I like that grave but it's a bit pixelated. Otherwise I love it.

yeah I like the grave

Ok now im finished!

Could we roadmap it?

Yes, lets.

Just got to wait for Steve.

Actually even as we speak I am working on a new feature for the website. You will soon be able to Roadmap suggestions yourself!

Wait but if you can roadmap it yourself then you can roadmap the stupidest and craziest ideas!

Steve could yoou roadmap this?

When you say "You" were you talking to everybody or just like a few. Because yeah, people could put some pretty rediculous stuff.

THE NOTHING *in roadmap*

Description:He is just nothing
Comments:
You have got to be kidding me
Why is this in the roadmap?
Worst idea ever!

I think the user-roadmapping is what he was talking about as having your own personal roadmap of things that *you* want to do.(yourself)

Maybe you could only roadmap it if there were enough 4.00 or higher ratings?

->self-voting say no.

I don't know.Im just waiting for this to be roadmapped.

There is a catch - if you roadmap it you are also saying that you will do it.

Oh no.But some people don't know how to program the stuff in the game.Steve it will be hard for everybody even me!
Could you roadmap this one please.

Good idea Steve.

Wait.About the "do" part.
The person just has to do the animations,graphics and all that.Then it gets offcialy roadmapped by Steve?

*Sorry for asking again but could you roadmap this please?*

I believe people will help if it is good enough. The TMB community isn't that mean IMO, not to help people who don't have necessary knowledge on some of the harder stuff.

Probably it would mean graphics at the minimum, even you have learnt it. It seems even Erik will do nice gfx sooner or later.
But learning programming takes a LOT of more time than just learning the easy steps to make graphics. After all, while the casts are easy to duplicate, you need experience alot as well in order to come over any obstacles. And who would want copied monsters anyway?

Yeah, I'm not really expecting much help with the coding but then I've always been surprised in the past. And there are at least two TMB members who have done coding, I think.

Once you've done the work, there will be a facility to upload it. Then it will be reviewed, and then I will merge it into the project.

The first phase though will only go as far as marking it as done. Then I'll do the upload bit, then I'll probably skip the review bit and go straight on to the merge bit, and then I'll decide that actually the review bit is necessary and go back and do that.

So like this:
I do the graphic for the enemy or whatever.
I send it to a special "facility"
It gets checked
(*QUESTION:If you miss a thing like the animation or the grave will it be marked wrong or unfinished?*)
You merge it into a special project.

Animation probably will be easier to notice, but a grave is so fast to draw I doubt it will be a problem.

Yeah, it's easy to forget grave, but not so easy to forget if the image has animation or not?

Ya I don't see reels and graves too often.Well I don't tend to make them except for this enemy.

Yup. it would have to be absolutely ready for the game in order to go in.

so wouldn't this guy be in the game?I 've done evrything.

Someone still needs to program it, but I doubt that will be a big problem, since it's so similar to the real king which is already made.

Someone else could do that now, asides from adding the graphics...

->make a replica of the act_kingInGame (or something like that) and change the #team to be #scarlet (as opposed to #aldevar) (at some point the #name would also need to change to get the correct gfx, but, what evs.)

Let's see you've got attack, walk, and grave.

Still need reel - that's just one frame if you copy the existing king.

I am not so sure on how to do the reel.

Its just a picture.

You could do it like the warrior. He ducks behind his shield.

So his head is behind a shield?Ok.

Just take the reel image that there is currently and recolor it.

Oh whoops.Sorry,I didn't know that there already was a reel image I could edit.

Can someone send me a reel image of him? I can't find it in the fan_kit.

You have the reel image at the very top, in the suggestion itself=O

Here it is again.

So how come people say I need to do the reel. I am finished then right?

I think so, yes.
And using note's simple guidelines you will be able to implement him too.

Well I see the guidelines but I don't realy understand...

->make a replica of the act_kingInGame (or something like that) and change the #team to be #scarlet (as opposed to #aldevar) (at some point the #name would also need to change to get the correct gfx, but, what evs.)

I really need this in baby language for me.

I guess you should just wait for someone to program it in.

->make a replica of the act_kingInGame (or something like that)
This would mean to make a copy of the cast file.

and change the #team to be #scarlet (as opposed to #aldevar)
There is a line which defines the team, so just change it from #aldevar to #scarlet.

(at some point the #name would also need to change to get the correct gfx, but, what evs.)
You will need to rename it to be a new thing - otherwise the game would read it as the same file I suppose, then change the image data so that your recolors will be there instead.

Where could I find the cast file?

First of all, are you using the newest mr?
then its under casts/data

Oh nvm.
I did everything. So now what do I do? I did all the changing.

