Parallax scrolling

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 4:34 pm

Just another little demo, it's sort of like Motos (arcade game) or the multi floors in Zelda 3

A few things:-

Zomis, as you can see "exiting/entering" a CE isn't fast enough for animation, I hope you see what I mean now (it scrolls after moving)

It doesn't parallax scroll when the screen is static (anybody want to guess how I did that?)

You can fall off

Unlike the method I used in snakebite (entering exiting a CE under the player), I realised you don't need a CE under you! Just use player enters space! (strangely this works in sand!)

I also didn't know that you could use OffsetX,Y (and with minus numbers)
I thought those commands where for title screen artwork only!
This is great because you don't have to define all the frames for each pixel scroll, all you need to do is to duplicate your tile 3 times in a PCX, like this:-

And thats it! Now you can smoothly scroll and wrap-around this PCX in 4 directions (diagonals to)

I will be using offsetX,Y all the time from now on

http://www.ambience.2restinpeace.com/parallax.zip

_Darkon · Post by **_Darkon** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 10:37 am

Wow, great stuff! Ill be having a play around with that later!
(the X, Y offset that is).
Ive been wondering for quite some time if that was possible but never actually tried it, shame on me :p
Should make things like magic walls and water waves alot easyer now along with any other random things I can think of.
Also means Ill be able to reduce the size of certain graphics dramatically such as the pipe mania pipes, all I'll need is a pipe full of water and a pipe with none in, of course Ill need to edit the pipe graphics themselves... but bah, should be fine, I'll have to keep the diagonal pieces the same however...

Zomis · Post by **Zomis** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 5:16 pm

Ah, beautiful

Indeed I understand what you mean now Alan, very nice! And yeah, I see the little bug (or maybe it should be called "the need for a new feature"..

).
Very nice.. and I think a teleporter to a specific target for different falls can also be possible... somehow...*thinking*

Post by **Holger** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 5:58 pm

Veeery cool -- great work! :-)

(Works best with "scroll delay" disabled in the setup menu, btw!)

> "exiting/entering" a CE isn't fast enough for animation, I hope you see
> what I mean now (it scrolls after moving)

Seems that I should re-introduce a "player just starts entering" condition...

> It doesn't parallax scroll when the screen is static (anybody want to
> guess how I did that?)

No idea! But seems to work fine (and adds a lot to the effect, of course!)

> I also didn't know that you could use OffsetX,Y (and with minus numbers)

Jup, look at that CE example level set "example: custom artwork" which I posted once -- it uses exactly that "(diagonal) one-pixel offset" graphics! :-)

> I will be using offsetX,Y all the time from now on

Yep, one can do nice things without big bitmaps using this technique! :-)

Darkon · Post by **Darkon** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 6:27 pm

Oh, one quick question, why is Rockford blissfully smiling as he falls to his doom?

Also, hold left(right or down) after youve fallen and youll notice the lower floor acts a little odd, parts of it move while others dont for the first step

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 11:59 pm

Should make things like magic walls and water waves alot easyer now

Honestly, a good chunk of snakebite graphics could of been skipped using this command!...... bah!

Oh, one quick question, why is Rockford blissfully smiling as he falls to his doom?

Because he knows he's not going to die?

or maybe it should be called "the need for a new feature"

Hehe, looks like Holger is already on it!

Seems that I should re-introduce a "player just starts entering" condition...

If you are going to do it, I'd call it "Player moves joystick" , it's a high level command that'll be executed before everything else(?) .....and it may save a bit of confusion to.

While where here, why not add "if scrolling [direction]" to?

Post by **Holger** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 2:06 am

> Hehe, looks like Holger is already on it!

Well, sort of (not yet)... :-)

> > Seems that I should re-introduce a "player just starts entering"
> > condition...
> If you are going to do it, I'd call it "Player moves joystick" , it's a high level
> command that'll be executed before everything else(?) .....and it may
> save a bit of confusion to.

Well, moving the joystick does not necessarily result in player movement.

I more thought of the following:
- player enters (new)
- player entered (previously "player enters")
- player leaves (new)
- player left (previously "player leaves")

and maybe
- player moves (new)
- player moved (new)

> While where here, why not add "if scrolling [direction]" to?

Because scrolling of the screen is purely related to the graphics engine and not to the game engine. Even though you only need it for pure graphical purpose here, it would still be an engine condition, triggering engine actions.

asiekierka · Post by **asiekierka** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 8:17 pm

Sorry for refreshing, but it's like a emulated RND 3D graphics! you are on cutted paper, and you cant fall under it because you're killed!

great!