Rocks'n'Diamonds

Since the time we got the ability to apply custom artwork for empty space, there's one engine which was possibly missed out in terms of limiting that - Emerald Mine engine. If we apply a custom artwork for empty space and then try it on Supaplex or Mirror Magic - it actually doesn't work, which is, I guess, for the better for now. For Emerald Mine engine, though, it does work, but definitely not in the way it's intended to work. You see, it basically renders <<over>> player.





And also, speaking of, there's a strange behavior when applying custom artwork for empty space in MM engine where the rest of unused editor playfield just fills with custom sprites of empty spaces, which was, I guess, the intended behavior of MM editor playfield.

Oops...!

The customizable empty space artwork is only intended to be used in the R'n'D game engine.

Will have to fix these problems -- thanks for reporting them here.

At least fixed the "broken" (visible, because being redefined) off-playfield empty space graphics in the level editor when editing Mirror Magic style levels now!

Also should prevent using redefined empty space graphics in the Emerald Mine game engine...

Speaking of empty space, will we ever be able to apply texture to empty sub-tiles of walls. I did this kind of level preview in main menu with non-black background color, and, obviously, I can't really do much right now with those, so there's a lot of black space around any mini walls

Hm, I am not sure if I understand this right. You are speaking about mini-tile empty space being black, but in your screen shot every empty space is black, so that everything looks fine (or does it not)?

But in general, I understand that it would be nice to be able to replace empty space graphics in mini-tiles with something non-black...

I meant that empty space here is the same color as the background, dark pinkish red, but of course there are black gaps around the mini-tile walls which I can't exactly deal with for now because I can't apply texture for those parts. I hope we will rather be able to apply custom sprites for them or have empty space sprite render behind the mini-tile walls in some way, whichever way is better.

Now I can see it, and know what you mean!

For whatever reason, both the empty parts of the mini-tile elements and the normal empty space looked the same on my monitor! I had to use the screen magnifier and read out the RGB values of the pixels in both elements to notice that one is all-black, while the other is something slightly different than black!

So yes, the "empty" parts of the mini-tile elements should be made of normal empty space!

Actually, this issue now sorta has a manual way to bypass, thanks to the new 'level_nr' animation mode. Basically what I can do is make a global anim with texture of 'preview.xsize'x2 in width and 'preview.ysize'x2 (x2 because subtiles are twice smaller than the normal ones) and map out empty spaces into these textures, where each pixel equates to a sub tile.



Now I can use '.scale_up_factor: 16' for the texture, so in the game it gets scaled accurately to level preview's size and add level_nr animation so it would change frames between each level.



Here it is highlighted with a pink color instead. (Yeah, these levels are 17x17, but that's a placeholder)



One problem though is that this won't be very platform friendly (I at least assume), because there's 10 levels in total, each frame in the input is 98x48 (2x5, 2 frames per line, 5 lines in total), therefore in the output it gets upscaled up to (98x16x2)x(48x16x5) = 3136x3840. At least that definitely works for (maybe) all PC platforms, because, if I recall correctly, for MAC and Linux the size limit is 8192x8192, right? I'm a Windows user, and Windows rather doesn't seem to limit texture sizes or has even higher texture size limit (perhaps 16384x16384), so I don't really know. And I also haven't checked about the Android one, but I'll assume it's rather around the same size limit or perhaps 2048x2048.

Cool workaround, but I should fix this "the right way".

BTW: Does it really work? The "empty tiles" global animation will cover the laser beam, won't it?

Yeah, but the thing is this is preview area, I feel like I mentioned that before. For the game - yeah, that kind of trick won't really do a... trick... erm...
Anyways, this is level preview in main menu, so that kind of trick will work because you can't really screw with it unless you modify the level itself. Btw, what kind of monitor are you using if you can barely distinct that background color from black? I feel like even monitors from early 2010ths were already clear enough to display colors relatively more vividly. Or are you using low brightness or something? I'm just curious.

can i get a 2-4 magicians levelsets please?

amirnatsheh7 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2023 3:32 pm can i get a 2-4 magicians levelsets please?

My guy, first, I'm pretty sure that is a little bit off-topic, second, are you sure that even exists? You might have missed some words in the thread you've seen that in. You're possibly the second person who asks for that, despite the fact the thread is created as a suggestion in the forum "New Ideas" with screenshot mockups to showcase what would that look like.

can i get a 2-4 magicians levelsets please?

Yeah, you're definitely in the wrong thread here...

Yeah, but the thing is this is preview area, I feel like I mentioned that before.

Ouch, now I understand. Sorry, you did mention it, but for whatever reason I didn't get it and assumed live game playing!

Anyways, this is level preview in main menu, so that kind of trick will work because you can't really screw with it unless you modify the level itself.

And you would have to adjust your image to "mask out" those empty spaces each time you change the level...

Btw, what kind of monitor are you using if you can barely distinct that background color from black? I feel like even monitors from early 2010ths were already clear enough to display colors relatively more vividly. Or are you using low brightness or something? I'm just curious.

Perfectly valid question indeed! And I'm happy to give some insights here!

