asdronin

I see, thanks a lot for the explanation, I see that somehow its try and see rather than worry about the possible performance issues. Well I would like to make first a shmup and for that I tend to like those bullet hell type but of course I know the limit here is in the number of bullets I will be able to display added to ships etc so as you said I will try my way and hopefully I will find a way to make it work fast enough =).

I see, I had no idea assembly code was generated, well I heard something but as my assembly knowledge is really low I tend to ommit all that. Good to know for the moment I find myselft with enough time to deal with assembly =). And I had no idea a banner could be used as a sprite, I mean as you said the 7800Basic makes a clear distinction and I have always seen banners in programs being used for title screen mainly. So according to what you say its ok to make a 16 pixels tall banner and use it in a zone height set to 8 for smaller tiles and there shouldnt be any trouble in terms or performance which is something Im always worried while coding in the 7800Basic

I see, thanks a lot for the explanation Mord, I had no idea it was like this, so with just 7800Basic we can make the tiles jump one zone each step, my assembly knowledge is really low and its a pitty but I have no plans to learn more assembly right now. then Im ok with the one zone jump I guess, by the way you did a great job in the Rpg tile demo and the Graze Suit Alpha sure looks nice in that movement you implemented. Then as I can somehow see, it could be better to use a zone height of 8 (smaller jumps) but then this way we are limited to use sprites of 8 pixels height, right?

Thanks for explaining yes it makes a lot more sense now, I had no idea it could work that way, but in relation to how it looks like, Im using the y-offset in plotmap you know, but this value seems to always be a integer value, I mean Im using a variable for that of course, but if I declare it as floating point and increment 0.1 it still will make the map jump one line always the same as if I increment it by just 1, according to what you explained the scrolling technique should be able to show intermediate positions to make it not like a jump I mean smoother, or am I missing something in relation to how the plotmap should be used to scroll the background? as said right now the tiles move just one line shift each step, not bad but dont know if this could look better so I hope you can shed some light into this doubt

I see, thanks for the explanation =), I remember I saw something about the zones somewhere, and I went now to the manual and with your explanation I understand everything, but then I wonder is it correct to make vertical scrolling just by applying y-offset when plotting the map? I notice that this way it jumps one line of course as we specify the offset like that not coordinates, but we cant get a smaller offset in plotmap, right? I mention this because you said the way to make vertical scrolling is related to that feature of using different heights, well I dont fully understand how it could be achieved, I know its off-limit for me using the 7800Basic but just wonder about the theory behind what you said, Im sure you know how is everything done so Im not having doubts about your knowledge, dont take me wrong, just want to do things right.

Thanks a lot SmittyB for the explanation, its quite clarifying then we have to stick with one zone height in everything from tiles to sprites etc well one could find workarounds for this like I have seen in some source codes making the zone height 8 and then using 2 sprites one on top of the other to make sprites of 16 pixels height, more work maybe but depends on the cases I guess

Hi all, Im stil in the process of feeling confortable enough to start making the actual code and graphics for my first game for the 7800, but I found another doubt regarding the plotmap tiles, I notice that yes we can specify normal or double wide for the tiles either for one particular set or for all of them, but I dont see anywhere if we can define different height for these, I mean maybe someone could be interested in using 8x8 tiles and later use plotmap the usual way, of course that would lead to have more tiles on screen but just would be better for some details maybe (unless it has a very important performance hit), so is it possible to have our tiles like 8x8? thanks a lot beforehand and really Im really sorry I find so many doubts in my path of learning PS I forgot to mention that I tried of course to use a image with the tiles that was 64x8 and indeed its plotted on screen fine but the trouble is it separates lines too much so map is crossed by some stripes made of background color so I assumed that its either change somewhere the font size (height actually) or just its not possible Edit: I know we can use zone height but I dont want to limit the height of other images as I think it does

Thanks a lot for showing this Random Terrain, I think as said I will be using these techniques to deal with the "if" structure you have implemented =), certainly Im part of the endif addicts group haha so these techniques work fine for me =)

