Paging James!

[Lucier]

got a question for ya. i know you have this new slice feature, and i think it can somehow be used to help me out of a pickle. in Genesis the first town already uses all 3 layers and those tilesets are totally full. but i still have tons of animated tiles for the river in the town i want to add. is there a way to use the slices to add the animated water tiles to the town?

[Spoonweaver]

I'm not James, but I might be able to help anyways.

That's not the best of ideas. Slices aren't Map based like map tiles, and NPCs. They are instead Screen based, like a text box or a menu. So, even though it is possible to do, I'm sure, it's most likely not the best plan.

I suggest using NPCs. Having an npc pace while in a boxed in area would allow you to basically make an animated tile. Or you could possibly use npcs as another tile type. If it's a non-moving tile, then 1 NPC could potentially be 4 different tiles. 1 for each direction. Of course I'd limit any NPC tiling to tiles that are suppose to be wall tiles. Otherwise, unwanted results could occur.

[New-Gen]

I know about the layers but whats this new slice feature?

Where can I find it in the OHR to check it out?

[Aeth]

got a question for ya. i know you have this new slice feature, and i think it can somehow be used to help me out of a pickle. in Genesis the first town already uses all 3 layers and those tilesets are totally full. but i still have tons of animated tiles for the river in the town i want to add. is there a way to use the slices to add the animated water tiles to the town?

Yeah, I agree with Spoonweaver, it would probably be easier to use npcs to do that than use slices.

I know about the layers but whats this new slice feature?

Where can I find it in the OHR to check it out?

Basically, slices are like a way of putting graphics on the screen. You can use them to put enemy graphics, attack graphics, empty text boxes, etc. anywhere you want on the screen. When they first came out in the nightly I used them to put this together using only slices and menus (don't plan on finishing it though).

[Mystic]

so we can't use names with slices yet can we?

how do we refer to them? it looks like they are exactly what i need right now

[Newbie Newtype]

Whoh, you used all of your layers already? That's a ton of tiles considering each layer can have a unique tileset now.

And I agree. Use NPCs, because heroes/other NPCs will be layered over them, while slices will be drawn above everything (slices are better for things like clouds, other kinds of precipitation, or other special effects that are related to a map that you want drawn above Layer 2). The only problem with using NPCs as tiles is that there's a 300 NPC limit (or so), so the river can't be too large.

[Mogri]

Basically, slices are like a way of putting graphics on the screen. You can use them to put enemy graphics, attack graphics, empty text boxes, etc. anywhere you want on the screen. When they first came out in the nightly I used them to put this together using only slices and menus (don't plan on finishing it though).

What'd you do for the background? Is that maptiles or is it a bunch of rect slices?

[Aeth]

so we can't use names with slices yet can we?

how do we refer to them? it looks like they are exactly what i need right now

Store them in a variable, like this:

Code: Select all

variable(slice1, enemy1, enemy1_sprite)
slice1 := create container(320, 200)
enemy1 := formation slot enemy(1, 0)
if&#40;enemy1 <> -1&#41; then&#40;
   enemy1_sprite &#58;= load medium enemy sprite&#40;get enemy appearance&#40;enemy1, enemy&#58;picture&#41;, get enemy appearance&#40;enemy1, enemy&#58;palette&#41;&#41;
   set parent&#40;enemy1_sprite, battle_slice&#41;
end

What'd you do for the background? Is that maptiles or is it a bunch of rect slices?

Oh, yeah, forgot that the background is maptiles.

[Bob the Hamster]

got a question for ya. i know you have this new slice feature, and i think it can somehow be used to help me out of a pickle. in Genesis the first town already uses all 3 layers and those tilesets are totally full. but i still have tons of animated tiles for the river in the town i want to add. is there a way to use the slices to add the animated water tiles to the town?

Sounds like using slices in that way would be way more trouble than it is worth.

TMC was going to add a 4th map layer before the next stable release.

The ultimate plan is that you will be able to have however many layers you need, and you will be able to decide which ones are underneath and which ones are overhead... but I don't know how long it will take to get that implemented.

We have also talked about allowing bigger tilesets, but the disadvantage of that is that it will double the filesize of all maps, so we might not do that at all, especially if extra layers work out well.

For people who are interested in learning more about slices, I posted a couple tutorials for them on the mailing list. You can find links to them here: <a href="http://gilgamesh.hamsterrepublic.com/wi ... lotsclices tutorial</a>

Also you can look in the plotscripting dictionary at the list of <a href="http://hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce/doc ... ons">Slice Functions</a>, although I admit there are a lot of them, and they can seem overwhelming.

I also uploaded a couple slice test files with hss source <a href="http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtop ... 0">here</a>. Although they aren't designed as teaching tools, they do give an idea of the many things slices can do, and they may instructional to the more advanced scripters who can figure them out.

[Mystic]

the past two posts are awesome and i have a lot of work to do

also even just a fourth layer would make things awesome. but yeah "infinite" layers eventually would be nice