Questions about currently undocumented functions

[Gambit37]

I'm finding functions in the wiki that have no docs yet, will ask about them here:

dsb_viewport_distort(effect)
Sounds interesting! What does this do and how can we use it?

dsb_animate(bitmap, frames, frame_delay)
Can we get an example? I'm not clear how to define the sequence of frames?

[Joramun]

I'm finding functions in the wiki that have no docs yet, will ask about them here:

dsb_viewport_distort(effect)
Sounds interesting! What does this do and how can we use it?

The viewport distort is a function that displaces the pixels.
A good example can be found in MFI's dungeon with the Quake "underwater effect"

gfx.bmp = dsb_animate(bitmap, frames, frame_delay)
Can we get an example? I'm not clear how to define the sequence of frames?

This one is very easy: it cuts "bitmap" horizontally into a number (frames) of sub-bitmaps and switches the bitmap displayed on screen by the next sub-bitmaps every "frame_delay" (number of ticks)

Example: Say you have two images of the same size: Goblin, and goblin frowning, and want the front view of the goblin to alternate every 3 frames. Make one image, double-horizontal size (named double_goblin), with one copy on the left half, the other on the right half, and do: gfx.goblin_anim = dsb_animate(double_goblin, 2, 3)

Am I clear ? I'll release a dungeon with a lot of stuff like that

[Gambit37]

The viewport distort is a function that displaces the pixels.
A good example can be found in MFI's dungeon with the Quake "underwater effect"

Oooh, sounds nice, I'll have to check that out. Is there a download somewhere?

Make one image, double-horizontal size (named double_goblin), with one copy on the left half, the other on the right half

Oh, that's annoying. I build up frames in layers in a Photoshop document, then export each layer to it's own image. Having to then put all that into a super wide image is extra work and makes creating animations less flexible (if you want to add an extra frame, that's a lot of fiddling with moving things around and making a space). It also means if you have 20 frames of a 640px image, your image will be way too wide to view as thumbnails in Windows Explorer, which I use to rapidly identify resources.

I wonder if this can be improved to use a table of individual files instead?

[Sophia]

If you want to just test it out, add something like this to your startup code:

Code: Select all

function go_underwater()
   dsb_viewport_distort(DISTORTION_UNDERWATER)
end

Then just invoke it via a "function_caller" somewhere.

There will be other distortions in DSB 0.48, and I'll try to better document it then.

I wonder if [dsb_animate] can be improved to use a table of individual files instead?

Good idea. I'll look into doing exactly that.

[Gambit37]

I tried doing the distortion by assigning the function to a wall button -- when I press it, everything goes black!?

[Sophia]

It's very murky water...

...

I have a few bugs to fix, it seems.