egomassive's Knytt Stories Plus mod

Has something happened to single pass render? I'm getting flashes when entering rooms (specifically, in Exploring the Golden Land).

Did that happen in the Nightfall area? It's probably the same issue my previous level (Curse of the Catacombs) had, caused by the use of full-screen COs to implement the lightmap. I remember egomassive saying the underlying engine rendered the custom objects in a weird way, and that it wasn't possible to *completely* suppress the flashes that result from this.

An interesting solution to this particular issue would be allowing the attached overlay feature to also function as a fixed position overlay. That would make it possible to implement these kind of lighting effects without having to use COs (as long as they don't need to be animated). Then again, this may be a lot of work just for a trick that is seldom used.

Did that happen in the Nightfall area? It's probably the same issue my previous level (Curse of the Catacombs) had, caused by the use of full-screen COs to implement the lightmap.

Yes. That sounds right.

Quote from: sergiocornaga on February 02, 2016, 14:54:33

Has something happened to single pass render? I'm getting flashes when entering rooms (specifically, in Exploring the Golden Land).

Did that happen in the Nightfall area? It's probably the same issue my previous level (Curse of the Catacombs) had, caused by the use of full-screen COs to implement the lightmap. I remember egomassive saying the underlying engine rendered the custom objects in a weird way, and that it wasn't possible to *completely* suppress the flashes that result from this.

An interesting solution to this particular issue would be allowing the attached overlay feature to also function as a fixed position overlay. That would make it possible to implement these kind of lighting effects without having to use COs (as long as they don't need to be animated). Then again, this may be a lot of work just for a trick that is seldom used.

Yeah, single-pass rendering is not perfect. Full-screen CO's are a weak spot. I never had any problems with Exploring the Golden Lands, but I'm using gigantic fog animations in a level I'm making, and it flashes rarely. I'm convinced that these flashes depend on the power/load of your processor. This means user experiences could vary widely.

Best practice for designers is to use custom objects conservatively. Tilesets are the best way to draw something on screen, so always use tiles when possible.

I never had any problems with Exploring the Golden Lands, but I'm using gigantic fog animations in a level I'm making, and it flashes rarely. I'm convinced that these flashes depend on the power/load of your processor.

It only happens approximately 1 of 5 times (in my case) during a screen transition, and only in the final area. It was more noticeable (especially when using vanilla KS) in my other level, where I used those lightmap COs in pretty much every screen.

So, things have been going fairly smoothly so far with KS+, but... something I don't really understand has just occurred.  When trying to implement a certain custom object, it... seems like the game's just ignoring the width/height that I decided to give.  No matter what I change those two values to, whether it be some absurdly high or absurdly low value, the exact same (incorrect) animation will play.  It'll listen to me giving it an end frame of 9, and a speed of 180, but totally ignores the dimensions.

Included is the offending CO.  I also tried switching the CO number from 21 to 22, that didn't seem to help, unfortunately.

@ Ultigonio: I just used the KS+ level editor to set up your animation, and it worked just fine. Here's the script it generated for me.
[Custom Object 255]
Image=fastforward.png
Tile Width=13
Tile Height=10
Init AnimTo=9
Init AnimSpeed=180I picked slot 255 because it was convenient. If this looks no different from your copy, then I suggest you search your ini for duplicate group headers. If there's another object 21 declared somewhere in the script, then it could be changing the parameters. In the following example any instruction in the top group would be ignored if it's in the bottom group.
[Custom Object 21]
Image=fastforward.png
Tile Width=13
Tile Height=10
Init AnimTo=9
Init AnimSpeed=180

[Custom Object 21]
Image=fastforward.png
Tile Width=24
Tile Height=24
Or you could get this problem from a typo in the next group header. It will ignore something it doesn't understand and lump the 2 groups together. (Notice the missing bracket.) Again the last instructions take precedent.
[Custom Object 21]
Image=fastforward.png
Tile Width=13
Tile Height=10
Init AnimTo=9
Init AnimSpeed=180

Custom Object 22]
Image=fastforward.png
Tile Width=24
Tile Height=24

Hmmm.  Neither of the possible issues you mentioned seem to present in Deep Freeze's script; I copied over the script for CO 255 into the level's script, ensuring that nothing else in the script was declaring CO 255, and it's still not working.  I tried using the CO in a different level and it worked there, as well.

