I can't get them off!

Well, I'm almost finished with a game I'm working on. Really close. Everything works, but there are a few problems. It's really glitchy. Mostly just with the characters. A lot of times, when the player gets too close to the enemy NPC's he gets stuck to them. Like some how the animations overlap and then the player can't move or attack, and the NPC can't move. It's really strange. I tried giving them both Collision Spheres but it didnt seem to help... Any Ideas as to what the problem might be?

This post has been edited by Pixor : 29 March 2006 - 09:53 AM

Can you show a picture of the character animation window? It might help.

ok so this is the player's map icon:

and this is the enemy's:

It may not all look "normal" but that's because its not being used in the normal way.

So i hope this helps.

Humm. It looks like Crosshair is in the middle of the animation crosshairs. Sorry, couldn't help myself. Place the "feet" or "legs" of any NPC or Player on or near the top of the horizontal line. Raise the ship up as well.

What happens is that all NPC's collisions are parallel to the ground. Not so with any other animation. That's why with NPCs the collision sphere looks oval instead of round. You might want to increase the size of the collision sphere as well as move it toward the ground also.

Attached File(s)

• hero.jpg (3.15K)
  Number of downloads: 42
• spider.jpg (2.9K)
  Number of downloads: 41

so i should move the NPC Ship up so that the bottom of it is touching the (0,0) point? and then increase the collision sphere? is that right? Do i need to do anything with the players?

Yes, please do that. And then do that with any animation that will be an NPC or Hero, including your Crosshairs, if that's your Hero or an NPC.

Ok, well its still not working very well.... In fact it almost seems to be worse. Now, when the Crosshair (player) hits the NPC from the bottom everyithing is fine. But from the top, they get stuck almost every time. The player gets on top of the NPC, and then neither can move. the player can't attack. The NPC still does its animation but doesnt move.

I downloaded SnapsProX.2 so I can make a movie and show you whats going on. (its not very good quality.)

The Video

First I am coming up and attacking from the bottom, then i come around from above and it gets stuck. (thats what happens at the end, so i quit.)

any help you could offer would be great! thanks.

Edit: Movie

This post has been edited by Pixor : 31 March 2006 - 03:18 PM

Oh, you're trying for crosshairs to be able to be on top of the NPC.

When a hero attacks, the attack isn't at the feet of the hero but depending on how he's facing and off to the side. I'd try changing your graphic so that when the hero is facing west, the crosshairs is on the left side of center, at least 20 pixels, when he's northeast, the crosshairs is on the northeast, and so on. The crosshair is never on 0,0. Make the "blank" space white. This way, the crosshairs can seem to be on top of the ship but actually it's not and you're really swinging away in a particular direction. This also means that your crosshairs will have to be animated like any hero, 8 directions, looping. I believe you get stuck because your hero is always facing north, but trying to attack south.

Also make the collision sphere larger for the ship.

Quite the challenge there! But this is what I'd do.

I could use some instruction. How did you make your movie?

Thanks for the help, I'll try that out in a little bit.

As for the movie?

I downloaded Snaps Pro from the Ambrosia site. Then open snapz pro and follow the instructions. Basically, any time you hit Shift-Command-3 it pops up with a screen. Click movie and drag the size of the screen you want. when you double click it it starts recording and hit Shift-Command-3 again to stop it.

It explains it all when you download it. SnapzProX 2

Thanks!

I'm sorry it took me so long to respond, I had some trouble trying this. Is this what you meant:

Crosshair Animation Frame
(sorry for all these movies, I like this SnapzPro demo and I want to use it while i can..)

Because it didn't exactly work. Somehow or another the character got stuck to the NPC. The crosshair gets on top of the NPC ship and then can't move. I don't know what is going on, I've never seen this happen before....

By the way was I supposed to do that to the ship as well? Cuz right now it just has a standard animation too.

Should I just always assume that NPC (or hero in this case) should always have a 4/8-dimensional animation, and never standard, even if they have the same animation regardless?

EDIT: Wording....

This post has been edited by Pixor : 06 April 2006 - 03:26 PM

@pixor, on Apr 6 2006, 05:24 PM, said in Sticky:

Crosshair Animation Frame
(sorry for all these movies, I like this SnapzPro demo and I want to use it while i can..)

Hey, movies are cool. Couldn't see it though. Page unavailable.

Quote

By the way was I supposed to do that to the ship as well? Cuz right now it just has a standard animation too.

Yes

Quote

Should I just always assume that NPC (or hero in this case) should always have a 4/8-dimensional animation, and never standard, even if they have the same animation regardless?

