MaGL X2 Discussion - MaGL X2 Lands TOMORROW. GET. HYPE.

[Wolfolotl]

thinking of doing something other than what I already have with music. anyone know some place with nice ambient music that is also free maybe?

[Willhart]

You can use "instant" warps for access via a pit. They will warp you when the player enters the space.

And how do I do this? (in Wohl's editor, of course)

Right clicking on the warp should open "Warps and Doors" window. You can change the warp type there. You can place an instant warp to teleport the player to somewhere else when they touch it. Each warp is one way and needs an entrance and exit. You can set them from the "Main" part of the window.

That's not what I meant. The whole section fits in the whole screen, so it'd be useless even if I did somehow mean that. I meant that as in pressing the Left Arrow Key (or wherever Left is assigned to) doesn't make Mario/Luigi etc. move left. I know there's Level Properties where you can change Physics and disable character movement, but those are grayed out for some reason. (means that clicking them doesn't do anything) What do I do?

You can probably check if the player speed is negative, and in that case set it to 0 or move them to other direction. I'm not sure on how you can disable key commands.

[ztarwuff]

No, I think Klaty meant not being able to move left at all. Not entirely sure how to do that. Maybe use Luna to disable left movement?

Exactly.
Wait, can you even combine Luna and PGE? And if so, then how? SMBX has so few tutorials...

I believe so. However, what you're asking for is something I don't know how to do. What I normally do is go to one of the below tutorials and search around for code.

LunaDLL

• LunaDLL Tutorial
  LunaDLL Command Reference
  LunaDLL Help Thread (also check the LunaLua Help Thread below)

LunaLua

• Lua Tutorials
  LunaLua Documentation
  LunaLua Help Thread

A quick search of the first tutorial shows a way that you could potentially do it. What you need is a combination of the OnInput command and a way of cancelling out left. Well, a kludgy (but easy) way of doing it is to kill the player whenever the player presses left. It's not advised, but it does the trick.

Below is some code I managed to cobble together from reading the first tutorial.

Code: Select all

#0
// Explanatory note - On pressing up, copy event 1000
OnInput,0,1,1,1000,0,0

#1000
Kill,0,0,0,0,1,0

Unfortunatley, I can't quite remember what number represents left in the OnInput command. I know you have to change the first 1, because in my level I use

Code: Select all

OnInput,0,2,1,1,1000,0,0

which means on pressing "down". It's probably 3 or 4. You may want to experiment.

The best thing to do would probably be to use the MemAssign command, but I cannot help you there.

[Klaty]

Right click on the warp should open "Warps and Doors" window. You can change the warp type there. You can place an instant warp to teleport the player to somewhere else when they touch it. Each warp is one way and needs an entrance and exit. You can set them from the "Main" part of the window.

There's a button in the toolbar, so no need to rightclick anything. Also, does this mean that if I want a door to lead the player back to where the player came from, I just put a warp there connecting back there? That would make a lot more sense.

You can probably check if the player speed is negative, and in that case set it to 0 or move them to other direction. I'm not sure on how you can disable key commands.

Wow, it's such a simple thing (and I even recall seeing it in an episode that raocow might've or might not've played) but so hard to execute. Well, I hope someone finds a way. I have a feeling I have to do something with events...

[Klaty]

stuff

Alright, I see. Though, where can I get LunaDLL? Or do I need to use LunaLua? (kind of embarrassing to ask that, but basically yeah)

[TaviTurnip]

I believe that you can only have one custom song per section. You can use LunaDll to change the music by setting the music in an unused section to what you want to change it to, then using

Code: Select all

PlayMusic,-,SECTION,-,-,DELAY,-

For example, if you already have Custom Music 1 playing in Section 4, you can set the music in Section 8 or something (provided you aren't using the section for anything else) to Custom Music 2 and use

Code: Select all

PlayMusic,0,8,0,0,1,0

I think I get the idea of it, but I don't know the first thing about activating or utilizing LunaDLL :x Let's say in this case that Section 2 is playing a custom song, and I want an event triggered midway into the room to start playing Section 3's custom song. How would I get the event to do this?

Unless I'm being dumb, the help links in viewtopic.php?f=36&t=14271 this thread don't seem to work, so I can't really suss LunaDLL out myself other than the "create a text file" part, which is where I assume the codes would go.

[Willhart]

Code: Select all

#0
// Explanatory note - On pressing up, copy event 1000
OnInput,0,1,1,1000,0,0

#1000
Kill,0,0,0,0,1,0

You can probably use that to trigger a smbx event that makes the player stand still for a moment.

Code: Select all

//section 3
#3
// Explanatory note - On pressing up, trigger event 1000
OnInput,0,1,1,1000,0,0

#1000
//trigger smbx event "Stop"
TriggerSMBXEvent,0,0,0,0,1,Stop

#END

The stop event should be made to cause the player to hold a button that does nothing, and then trigger another event to let them move a little later. You should have both lua and lunadll if you have the maglx2 devkit.

