egomassive's Knytt Stories Plus mod

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Offline Headgrinder

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Re: egomassive's Knytt Stories mod
« Reply #135 on: April 04, 2012, 12:22:52 »
That is a fantastic function.  Wow, knytt stories is just becoming a better and better game engine.  Wish I knew more about fonts so I could help...

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Offline egomassive

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Re: egomassive's Knytt Stories mod
« Reply #136 on: April 04, 2012, 23:01:25 »
I think I'm going to use Courier New as Sergiocornaga suggests. I would make my own enlarged version of the original font, but there are many characters I'm unfamiliar with.

@ Sergiocornaga: The trouble you're having with additional characters may be due to the ASCII format the signs use. I suggest saving the World.ini in that format if possible. These are the characters that should be available:
Spoiler: ASCII 256 (click to show/hide)

@ Headgrinder: I'm glad you like the idea. Like normal signs you will have to use the World.ini.  :ohnoes: It will be simple though:
[x1000y1000]
Title=Myskglurgisk Grottglufs
[x1001y1000]
Subtitle=Song: Nurykabe - Arrivée distante

Progress Report: I added the Sign to the Sign dialogue. Which means, as you type your Sign text it will appear in a Sign bubble exactly as it will in the game. I don't know about you, but I waste a lot of time formatting my Sign text which required me to edit the ini, save, test level, repeat until perfect. Now, it will be one step, write text using the Sign dialogue.

Edit: 04Apr2012: Digging into the Sign font has led me to discover that I am familiar with most of the characters. They're just illegible. So, I'll be replacing the font you're familiar with with a cleaner version. For the most part I think the change will go unnoticed, but we'll finally be able to write Dr. Cliché properly. See the attachments for a comparison of old and new fonts.
« Last Edit: April 06, 2012, 08:56:04 by egomassive »

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Offline sergiocornaga

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Re: egomassive's Knytt Stories mod
« Reply #137 on: April 06, 2012, 10:09:05 »
Hooray, decent-looking curly brackets at last! You did a great job tidying up the font and it's much appreciated.

Interesting... when I commented on missing characters earlier, I was specifically referring to the ampersand, which it seems actually is missing; its space is occupied by an underscore. This is an issue that probably shouldn't be fixed for legacy purposes, though.

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Offline LPChip

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Re: egomassive's Knytt Stories mod
« Reply #138 on: April 06, 2012, 14:27:54 »
the underscore is in there twice, I say it should be fixed.
on the left, above my avatar.

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Offline egomassive

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Re: egomassive's Knytt Stories mod
« Reply #139 on: April 07, 2012, 01:45:43 »
I didn't ensure I had the right characters, only that they were readable. Right after posting this I discovered the double quotation mark at the beginning is facing the wrong way. Guess I ought to check them all. Some of them are still a mystery to me, like that short dash before the Registered symbol. Most programs/fonts show nothing when it's typed.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2012, 01:50:22 by egomassive »

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Offline sergiocornaga

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Re: egomassive's Knytt Stories mod
« Reply #140 on: April 07, 2012, 05:33:22 »
the underscore is in there twice, I say it should be fixed.

You're probably right. I guess as long as people are aware ampersands won't work in the original Knytt Stories... or maybe that's not a big deal.

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Offline egomassive

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Re: egomassive's Knytt Stories mod
« Reply #141 on: April 08, 2012, 01:26:12 »
You're probably right. I guess as long as people are aware ampersands won't work in the original Knytt Stories... or maybe that's not a big deal.
Considerations like this are something I've been contemplating.

Backwards compatibility is something I feel is very important for any new version of KS, but I'm not sure it's wise to build backwards compatibility into my level editor. It will be a better tool for making official levels as well as mod levels, but the task of building it for both is daunting. Do I leave it up to level designers to know which functions to use, do I put warning messages everywhere, or do I give the option to disable unofficial features? I'm leaning towards the first because it's the easiest for me and strongly promotes my KS mod. I'm also leaning towards a format 3 restriction, because "ego" levels can crash the official KS.

Edit: 12Apr2010 Progress Report: I've cleaned up the original Sign font, and I'm in the process of making an enlarged version for the Title object. As soon as I get the Title object working I'll release another beta.

3 times zooming is available to those with high definition monitors. Thanks go to Sergiocornaga who tested it for me. I've also altered the way zooming behaves so that you cannot zoom on monitors that are too small to show it properly.

