18 replies to this topic

[Radien]

plith was trying to figure out whether it would be possible to have gradual night and day, where it gets darker/lighter as you walk. However, he was thwarted by the fact that timed warps do not support the "pit" style of warp, thus screwing up Link's position if used for this purpose.

He concluded that the only way to do it was by creating massive numbers of combos identical to the ones on the map, that would cycle into pit warps. If done this way, it would obviously take up too much space and WAY too much time.

However, here's what occured to me: why not put all the combo cycling pits on layer 0, and draw out the entire overworld on the other layers?... For screens that need a tile warp, you could simply bipass the combo cycling for that screen (thus making time "freeze" while you're on that screen).

I'm considering implementing this for Hyrule Field, but if so, it will probably be only Hyrule Field that gets that treatment... and perhaps one or two other areas.

[Peteo]

However, here's what occured to me: why not put all the combo cycling pits on layer 0, and draw out the entire overworld on the other layers?... For screens that need a tile warp, you could simply bipass the combo cycling for that screen (thus making time "freeze" while you're on that screen).

That would work pretty well (at least I guess so... I wish I had time to test that right now...), and it's the only reasonable way to do gradually occurring day/night.

We really need something like "timed pit warps" to make custom boss making and all kinds of other tricks easier to make.

[ShadowTiger]

But why not try pallete cycling? I saw one particular author, (He/she knows who he/she is. ) do that, and it seemed to work very well. You'd need slight changes at a time, and with a -VERY- slow speed, but it would look fairly real, I suppose. But turning on lights in houses or something would be difficult to do, unless you set aside a specific color for such a thing. That author certainly did it well.

[Shoelace]

Wow, those were some great ideas. I was actually thinking of doing the same thing, with the day and night thing, on my next game, which will propbably be in a long while because I want to finish my first game. Anyways, I was thinking of the cycling pit warps too. However, what if you wanted to make certain things happen at night and day. Then the idential map soultion would be the best bet.

[Radien]

Heyyyy.... BH4, that's a great idea too. As Shoelace said, pit warps would be necessary for timed events, but if you only wanted the visual effect, palette cycling would be much easier to implement.

Hmmm... Now, which do I want to use?.... *ponders*

Oh, another reason to use pit warps would be if you wanted the music to change. Imagine the Hyrule Field "good morning" music playing at first light... cool, eh?

EDIT: One small but significant problem has occured to me... palette cycling only works for one CSet per palette. This sorta screws up the possibility of water on the overworld, for me.....

Edited by Radien, 04 October 2004 - 02:56 PM.

[plith]

Palette cycling is far too limited, as you only have one CSet you could do this with, and you only get 8 frames to make it cycle.

The method above could work, but items become a bit trickier. You would have to leave them entirely in caves and other places outside of Hyrule Field. But it could work well. Best method we really have so far.

[LinktheMaster]

/me laughes. This has long since been figured out. I believe it was Nick to first come up with the idea. And, I've tried it. But, it in sense, still takes up a ton of space, and for what is gotten out of it, isn't that great.

[Kite]

/me laughes. This has long since been figured out.  I believe it was Nick to first come up with the idea. And, I've tried it. But, it in sense, still takes up a ton of space, and for what is gotten out of it, isn't that great.

My method of combo cycling was rather sloppy, actually.

The majority of the time, due to how I had it poorly rigged, I could stand still and "time" never move (night and day). =P

[Radien]

plith:

8 palette changes could be enough, depending on how smooth a transition you'll settle for. In the NES days, 8 transitions was roughly standard (Dragon Warrior 3/4).

One CSet, however, is not enough unless you design an entire area for the purpose of this. However, whoever said it had to be universally occuring?... In OoT time stood still in many places.

As for items, it would not be much of a problem if I limited it to Hyrule Field. Resetting secrets would be, though. And I could have different DMaps with multiple times of day but pointing to the same area map for places like Kakariko Village. Time would reset when you leave, though.


LTM:



Lots of things have been "figured out" in ZC but never done well, or perhaps never fully implemented.

I'm not making a jab at Nick, here, because I haven't seen what he did with it.


Nick:

Poorly rigged?... That's exactly what happens when you use pit warps; there's no other way around it (besides palette cycling, of course). You didn't do it wrong unless there were other issues with your setup.

Edited by Radien, 04 October 2004 - 04:24 PM.

[SwordOfSeals]

*coughcoughuseconveyingcomboscoughcough*

I have a quest set up by someone else. I don't rememer who's (probably Nick) but it worked great. But, of course, it's very limiting.

[Radien]

Conveying combos? How can those help achieve this, either?...

[Exate]

All right, I didn't care to read other replies... but this is what I told him.

First off, you'd need to have a whole palette dedicated to this (preferably CSet5). With tons of blacks and dark grays.
Plus, your palettes in your quest must be just right to the effect looks correctly.
Then, make tons of tiles, each which get darker over time. Of course, the first tile would be empty. You make a combo cycling through all these darkening changes at a very slow rate, and layer them as transparent over every screen.
It works, trust me.

[Shoelace]

Can't you use conveying belts and pits at the same time. Make both of them cycling at the same time. At if you do stand in one place it could turn to night. I don't know if you could do that, but maybe.

[Kite]

http://nick.purezc.c...ads/daytest.zip

This is the test I made awhile back.

I don't really remember why I did it the way I did, but after the "go to next time of day" warps appear, they only last for a few seconds, then revert back and count again.

[Radien]

PolygonX8:

Hey, I was considering this, too, although I might've used a slightly different technique. I'm assuming you didn't actually mean "combo cycle," though, as you wouldn't need to if you had a dedicated palette of greys and blacks and whites. Just animation. I imagine palette cycling would work for this, too, if you could spare just one color out of CSet 3.

Shoelace:

Ohh, so THAT'S what SOS meant... well, not only would this be messy and unnecessary, but it doesn't work. Try it... conveying Link to a pit will not make him fall in. Sucks, don't it?

Nick:

Alright, I'll check that out sometime...