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[thestig]

thestig

Re: Zelda GBC Engine *NEW 1.2 UPDATE*

Interesting that you would support international languages. I suppose that can be useful to people.. as I don't think fan games get enough international love. It seems most of that stuff's english only. (I could be wrong)

But why BBCode?

[Jeod]

Jeod

Re: Zelda GBC Engine *NEW 1.2 UPDATE*

Thought it'd be the easiest way to use delimiters. A [ is hardly ever used in game text. So the pseudocode would be something like

*A [ appears, meaning begin color code sequence
*Read character after the [, check for b, r, g, w
*If additional characters after the color char, or no color char, default color to white
*If ] after the color char, resume writing text in proper color

In a text file, a line might look like:

Please save [r]Princess Zelda[w]! You're the only one who can help her, [g]Link[w]!

I suppose it's not *true* BBCode, but it's a similar concept.

"You should challenge your fates. When all else fails, you can still die fighting." ~Yune
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Zelda GBC+ Engine for Multimedia Fusion 2

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[Jeod]

Jeod

Re: Zelda GBC Engine: Inside Look

I thought it'd be kinda neat to show people what the insides of the engine look like on a typical day.



You can click on that thumbnail to see the full size. That's the frame editor. It's where we build the world, set up preferences and behaviors for objects, and modify animations. You'll notice the gigantic object list. Most of the objects are detectors: invisible blocks that have their positions set relative to actual game objects such as Link. They create flexibility so it's easier for us to see and program when Link should play a certain animation, or ignore player movement. On the right side of the editor you'll notice three little frames. These are layers, used to organize and order our objects. We put the inventory on the third layer, and simply use some events to switch the activity of layers. (The world is essentially deactivated, or paused, while the inventory layer is active)



This is the event editor. All those little checkboxes are events programmed into the game by us. A condition must occur before an event can happen. For example, you'll see 'Start of Frame' and then a few checkboxes positioning Link and the player mask. Those events will only occur at the very beginning of the frame (a frame is equivalent to a room in Game Maker). You might ask why some conditions are in red while others are in regular color. A red condition indicates a more important flag to check for in a loop. The way MMF works, the executable constantly loops through these conditions looking for events to activate. When it comes across a red condition, it is given more priority over additional conditions under it. This saves time in the looping process. In the picture, you can see that Condition 11's red one is a check for "On ForEach loop". MMF will entirely skip the routine check for this event if that ForEach loop is not activated. It won't even look at the condition under it, or the events associated with it. The result is that MMF loops faster, and events happen closer to realtime.

*MMF is a relatively simple software, and in some cases less complex than Game Maker. I would not recommend jumping straight from MMF to C, or using MMF as a foundation for learning a higher language. The software is simply logic-based. But for a hobbyist like me, this is my go-to for coding fan games when I have no interest in furthering my knowledge of real programming language.

"You should challenge your fates. When all else fails, you can still die fighting." ~Yune
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Zelda GBC+ Engine for Multimedia Fusion 2

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[thestig]

thestig

Re: Zelda GBC Engine *NEW 1.2 UPDATE*

Wow... MMF looks very... visual, in terms of making stuff work. But you can tell that some of the underlaying concepts of programming still exist, just in a very hybrid way. That's a nice shot either way, though. ;p

[Jeod]

Jeod

Re: Zelda GBC Engine: Inside Look

Wow... MMF looks very... visual, in terms of making stuff work. But you can tell that some of the underlaying concepts of programming still exist, just in a very hybrid way. That's a nice shot either way, though. ;p

Yeah, that's why I stressed that it's good for hobbyists but not recommended for anyone wanting to move up to real languages. It's decent if you want to make a quick buck with an android app though. Clickteam's been going big on exporters, including Android and XNA.

"You should challenge your fates. When all else fails, you can still die fighting." ~Yune
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Zelda GBC+ Engine for Multimedia Fusion 2

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[Jeod]

Jeod

Re: Zelda GBC Engine *NEW 1.2 UPDATE*

Show of hands, who thought this was abandoned? We put text in a few days ago. The text engine is somewhat complex since it uses ascii characters as tags for certain colors. In the image you see green, red, and blue text. What you don't see is the way the text is actually typed in a script.ini file:

{Link} is gone. The Dark Lord [Ganon} will rise again. ]Hyrule} will suffer as [we} suffered!

{ = green text flag
} = white text flag
[ = red text flag
] = blue text flag

These four characters will never be used in any game we create, so we decided to use them as flags. Of course, we will be writing a guide to the text engine so anyone can choose their own characters to use as flags.

So far, the plan is to call text from a script.ini file. Here's an example:

[Marin]
1=Link! You're awake! I found you passed out on the beach, and...oh, I couldn't bear to watch you be hurt again! ;
Line1=0 ;
2=What? How is it possible that I exist? I've always existed, silly! But you know, my memory has been fuzzy lately. ;

[Tarin]
1={Link}, m'boy! This peace is what all true warriors strive for! I feel like I've seen that somewhere before. ;

[Owl]
1=Hoot! {Link}, the hero. You must be surprised to be on the shores of ]Koholint} again. Allow me to explain. ;

In the .mfa file, when Link encounters an NPC, the engine will search that NPC for it's name (stored in an alterable string). It will then load all possible text the NPC can say into a string object, in multiple 'paragraphs'. When Link speaks to the NPC, a fastloop will occur which can figure out which paragraph the NPC will say at that time. For example, suppose the game opens with Marin speaking to Link. In the .ini, the variable "Line1" is changed to 1 (a boolean) to show that Marin has said this one-time text. Then, after player is given control, he speaks to Marin again. Now when the fastloop is run, the game checks for if Line1=1, and if it does, select paragraph 2 as the text to be shown.

We won't be releasing a new engine version soon though, since there is a lot to be done besides the text. We hope to have plenty of new goodies for everyone! If you've ever doubted the power of MMF2, hopefully now you can see just how strong it can be.

FUN FACT!

Did you know that there are 128 ASCII slots and 128 extended ASCII slots? That's a total of 256 possible characters in this text engine! We only have 96 slots used for now though, since there are only 96 characters used in the Oracle games.

"You should challenge your fates. When all else fails, you can still die fighting." ~Yune
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Zelda GBC+ Engine for Multimedia Fusion 2

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