Scorpion Engine

[earok]

Thanks guys!

Another ad hoc test stream scheduled for 7PM UTC Tuesday.

[earok]

New check in - reworked the horizontal shooter considerably to have an orbiting drone as well as a bunch of bug fixes, also added a new demo for the color changing function.


Thanks to everyone that came on the stream. Unfortunately I didn't know about the video saving thing so I didn't have the automatic saving setting on (and it would have been a nice one to save since I made a demo from scratch), but next time I'll make sure that whatever I work on will be saved on Twitch (and ultimately uploaded to YouTube).

[domkid]

Yes, thanks for automatic saving…

[earok]

Did another hot fix, experimental and public

- Fixed bug where sometimes code after loading a level wouldn't run
- Prevented parallax on 7 and 8 bitplane modes (doesn't seem to work)
- Fixes for camerax_max (variable that determines how far to the right the camera can go)
- Removed ability to set number of bitplanes per level (this was problematic and didn't really add anything of use)
- Fixes for cpu_platform on slopes
- Increased loading delay on kickstart 1.3 from 1 second to 2 seconds to try and solve drive sound issues (does not affect kickstart 2.0 and up)

[Mixel]

Great stream yesterday.

bug: camera_ymax seems totally broken for me now, various places where i set it in codeblocks have no effect anymore..

As for Xmax, im not entirely sure why i have xmax set to the level width on some maps (i think it was to solve a long-fixed bug ages ago) but in the places where i do.. you can scroll off the side of map resulting in a load of corruption on the right. (like this) - not sure if thats a bug though as you dont need to xmax the right side of the map anyway!



Ed: this screen actually has both glitches in, the Ymax is supposed to be limited so you can’t see the room below the grey platform, too. (So you can see more in the boss fight)

[griffon]

So I've been trying the parallax system in SE. I'm using a single-layer (full-screen, so to speak) parallax. I see that the default scrolling settings are... Jim-power style, aka "reversed". I thought they were reversible using negative value in the scrollspeed in the parallax csv, but that doesn't seem to be the case? Any insight?

[Mixel]

It sounds like you’ve pretty much got how it works? you need -numbers in the scrollleftspeed and normal numbers in the scrollrightspeed, and probably 0 in scrollidlespeed for regular scrolling.

[earok]

@Mixel sadly the camera min/max etc was something I did wrong the first time around.

Latest check in adds:
- MapWidth and MapHeight (in pixels) as variables
- A new "camera bounds" function under Display that replaces manually setting cameraxmin, cameraxmax etc.

The new function is what will need to be used going forward. It *should* all work if you plug the values into it that you used to use.

[Mixel]

Oh that sounds great!

So far though it doesn't work exactly the same as it used to, it doesn't seem to include the stuff off the bottom of the visible window anymore.. previously i had to factor in my smaller than average vertical view and the statusbar into the max value, that doesn't seem to be the case now (this way is much better!)

ATM i am having some issues with teleporting the player and camera and setting the camera bounds in the same code block, i'll tinker with it a bit more but i think there might be a bug there.. it keeps teleporting the player out of bounds or putting the camera in odd places.

[earok]

There were definitely some oddities about how camera_xmax etc used to work that could have required putting in values that didn't really make sense. But the new camera bounds function should be more reliable in that regard.

Checked in one more fix for the camera bounds, not sure if that will fix your issues or not.

I completely forgot that I added a new "palette crunch" feature, which may make it a little easier to squeeze the palette down if you want to drop a bitplane or two. It:

A) Removes all duplicate colors.
B) Optionally reduces bit depth (so it can convert from 8bit AGA colors down to 4bit OCS colors, 3bit ST/Mega Drive colors, even 2bit Master System colors).
C) Optionally removes all colors that are going to be made redundant by EHB mode anyway.

Not really a substitute for an artist doing it all manually but it might have some uses. I used Jazz Jackrabbit as a test:


Original, 128 colors at 8 bits


64 colors at 3 bits (still AGA required, but a healthy performance and memory boost)


32 colors at 2 bits (I realise it starts to look pretty crappy here but at least it'd now run on an ECS Amiga)


I may at future look at making it so that it will merge colors that are visually closest to each other in order to force a palette of exactly a certain number of colors.

[Mixel]

That looks super useful!

The camera_bounds thing was mostly me being dumb and mistaking how the 0,0,0,0 things work, I need to leave them blank most of the time, not have 0s in them. Also Up,Down,Left,Right confused me a bit? (not sure why)

One thing I was having a bit of trouble with is a block that's supposed to snap the view to a ymax, the xmin is working but the ymax just isn't doing anything.. but my camera_bound bottoms are working in other places, i think!

