to download it, but I couldn't find any complete program, only lists of dozens of files (sorry, I'm not used to Github). How do I download it ? Is there any .exe or .zip file somewhere that contains the full Scorpion Engine ?

Click the green code button and the zip downlad file will appear.