The item bar and full inventory update on the fly now. If you collect a power while holding the Q key it will show immediately as in KS 1.2.1. Some related bugs have been fixed. Some inventory images did not disappear when the player died. Two of the golden creatures were switched in the full inventory, and one of these appeared in the wrong location. Not sure how I missed that before.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2012, 12:58:08 by egomassive »

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Offline sergiocornaga

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Re: egomassive's Knytt Stories mod
« Reply #142 on: April 13, 2012, 19:59:09 »
Do I leave it up to level designers to know which functions to use, do I put warning messages everywhere, or do I give the option to disable unofficial features? I'm leaning towards the first because it's the easiest for me and strongly promotes my KS mod. I'm also leaning towards a format 3 restriction, because "ego" levels can crash the official KS.

I imagine I might use your editor to make normal levels, unless your mod is so good I ditch the vanilla version (frankly, seeming possible). I think the best option is to leave it in the designer's hands, the others options have the potential to be an annoyance for both you and the designer. Would it be a hassle for levels to only be marked as format 3 after an "ego" feature is used? If not, that might be a good compromise, otherwise the format variable isn't a hard thing for most users to change manually.

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Offline egomassive

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Re: egomassive's Knytt Stories mod
« Reply #143 on: April 14, 2012, 02:19:30 »
Would it be a hassle for levels to only be marked as format 3 after an "ego" feature is used? If not, that might be a good compromise, otherwise the format variable isn't a hard thing for most users to change manually.

Even tracking that would be difficult. What if a mod feature is used, but later deleted? How will the editor know? I think it's better to let designers edit the format if they're making 1.2.1 levels. The only automatic solution I can think of would be a wizard that checks for backwards compatibility, but I make no promises that that will happen.

Progress Report: I've finished the larger font for the Title object. Now, I only need to make the subtitle font, and then finish programming it. I'll probably release a new version of the mod within a week.

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Offline Headgrinder

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Re: egomassive's Knytt Stories mod
« Reply #144 on: April 14, 2012, 22:19:05 »
Looking forward to this.  This is probably too big of a modification, but would it be possible to make a layer 8 that is uses tilesets and sets them in front of Juni?  Or else modify the layer 7 so it can be used in that way?

Just curious.  It would save so much object making and guessing where and how to place them.

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Offline egomassive

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Re: egomassive's Knytt Stories mod
« Reply #145 on: April 15, 2012, 01:41:59 »
^That's^ one of the first things I set out to do. My solution was going to be an object that would cause layer 2 to be redrawn between layers 6 and 7. Like the Warp object, you'd just use it any where on a screen to make it work. The tool COs are built on couldn't handle it. Most tools that allow you to draw from a tileset can only paste into the background. It's certainly possible, but doing it fast enough is a problem.

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Offline GrayFace

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Re: egomassive's Knytt Stories mod
« Reply #146 on: April 15, 2012, 15:06:42 »
I'll probably steal the Sign dialog and screen titles for my mod :)

I'm also leaning towards a format 3 restriction, because "ego" levels can crash the official KS.
I already use Format 3, although it's not set by default. I think you should use 4 and reject levels with 3, showing a link to my mod. I would do the same with 4.

I have an idea, I'm not sure if it's been thought of yet, but hey. You could make the music buttons toggles, so you don't have to press down to keep playing them.
I got exactly the same idea after looking at ego's screen. I never actually used the buttons, so after seeing the screenshot I checked them and felt they must be made toggles. They work great as toggles, so I don't think anyone would miss the original functionality. (example: turn on Music and start changing track number, it would be much easier to find the right music this way, and ambients especially)

Remember how I said I was going to post a screen shot after I updated the graphics? No? Well I did say that, and true to my word here it is. (See attachment.) This is not a mock-up. This is an actual screenshot from a running editor.
Seeing sides of adjacent screens is good, but it should be very clear that they belong to different screens. You did it like in KSLC and it's inconvenient for me there, because a simple line isn't enough. Except that, the rearrangement doesn't make sense to me yet, because the ini editor is still almost the same size as it was. In original layout "tabs" could be placed where the background colors are now, so they would go like: "tileset", "Ini editor", "World dialog", "Warps dialog" "Signs dialog", ...

