Questions about Action! programming

[starwindz]

Currently I am studying Action! by myself. I have several questions about Action! programming. Sorry.. maybe stupid questions...

 

1. Recommended Graphics mode in game programming (ex: Graphics(18))

2. Textout(x, y, string, size, fore_color, back_color) function with graphic functions such as drawto

3. How to detect NTSC or PAL

4. Single color sprite move/animation code example

5. sprintf function such as C++ function( http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/cstdio/sprintf/ )

 

Thank you.

Edited October 24, 2014 by starwindz

[+MrFish]

I don't use Action, so I won't address the language specific questions, but I will answer a few generic ones:

 

1. This all depends on what the needs are for your game. Sometimes multiple modes are needed on the same screen. You should study the modes themselves a little so you can figure out what would be best suited.

 

3. Use the search function on the forums to search the topic. There is a simplistic way (which I think is listed in the Atari FAQ), but it doesn't work as intended in certain situations. Read some opinions and decide for yourself.

Edited October 24, 2014 by MrFish

[+MrFish]

AtariWiki has a lot of information and code examples for Action. Maybe you can find answers to some of your language specific questions there:

 

AtariWiki

Edited October 24, 2014 by MrFish

[ricortes]

Of course what you want to do determines what mode. I can give a few gentle suggestions that may help in the long run.

 

Mostly stick with graphics 12 if you have an XL or XE because that mode plays into Atari's strengths. This is a 5 color mode with limits on only being able to switch the 5th color in 4x8 character. If you look at Dungeon Lords or Frogger you will see good examples of what can be accomplished. You would have to do your own display list to work on older computers like the 800 and 400, but this is trivial if you get to that stage. I haven't looked at Dungeon Lords lately, I seem to recall it used a 2x2 character matrix to get 8 pixel wide by 16 pixel high mobs.

 

Using graphics 12<or 12+16> lets you take advantage of all the colors available and reduces the memory required compared to bit mapped modes. You still get to use all the other niceties like scrolling too. IMHO: It is worth the trouble to learn how to use it and the tools available. I'm guessing from your post that you want to include some form of text? You will have to develop your own character set and will be limited to 20 characters per line if 8x8 pixels or 40 characters per line with 4 pixel wide characters.

 

Most of what you want to do is found in "The Action! Toolkit" and I think there are a few examples on using them on the disk.

 

Anyway, in Action! just do a

 

PROC MAIN()

GRAPHICS(12)

PRINTD(6,"Hello World")

DO OD

and you will get a decent idea of the mode albeit without a properly designed font.

[starwindz]

Now I think I have to learn Atari and Basic first using books from atariarchives.org and documents from atariwiki.

Thank you very much for your advice.