Shifting Sands?

[Guardian of Eternity]

Is it possible to randomly change the height of outdoor floors (to create a shifting landscape)?

 

For cosmetic purposes, I wouldn't want to do it to *every* floor tile outdoors, but key ones with autohills on when the outdoor sections initialize might get the right effect...

 

Question: is it possible?

[Kelandon]

Depending on exactly what you want to do, set_height and get_ran should be able to accomodate you.

 

EDIT: Whew, I had a moment of doubt. Yes, set_height does work in the outdoors.

[Donald Hebb]

Quote:

Originally written by Guardian of Eternity:
...but key ones with autohills on when the OUTDOOR sections initialize might get the right effect...

set_height is futility out-of-doors, son.

[Kelandon]

Um, TM, from the docs, emphasis added:

 

Quote:

void set_height(short x,short y,short height) - Sets the height type at {x,y} to new_height. This call can be used outdoors.

[demonslay3r]

Another possible solution would be to make animated terrains to give the effect. But that not get you what you want, so nevermind.

[Fort]

Please tell me that the terrain will only shift once, and that the height will stay within a very small limit.

 

Otherwise the effect will be very terrible. And there will be a lot of overhead if you want to change the sand while the player is moving around in the section.

 

I don't think you can check for if a certain hill was made with autohills on. But, you could manually set the coordinates for the rectangles that the shifting will occur in. Whatever you do, I'm pretty sure you'll need to do some terrain checking and rectangle loops.

[Guardian of Eternity]

All right, here's the deal for all you inquiring minds. I'd like the terrain to shift every time the outdoor section is re-initialized, i.e. when adventurers emerge from a town/dungeon. It would only be certain sections; I want to keep some sections... er... stable, for dungeon entrances, et cetera.

 

This is going to take plenty of experimenting. I'm gearing up for making the overworld of my scenario... besides this terrain business, I'm looking to absorb plenty of information about wandering monsters, and a night/day cycle for my desert setting.

[Fort]

I should remind you that I don't believe the hill graphic itself will change in observance with the height call, but I'm pretty sure something will happen.

[Lattan]

And regardless of whether you get it to work, you need to be real careful that it doesn't take too long: If I'm reading you right, that's a lot of data for BoA to be working through every time you move into an outdoor section, and some people have pretty slow computers.

[Kelandon]

You can get away with a lot in an INIT_STATE, though. Loading up new areas feels like it takes a while, so players will sit around for a little bit as it loads if necessary. It doesn't seem that bad if it takes somewhat long to load. START_STATEs are the ones where you have to be careful.

[Fort]

Modern computers will reach the breaking point of an endless loop in a split second anyway, and there is always a little, noticeable delay when you enter new outdoor sections anyway.