The Other Transparent!

[ShadowTiger]

Being that this is ZQuest help, I am going to help everyone else here! There is a simple way to set transparencies, without even slowing your system!
It does use layers though, but will not need you to check the transparent box. Some of you may have thought of it already, but seeing as it's not here, I'll post it. So without further stalling,

1) Set aside the tile you want Link to walk behind, and make a backup copy of it nearby. Now tile edit it, making every other tile transparent. (OXOXOXOXOX) And on the next row down (XOXOXOXOXO, so there is no transparent block that is touching another, no non-transparent block that is touching another non-transparent block) Put that in your combo page.

2) Now put the original tile (without the edits) next to that edited tile in your combo page. Set it to have full walkability. Now put that tile on the ground where Link will walk.

3) Have the editied tile with every other block transparent as the layer. Make sure it is in the same position as the walkable floor tile. Now whenever Link steps on it he will partly show through the layer, and it will still look like a layer because the tile behind the layer is a copy of the tile in the layer!

[Cloral]

Even better yet - make the overlapping layer have 2 frames of animation, one like

XOX
OXO
XOX

and the other

OXO
XOX
OXO

and set them to animate at 0 delay. The effect may be a bit less than perfect, but overall it works quite well. And you don't have to worry about paletting issues either.

[C-Dawg]

This is why we need an updated tutorial. Techniques like this have been described many, many times in various ZQ forums in the past. I'll put in my two cents here.

There were two schools of thought six months ago on the transparency issue. One was to set a 0-time 2-frame animation so that you could see through the tile, either with one totally solid tile and one blank one, or with the hybrid that Cloral suggests. The problem with this is that the tile will look ugly in gameplay- especially if there are alot of them, as in the case with a large fog bank. You will see solid lines where the Zquest engine isnt updating at exactly the same rate in your 0-speed animation... at least I always do on my machine.

The other school of thought was the crosshatching idea. This one works alot better, and it's the one that was used back on the NES to get transparency effects when applicable. That method still has a big advantage over using the transparency provided with Zquest- it's cheaper on your processor. The program doesnt have to compute the color to display every time it redraws the screen; this makes a noticeable difference in gameplay. (Again, on my machine anyway) But, of course, if you cross-hatch you cant have very detailed tiles, because you're working with essentially one-half the resolution.

So, for big leaf-sunlight patterns in your forest, I'd go with cross hatching. For a smoother effect on things like a ghost or light through a window, the transparency works better.

-C

PS : There's also some very cool special effects you can do with some creative animating and combining cross-hatching and transparencies. But I wont describe it here. You'll have to get to the end of Dreams of Yesterday (just released in QA&D) to see it. ;)

[ZeldaFan001]

Originally posted by C-Dawg

PS : There's also some very cool special effects you can do with some creative animating and combining cross-hatching and transparencies. But I wont describe it here. You'll have to get to the end of Dreams of Yesterday (just released in QA&D) to see it. ;)

There is also a link to it in my signature for easy access! :)

[C-Dawg]

Hooray for shameless self-plugging! :D

[ShadowTiger]

Self-Plugging? Darn these accursed internet terms that I have absolutely no idea what they mean!

But thanks for replying and sharing your two cents.