egomassive's Knytt Stories Plus mod

Hello Egomassive and All Knytters,

I've been enjoying Knytt Stories for a year or two now as one of my default game platforms. 

I am very proficient at the game and use of the editor and have dabbled in coding custom objects. 

I also have the editor always handy to both customize the levels to my taste and to learn to create my own.

Now there's Egomassive's Mod which offers the 2X screen which I like a lot and some convenient editor functions.

Then I try to play "The World is changing." by Toenail -- "Only for Knytt Ego's Mod."
http://knyttlevels.com/levels/toenail%20-%20The%20world%20is%20changing%20v1.0.1.knytt.bin

I can't get into that yellow box behind the old hermit to the east of the start point.  There's a Shift there, but it apparently requires a flag to access it and it doesn't show up yellow in the editor and I don't know where the coding for it is in World.ini or wherever.  (I found it once but can't now.)

And here's what the hermit says:
"Sign(A)=Gone to my new home. If you can't figure out the training by yourself then you don't deserve it!"

This has me very frustrated.  Is there a tutorial out there that will help me understand how this Mod and levels work?
I don't want to search all over the forum for bits and pieces.  Is there some documentation out there I can study?
Then I can make sense of all the forum posts and eventually create levels of my own. 

Thanks in advance,
Peter

When you download the mod it comes with some extra files. The readme.txt has some questions and answers in it. More importantly, the Animation Instructions.txt gives guidelines for making override custom objects at the top, and instructions for all other new World.ini entries at the bottom. There is also a level, Features Demonstration, which showcases most of the new stuff. If you have any specific questions you can ask them here.

As for the level you're stuck on, this is how it originally worked:
Visit the old man,
return to the village,
check a dresser in a house to release a golden creature,
collide with it,
return to the old man and pass the gold block.
There are 50 possible golden creatures to find --not necessarily in every level. Golden blocks require you to have found a certain number to pass. The block that is barring your path requires 1 creature. I believe the level in question has been updated so you do not need to see the old man before finding the creature, but I'm not sure. It is Toenail's first released level, so don't expect a flawless game.

Work on KS+ has started again. I've already fixed all of the errors discovered over the summer, and begun adding some new features. I'll probably have a release ready for the weekend, but before I do that I'd like some input from the forum.

New features you'll be seeing include Area Ambiance objects. Ambiance volume increases as you approach them. KS+ levels now use single pass rendering, which means no more object flash. This can be enabled for legacy levels with the menu. Controls can be changed from the main menu with a point-and-click interface. Unfortunately, I can't add support for gamepads. Titles have a better font --no more antialiasing, and the Sign font can be changed. Lastly, I'm working out a better way to determine colors for the map. Colors will be based only on the gradient, so sections of levels will appear more unified.

At this time I'd like to ask for any ideas for objects or features you may be wanting. Development on this project is nearing completion, so if there's something you'd like to see, and it wont change the feel of KS, and it's not a moving platform, then now is the time to speak up.

For example, Talps has asked for some new invisible wall shapes. (See bank 16 objects 14, 15, and 16.) This is something I've been considering for a while, but I don't want to go crazy adding every shape imaginable. So, I'd like to hear what shapes you feel will be most useful. Talps's suggestions are a thin rectangle across the top and a thin rectangle across the middle.

I'll put in a vote for two tile wide triangular slopes (but maybe in separate single tile pieces).

I'm intrigued by your focus on sound. In the past I've considered whether adding an option for stereo-panning the sound of Juni's movement according to her position in the room would be a useful addition to this mod. Perhaps worth considering!

If you're experimenting with sound, maybe a feature to change the volume of background sounds and music? This could be triggered by shifts and triggers. Even better if it can have a smooth transition. No idea how hard it would be to pull it off.
This would allow for some awesome stuff like what was being discussed in the other thread, with gameplay elements influencing the intensity of the music.

I wish I knew beforehand that there was even a way for you to fix object flashing except with KS Ex, I used a lot of workarounds on Time Fixes Everything (KS+ level) that are now useless I'm pretty confident I'll manage to make it a reference level for your mod.

I wish I knew beforehand that there was even a way for you to fix object flashing except with KS Ex, I used a lot of workarounds on Time Fixes Everything (KS+ level) that are now useless I'm pretty confident I'll manage to make it a reference level for your mod.

I didn't know I was going to change this. It became necessary because of the Area Ambiance object. I was getting audio flash! The ambiance would start rising for a frame before the object could act. Single-pass rendering was something I had been avoiding because I didn't know why Nifflas used two passes. It turns out that objects will see the last screen's collision area for 1 frame, and sometimes this is enough to send them flying off the screen. So, I'm still in the process of suspending collision detection on the first frame for every object in the game, but only if single-pass rendering is active.

Anyway, your fixes may not be useless, because animations will still reset themselves. So, shifting to identical screens can still be problematic.

If you're experimenting with sound, maybe a feature to change the volume of background sounds and music? This could be triggered by shifts and triggers. Even better if it can have a smooth transition. No idea how hard it would be to pull it off.

This shouldn't be too hard because internal max volume settings are referenced for most ambiance and music procedures. I'm not sure of the benefits though. I'll need more convincing.