@ Raicuparta: Funny, I've strongly considered KS++. Your suggestion of KS+ is eerily close. I'll have to look into the origins of the double-plus, and see if it's appropriate. At any rate I'd say they're both in the running.
Set KS to KS+1 would be more appropriate :D

I'm considering the addition of Help Contents. While reading through the source I discovered functions I never knew of. For instance, I knew you could flood fill with a Shift+LeftClick but I didn't know you could paint a pattern larger than a single tile or that you could replace all tiles of a kind with a Shift+RightClick. And that's only 2 of the many things I've just learned about the editor in the last few days. Most of it's pretty obscure stuff that doesn't belong in a tutorial, but I'm thinking it should be documented somewhere. Although I'm confident in my ability to write clear descriptions, this isn't something I have to write myself. Is anyone interested in helping me author it?
There is a very brief Help in the About dialog.

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Offline egomassive

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Re: egomassive's Knytt Stories mod
« Reply #147 on: April 15, 2012, 18:11:21 »
I'll probably steal the Sign dialog and screen titles for my mod :)
I'll be sure to post the fonts as soon as they are finalized, in case you want to use them.

I already use Format 3, although it's not set by default. I think you should use 4 and reject levels with 3, showing a link to my mod. I would do the same with 4.
That sounds like a good plan. I think of our mods as parallels, but using the same number could cause confusion.

Seeing sides of adjacent screens is good, but it should be very clear that they belong to different screens. You did it like in KSLC and it's inconvenient for me there, because a simple line isn't enough. Except that, the rearrangement doesn't make sense to me yet, because the ini editor is still almost the same size as it was. In original layout "tabs" could be placed where the background colors are now, so they would go like: "tileset", "Ini editor", "World dialog", "Warps dialog" "Signs dialog", ...
I'm sticking with the layout I've got. I like being able to see everything at once; tiles, ini, and dialogue. I agree that the 1 pixel lines separating the previews from the canvas are inadequate, but the rounded corners make a big difference.

There is a very brief Help in the About dialog.
Yeah, I discovered that right after making the post about help contents. I never would have looked there for help. I've decided that the context bar ought to be enough guidance, but I haven't ruled out making a help manual yet.

Edit: I had planned to post my fonts now, but when I used the large font it looked awful (see attachment.) I was trying to avoid antialiasing, but it looks like I have no choice.


Edit: 16Apr2012: Stayed up all night programming again. Finished the new version of the large font, looks fantastic so you can ignore the hideous one below. Finished implementing the Title object. Discovered that I had broken the red Artifact in the last release, so I fixed that. Have attached a zip with 5 text-blitter fonts for public use.

Will make new release after adding a Title object section to the features demonstration. Then, back to focusing on the editor mod.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2012, 11:15:27 by egomassive »

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Offline GrayFace

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Re: egomassive's Knytt Stories mod
« Reply #148 on: April 16, 2012, 14:16:49 »
I'll make a tool to create a TextBlitter picture out of normal font.

^That's^ one of the first things I set out to do. My solution was going to be an object that would cause layer 2 to be redrawn between layers 6 and 7. Like the Warp object, you'd just use it any where on a screen to make it work. The tool COs are built on couldn't handle it. Most tools that allow you to draw from a tileset can only paste into the background. It's certainly possible, but doing it fast enough is a problem.
Backdrops in layer 2 would do it. I mean the actual MMF layer. I draw the map this way.

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Offline egomassive

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Re: egomassive's Knytt Stories mod
« Reply #149 on: April 17, 2012, 08:07:49 »
I've released version 1.2.ego.5 of this Knytt Stories mod. You can get it in the opening post. The Title object is the biggest addition. There is also a 300% zoom for people with monitor resolutions over 1800px wide. And, I fixed the red artifact which I broke in the last release --without a custom graphic it was invisible. The flag checking code has been tweaked to reduce delay between screens.

Spoiler: Title object details (click to show/hide)

@ GrayFace: The text-blitter has a built in tool, but I found it difficult to work with, especially since it can't force True-Type fonts to act like raster fonts and I was originally avoiding antialiasing. I'll try your layer 2 backdrop suggestion. I haven't looked at the issue since my first month with MMF2. Thanks for the advice. It seems so obvious now. This will take a lot of restructuring though. I'll want to move everything that's already on Layer 2 to Layer 3 (Note to people who are not Gray Face: These are layers in the game engine not the layers you build levels with. The Item Bar is in layer 2 for example.) But, it will be worth it. *gives a star for great idea*