2.11 Beta 1(and 2) Progress

I can conceive of making it such that we can select and preview tiles for each LTM combination, instead of just adding a fixed number to the base tiles. If we did it for all possible combinations (2^number of items), that'd take up a lot of space, but if the quest designer only uses a few LTM items, the set could be substantially reduced. Of course, implementing such would take some work.

I suppose making Link's tiles selectable would be another change I can do. making the LTm's fully flexible would be the best course of action, come to think of it more.

Some other stuff

6. New screen flag: Secrets disable timed warps. basically, when a secret is triggered on a screen with this flag enabled, any time warp set up for the screen will be automatically nulled. This is mostly a custom boss convinience, as it will allow the user to assure that whatever happens after a boss is 'hit' won't be interrupted by the time warp.
7. THE MIDI BUG HAS BEEN FIXED Don't ask me how, don't even ask me why the bug occured at all. All I can confirm to everyone was that it was indeed an Allegro problem.

jman2050 wrote:I suppose making Link's tiles selectable would be another change I can do. making the LTm's fully flexible would be the best course of action, come to think of it more.

YES! do that! it would simplify everything regarding the Link Tile Modifier

While on the topic of Link, would it be possible for making another set (2 or 3 sprites, depnding on normal or BS animation) for the other side direction? The walking sideways tiles go right in the set, so how about walking "left" tiles? :shrug:

That's part of the plan for the Link Sprite modification.

One thing I've always wanted to see in the Link tiles department is a second frame for classic Link's upward walking animation...flipping that one tile just looks plain ugly, even in the classic set.

jman2050 wrote:I suppose making Link's tiles selectable would be another change I can do. making the LTm's fully flexible would be the best course of action, come to think of it more.

Some other stuff

6. New screen flag: Secrets disable timed warps. basically, when a secret is triggered on a screen with this flag enabled, any time warp set up for the screen will be automatically nulled. This is mostly a custom boss convinience, as it will allow the user to assure that whatever happens after a boss is 'hit' won't be interrupted by the time warp.
7. THE MIDI BUG HAS BEEN FIXED Don't ask me how, don't even ask me why the bug occured at all. All I can confirm to everyone was that it was indeed an Allegro problem.

First of all, good work thus far on Beta 1 and 2. To clear my name however.

Yes, I did do something extremely stupid about 2 or 3 years back with a Dark Natlon post, It was semi-related to my brother in all reality, but I was the fuel. I was young and dumb back then, to which I have cleaned up my act greatly. A wierd conspiracy theory was started saying that I was PM coming back in a different form(new user). The reason that got started is because I happened to use the same avatar by accident. I did mess with BigJoe a bit about it. Other than being banned about 3 years ago with the Link Hylia one, I have not been temp banned or in trouble in any way. I would not dare flame anyone in GD, thats just an invitation to be banned. Awhile back when BigJoe made his strong armed moderators post in GB, I came out and told them that I had to make this account because when my Link Hylia account was temp-banned, they never returned me back to an unbanned status. I was told to pick one account or the other. I picked this one because for once, I actually was doing something productive on the forums(i.e ZC Beta Testing). I am not banned now either, I just have to use a faulty computer while my other is being fixed. So I'll apologize for not helping very much as of late, but I stated above whats going on. Its kinda hard for me to test on this computer, but I should finally be back at full steam on Monday or Tuesday. I up for third party programming to help out anyway I can, I just don't think its likely that anyone will ask me to help now though. I am all open to helping out with ZC anyway I can.

Eh, to be honest i could care less what happened 2 or 3 years ago... don't know how DN feels, but I would tend not to take activities outside of ZC into account when dealing with the beta testers.

Oh yeah, and another change

8. The first iteration of a new ZQuest feature: Preview Mode

Tired of setting up combo cycling and placing secrets, closing ZQ, opening up ZC, testing out the screen, finding a small bug, closing ZC, opening ZQ, and making that quick fix, wasting 3-5 minutes on a problem that should've taken 10 seconds to fix? Then Preview mode is the feature for you. When enabled in ZQ, it allows you the chance to see the effects of the more dynamic elements of a quest screen. made an elaborate system of tiered secret flags? Simply enable Preview mode, press 'S', and see the secrets trigger right before your eyes. Set up combo cycling for an elaborate boss? Enable Preview mode, press C, and watch the combos animate and cycle through each other, checking to see if it was done correctly. tired of having to go to the tile warp/side warp menu every time you want to check a warp? Go into preview mode, press 1 or 2 (for tile and side respectively) to easily warp between screens. Wanna easy way to test timed warps? Simply enable preview mode, press 3, and on screens with timed warps defined watch it cycle to the next screen without pressing anything. Wanna check your animations, secrets, and combo cycling again? Press 'R' to revert the screen to it's original form. Finally, 'F' will freeze the animations, allowing use of 'A' to advance frame by frame. 'Q' and 'W' also work, allowing you to see the changes to combo properties and walkability in real-time.

It's still somewhat rough, and only operates using the keyboard keys. Eventually, I want preview mode to become more functional as well as have a more usable interface. The goal regardless is to minimize the amount of time spent switching between ZC and ZQ when building your quest, allowing you to focus all your play-testing on balancing, progression of game play, and flow of execution.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Should I release the beta soon or fear being torn limb from limb by anticipation? You decide ^_^

One word: sweet!
As you say though, it would be nice to have it not solely based off of keyboard keys - one problem there being that we then have to memorize what they are. When you are in preview mode you lose the ability to edit, right? Perhaps you could then overlay the combos and the thing at the bottom of the screen with buttons to press. Another idea would be to turn that bottom thing (we should name it so I can refer to it concisely) into a listing that reminds the user of what all the usable keystrokes are so they don't have to memorize them. Like:

R - Revert Screen
S - Trigger Secrets
F - Freeze Animations
...

