It is mind-boggling, to think of how old some of these programs are, in an age where most software is considered obsolete within a couple years.

In ACS you would have to use tricks like that to give this effect. While you could do that in ACK too (ACK being essentially modeled after ACS) newer versions of ACK support doing so automatically. You can set essentially a "view radius" to simulate darkness, where tiles outside of that radius are shown dim -- or, as was being debated in this thread, could also be shown solid dark.

It's been many years (EDIT: HOLY FUCKING SHIT more than two decades) since I used ACS, but wasn't the way you did that there to create black mask objects on top of all the floor squares, and then when you entered the square, dispose of the mask object?

I don't remember if there was a "when I leave the square" trigger or not to put it back on.

Bruce

Hmm, whether to let them appear 'shaded but visible' in dark areas would really be up to what kind of gameplay you're after. If you want the finding of items/monsters in dark areas to truly be a surprise, have it so they're totally invisible until within a light's radius. But if you want the player to be aware of the item/npc locations and have that drive how they navigate through the dark, keep them as is.

[quote="Chris H"]That can be easily fixed. Here's how "dark" tiles work, why you're seeing what you're seeing, and how to work around it:

In ACK 3.x, to generate "darkness" effects, it creates a darkened version of each tile. It goes through each pixel of each tile, and if the color is the "background" color (generally black) then it leaves it that color; if the color is anything else, it colors it the "dark foreground color".

In the usual "black background" color scheme as found in the various kits, this gives a night effect of everything being somewhat visible, but very dim.

In your adventure, the only place the background color appears is in your item tiles, so those show up, everything else is solid "dark foreground color" because there are no pixels of background color.

The two workarounds for you would be:
1. Change those black pixels to something dark, but non-black (color 16 maybe)
2. Change the "dark foreground color" to black so all darkened tiles are black-on-black.

- Chris[/quote]


Yep yep. That would work NP. Have a color that is almost pure black to fill the tile with 1st. BUT should I keep this effect for items is the question. It makes it easy to see the items in the dark, like knives and ammo. Or should I take this effect away completely (as in fill with the almost-black color or change the dark FG color).

That can be easily fixed. Here's how "dark" tiles work, why you're seeing what you're seeing, and how to work around it:

In ACK 3.x, to generate "darkness" effects, it creates a darkened version of each tile. It goes through each pixel of each tile, and if the color is the "background" color (generally black) then it leaves it that color; if the color is anything else, it colors it the "dark foreground color".

In the usual "black background" color scheme as found in the various kits, this gives a night effect of everything being somewhat visible, but very dim.

In your adventure, the only place the background color appears is in your item tiles, so those show up, everything else is solid "dark foreground color" because there are no pixels of background color.

The two workarounds for you would be:
1. Change those black pixels to something dark, but non-black (color 16 maybe)
2. Change the "dark foreground color" to black so all darkened tiles are black-on-black.

- Chris

I have noticed that ACK draws the 'blank' background of a tile even when in darkness. So as a question of being able to find goods you have dropped or otherwise are in the dark, check out these 2 screens (the top two at my site http://www.angelfire.com/droid/biffsnot) and tell me if I should fill the items with black like I filled the enemy to make them invisible in dark, or leave them the way they are to hint at their locations. Of course leaving them visible makes it tough to hide things I want hidden in the dark.

Opinions?

[url]http://www.angelfire.com/droid/biffsnot[/url]