I was able to fix my issue by directly changing the mapheight variable though.. I've commented out my fixes and uploaded it just in case there's an error or im doing it wrong. No rush to look at it though as i've worked around it, but maybe there's an issue..
Jump up once - the green boxes run the codeblock "camerablocks" where they should be limiting the Ymax to 235, at least that did work with Ymax directly.. Now it doesnt.

[griffon]

I'm not sure how camerabox and camerabounds are supposed to work. For example, I'd like for the camera to be always "centered", or rather, fixed to a certain relative position. Until now I did that with set manually with set camera position commands and "camera blocks" restraining camera follows in certain directions (say, if I didn't want to show what's on the right or left of a certain wall or things like that) and I'm pretty sure they'll be needed for some situations, but I guess that's not the norm for normal map movement.






I'm attaching a li'l image as an example: the black area is the viewable screen (256x256) and the green area is used to show the "camera box" I'd like the scrolling to react to, centered on the actor icon, but still showing what's in the black box... Ugh, I sound confusing, but I hope the image does a better job at explaining than I.



Oh, almost forgot: Thanks @Mixel and @Earok about the parallax scrolling speed explanation!

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by griffon

Oh, almost forgot: Thanks @Mixel and @Earok about the parallax scrolling speed explanation!

No problem. It's gone a bit quiet in here i hope everyone's ok.

I think I see what you're getting at.. are you making a mario style platformer? The camera bounds thing is just for setting physical limits to the top/bottom/left/right, so you can use it to guide the scrolling limits.. if you want a little sensitive box like that you want to set Camera box pretty strangely..

try Left: 10 / Right: 10 / Up: -50 / down: 10 (or something) That might be too loose, or it may be too low, or high.. I have a motorbike stage where the bike has to be at the middle-left with lots of scrollspace, i have Right:-88 on that.. It'll definitely take some fine tuning.

[acidbottle]

All okay here Mixel thank you

Was in a state of flux regarding the latest SE builds. However, it didn't take long to patch up some issues and all is working nice again!

Camera bounds sounds interesting, will have a fiddle with that later.

Was impressed with Neeso's latest demo and noticed at the end of the level the bonus scores adding up in real time. Not seen this effect in any other projects yet and wondered that if this is easy to implement, I'd love some tips on getting that same effect, tried but went haywire!

I figure the key is using a separate objects for each number under panel settings?

[Neeso]

Originally Posted by acidbottle

All okay here Mixel thank you


Was impressed with Neeso's latest demo and noticed at the end of the level the bonus scores adding up in real time. Not seen this effect in any other projects yet and wondered that if this is easy to implement, I'd love some tips on getting that same effect, tried but went haywire!

I figure the key is using a separate objects for each number under panel settings?

@acidbottle
First of all sorry for not participating much in the discussion here but I'm not very fond of forums

The scoring is pretty simple actually:
- make a panel with separated elements attached to score values
- in the codeblock, after loading/showing the panel, make a while loop
- while pows_number > 0: decrease pows_number by 1, increase global score by the bonus points, play the score sfx, yeld for the duration of the sfx
- when the loop ends, load next level

I hope this helps

[acidbottle]

Cheers Neeso for that, hugely appreciated and no need to apologise at all, just keep up the great work

[Jack Burton]

Originally Posted by Mixel

You save the graphics out as pngs with transparency in whatever app you’re drawing in.. Scorpion does the rest.

I draw with Brilliance on the Amiga and then convert the .iff to .png with an image viewer that can read the .iff format on my pc. I'll look for another method to handle transparency (maybe with a paint program instead of an image viewer/converter).

.tmx is the map file .tsx is the tileset.. if you save the map to somewhere like a “levels” folder inside your project scorpion should see them fine?

I restarted my test project and this time I copied the folders structure from the example projects (actors, blocks, codeblocks, levels, etc.). It's much better now.

When you “create new map” from within scorpion and tell it to save from the maps folder, that’s the simplest way?

Yes, this time it worked well.

Idk if he’ll ever add it, but you can do a lot of 8px tile-like stuff with filled quarters and clever use of slopes.

I could find a solution for the tiles around the level by dividing the wall tile (8px black and 8px brick).
But idk how to make thin platform instead of these "thick" 16x16 ones...

Originally Posted by earok

@JackBurton Tiled Maps need to be made from Scorpion in order to have all of the layers, tilesets set correctly etc (it's particularly important to do it that way so that the actors and blocks tilesets are automatically configured and linked to the ones that Scorpion generates every time you add new actors or blocks).

