Re: [DM-dev] Dungeon Rendering :)

[Stephan B. <ste...@ei...>]

On Tuesday 01 May 2001 00:45, Henningsen wrote:
> >> Remember to give doors the number 7;-) like in floor=3D0, wall=3D1,
> >> high wall=3D2,... door=3D7!
> >
> >Ah, yes, I forgot about that. I'll fix that tonight.
>
> That's just for the internal parameters - when the map is printed, it
> can of course be anything... "D" would probably be best i think. When
> you talk about "rendering", I presume you mean rendering to the "Map"
> object inside the DungeonMaker? You're not putting some kind of
> "rendering-to-screen" function in the program, right? That should all
> be left to the users IMO.

Okay, here's the current state:

I've got the Door class basically done, but I've got a bug or two I=20
need to work out. The problem is, it works okay as long as you don't=20
change the orientation of your wall after the Door is placed. Let's say=20
you have a wall which looks like:

xxxDxxx (D =3D=3D Door)
If you call setOrientation( Vertical ), the wall will look like:

x
x
x
x
x
x
x

But the Door will be here:
x[--D----]
x
x
x
x
x
x

and won't be rendered (or rendered incorrectly). I want to fix this=20
before I commit the Door stuff. I know it's not an important fix, but I=20
think it will be handy later for other types of objects, and allows=20
programmers to change their walls after building them without having to=20
move the doors manually. The problem is that I know if I don't fix this=20
now, I'll be scratching my head in 2 months saying, "why does it do=20
that?" because I will have forgotten what the problem was (aus dem=20
Augen, aus den Sinn).

The current implementation of setting a wall's orientation is kind of=20
lame, but it works for our simple case: it simply resizes the wall.=20
Each wall has a Length field. If orientation =3D=3D Horiz, then it's=20
resized to length,1. If it's vertical, then it's resized to 1,length.=20
The 1 is currently hardcoded, but can be gotten around by calling=20
resize() or setGeometry() on the wall after setOrientation() is called.=20
I will work around this inconsistency one of these days, and get away=20
from the hard-coded width/height of 1.

I spent much of yesterday working on adding convenience functions to=20
the DungeonElement API and getting the Doors done. I've added the=20
following to the DE API:


get/setSquareSubType(): by default this returns -1. Subclasses may use=20
this to set a "sub type" for their square. A Wall square could specify,=20
for example, if it's a corner wall, a "high wall", etc. A door could be=20
open, closed, gold-inlaid, etc. This function is used by Door to hold=20
it's type. The subtype can be collected for the object as a whole (the=20
case with most objects, plus the default implementation) or objects may=20
supply a subtype for a square at at a given x/y coordinate. Currently=20
only Door uses these at all, but it's there for future use if we want=20
it. I think client apps will get the most out of it, as it lets them do=20
things with their rooms which DungeonMaker can't do (doesn't specify=20
corner wall joins, for example).

I've also added several other convenience functions, like:

- removeAllOfType( DungeonElement *de )
removes all child objects which are of the same class as the given=20
DungeonElement *.

A Room can use this, for example, to remove all walls while keeping=20
other data (like the chest of gold in the middle):=20
  Wall *w =3D new Wall();
  removeAllOfType( w );
  delete( wall );

Actually, that function is completely untested, but "should work" ;).

Load/save is still on the back burner. I spent about 4 hours yesterday=20
completely rewiring the class hierarchy and moving functions around=20
into a hierarchy which made more sense to my brain. We should now have=20
forward-compatible save support so we can drop in binary, XML,=20
GridSlammer, etc. save support with very little pain later on (the pain=20
is only in the parser). We'll simply have to implement new Serializer=20
objects for the new file types. I've still got plenty of work to do on=20
the text-saving version, I think a few more days.

See ya!

----- Stephan Beal
Generic Universal Computer Guy
ste...@ei... - http://www.einsurance.de
Office: +49 (89) 552 92 862   Handy: +49 (179) 211 97 67
"Go away or I shall replace you with a very small shell script."