Aren't the gfx embedded in the DIR file?

I found the cast file, I changed everything. So what do I do now. See:
[#name: "act_scarletkingInGame", #type: #field]
[
#objType: #objCPUCharacter,
#AiType: #objAiCPU,
#inherit: #CPUCharacter,
#character: #friendlyCharacter,
#damageSpeed: 2.5,
#dexterity: 3,
#energy: 300,
#inertia: 60,
#miniMapStatus: #fre,
#stallSpeed: 1,
#stallSpeedIncLevel: 1,
#strength: 15,
#strengthIncLevel: 1,
#team: #scarlet,
#name: "scarletkingInGame",
#walkSpeed: 4.5,
#weapon: #scarletkingSword,
#weaponTechniqueInc: 3.5
]

Oh darn it. Don't I have to change it to evil character. Ok here.
[#name: "act_scarletkingInGame", #type: #field]
[
#objType: #objCPUCharacter,
#AiType: #objAiCPU,
#inherit: #CPUCharacter,
#character: #evilCharacter,
#damageSpeed: 2.5,
#dexterity: 3,
#energy: 300,
#inertia: 60,
#miniMapStatus: #fre,
#stallSpeed: 1,
#stallSpeedIncLevel: 1,
#strength: 15,
#strengthIncLevel: 1,
#team: #scarlet,
#name: "scarletkingInGame",
#walkSpeed: 4.5,
#weapon: #scarletkingSword,
#weaponTechniqueInc: 3.5
]

Wrong.
You did what note said, but that's wrong I think. Let me have a go(of course, this may be wrong too.. butl et's see):

[#name: "act_scarletkingInGame", #type: #field]
[
#objType: #objCPUCharacter,
#AiType: #objAiCPU,
#inherit: #CPUCharacter,
#character: #evilCharacter,
#damageSpeed: 2.5,
#dexterity: 3,
#energy: 300,
#inertia: 60,
#stallSpeed: 1,
#stallSpeedIncLevel: 1,
#strength: 15,
#strengthIncLevel: 1,
#team: #scarlet,
#name: "scarletkingInGame",
#walkSpeed: 4.5,
#weapon: #kingSword,
#weaponTechniqueInc: 3.5
]

Just for reference, characters related to Scarlet, I think including Scarlet, have scw at the front--I would call him scwKing or scwKingInGame.

If you are using the same animation for the king's attack, I would recommend using the king's weapon, rather than making a new one. I also upped the scarlet team's strength a bit versus their Aldevarian counterparts, and I know that #evilCharacter does not exist, you should find that tag in the scarlet warrior or a goblin's cast. Also, get rid of the minimap status, you want it to appear as #inf, which is the same as removing it, but it would take fewer calculations to take it out of this cast.
The #name of course(and only the #name), until the graphics are added to the engine, should be the same as the king's, since you'll want at least some sort of animation for him. Then you will want to add it to the tileset definition(mr4Objects, I think), somewhere that it says #none. Then, count where it is(hint, in each row, there is 8 characters, do the math) and add that number to a place on a map(replace a 0) in the map_to_play folder. You'll want to put it somewhere in the middle of an objects array, where there is nothing #solid underneath it.

Well, mine was almost correct. I've never actually bothered to read any other scarlet unit's file, I wouldn't have known.
Yeah, I figured that removing minimapstatus would trigger the default attribute, which would be #inf.

Wait so what is the proper way?

hooray for inheritance!
Something like:

[#name: "act_scwkingInGame", #type: #field]--change the file name accordingly, you'll want to take out any of my comments before trying to use it (notified by --, the lingo comment)
[
#objType: #objCPUCharacter,
#AiType: #objAiCPU,
#inherit: #CPUCharacter,
#character: --Not sure what to put here,
#damageSpeed: 2, --I think down is the direction to make things stop reeling faster, I can't quite remember
#dexterity: 3,
#energy: 300,
#inertia: 60,
#stallSpeed: 1,
#stallSpeedIncLevel: 1,
#strength: 22,
#strengthIncLevel: 1.5,
#team: #scarlet,
#name: "kingInGame",--once the gfx are in, change it to "scwKingInGame"
#walkSpeed: 4.5,
#weapon: #kingSword,--if you want to make a new weapon, #scwKingSword
#weaponTechniqueInc: 4,
#atkType: #melee --for forward compatibility
]

I think most of that will work, asides from needing to change the #character.

But what will be the #character then?

look on another enemy.