...While I was writing this post, I decided to mess around with the setting for Object 20 (the one I added just before adding #21) - it... seems I've solved the issue?  I suppose the script tool in KS+ must have automatically overwritten whatever was causing the issue when I swapped the CO image.

Oh boy, time for more bizarre issues!  There seems to be a few screens that just... reset the map (I don't know precisely which screen because the bug seems to reproduce itself at random, when I don't expect it)?  I don't know if this applies to the whole map, or just part of the map, because I've only been testing a single, 20-screen area.  Furthermore, it only resets the map - not coin count or powerups.

Just to be sure it wasn't something sneaky trying to get by me in the script, I reviewed the two screens where the issue would have to occur, and nothing seems particularly odd - no save resetting or anything like that.  Here's the script for those two screens (spoilered for length because hoo boy):
[/code] < I can't convince the forum not to put this here

Oh boy, time for more bizarre issues!  There seems to be a few screens that just... reset the map (I don't know precisely which screen because the bug seems to reproduce itself at random, when I don't expect it)?  I don't know if this applies to the whole map, or just part of the map, because I've only been testing a single, 20-screen area.  Furthermore, it only resets the map - not coin count or powerups.

Are you talking about the mini-map? KS+ doesn't save mini-map data when running in test-mode. It creates a special save file for test-mode enabling you to start at any location with any flags or powers.  I, uh, just thought it would be easier (for me) not to make a special mini-map save file for test mode. Since the mini-map loses any unsaved progress when you die, the test-mode mini-map goes blank every time you die or view a cutscene.

Feedback time! Should KS+ save mini-map data in test-mode? Would you benefit greatly (or even moderately) from it?

Since the mini-map loses any unsaved progress when you die, the test-mode mini-map goes blank every time you die or view a cutscene.

Huh!  So it does.  How did I never notice that?

Thinking on it, it should be totally fine to keep it the way it is right now.  For me, large-scale map tests are done in the proper playing environment rather than the testing one - I just needed to understand why that was happening, since it always seemed to occur in the same place (but of course, that was because I always died in the same place).  If I really need, I can just do smaller scale map tests in cheat mode, so I don't die while testing.

Not sure if this has been reported before, but I noticed something strange about the special invisible solid blocks, specifically objects 26-27-28 (Bank 16). When I put a "No Climb" object over them, it works as intended on the left side of the wall, but the player can still climb these blocks from the right side. You can't climb them in one go, but there seem to be a few pixels in the collision mask where the character can still hang from, so you can just keep jumping until you get to the top of the wall.

Not sure if this has been reported before, but I noticed something strange about the special invisible solid blocks, specifically objects 26-27-28 (Bank 16). When I put a "No Climb" object over them, it works as intended on the left side of the wall, but the player can still climb these blocks from the right side. You can't climb them in one go, but there seem to be a few pixels in the collision mask where the character can still hang from, so you can just keep jumping until you get to the top of the wall.

This has already been fixed. There is a better No-climb object near the end of Bank 0.

The collision mask for the original No-climb is what you see. The detector for climbing is a small column of pixels floating in front of Juni. No-climb can fail if the wall's edge does not meet the tile's edge. I did not change the original No-climb object for compatibility with existing levels. Believe it or not there is at least one level that exploits this fault.

Believe it or not there is at least one level that exploits this fault.

I've seen glitches used as features in user-made levels in many games, but it still surprises me everytime. Reminds me of when authors exploited the "Hall of mirrors" glitch in Doom levels to create water effects and other similar tricks.

Thank you for the explanation! (and sorry for repeating this question).

Minor issue: pressing F1 while hovering over the spot where the player can put in spoofed map coordinates will instead show the info for Attachments.  Hovering over the dropdown menu for custom characters will also show that info bit.

Another minor issue: when you're painting multiple tiles by holding down the CTRL key, the editor lets you select cells over the left and upper borders (the space that normally shows tiles from contiguous screens) if you place the mouse pointer in the exact pixel row/column of these borders. This causes the overflowing tile to be placed in the opposite side of the screen. It doesn't happen with the right and bottom borders, though.