Or if we use buttons:

[Revert Screen] [Trigger Secrets] [Freeze Animations]

Either way would be really helpful.

Cloral wrote:One word: sweet!
As you say though, it would be nice to have it not solely based off of keyboard keys - one problem there being that we then have to memorize what they are. When you are in preview mode you lose the ability to edit, right? Perhaps you could then overlay the combos and the thing at the bottom of the screen with buttons to press. Another idea would be to turn that bottom thing (we should name it so I can refer to it concisely) into a listing that reminds the user of what all the usable keystrokes are so they don't have to memorize them. Like:

R - Revert Screen
S - Trigger Secrets
F - Freeze Animations
...

Or if we use buttons:

[Revert Screen] [Trigger Secrets] [Freeze Animations]

Either way would be really helpful.

You took the words right out of my head, as this is exactly what i've been planning on doing 😊 you do lose the ability to edit, yes. Think of it as being in the same 'state' as when you're placing flags in ZQ. mouse clicks on the menu aside from what we specifically specify are disabled, as are the normal keystroke operations. Also note that this is merely an observation mode, so it won't do ANYTHING to your quest in terms of changing it.

I am anxious for this myself. I kinda wonder if now that ZC had gotten to the point of having alot of the things we all want in it, is it time to start making it innovatively easier to use? I can't wait to see this one happen

jman, I must say, I am awed, floored, and bewildered. 😛 Extraordinarily so. Impressed takes precedance over those though.

A few questions and comments, really. One, what exactly does "preview mode" look like? I mean, it seems rather ... well ... hard to believe. o_O'

How does it handle havinig multiple kinds of secrets on the same screen? For example, you have sword triggers, button triggers, fire triggers, enemy secrets, .. a lot of these are intertwined, but remain somehow seperate at the same time. And tiered secrets! I mean, .. jman, you saw what C-Dawg did in Sabotage Dragoon with those "trains" of buttons, like under the Dusted Forest, and in the Inverted tower with the "fairy" that you remain under to guide you through the damage floors. So yes, how does it handle such complex tiered secrets like that?

Oh, does it also work on layers? 😛

Oh, and what about the undercombo?

Once more, VERY impressed. This is like, ... ... having a whole bunch of dreams come true at the same time. :drool: :laughing: Dude, you are SO the man. :highfive: I so underexaggerated that too.

Damn fine work jman. This will certainly make things easier on us quest makers and I must say that I've never been looking forward to a new ZC like this one, this is just plain awesome. :thumbsup:

Whoa!

I mess with a lot of secret combos... and this... this would save me loads of time with loading a quest in ZC over and over again to test them! 😊

I think 2.11 is going to blow people's socks off if it gets stable.

Not all the functionality is in yet, as it is still work-in-progress. Son enough, it should be easy to seperately trigger secrets and have them behave as they do in ZQ, as well as look at undercombo effects, show special items, and even show what strings would look like on-screen and let you step through each linked string in the sequence. As for what it looks like? For now, it looks exactly like it does when editing a screen, except none of the menus or interactive elements can be interfaced with aside from what I described. As the feature gets more complete though, the extra space would be overlayed with information to help out the ZQer in preview mode.

And yes, it can do tiered secrets, animations and all ^_^

Son enough, it should be easy to seperately trigger secrets and have them behave as they do in ZQ, as well as look at undercombo effects, show special items, and even show what strings would look like on-screen and let you step through each linked string in the sequence.

anybody notice that neither DN nor fcf have said anything since this was announced. somone's jealous, me thinks!

this sounds incredible, jman. I can't wait to make use of this feature. though, how does it work exactly? do the kays that were mentioned earlier controll everything that happens, or is some of it automatic, and those keys trigger certain events?

PREVIEW MODE! Sweet! Also, when in preview mode, pressing E once should spawn the enemies. Enemies that enter from the side will do so and enemies placed via enemy placement flags will spawn at such places. Pressing E again will make all enemies disappear.

Oh! And pressing M in preview mode should toggle the music on & off

I'm not going to place the entire engine in ZQ. That'd be a waste, so no enemy spawning ^_^. Also, playing music is Dmap dependent, not screen dependent, and since the screens have no direct association with Dmaps, knowing what music to play if such a function were added wouldn't work.

BH4 - An avatar isn't displayed, though that does remind me to add a function in editing mode that lets you see the item/link spawn points without having to go to that tab at the bottom of the screen. As for triggerring secrets, I would only need 2 keys at most because of the way secrets are triggered (the behavior being that triggering one flag triggers ALL secret combos defined, with the exception of an enemies->secret room in which the secret tile flags [16-31] are triggered by killing enemies, whilst all other flags are triggered seperately), so that isn't a problem. Also note that preview mode is strictly for examining the technical aspects of your quest to make sure they work. Actual playtesting would still employ ZC, as it should.

*b* - The keys control certain behaviors. By default, preview mode doesn't do anything that ZQ wouldn't do normally, except that you can't edit. It's only by employing the keys that you can trigger and watch the dynamic elements go into effect. You'll probably understand better once the new beta is released.

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ZOMG.. This is going to be so useful. o.o