Are your save points and springs failing to animate?

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Offline egomassive

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Are your save points and springs failing to animate?
« on: July 13, 2015, 10:11:54 »
I've noticed an increasingly common issue while running KS+ and original KS. Save points will activate rapidly instead of just once. Also, the bright flash that is supposed to accompany them never appears. Since KS used to work fine, I assume Windows has changed something. I've see it on Win XP and Win 8.1. I used to be able to remedy the issue on XP by restarting the computer, but that no longer works for me on 8.1.

In the source, a save can only be activated if there is no flash on screen. These flashes are destroyed by the same event that creates them. It takes some time for the program to create an object and then destroy it, so it used to work. I'm putting in safety measures in KS+ to insure saves work the way they were meant to, but I'm confused by Spring objects.

Spring object flashes work in a similar way to Save-point flashes, destroyed immediately upon creation. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. But, I found something unexpected! There is supposed to be a little puff of smoke similar to the double-jump. I can't recall ever seeing this. Does anyone remember seeing puffs of smoke with Spring objects? I need to know so I can make KS+ play like the original should.

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Offline plural

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Re: Are your save points and springs failing to animate?
« Reply #1 on: July 13, 2015, 11:03:40 »
Oh wow, I totally noticed this but I thought it was just me because I tried testing it again after seeing that weird echo saving and it didn't happen. I wish I could say I could pinpoint when it stopped happening but I was about to post about this a week ago but then I started testing it again and it was suddenly not doing the rapid save activation. I'm sure it fixed itself after a restart but I couldn't tell you what difference there was before or after, or even when the specific restart happened. I'm using Windows 7.

Anyway,  I only remember springs having the oval transparent-yellow glow when you bounced on them but it's hard for me to remember before KS+, honestly.

Maybe some old Knytt Stories Let's Plays will show it?

EDIT: Oh, and I never encountered the springs being weird like the saves because I probably just never encountered one while I was experiencing the bug.
« Last Edit: July 13, 2015, 11:08:30 by plural »

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Offline LPChip

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Re: Are your save points and springs failing to animate?
« Reply #2 on: July 13, 2015, 13:00:25 »
I remember the puff of smoke on the spring object, but I have been betatesting the thing, and I'm not sure if the released version had them too or not.
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Offline Talps

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Re: Are your save points and springs failing to animate?
« Reply #3 on: July 13, 2015, 13:36:40 »
I don't recall ever seeing bouncers smoking or showing any odd behaviour. I have a vague feeling I might have seen saves triggering rapidly but if I have then it's so rare a glitch that I've never really registered it properly.

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Offline egomassive

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Re: Are your save points and springs failing to animate?
« Reply #4 on: July 13, 2015, 15:10:05 »
Watching old "Let's Play" videos was a good idea. These effects used to appear and fade out slowly. Not sure why they aren't doing it anymore. Must be a feature of the MMF engine that has become outdated by Windows updates. If so, it's going to be fun finding a work around. ... It appears they both use the built in "Fade" transition effect. Objects which are manually programmed to fade seem to be working fine, e.g. water bubbles. I'll just have to make these fade manually too.

Edit: I've fixed it in KS+, will be in the next release. They look and work so much better, just like they used too. I'm putting the details here for any other modders who are interested.

The save effect is supposed to take 1.43 second to fade out. I approximated this with 7 frames, the final frame being all black, running at a speed of 24 centiseconds. So, we reach all black at 1.44 seconds. Note, the draw method is Add, so only the bright parts of the image are seen.

The spring effect is supposed to take 1.1 second to fade out. I imitate this with 6 frames, the final frame being all black, running at a speed of 22 centiseconds. So, we reach all black at 1.1 seconds. Note, the draw method is Add, so only the bright parts of the image are seen.

Below is a sprite sheet for the 2 animations. The individual frames would need to be separated to their own images to be imported into MMF.
« Last Edit: July 13, 2015, 18:58:58 by egomassive »