Thanks a lot SmittyB for the great explanation, I finally understood this and I have been going around this issue since I downloaded the 7800Basic, I get the feeling that its better to use 3 colors per sprite and maybe overlap 2 or 3 sprites than using one with 12 colors, at least I get more freedom I think like for instance I made a ship and I can overlap 3 sprites to make it 9 colors but Im not using more palettes as I would be needing other palettes for background tiles and other things later on, however of course Im wasting some resources as Im pasting more sprites than I would need but so far it seems really fast. As said thanks a lot =)

Well its hard to make a game using these tools and language we have here, I looked into the Graze Suit Alpha video on youtube and it looks very cool fast action game, quite well done, I know how hard is to complete a game in any tool when you work on your own, requires lot of time and energy, Im sure you will complete one game soon and will be great, I found out your rpgtiledemo when I was searching for tile related games and its an awesome code really, keep making great stuff =)

Hi all, I spent a lot of time dealing with colors when I started in the 7800Basic world (you know importing graphics wrongly having them show different palettes than I wanted etc), and still now I see many things that I dont manage to get fully, now that somehow I feel Im more or less prepared to make the first attempt on a game I have to ask this doubt that comes from my day 1, I see in table that 160B mode allows 12 colors, how is that so? I tried importing images with more than 3 colors, mainly 12 colors (I mean 3 + transparent and 12+1) and nothing seems to work, in fact I cant define a palette big enough to handle that and when sprite are pasted they require one palete, sorry if Im missing something very obvious.... what are these 12 colors that are theoritically allowed in this mode? can we import a image with 12 colors and use it as sprite? as said Im very sorry if my question sounds too simple, there are many many things that I cant manage to understand in this environment but of course Im eager to improve =). Edit: Right now Im pasting 3 sprites one of top of another to achieve 9 color sprite that looks like I want but of course thats not the most accurate way if we can use 12 colors in one image

Impressive, thanks a lot RevEng, I feel like Im in another world, I mean usual things that I was used to use in other languages work different in this environment like negative numbers and so comparison and other structures are different, migh take some time to build what I have in mind but hopefully will be worth trying =)

Thanks a lot SmittyB, I will do as you said with the offset and the screen size as the plotting area, as these functions are not meant to have off screen positions, well to be honest I tested a bit and some of the plotting was done correctly off-screen but at some point screen turns purple and makes odd noises so I stopped trying that. Thanks a lot Mord, I see what you mean, plotmap allows us to plot sections of a larger map but plotmapfile isnt allowing that so its only good for static background, but in any case we can save the background and later restore it so I think in that case its just a matter of what we deal better, the Tiled tool or using characters in the editor. As I have tried this over and over I find an odd behaviour, Im sure there is an explanation for this, but could you tell why is this happening? I tested first a few values for the Y-offset of my map (its two times the screen height) so I tried 0 offset its normal no offset of course, I tried limit values like in my case its 12, so its logical value, but then I decided to use a variable to make it move constantly and see how it behaves, the fact is this time around I notice that when my variable is 0 it crashes, but its senseless as I already tried 0 value, that makes me think, is the plotmap doing its things in the end when we draw screen? or well I cant explain this in any case not even with that as it seems odd. Here is the code that makes it crash, just copied the section in question: main clearscreen ycordmap=ycordmap-1 if ycordmap<0 then ycordmap=12 plotmap screen1map 4 0 0 20 12 0 ycordmap 20 ycordmap is declared before and starts as 0, so the first step in plotting the map should be 0 and then the next time it becomes -1 then it should be again 12 so all safe, but as said this makes it not work. If I change the "if" condition to "ycordmap<=0" it works (well it doesnt crash i cant tell yet if its perfectly matching the values i want and its seamless scroll) but of course in this change its never 0 so I assume it could make a little jump when background is repositioned (right now its too fast so I cant confirm that), then my question about this is, why is this behaving like that? when is the map plotted or when the plotmap is seeing the variable value because even if it evaluates that when drawing the screen it makes no sense that the variable cant be 0 when I already tested 0 offset and worked fine like when no offset is specified, sorry for the long explanation, I try to make it clear and maybe use too many words for that.