Ok here is the dark golem's stuff.
[#name: "act_darkGolem", #type: #field]
[
#objType: #objCPUCharacter,
#AiType: #objAiCPU,
#inherit: #CPUCharacter,
#attack:
[
#animframe: [7, 14],
#animType: #naturalRanged,
#bullet: #darkRock,
#collisionLoc: point(0,0),
#cooldown: 0,
#firingType: #fullstrength,
#name: #throwBoulder,
#reach: 150,
#sound: "darkGolem_fire"
],
#damageSpeed: 3,
#dexterity: 10,
#dieSound: "boulder_die",
#energy: 750,
#experienceImWorth: 50,
#eyestrain: 25,
#frictionReel: point(50,50),
#inertia: 50,
#startingLevel: 0,
#strength: 20,
#team: #monsters,
#name: "darkGolem",
#walkSpeed: 1,
#weaponTechnique: 0
]

In that case remove it and it'll default to whatever's in the act_character.

So no #character

So can we make the full programming for the king now note?

Note! I am almost finished with all the programming. I fixed almost everything. I just need to know how to change the gfx.
Please tell me as soon as possible. :)

That is all I need to know. How to change the gfx's.

unfortunately you need director, since steve is having(had) difficulty with getting the graphics removed from the file :(

I might be able to think of a solution to that problem, but I haven't really put the time into figuring out what director can do with files and such.

@steve: you would have a folder in the casts dubbed gfx, which would be a bunch of text files, which have the information about each graphic, inside each of these files would be a link to a file in the actual gfx folder (maybe it could use the folder of graphics already in the mrOpen folder?) I'm not sure if you can set things such as the centre point or bounding box in the code, and if not, this wouldn't work very well, but then again, neither would anything else!

Darn it! I was so close!

Well I downloaded Director MX 2004. I also downloaded Fireworks just to test it out. The problem is that I am having troubles opening the programs. Everytime I click "open" it doesn't do anything. It shows the loading cursor but after 6-8 seconds it turns into a normal cursor and then that is it. If you have any solutions, please tell me.

Anyways, I would like to know how long it would to take to add these gfx's. Could you also tell me how to do it?
Oh also, Note if I can't get around with Director, could you do the rest please?

I have no clue why direction is not working. It might be glitching due to windows? Mine did, but now it seems to work quite nicely... I think its looking to add some registry files, you'll want to open it in admin mode I think.


Adding graphics is a serious pain. (I'm not sure if this step is necessary) In fireworks, you will want to concatenate the layers of each frame,(done by Ctrl-A when in the cursor tool, then ctrl-shift-Z? something like that... the function is called merge down I do believe) then you will need to copy the result into a cast in director (done with ctrl-c, then open the director file, and in one of the smaller windows that opens with it, you will find the cast libraries, select gfx, and go to the bottom of the list. Then select an empty one, following whatever pattern there[otherwise it gets difficult to find/select all the anims for one character] is with the rest of the gfx, and use ctrl-V)
Do that for each frame, you may want to look at the other anims for the general order to paste your gfx into. (save now)

Naming. Now that all the graphics are into the director file, they need to be named. A name consists of a couple parts, which define how the image will be used, and are divided by underscores "_". First is the flag "anm" which defines the cast as an animation. Then, is the name of the graphic, which corresponds to the #name of the character(s) associated with it. Next is the anim type. This matches with the weapon/attack's #animType. (it can be #naturalMelee; #naturalRanged; #weaponMelee; #weaponRanged; #magic, which contains a couple others; or #magicMelee, the one I put together for energy punch, but acts just as a second #melee)(whoo, grammar just leveled up!)(Lists separated by semi-colons with extra info given as epithets... well only one of those was actually an epithet, but what evs)
It can also be #walk, #stand or #grave. (or if its magic, another set is necessary: #charge, #release, #chargeWalk, and #releaseWalk... and you will want a reference before using those four, I prolly wrote them wrong)

Projectiles can be one of #fly, #land, or #explode. For all names and such, leave out the #, it only describes how it will be read by mr.

The next part describes how many frames the image should be seen before moving to the next one, the most common is 03.

Finally, the last number is the index of the frame. It describes the order in which to display the frames, starting with index 00 (I think, it may start at 01, you should check that out when you are actually adding them by looking at the other graphics already in the library)and counts up.

How I name is to name the first one, say anm_kingInGame_walk_03_0 then copy it(high-lite it, then Ctrl-C)and add in the index number, then I select the next one, and paste/add its index. then on the tenth one, I paste it, and change the last 0 to a 1, then copy it again and continue. While going through you should maybe be checking the "property inspector" on the right hand panel, to make sure that the bounding box will fit to the size of the graphic, rather than whatever you try to select in the cast with the box-y select-y tool in the built in gfx editor. This gave me some problems in setting tiles for the map editor, as well as spell summon tiles.