I'm using a Dell U3011 (30" IPS panel) that I bought in 2011 or 2012 (so, you guessed the date very good!), and this is a panel that supports more that the AdobeRGB color space, which is also the factory default color profile of this monitor, and what you can see on this monitor by default could indeed be described as "vivid colors". In fact, it's the same kind of totally crazy "colors" you get by default on most (if not any) new TV screens or most (if not any) new smartphone displays. Colors that are burning into your eyes and brain after only a few minutes of looking at them, showing grass much greener than in reality, red apples brighter and more colorful than any real apple could do, and human faces as if somebody got a bad sunburn -- or as if you have just taken more LSD than is good for you. So I have, of course, changed the monitor's color profile from AdobeRGB to sRGB right away (just as my first action on my latest new smartphone (Samsung S22) was changing colors from "vivid" (or whatever it was called) to "natural" (which also selects something near sRGB I would say). This results in quite usable colors that look more or less natural.

Interestingly, those colors (after selecting sRGB on that Dell monitor) look more or less identical to the colors I got by default on my 2015 MacBook Pro, without ever messing around with color settings, if I remember right. And I would be surprised if colors will look much different on my new MacBook Pro I plan to order in a few days (after my 2015 model has served me well for about 8 years now, and I only plan to replace it to not risk it unexpectedly breaking some day during important work, as I still quite enjoy using it (even though the last upgrade to macOS Monterey did not make it any faster, to say the least)).

Inspecting the screenshot of your "black" and "very dark" colors using "xmag" shows the RGB values of black as (0,0,0) (as expected) and for "very dark" as (1919,0,1515), which is a very dark purple. Apparently dark enough that I nearly did not notice the difference unless I spent high attention to it. (I should also mention that I have set both brightness and contrast on that Dell U3011 to 50 %, as the default of 100 % is so bright that it even looks far too bright in direct sunlight. It is in fact the brightest "bright" I have ever experienced on a monitor so far. Again, having my MacBook Pro directly next to the Dell right now, the maximum (100 %) brightness of the MacBook is only a little bit brighter than the Dell with those 50 % settings.) That said, those screenshots look nearly identical on my Dell monitor and on my MacBook (with default colors and default/maximum brightness), and the difference between the "black" and "very dark purple" is barely visible.

But maybe it's indeed just me: I always thought that the colors in the main menu of "R'n'D Jue" and "R'n'D Jue II" are a bit too dark for my taste. So if you think the screens of these two games (mainly main screens) are colorful, bright and vivid, then it is either my eyes, or you are also using such an over-the-top default color profile.

Holger wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2023 8:25 pm
And you would have to adjust your image to "mask out" those empty spaces each time you change the level...

Yeah, that's why for now I'll leave it blank until I'll finalize levels.
By the way. here's the actual in-game look of this abomination.



In short, it will be the opposite of RF (I think I said that already, but whatever): (relatively) large screen, rough visuals, unfriendly and devastating gameplay which will pretty much mock you with a very limited amount of energy (time) and very little room to navigate despite the playfield being very large. It's also opposite to RF as if it repurposed some of DF elements for MM. Sort of a twisted sibling of RF which you don't want to mess with.


Although, there's one little problem which, I guess, might somewhat go in favor for this devilish levelset. For some reason for this big screen elements' clickboxes are off by few pixels. No idea what exactly causes that, but I'll assume it might be related to the playfield being adjacent to the very top edge of the screen (viewport.playfield.PLAYING.y: 0).

Holger wrote: I'm using a Dell U3011 (30" IPS panel) that I bought in 2011 or 2012, and this is a panel that supports more that the AdobeRGB color space, which is also the factory default color profile of this monitor, and what you can see on this monitor by default could indeed be described as "vivid colors". In fact, it's the same kind of totally crazy "colors" you get by default on most (if not any) new TV screens or most (if not any) new smartphone displays. Colors that are burning into your eyes and brain after only a few minutes of looking at them, showing grass much greener than in reality, red apples brighter and more colorful than any real apple could do, and human faces as if somebody got a bad sunburn -- or as if you have just taken more LSD than is good for you. So I have, of course, changed the monitor's color profile from AdobeRGB to sRGB right away (just as my first action on my latest new smartphone (Samsung S22) was changing colors from "vivid" to "natural". This results in quite usable colors that look more or less natural.

Oh yeah, I had such monitor before which was over-exaggerating the colors to the absolute drug level. It was an LG monitor, if I recall correctly, but can't tell which one exactly. Nowadays I use Philips 241V8L with color set to Color Temperature, and it doesn't really bother my eyes that much comparing to the previous one, yet it's quite clear and it's color distinction for me is good enough for me to very easily distinct that pink-ish red background from the black, it even feels like it's slightly glowing for me. Even more, my desktop which is just dark-blue gradient with a large solid... 'symbol' on the right, and it's bottom color feels even darker than the levelset's background, but it still very much looks like it's not too close to black.

Holger wrote: But maybe it's indeed just me: I always thought that the colors in the main menu of "R'n'D Jue" and "R'n'D Jue II" are a bit too dark for my taste. So if you think the screens of these two games (mainly main screens) are colorful, bright and vivid, then it is either my eyes, or you are also using such an over-the-top default color profile.

Yeah, to be real, the levelset's colors overall are very gray-ish and dim, but that's mostly because it tries it's best to imitate that aesthetic of early CGI back from 1990's to early 2000's, which had very sharp but a bit too dark shadows slight uncanny valley kind of tone to it, and it doesn't age as well as pixel art. Pixel arts have been a thing pretty much since 1970's, but yet nowadays it's the most preferable for the indie game visuals, whether it's more basic but very recognizable 8-bit or a bit (not one, but eight, in fact) more complex and detailed 16-bit style.

Can you show your full sprite graphics?