Re: [Adonthell-devel] Continued Map

[cirrus]

Kai Sterker wrote:
> 
> On Wednesday 12 December 2001 21:45, you wrote:
> > I've done the barn interior, as James sent me the gfxs! :) Just go into
> > the barn, then up. Just one thing, James: I think you forgot to sent me
> > the front translucent wall that goes into the barn's loft.
> 
> Very nice :). However, could we perhaps have a wall on either side of the
> barn interior, just like all the other inside views? That way it would look
> even better, I guess. And more consistent too.
> 
> > So you can now go into Silverhair's room. She just needs a dialog... but
> > how what do I see? She now has a dialog! ;)
> 
> Yep, however it's not complete, so you still can't finish the game, I fear.
> But we're getting there :). Btw, I've done improvements with the scripts:
> 
> * Silverhair's dialogue launches automatically if you teleport there, as it
>   is supposed to do.
> 
> * You cannot leave through the door if you came the other way, and finally
> 
> * You are teleported back by simply walking on the right tile, which should
>   avoid much confusion.
> 
> Enjoy,
> 

Oooh, aaaahhh! Just seen the finished intro and the barn and
SIlverhair's room! Veeeery nice!
However... (:P) I find the jump straight from the barn to silverhair's
room a bit confusing. I ideally we want the player to walk along the
verander, which is not possible at the moment because the inn gfx would
be drawn on top of him (right?)... well I can think of two solutions to
this:

option 1: cheat!

You could make a submap with an identical view of the front of the inn,
except that the inn's gfx don't have base-squares set and appear behind
the player. If I remeber correctly the barn's gfx already allow the
player to step into the barn roof, so getting in and out of the barn is
no problem. To avoid confusion I think walking on the right-most square
of the veranda will make the player say something like "That must be
SIlverhair's room! Hmmm, maybe I could climb through the window",
another step to the right and you walk 'into' the left wing of the inn
(which has a base-square set as before) and get teleported to the room.
Getting out of the room stays the same (although it might look better if
you let the player walk 'through' the wall before getting teleported
back out - no problem if the side walls have base=-squares)


option 2: Do it for real

Don't panic! No mapengine rewrites needed :) I could split the graphics
that make the front of the inn  (inn_mainwing_mid/left/right.pnm) into 2
parts - an upper and lower half.
The lower half will go up as far as the inn_mainwing_xxx_front (ie: the
veranda) parts go and will be used as before - they always go behind the
characters and the verander, using base-squares goes in front. So far so
good.
Now the top halves of these gfx will now use basesquares to appear
behind the player! This won't interfere with anything else! Also,
conveniently they contains a bit of veranda at the bottom, so the player
will appear to actually be standing on the veranda rather than just
above it.
Seems too easy doesn't it? There is one catch though - the entrance
(it's the old bridge problem)! I suppose the best we can do is teleport
the player from one side to another. It won't be clean but at least you
get to walk on the verander a bit which I think will help a lot because
the player can then see why going out of the barn loft is getting him to
Silverhair's room!

Personally I'd go for option 2. I can have the graphics chopped in 5
minutes (in fact I'll do 'em now incase you decide to use it).
Option 1 would need slightly altered gfx above the entrance coz it would
look ugly the way it is at the moment (half the player would disappear
for no reasaon!) and in Option 1 you won't see the people outside
wandering around like you would in option 2 coz it would be a fake map!

        -James


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