Finally, if you haven't done so already match the names of your characters to those of the graphics, and ...(I think) That's It!

Wow.

I think steve has a pogram which auto-renames files for this purpose. It might be in the utilities section. I have not tried to use it.

*program

So could you help with this king?

I might change the colour scheme on him if I do, such that he matches the rest of the scarlet team. (change the scarlets to grey/silver-y and the dark grey to scarlet)

It is ok if you change the colors. I just wish for you to help.

Well I finally got Director trial working. Now I can program stuff in. Yay! For the 30 days though...
So Note, could you tell me what to do if I myself wanted to add something in the later future because there are thousands of tools for this program and I am confused.

The couple paragraphs relate to adding enemies, the second, on figuring out the structure of the game engine.

As long as its not the newest one; otherwise, your saves will not be backwards-compatible.(Aka, neither steve nor I will be able to open it)
In the toolbar under file, edit, view, and etc,
you will spot a play button. Click on the button two left of it, it kinda looks like a gridmap. This is where you will be doing most everything.
Once there, click on the gfx tab. Then, scroll down until you get to an enemy similar to the one you want to put in (aka a spellcaster, melee, ranged(etc))

Adding stuff in: start loading in your graphics, one frame per cast(copy a frame, select a cast, paste it in). Put them all at the bottom. Include everything in the same manner as your chosen example, like... the same ordering, if there are doubles of certain frames, such as graves, do likewise.

Naming: next, you need to give each frame a name. The convention is: anm_enemyName_animType_frameLength_frameNumber

anm describes the cast as an animation, so the collections master can find it when it initialises everything.
enemyName corresponds to the #name in the character's data
animtype corresponds to the #animType in the character's attack definition. If the character uses a weapon, this is defined in the weapon's data.
framelength is how long to show the frame, typically this is 3, but if you want certain frames to run faster or slower, you can make the number smaller or bigger, accordingly.
frameNumber: pretty selfevident, now that you've done some animation, starts at one for each animType.

Programming, of course is a whole different matter. The main logistics is that each character is made up of an aiGameObject, which holds a gameObject and an ai.(which corresponds to many other objects) then, they have modules installed on them for extra abilities. Every frame or so, the object updater runs, going through each object and telling it to update itself. Each character also registers with a couple masters, such that they can interact with one another.(effectively talk to each other, asking things like, where are you? and are you dead?) If the masters then tell the character to attack(and its say, a melee attack) the teamMaster will then figure how who gets hit, and down the line, how much damage and kickback it'll do to everyone who gets hit, on the frames labeled as #attackFrame.
a good way to figure out some of these interactions is to open a script or a master(some are better choices than others) and place a breakpoint somewhere in the middle. You can do this by clicking on the line number of the script, it'll put down a little red dot, and whenever the script gets to that line, it'll stop(break) everything, and the script window will turn into the debug window. on the left you will find the tree of connections, as seen from the point of view of the script/object that you've opened. If you want to see info relating to the masters, you can then start opening the variable called g(hit the plus beside it) It will then expand into a list of every master. You can continue through and find some interesting stuff like this!

A little note before you do that, first you will want to open the cast in the tab "main", called main(its the first one). This is what actually runs(to start with) you will need to go into the startMovie function, (starts with "on startMovie" in blue and green)
the find the section of code:

 
  -- load in the programming scripts before doing anything else
 
  gLoadError = false
 
  errors = loadScripts()
 
  if errors then
 
    gLoadError = true
 
    return
 
  end if

hilight it, and right click. press on comment.
doing this will prevent the game from loading in the scripts each time, and erasing the (written)work(the graphics are safe) you do on the game. To make the game run, you go back to the big toolbar at the top, and hit play. If there's nothing open to show the movie running, click the button next to play.(the "stage" you can also go to Windows/stage)

It is kind of hard to understand...for me. The gfx loading is quite simple. Could you specifically tell me where the gfx tab is? I could not find it.
I don't understand all the programming though. :(

It could be awesome if you could make one of those picture tutorials like Steve graphic tutorial.

I circled it in red;)
Things might be different depending on which director you have. Therefore I circle a bunch of other ways of getting there:
If you can see the cast viewer but there's an extra thing on top of it: press the button circled in green. If you cannot find this button, go to windows, circled in orange, and select score(it should start as checkmarked, you want it unchecked)
If you have not gotten to the cast view, you can hit the button in pink, or again, go to the orange menu, and select cast, then gfx.

If you have the cast window up, but not the gfx library open, you can hit the tab circled in red.

