egomassive's Knytt Stories Plus mod

I've just hit on an idea to remove object flash without single-pass rendering. That would mean no more screen transition delay which is this mod's greatest drawback. It would be a huge undertaking though, so I'm not sure if I'll implement it. I will tinker with the idea and see if it works at least.

I would love you to do it, but then I would also love you to get on with TToK!

The idea seems to have merit and it's not as hard to implement as I thought it would be. I may have a demo in a few days.

Here's the beta of KS+ 1.2.0

This is an experiment to see if I can remove object flash without single-pass rendering. What this version does is draw images of the objects for that one cycle after you enter a new screen and objects haven't appeared yet. In the zip file you'll find only the executable and an image file which holds all those images. You'll need to have a working KS+ setup to use these files with. In the menu where you used to be able to switch rendering methods, you'll now find the ability to turn "Reduce Flash" on and off.

Of course I want your feedback. There are sure to be bugs, especially with CO's and OCO's. Also, if you think any of the stand-in images can be adjusted for smoother transitions, please let me know. Some of the objects (e.g. coins) aren't drawn at all. Does this detract or is it as unnoticeable as I hope?

The first thing i noticed so far is that the Overlay feature is not working like supposed to at all, is this a bug or did you disabled it for the beta? I personally haven't found the coin flash noticeable enough to be bothersome, even on relatively coin-dense areas such as Headgrinder's area on "For Egomassive". What i did found pretty noticeable however is that, on certain collectibles such as powerups and golden creatures, the game will draw it even when it no longer exists/has aldready been collected.

The first thing i noticed so far is that the Overlay feature is not working like supposed to at all, is this a bug or did you disabled it for the beta? I personally haven't found the coin flash noticeable enough to be bothersome, even on relatively coin-dense areas such as Headgrinder's area on "For Egomassive". What i did found pretty noticeable however is that, on certain collectibles such as powerups and golden creatures, the game will draw it even when it no longer exists/has aldready been collected.

Edit: Also, Bank 15, Object 25 right now is being drawn fully opaque before the game assigns it a variable transparency, which can sometimes result in notcieable flashes. And i found out Bank 2, Object 13 is sometimes drawn as 2,12 for some reason.
Also, a copy of certain OCOs appears on the top left, not an image flash, An actual, INTERACTIVE copy of the OCO. This is particulary gameplay-wrecking on Golden Creature OCOs (See attachment: That little disk at the very top? it's supposed to appear in the pit left of juni.)

I hadn't even thought about weather an object has been collected or not. For a lot of things I think the best solution is to never draw it. Small things like enemies have never been that noticeable. It's things like water and waterfalls covering large areas of the screen which are problematic. I don't know why OCO's are freaking out. Very strange. Overlays have gone wrong probably because I added new layers to draw to. One has to go through and change every layer reference manually. *gives star*

A small knyttpick, in the interface showing all collected creatures, 19,50 seems to appear 1 pixel above where its frame suggests it should be.

Thanks Firecat. Took me a single minute to fix it. I think this can wait for the next update. I still have a serious bug where collectibles can be collected from the opposite side of the screen when scrolling. Single-pass rendering is so problematic!

On the alternate version of KS+. The errors you reported are being mysterious. I can't figure out why overlays aren't working.

I think found a bug with the area ambiences. putting a row of 0,38 on the top of an screen (See attachment) causes the ambience to act strangely. When Juni is on the right side of the screen the area objects will work more or less right, but as you move towards the left side of the screen the ambience will start to get silent with a werid tremolo effect regardless of how close you are to the area object.

I think found a bug with the area ambiences. putting a row of 0,38 on the top of an screen (See attachment) causes the ambience to act strangely. When Juni is on the right side of the screen the area objects will work more or less right, but as you move towards the left side of the screen the ambience will start to get silent with a werid tremolo effect regardless of how close you are to the area object.

Area ambiences behave strangely... I noticed this effect a lot when working on For egomassive, but neglected to mention it because I figured it was just how they behaved and I had to work around it. I don't think I used that layout, though, so there may be even more to it.

Area ambiance objects are supposed to adjust the volume according to the closest one. There must be something wrong with the routine. I'll look into it when I get a chance.

I think I've found a bug.

When using a CO version of Bank 17, Obj 8 (the wall climbing ninja) the animation for him throwing his shuriken doesn't work after he's slid down the wall. It does work correctly after he climbs up the wall.

If you need me to post my sprite sheet, please say so, though I'd rather keep it under wraps for now if possible.

@Talps: In the source this looks like it should work fine, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it doesn't. I think this will fix it, KS+ 1.1.3 beta. If it does then I'll have to tweak all the climbers that fire.

Update: I'm in the middle of fixing the area ambiance issue. There are some complex equations at play. I haven't found the problem yet. Here's a screenshot:

Your download link doesn't work. I tried typing it out, making sure to spell 'massive' correctly, and it still didn't work.

Your download link doesn't work. I tried typing it out, making sure to spell 'massive' correctly, and it still didn't work.

This URL works for me.

Thanks. Now I shall be forever mystified by what I was doing wrong.

That's fixed the bug, too.

That's fixed the bug, too.

This is why MMF2 sucks. The shooting sequence only has an upward facing animation, so when shooting the custom graphics should sync with that direction. I have to force the object into the upwards direction (even though it is already in that direction) so that the custom graphics will play correctly. I know this is not how objects were intended to be used by the software developers, but if it has a direction variable it should know which way it is facing. [/rant]

The ambiance problem eludes me. I'm going to revamp the way it iterates through multiple instances.

Side note: I fixed the overlay issues in the alternate version. I was drawing overlays on the same layer I drew the minimap color. So the minimap would erase that layer only upon entering a screen never before visited. Alas, I'm making so many repairs to the main version that I'll have to remake the alternate version from it when I'm finished.