Suggestions regarding tiles and blob spawning

Updated 9/12/2017

I have some suggestion regarding tiles and blobs spawning from png map
- please move existing tiles like dirt, castle, and wood to a script. (so they are not hard coded)
- please move existing liquid tiles like water to a script. (so they are not hard coded)
- please make alpha pixels and opaque pixels works together.
- please split up tile loading blob loading, tile offsets, and tile behavior into separate scripts.
- please add colors for all background, rotations, and teams
- please change SColors to u32's and change if statements to switch statements (this will make it easier to read and expand the code)

this is another suggestion for modding but I think it would be nice because it would be easy to adapt existing code to and wouldn't break anything if implemented correctly.

 

I'm having some trouble understanding what exactly is the challenge and what you are really proposing. It would perhaps help in understanding the problem, if you could describe a little closer what you are trying to do.

There's a lot of different things read from a map. Tiles, blobs, markers etc. I get the impression you think these should be divided somehow. There aren't really any clear lines between these and how they are handled though. What they have done, is pull out what's the basics for loading a map in KAG, and add separate derivative loaders for game mode specific stuff. It's not a simple thing to generalize any more than what has been done, without having to imagine every possible mod someone could decide to make. It's not a hard thing to separate parts of the script into separate files, but why? It's already packed together in a fairly meaningful way, in one place.

The other points you list, I don't get at all.

 

the point is it would make it easier to find things and would make modding easier
right now everything is stuffed in the BasePNGLoader.as.
there are separate scripts for gamemode objects but thats it.

the points are petty easy to understand..
- move hardcoded tile and liquids into their own scripts as well as their behavior like falling, damage, and collision.
- make Skinney's alpha behavior not set rotation and teams but offset them according to their color.
- add all missing combinations of items. (for example there might be green wooden platform that is rotated 90 and in on a stone background).
- also change SColors to u32s so that we can use switch statements (this will make code easier to read)

 

Having "only" one place to look sounds good to me. But, I believe we're thinking about different things, since you mention behavior, which isn't at all part of the map loading process, and "hard coded" values.

I get the impression that you just want to find everything about ladders in one place, for instance, both how it's represented in a map and how the blob behaves. In this case, a new "LoadLadder" file that is included in the loader script instead. I think this is a matter of taste. You would have to create an awful lot of files, and most of them would look very alike and contain very little. I'm not overfly fond of the chosen approach myself - there's something in me that objects (hah!), but really, it's pretty efficient (looking past some obvious "flaws").

Using a simple bitmap file for maps, is a pretty elegant solution, which is adequate for basic KAG stuff. The use of the alpha channel and bit-wise operators is a clever one, but not the most map designer friendly, that's for sure. If I get you right, you would rather set this using other colors. It's certainly easier, but on the other hand all the different colors (palette) you have to keep track of would get increasingly complex. It's quite complex already. I think that any more complexity would make the current bitmap/PNG solution increasingly inadequate, leading ultimately to custom formats and map editors. I'd much rather see the use of a format that allows multiple layers. One layer could contain team information, while another could contain orientation, for example. Colors could possibly have completely different meaning depending on the layer. You could, for instance, be allowed to create as many different teams as you want, only within the limits of the color depth. It would make some of these situations a little easier to deal with, and certainly a lot more flexible.

Things like switch statements being easier to read or not, is highly subjective, and ultimately unimportant. Since the first letter is a capital letter, I'm guessing means it's a C type of some sort, in the engine. Substantial changes are unlikely to be made at this point, and especially engine-side ones. It can be done in a mod. I don't mean to discourage, but it's the reality.

 

Have you seen `uint SColor.color`?

 

@Vermilicious I don't mean move the blob logic to the folder, just the blob loading in the png map.
the tiles and liquids are what I mean when put there behavior in a different script.
@Fuzzle the whole point of changing SColor to uint would be for switch statements as they are easier on the eyes and are overall easier to read
storing the const colors as uints would just be easier.

 

ok thanks for the reply @Geti

 

its still not possible to change collapse sounds and effects for custom tiles, i did a custom colapse system, but i wanna keep default one because it looks better :(

--- Double Post Merged, Sep 13, 2017, Original Post Date: Sep 13, 2017 ---

+ stuff like gold sparks would be a good thing to un hardcode, so mdders could add more cool effects, like this corner

 

The thing is, i want to make it look like default kag stuff, by recreating something from scratch i cant keep normal kag look :(