Mrlegoboy 2019-05-04 18:37 (Edited)
An editor for designing “entities”
Entities are just groups of sprites.
Inspired by the difficulty of moving every sprite manually with code
Added some stuff. Still can’t save files yet
Since the BG editor doesnt handle charachters at the end of memory very well, this one will pick up the slack, but at the cost of massacring the first 48 characters. So if you plan on using this, put the characters you want to use this with onto the last 3 pages of the character designer.
was8bit 2019-05-05 05:30
This looks like its a SERIOUS tool!!!!! :D
Timo 2019-05-05 11:40
Keep in mind that the last character page is used for the default font (if needed).
was8bit 2019-05-05 13:30 (Edited)
That’s true,when you use all 4 pages for graphics, you can no longer use TEXT or PRINT
I DO wish we could load a second page of graphic characters in a similar manner we can load another page of backgrounds... :/ I think it would be cool if we could make 2 character files, then have a basic command that could load one of the four pages into any one of the four existing pages....
So, let’s say my main graphics page was completely used for my game, and had regular fonts used for most of the game, but then I wanted a second set of graphics and or fonts for a special part of the game... so I could load page 3,4 from my second character file into page 3,4 of active character memory ($8000) and when done reload pages 3,4 from my main character file back to active character memory
Let’s say a game that had two modes.. like an above ground portion that requires navigating above ground terrain and characters with castles with regular text.. then when you enter a castle you now have dungeons with mazes and tunnels and ancient spooks with ancient script text...
was8bit 2019-05-05 13:45 (Edited)
OR, let’s say you only need text for title screen and help file... so your main character file is all graphics, and you want to load a second file that only holds font sets... now you can load a font set from say page 1 of your second character file into page 4 of your active character memory... and when done reload page 4 graphics from main character file back into active character memory...
Since we edit the character file as 4 different pages, and page 4 is the default text page, it would make sense to be able to load character data by the page...
I’ve always wanted to use font sets, but it’s currently too much work to fool with, even though I have dozens of font sets saved... if I could use a separate character file for my 4 favorite fonts, i would take the time to copy/paste file data together to yield a file that had my four favorite fonts, and then just use my main character file for graphics, and could use a basic command to load one of the four pages from my second character file into page 4 of my active character memory...
Timo 2019-05-05 14:19
Not sure if I read it well enough, but I think you are talking about the COPY command. You cannot have more than 256 characters at the same time on screen, but you can select characters from different ROM entries to create your current char set.
was8bit 2019-05-05 15:02 (Edited)
So, say I am using file (7) for storing 4 of my favorite different font sets... I can easily copy/paste this into any game I want...
Then, say in a game (which is using file(2) for its main characters) I decide I want to use the font set on page 2 from file (7)...
My question then is how to use code to get page 2 from file(7) into the proper memory starting at $8000 so that when I use TEXT command it is using the font set I copied from page 2 of file(7)... I'm probably too tired to see it... :/
Timo 2019-05-05 16:39
These are the addresses in character RAM (each page is 1 KB / $400 in hex):
$8000 - page 1
$8400 - page 2
$8800 - page 3
$8C00 - page 4
To copy for example page 3 from ROM #7 to page 4 of character RAM, it's:
COPY ROM(7)+$800,$400 TO $8C00
Tinycloud778 2019-05-05 17:13
Nice
was8bit 2019-05-06 05:35
Ooo. Coool.... you always help make things so simple... thanks,, i am going to experiment now with this :D
Mrlegoboy 2019-05-07 05:12
Nice, didnt even have to make a Subprogram