You can also hit the light blue button, and select gfx.

Or, you can go into window, circled in orange, select cast, and then from the submenu, select gfx.

If you can find none of the above in your edition of director, you should take a look at your help files, under (table of contents) using director/score, stage, and cast.
Hope that works! Otherwise, post a screenshot of where you get to!

Could you tell me which version you have Note?

I'm using MX 2004.

(I have used most of them though, and can figure out how to get stuff working, just don't use one made by Adobe, they aren't backwards compatible)
(steve uses mx, which is a lot alike to mx 2004)

Mine says Director 8.5.

That *should* work.
Now that you've got your gfx added and named, there is one more thing that you need to do: Set the center points(also referred to as the hotspot, registration point, origin, reference, etc).

When you open a graphics file and scroll through your animations (using the left and right arrow keys works pretty well) you will find that the pictures kinda jump around a bit. (the image shifts to the left or right, up or down) To fix this, you need to select the registration point tool in the graphics editor(what you are seeing the images it) Its button is a circle with a cross in it. (actually, its how you would see a circle in an engineering drawing, which is to say, a circle with two perpendicular centerlines coincident in it, but that is besides the point)
It will then draw what it thinks the centerpoint of the drawing is.(its where the horizontal and vertical lines intersect)
You can change this point by clicking on your sprite.(the lines will move to indicate that this has happened) This tool stays active as long as those lines are shown, so don't make extra clicks once you've got your point!

Tips on setting centerpoints:
-put it roughly in the middle of the sprite
-put it someplace that is easily recognizable in the sprite, Aka, have the have it lined up with features in the sprite. Its best if the things you reference to don't move much in any of the animations.

Example: say you have a guy with a shield: a good centerpoint will horizontally line up with the top of the shield(touching the underside of the black pixels, overtop might have it be too high) and be between his eyes.

The centerpoint is also what the game engine will compare to when determining stuff like #collisionLoc and #power.
When you are looking at these(and other similar tags), you should start at the centerpoint, and count how many pixels to the right, and how many pixels down it takes to get to where you want the character to do damage.

I'm not sure what experience you have with plots or negative numbers, so I'll simplify this a bit. when the value given needed for a tag is in a point(x,y) where x and y are numbers (Ex. point(1,1)) you go x to the right of the centerpoint, and y down from it. If you need to go to the left, or up, you would put a - infront of how far away it is.

For this enemy, I suggest using the same registration point as the regular king's. It will make life a little bit easier for you. Of course, you are free to experiment and try it out for yourself!

The instructions aren't really for this type of Director. The places that you are telling me to go to aren't there.

Post some screen shots and I'll point them out.

Got it. I will do it soon!

How goes it?

Fine.

hmm. I been thinking about this, and if the prince's are all vultures(sarcastic ones at that) should the king(s) be giant/multi-headed vultures as well(this was suggested some time back, I'll have to look for it)

Sounds cool! I thing it should shoot long line of lightning instead of tiny little bolts. :)

That the vultures are princes does not preclude human princes.

There can still be kings. :)

exactly

Cool.

Herm...I was thinking about making this suggestion, but I thought it was silly.-___-

It wouldn't be that silly.

Should the axe up there be completely blue?

I keep wondering how would the enmies react with each other like would there be a wizard to summon out the troops and if soo would there be a limit to how many he could summon before he is forced to go ahead and punch merlin in the face also how would the king give commands on both sides would he re direct the soliders and tell them you group go over there and you go over there archers stand a good distance away and get a clear shot at the wizard hey bring another tower builder in merlin we need it to take down that dragon it would be great if he could command the soldiers like that and use tatics to help either merlin or the black sorceror (anti) king

Thank you for making a 128 word sentence.

Makes it easier to read and understand if you split the idea up into several shorter sentences, okay?

And yeah, I'm bored.

hey it was a idea i thought about all at once i couldnt split it and I was a little excited when i thought of it

Blimey. Let me have a go

"
I keep wondering how the enemies would react with each other. For example, would there be a wizard to summon out the troops? If so, would there be a limit to how many he could summon before he is forced to go ahead and punch merlin in the face?

Also, how would the king give commands on both sides? Would he re-direct the soldiers and tell them
'This group go over there and that group go over there. Archers stand a good distance away and get a clear shot at the wizard. Hey! Bring another tower builder in! Merlin, we need it to take down that dragon.'

It would be great if he could command the soldiers like that and use tatics to help either merlin or the black sorceror (anti) king.

"

Actually some good ideas in there, once you've deciphered it!

I think I might try getting this finito before the next update.

Thanks ♪!