Yes

Wish I could see it better to help troubleshoot. But you doing this helps you figure out Coldstone. Sorry I can't be of better help.

Well doing it to the ship could be a problem.... Hmm.. to explain this I'll have to explain the theory behind my game.

It is not necassarily a game , but a Wizard. People could download it, put it in their wizards folder and make an actuall good game with it.

So what it is is a first person In-Cocpit Space Shooter. (It could be an army plane game too if the graphics were changed.)

The Player acts as the crosshair and moves around the screen as if it were aiming. The player can attack the NPC's because it would just be like it was shooting where the crosshair was. But the NPC's can't attack the crosshair because they would be shooting at the ship.

So the NPC has a standard animation so that it can move any direction, and it is just a lot of the same image. At the end it goes to a random animation. One of which is another one of the same image, but the other has it charging lasers and shooting. When the lasers are charging the player must hit 'w', 's', 'a', or 'd' to move the "screen" and dodge the shot.

_By the way, the entire topic i had earlier...This one was me attempting to have all the NPC's move up or down when you hit one of the dodge buttons. However I later realized that I could simply move the screen. Sorry for all of the trouble RD! _

Any way. I think the NPC has to be a standard event so that it can "shoot" at the screen properly....

I know that was all alot, and may be confusing.. sorry...

@shamannils, on Apr 6 2006, 06:21 PM, said in Sticky:

Hey, movies are cool. Couldn't see it though. Page unavailable.

Really? because when I went there it worked fine.... hmmm... I dunno did the other movie link work?

This post has been edited by Pixor : 06 April 2006 - 06:38 PM

@pixor, on Apr 6 2006, 08:35 PM, said in Sticky:

_. . . . Sorry for all of the trouble RD!;) _

RD?? Was I in here somewhere and didn't know it? I know I'm getting senile, but I missed me in this thread. I know. Somebody musta deleted all my posts. :blink:

Edit:
Okay, I get it. You're talking about the thread where everyone jumps down one tile. Sorry, I didn't click the link the first time around. There was no trouble. It's putting our heads together on topics like that which makes us all more aware of what Coldstone can and cannot do. What you are trying to do is beginning to make some sense, believe it or not.

I don't have the ready solution to the problem at hand about the collision spheres, but it sounds like Debra is on the right track.

You don't have to change your ship graphic at all. Just duplicate it so you can have the 8 directions you need.

Ok but do I need to move them as I did with the Crosshair? (to the left its its facing east etc.)

Is there any way to duplicate a group of frames in an animation cuz this will take forever if there isnt...

So how should I move the ship for the different directions... It isn't round so I cant just put offset it the same for each direction....

Edit: 2nd and third questions..

This post has been edited by Pixor : 07 April 2006 - 01:39 PM

@pixor, on Apr 7 2006, 02:32 PM, said in Sticky:

Ok but do I need to move them as I did with the Crosshair? (to the left its its facing east etc.)

Nope.

Quote

Is there any way to duplicate a group of frames in an animation cuz this will take forever if there isnt...

In the animation window, there's a button at the top to duplicate any frame. Also, open the animation window, and then open the folder that holds the graphics. You can highlight a group of graphics and drag right into the animation window, as many times as you want. Saves LOTS of time and effort!

Quote

So how should I move the ship for the different directions... It isn't round so I cant just put offset it the same for each direction....

You don't have to. You were seeing the ship as looking the same in any direction. The task is to make the ship animated so it'll work right. Just duplicate the same graphic in the animation window so you have 16 of the same graphic (8 pairs for 8 directions). Mark and loop each pair and make the animation 8 directions. Don't offset anything. It's the crosshairs that you want on top of the NPC, so that's that trick and you've taken care of that, so leave the ship a little above 0,0 for every direction.

Dang, I hope this works. My computer is STILL in hospital. I happen to think that figuring things out when making a game is the really fun part. Hope you're having fun!!!

OK well it still didn't work all that great... But I think I discovered something...

I had set the movement tiles to 5X5 because i wanted it to move smoothly.. :rolleyes:
I'm not so sure that was such a good Idea... So i switched it and it seems to work better....

But after messing with the animations, it no longer moves... Do you have to have a keyframe at the beginning and end of each direction?

Edit: Never Mind, I forgot to switch the access tiles back after changing the map dimensions.. Yeah....
So now it all works pretty well, thank you Debra for all of your help!

This post has been edited by Pixor : 08 April 2006 - 12:33 PM