Yes, this time it worked well. At first I thought it had to be the other way around, first Tiled and then exported to Scorpion.

8x8 tiles aren't planned (partly because of complications with using the Amiga blitter for anything other than multiples of 16), but as Mixel pointed out, clever use of slopes and such can be used as a substitute, at least on platform games.

I guess it's a problem that mainly applies to games that use scrollings (16x16 tiles). Anyway my project is a room's exploring type platformer without scrolling. That's why I asked.


Some questions :
1) When I hit the attack button, the attack sprite is displayed. But if I move the sprite (right or left) while hitting the attack button, the sprite will move (in fact it slips). How can I block the sprite so that it can't move when attacking ? Does it need some code to implement this behaviour ?

[ Show youtube player ]


2) The palette I use is a 16 colors palette with 6 main colors for the player's sprite+panel. So I've 10 "free" colors. Is it possible to change these "free"colors according to the levels/rooms. I saw a "display / setcolor" in the Command's page, but idk if it's intended to be used for this kind of thing.


Anyway I made some progress with my test project, and I'm amazed by what's possible to do with almost no code !
I even created a second room and link it to the first one.

[ Show youtube player ]

[griffon]

Originally Posted by Jack Burton

Some questions :
1) When I hit the attack button, the attack sprite is displayed. But if I move the sprite (right or left) while hitting the attack button, the sprite will move (in fact it slips). How can I block the sprite so that it can't move when attacking ? Does it need some code to implement this behaviour ?

That's one of the very first problems I've encountered as well! It's easy to solve it, tho, go in the animation tab, and pick your attack animation, then tick "Prevent move" on the right side of SE. Now the character will stop in place when attacking

Originally Posted by Jack Burton

2) The palette I use is a 16 colors palette with 6 main colors for the player's sprite+panel. So I've 10 "free" colors. Is it possible to change these "free"colors according to the levels/rooms. I saw a "display / setcolor" in the Command's page, but idk if it's intended to be used for this kind of thing.

You can use a different palette for every map! You can use setcolor if you want, but it's easier to use the "Set override Pal" button in the map tab, after you selected the relevant map. With setcolor you can add interesting effects with code ingame. For example You can use it to do color-cycle style effects. Or to change the color of your main sprite instead of using a different animation, if you use those colors exclusively for it.

As for transparencies, alot of amiga programs don't handle that effectively. I use photoshop on windows (aseprite is great for that, as well), and just add a transparent color when saving pngs. The engine will do the rest and treat is as transparent without using extra colors. I have to say tho, that black border on your sprites give the game a really nice retro feeling, like a spectrum game. I don't mind it at all, personally!

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by Jack Burton

I draw with Brilliance on the Amiga and then convert the .iff to .png with an image viewer that can read the .iff format on my pc. I'll look for another method to handle transparency (maybe with a paint program instead of an image viewer/converter).

grafx2 is free and supports iff and png.. On the amiga side PPaint supports png so you could load them from Brilliance in PPaint and convert them there if you liked, but ppaint doesnt have transparency either. https://libresprite.github.io libresprite is a free fork of Aseprite, which is what I use for most of my Windows/Mac pixel stuff. (Ideally suited for working with pngs with transparency)

I could find a solution for the tiles around the level by dividing the wall tile (8px black and 8px brick).
But idk how to make thin platform instead of these "thick" 16x16 ones...

it's complicated, but ramps are different to other types of block as they can have any height on each line of the 16 px.. They have a bunch of behaviours that make them work differently to platforms and solids though, but they can definitely be manipulated for certain staircases etc. you can't use them to make a half width wall, as such, but that could be achieved by clever use of (potentially invisible) actors in certain circumstances if you really had to have half thickness walls. "platforms" in my game (not solids) are all 8px high too, but obviously those can only appear in the top half of the 16px square..

Anyway I made some progress with my test project, and I'm amazed by what's possible to do with almost no code !
I even created a second room and link it to the first one.

[ Show youtube player ]

that's looking great! I think you've probably got over the biggest hurdle now, once it clicks and you start getting how things are supposed to work, you just end up adding more and more stuff until you look back and wonder how the hell you did all that.

[Mixel]

Feature idea: optional extra collision squares on actors? Was thinking about “spread” projectiles like in Turrican’s multiple, given the sprites are screen height*, could lots of bullets be a single sprite, improving performance in comparison to a ton of little bullets, but that’d only work if the single sprite could have multiple collision boxes?

*I think?

Nb: this would be even more interesting if the various collision squares could have different codeblock calls?