Switching palettes for night time or torches

Chris H.'s Ultima / ACS-style game development system!

Moderators: Ice Cream Jonsey, joltcountry

joebonk
Posts: 112
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2012 3:16 am
Location: las cruces, nm

Switching palettes for night time or torches

Post by joebonk »

I seem to be the only one talking here. Sorry.
In the exult engine, to simulate nightime, instead of the darkness of ultima5 or Ack, It simply changes the palette.
And when going into a cave.
Also for casting a light spell restores the orginal palette.
My question is how best to do this in Ack?

I'm thinking set light to always bright.
But then use a step macro to hot swap the palette for darkness.
The step macro watches what hour it is and depending on what hour it is, use the patch command to swap out the palette. Now for torches and light spells, was thinking that since torchlight is a variable, the game won't change appearance if torchlit is on or off. But being on allows a countdown. The step macro could have a line that says:
20 if torchlit > 0 then (goto palette for brightness)
21 if torchlit = 0 then (goto have palette be the darker one.)
Caves, if they are on another world map or in a room map, can have the entrance macro hot swap for a darker palette.
Or just have that map's step macro hot swap it anyways.
Again step macros would keep track of torchlit and those variables.

Another way to do it is hot swap the tileset to that of one that is drawn darker then bright version.
I think just changing the palette would be easier.

Any thoughts?

User avatar
Ice Cream Jonsey
Posts: 28878
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 2:44 pm
Location: Colorado
Contact:

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

You never have to apologize! Thank you for the posts. I am hoping one of the ACK users will be by at some point to provide answers... I think it tends to go in waves, however. :)
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

Post Reply