Edit: Here is the Command reference and the tutorial for lunadll.
http://engine.wohlnet.ru/docs/Collected ... torial.txt
http://engine.wohlnet.ru/docs/Collected ... unaref.txt

If you want to use lua you should probably ask here for guidance:
viewtopic.php?f=36&t=14980

[ztarwuff]

stuff

Alright, I see. Though, where can I get LunaDLL? Or do I need to use LunaLua? (kind of embarrassing to ask that, but basically yeah)

You don't need to get anything so long as you're using the right devkit:

MaGL X2 Devkit Download

• Download (Mega Mirror)
  Download (Mediafire Mirror)

If you're using the latest devkit, all you need to do is create a text file called Lunadll in your level folder and paste the relevant code. Remember, your code should end with #END, so my example was actually very bad.

[Hoeloe]

Unfortunatley, I can't quite remember what number represents left in the OnInput command.

This is one of the many reasons I urge people to use LunaLua rather than LunaDLL. LunaDLL is outdated, and difficult to learn and use, while LunaLua is a lot more readable. In this case, all the keys are stored in named constants, rather than values, so you can do something like this:

Code: Select all

function onKeyDown(keycode)
    if(keycode == KEY_LEFT) then
        --Do something
    end
end

If you plan to use any Luna at all, you're going to be doing some programming, but LunaDLL's Autocode is like programming on hard mode. For the basics, you can copy and paste codes (though this goes for either LunaDLL or LunaLua), but for anything beyond simple filters, Lua manages the code far better.

It's worth mentioning that we currently don't know a way of restricting player input in any satisfactory way. We can restrict all player input using SMBX events (which includes interactivity with cinematX), but this is rarely what people want to do. This goes for SMBX itself and for LunaDLL and LunaLua. However, there are a few things you can do to achieve a similar effect. One suggestion that has been made in this thread is checking the player's speed, and setting it to 0 if the player is moving left. Fortunately, using LunaLua, this is quite easy to do, and is probably good enough for your purposes:

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function onLoop()
    if(player.speedX < 0) then --player is moving left
        player.speedX = 0; --not any more
    end
end

[Klaty]

stuff that doesn't make me feel good

I won't use the Devkit. I had major trouble with that when I started and Horikawa suggested me to not use it, since the PGE engine is good enough.
Though I found a simplish tutorial at Wohl's site, and I think killing the player when pressing Left is good enough. (should probably put a NPC to tell that though) I was thinking of the exit being to the left of the player, but since you can't move to the left, you'd have to go into another door that spawns you on a slope that carries you to the left, just in front of the door.

Screenshot of the (partially done) Bonus room (section 10)

maglx2entry_shot10.png (148.61 KiB) Viewed 2524 times

Screenshot of (the partially done) section 2

maglx2entry_shot2.png (64.42 KiB) Viewed 2524 times

Screenshot of fully done (besides door warps) section 1

maglx2entry_shot1.png (131.28 KiB) Viewed 2524 times

Let's talk about this later, mm'kay? It's almost 11PM here and I'm too tired and can't understand what y'all are talking about.

[Hoeloe]

stuff that doesn't make me feel good

I won't use the Devkit. I had major trouble with that when I started and Horikawa suggested me to not use it, since the PGE engine is good enough.

If you need to use Luna, then you will have to use the devkit, or at least get the LunaLua patch from the Lua thread. What were the issues you were experiencing with it?

[ohmato]

I think I get the idea of it, but I don't know the first thing about activating or utilizing LunaDLL Let's say in this case that Section 2 is playing a custom song, and I want an event triggered midway into the room to start playing Section 3's custom song. How would I get the event to do this?

Unless I'm being dumb, the help links in viewtopic.php?f=36&t=14271 this thread don't seem to work, so I can't really suss LunaDLL out myself other than the "create a text file" part, which is where I assume the codes would go.

If you use the devkit that Horikawa has provided, all you have to do is create a file called "lunadll.txt" in your level folder.
A common method of triggering code in LunaDll is making the SMB axe invisible and placing it where the player will run into it. Once they do, the NPC dies, which you can use to your advantage by typing in

Code: Select all

// Run this code in section 2
#2
// If the axe NPC does not exist anywhere in the level, execute custom command 1000
IfNPC,178,2,0,1000,0,once

// Custom command 1000
#1000
// Play music from section 3
PlayMusic,0,3,0,0,1,0

In other words:
1) Check everywhere in the level for an axe (NPC ID 178). If it can't be found (this is what the 2 means in the command) execute command in #1000. The "once" means this will be triggered one time, then delete itself.
2) When #1000 is executed, play the music that is contained in Section 3 after 1 frame (basically immediately). Note that this command is triggered in Section 2; the result is that the music will change from Section 2's music to Section 3's

This only works if you have only one axe in the entire level, though. If that isn't convenient, there is a command called "TriggerZone" that calls a custom command when you enter a rectangle that you define. You can see how to use it here: http://engine.wohlnet.ru/docs/Collected ... unaref.txt. Just replace the "IfNPC" command with it.

[Willhart]

Let's talk about this later, mm'kay? It's almost 11PM here and I'm too tired and can't understand what y'all are talking about.

Without lua or lunadll, you can probably still extend the section and use the one-way screen scrolling to prevent access to anything on the left. You will still need the future version of the devkit, if you want to try the complete version of the game yourself later. Good thing that raocow will play it too.