Thanks a lot Mord, so we have to deal with these techniques to do that, I think that should have been implemented in the tool other way but of course its a complex thing for the author. Additionally as I have verified "else" should always be in same line too (I got error saying "else" is not recognized word), I will follow your guidelines and hoepfully I manage to deal with this, I think it makes it harder to make a game but not impossible of course. By the way, a little off topic question, what games have you made? your avatar seems very familiar to me so maybe I played a game you made without knowing it was your creation, in any case your avatar is quite cool =)

Thanks a lot Mord, you are right, at first I missed that step of embedding the images and later I had to redo that map (was a test map anyway) to make sure everything was correct, after that the palette error arose, so I had no idea what it was. RevEng, thanks a lot, you are right, after adding the mode the code works, well it crashes when I try larger maps (those that go off the screen) but thats an issue I have asked and surely its resolved in other thread just I need to try and see for myself how it works before posting on that. Well back into this subject, yes I see what you mean, because when we import the graphic it can be used anywhere and not just maps the error comes in when the map is plotted, so as said thanks a lot =)

Hi all, As Im trying several ways to make scrolling background I wanted to try this with plotmap although i know its not the best option, just wanted to see how it goes, and after making a map thats around twice the screen height then at some point it makes the screen purple, Im sure this means its not good to do that, then I wonder what is the exact limit for plotmap when its plotting tiles out of screen? I know I cant do much like that but you know at least know the limits to avoid them. Thanks for any help regarding this I have been trying to figure out what was the exact limit and only think that maybe plotting a whole screen out of screen makes it crash. Edit: I assume this exception is the same for plotmapfile, or even worse as I cant assign a value to its coordinate so it cant be moved really onlly plotted at a certain coordinate

Hi all, As I have coded using variations of Basic language before (like Dark Basic Pro) I tend to think of some syntax things that should be the same always but of course its never everything the same. Then I wonder, how can I make a "if then" structure thats longer than one line? I have seen in all the sources I explored so far that if there is more than one command you just use ":" to add more things in same line, but isnt there a way to write that in several lines? I tend to prefer to have one command by line, I mean I see it better even if that makes the code longer, so I tried what I learned in the past and tried with "endif" or "end if" or just "end" and nothing appears to work, in help and tutorials I see always : is used in same line so maybe thats the only way we can make more than one thing happen inside a "if" block, could you please clarify this?

Thanks a lot RevEng for explaining this =). And oh I see, I think I read somewhere we can plot tiles of different width in same map, perhaps on different maps, isnt that possible?. Regarding my code, well I had double wide set off, and somehow the tiles I used to test the width of each tile fooled me to think the blank space character's tile was half the width but now that you say it, looking more carefully I think these are probably the same width just maybe the order they overlap or somethng make them look like that, because I see they overlap if I set the double wide off covering half the other tile, you can check in the image I submit, all the tiles are the same drawing (made for testing the width) which is mainly a frame around a square and a diagonal line from botton left corner and from there up to the right so that we can count the number of pixels, as said made for testing how wide they are, so setting the doublewide on just made them look normal and fill the width of the screen.

I see, thanks a lot for mentioning this RevEng =), I had no idea it has to do with the moment we load the image, I was only seeing the part where we plot the map or load the map. However for some reason its giving me the same error, Im sorry to be confused about this, its very different way of coding than any I have seen before. My current lines around the error are these incgraphic tilesetchar2.png 0 1 2 3 3 incmapfile asddsa.tmx main clearscreen plotmapfile asddsa.tmx asddsa 0 0 20 50 The error comes when I try to plot the map, the incgraphic call should be correct now based on the help section you mentioned, I mean Im not swapping any colors so 0 1 2 3 and Im using palette number 3 (defined before these lines just ommitted for clarity) then if the palette is not found I assume Im making something really wrong as its probably not looking for palette number 3 but something else or nothing at all, or I understood wrong how to load the image before loading the map for later plotting it