I'm intrigued by your focus on sound. In the past I've considered whether adding an option for stereo-panning the sound of Juni's movement according to her position in the room would be a useful addition to this mod. Perhaps worth considering!

Again, I'll need more convincing. I don't see the advantage. Every sound effect is centered, and that's convincing. If I change one thing like Juni's foot steps, then it will stand out from the other sounds.
 

I'll put in a vote for two tile wide triangular slopes (but maybe in separate single tile pieces).

I like this. I'll probably use it.

Quote from: Raicuparta on August 21, 2012, 19:48:05

If you're experimenting with sound, maybe a feature to change the volume of background sounds and music? This could be triggered by shifts and triggers. Even better if it can have a smooth transition. No idea how hard it would be to pull it off.

This shouldn't be too hard because internal max volume settings are referenced for most ambiance and music procedures. I'm not sure of the benefits though. I'll need more convincing.

I don't know how you could need more convincing, maybe you didn't understand what I was referring to?
This was posted on a thread on the hidden forum. The way the music stays in sync but changes intensity when he swaps between modes. If you implemented this, all we had to do would be have both songs playing at the same time (as ambiance), one of them with the volume of 0 (the important part is that the music continues playing in the background but can't be heard), and when we switch modes (or whatever) we switch the volumes.

Also it would be useful if you want the volume to change only when you reach a new screen instead of gradually changing when you approach it. Usually people do this by having two versions of the same sound, but with music there's the sync problem.

Maybe it just sounds more awesome to me

Oh, I see. I thought you wanted to change intensity by changing the volume of one track. Syncing audio tracks is quite difficult in MMF2. Nifflas was struggling with this for Knytt Underground, and I wrote a bit of code to help him out. Still, there's no perfect solution.

You have hit on one of the uses for the Area Ambiance objects. You can line the edge of the screen with them and the sound will get louder as you approach the next room. If the next room has the same track playing on the same channel then it will continue playing.

Just had an idea for this while writing. I could make an ambiance silencing object. That would allow you to start both ambiance tracks together, but keep one quite until the location you want it to be heard. There will be a delay between the start of the tracks though.Edit: I tested this out with a pair of matching tracks I have for The Tree of Knowledge, and it works better than anticipated. I'll put it in the release and let you guys try it out. I need to find some audio that I'm not planning to use in TToK though.

I didn't know I was going to change this. It became necessary because of the Area Ambiance object. I was getting audio flash! The ambiance would start rising for a frame before the object could act. Single-pass rendering was something I had been avoiding because I didn't know why Nifflas used two passes. It turns out that objects will see the last screen's collision area for 1 frame, and sometimes this is enough to send them flying off the screen. So, I'm still in the process of suspending collision detection on the first frame for every object in the game, but only if single-pass rendering is active.

New objects would also see Juni in the position she was on the last screen, so any Juni-aware objects should also be deactivated or Juni's observed position should be moved to new screen's location (which will cause a problem with old screen's objects, because they still execute their behavior once after being destroyed).

I juts remembered something that I thought about ever since I first played KS...
Why not just enable drag&drop for installing levels on every screen of the menu instead of just on the install screen?

@ GrayFace: I was already having problems with partially destroyed objects before I switched to single-pass rendering. I fixed it by moving most objects to y 400 and bullets to y 300. The hologram is a bullet so if I sent it to y 400 I could initiate the purple spider's run sound, and who knows what else. I throw the players animation off screen now to prevent any old location appearances on the new screen. Also, I update the player's apparent location before rendering, to prevent objects near the players old location from reacting to it.

You have just brought a worry to my mind, I'm not sure what happens if the same collectible is on 2 adjacent screens. The engine will allow only 1 to exist, so I wonder if the one being destroyed will prevent the one being created. I'll have to see.

@ Raicuparta: I often go straight to the selection menu out of habit, even when I intend on installing a new level, so I can understand where you're coming from. However, I wouldn't classify this as an annoyance. Most stand-alone games I've played that allow user made levels require self-installation, so we're already ahead of the curve here. If I were to add such a feature, I'd switch you to the Install menu because of the safeguards it has, so the usage will be almost the same.

Similarly, I move objects far off-screen and made some objects silent in such case, e.g. 10:17 plays a sound when it hides its spikes.

I switch to "install level" screen and do installation there when a level is dropped. Indeed, installing levels by drag&drop in "choose level" screen also makes sense, I only did it in main menu.

I've always thought it would be nice if you could associate .knytt.bin files with KS -- double click to install kind of deal.

Unfortunately the .bin file extension is far too common for that to be remotely practical. It's used for a huge number of file types and your OS wouldn't be able to distinguish between them.

I added drag-and-drop-to-install on the main menu and the level selection menu. It took 5 minutes. With a little advice from LPChip, you can now cross fade from one ambiance track to another. I regret that this trick requires all the ambiance channels leaving no room for atmospheric sounds, but adding a second music channel is out of the question. Appropriate pairs of audio tracks are few, so unless you're a musician you probably wont be using the cross fade trick anyway. I've added safeguards for every single-pass rendering error I could guess at, with the exception of having the same golden creature on adjacent screens. (I know how to fix it, but I have to fix it 50 times and I don't feel like it just now. ) Here are the invisible objects I'm including (See attachment.)

I expect to have a new release ready sometime on Friday.