Awesome, thanks, yes I was typing something wrong you were right, this functionality to obtain color from image is a time saver, at least for me, I could have avoided so much trouble using this from the start, and yes I looked into adventurer game, but at that moment I was looking into the tilemaps and other things I guess, thanks a lot for the help =)

Hi all, Im using a image I already tested with plotmap and so should be correct with its palette and everything configured for the 7800basic, just I decided to try Tiled maps with same image, Im just experimenting you know to see what I can do. And the tmx file imports correctly but then when I call to plot it it doesnt compile and gives this error like the image Im using has no palette, as said is the same I used before and worked so it should be ok (70): ERROR, plotmapfile didn't find a palette for tilesetchar2 Compilation failed In that line there is the plotmapfile call, then I wonder how can I make the palette be recognized after I save the tmx file? Im sure I clicked on embed file in the Tiled options and followed all the guidelines by Atarius Maximus, thanks for any clue about fixing this =)

Hi all, Im just starting in 7800Basic really but I find many times a doubt that isnt in the help and isnt in the forums, well maybe its here somewhere but it escapes me. Im experimenting with plotmap right now and I make the map with alphadata you know writing all the characters there in a kind of matrix way. But I notice that blank character is half the size of the rest of characters, I think I have read somewhere something about this, Im using 160A doublewide and zone height 16 just if that makes any sense, what I wonder is... is it possible to have all the tiles the same width or how can we change that on specific tiles? or is it just an exception with the blank tile thats always half the width of the rest? Thanks a lot for any clue about this =)

Hi all, I have seen in Pacgreg's Metal Gear source code (that is a nice one by the way =) ) something that looks like this P2C1=tileset_test_color1 P2C2=tileset_test_color2 P2C3=tileset_test_color3 The tileset is loaded normally with incgraphic I compile this and there is no trouble but I try something similar in my code and it fails to compile, I see that what these lines do apparently is retrieving the colors from the image loaded, so what am I doing wrong? I thought just attaching _color# would be enough but of course Im missing something here as its not even compiling, can you please tell me how to do this? thanks beforehand for any help =)

Thanks a lot RevEng =). I come from developing in other platforms (mainly c++ with other libs, Flash and recently Unity) and well I find many things that are different of course, so I have to try and get a good performance on top. I will keep in mind what you said and mainly I will be using sprites to fake that scroll effect, I got the idea that plotmap isnt very recommended for scrolling backgrounds, I think that maybe its really good for static screens or as you said slight transitions, probably like first zelda games as we see in the examples provided with the 7800basic. I have seen a project thats still on development called "Bullet festival" by Roy, and it has vertical scrolling but also the backgrounds move sideways slightly, since the sprites share the same palette probably it runs so fast because of that, so my assumption is that making a vertical scroll like that is the best to achieve a good performance, after all he has like 3-5 columns of sprites moving down really fast and just changing their X slightly when ship move sideways, I will try something based on all that you said, thanks a lot for explaining everything so well =). Also yes you are right, its better to learn from something simple but because I dont know how much time I will have for this game and I dont like to leave things unfinished, Im anticipating a few steps on what I will be using, Im on part three of the tutorials right now and Im not coding the same game he made but learning a lot from everything explained here and there =)

Hi all, I know there is that table with the colors we can use and the associated numbers but I wonder, isnt there a color picker we can use? I got a rom from a friend but while it displays the same table its interactivity is not working in emulator, so an interactive color picker would be usefull I think, or even better a tool that could tell the nearest 3 colors to the ones used in the sprite in the right order but I guess that would be too good haha, well thanks a lot beforehand for any information or tool about this. Edit: I didnt know we could retrieve colors from image adding _color1 _color2 _color3 after the graphic name, so with this information I see no need to visit the table that often and of course I see no need for the interactive color picker, sorry I asked for this I thought the only way was to go to table over and over