Edit: or you can use one way, jump through blocks like clouds or bridges to prevent going back to previous door. The default smbx does not really have other solutions to my knowledge.

[Mystick]

So, umm, UHHH, starting my level today.

Poor rejected level names :'(

I Don't Consider Blooper to Be Clumsy or Liars, but I Understand Those Who Do.: I'd probably had done a tropical kind of level with Blooper statues pointing you into the wrong direction.

Tame the Bob-Omb, but Don't Forget to Mix it All Up: a level involving Bob-Ombs (DUH).

Penitent Bullet Bill of the Zebes Castle: wtf

So I Started Off with a Romantic Boo in the Mushroom Kingdom, but I Got a Little Distracted...: I'm really, REALLY tempted to take this level name, spend five minutes on the Romatnic Boo storyline and then do whatever I want because I got "distracted", but where's the fun in that!?

Oh yeah, one of my songs doesn't start immediately; it begins after a few seconds of silence. Is it a glitch? Something I did wrong, maybe?

[Hoeloe]

If you use the devkit that Horikawa has provided, all you have to do is create a file called "lunadll.txt" in your level folder.

I really, really, really recommend not going into LunaDLL. You're making things hard for yourself if you do. Use LunaLua instead. The code is more readable, easier to manage, more powerful, and generally better in just about every conceivable way.

Here is the Lua code that should do exactly the same as the LunaDLL code posted before:

Code: Select all

--execute this code when section 2 is loaded
function onLoadSection1() 
	 --get a list of all axes in section 2
	local axes = findnpcs(178,1);
	 --if there are no axes in this section
	if(axes == nil or table.getn(axes) == 0) then
		--Play music from section 3 (note that in LunaLua, sections are from 0-20, not 1-21)
		PlayMusic(2); 
	end
end

P.S. -- is the comment marker in Lua, so anything after a -- is not part of the code, but a comment telling you what's going on.

I really encourage people to use LunaLua, especially if they're just learning, and to not encourage newcomers to use Autocode over it. Kil has admitted that Autocode was a language he designed in half an hour to make things easy for himself, and was designed to be more like the NPC config files. It wasn't really designed from the user end, but to make the compiler easier to code. Seriously, work with Lua some and you'll start to realise what I mean, and please, if you're new, don't bother learning LunaDLL's Autocode, just jump straight into Lua. Autocode is programming in hard mode.

[Sorel]

Sometimes, when the used MP3 file takes up a lot of space (with that I mean, very much. High end audio quality + pretty long length usually cause this.) the player needs some time to load the MP3 file. Other than that, no idea.

Also Hoeloe, while I do understand that Lua is way easier to use, there is no need to shove it into peoples faces when they rather wanna use LunaDLL. Leave it up to them to decide and see what fits their preferences better.

[Hoeloe]

Also Hoeloe, while I do understand that Lua is way easier to use, there is no need to shove it into peoples faces when they rather wanna use LunaDLL. Leave it up to them to decide and see what fits their preferences better.

It really infuriates me, that's all. I can see why those who are familiar with it would want to keep using it, but encouraging new people to do the same when there is a better option is what gets to me. I'm mostly concerned that we'll miss out on some great stuff because Autocode is way harder to get to grips with, and a lot of people will shy away from doing anything interesting with it. I know I did, and I program in a variety of different languages for a living.

If it were something that were about preference, then I wouldn't be pushing like this, I just want to make sure people see that LunaLua is actually objectively better, from a usability and language design standpoint. The only reason you'd really want to keep using Autocode now Lua exists is because if you're already familiar with Autocode, it will take some effort to make the switch, and I get that not everyone is willing to do that when they already have the tools at their disposal.

[ohmato]

I really, really, really recommend not going into LunaDLL. You're making things hard for yourself if you do. Use LunaLua instead. The code is more readable, easier to manage, more powerful, and generally better in just about every conceivable way.

Here is the Lua code that should do exactly the same as the LunaDLL code posted before:

Code: Select all

--execute this code when section 2 is loaded
function onLoadSection1() 
	 --get a list of all axes in section 2
	local axes = findnpcs(178,1);
	 --if there are no axes in this section
	if(axes == nil or table.getn(axes) == 0) then
		--Play music from section 3 (note that in LunaLua, sections are from 0-20, not 1-21)
		PlayMusic(2); 
	end
end

P.S. -- is the comment marker in Lua, so anything after a -- is not part of the code, but a comment telling you what's going on.

I really encourage people to use LunaLua, especially if they're just learning, and to not encourage newcomers to use Autocode over it. Kil has admitted that Autocode was a language he designed in half an hour to make things easy for himself, and was designed to be more like the NPC config files. It wasn't really designed from the user end, but to make the compiler easier to code. Seriously, work with Lua some and you'll start to realise what I mean, and please, if you're new, don't bother learning LunaDLL's Autocode, just jump straight into Lua. Autocode is programming in hard mode.

I do agree with you, LunaLua is generally better. I just figured that I would just give the shortcut that autocode provided assuming that changing music was the only thing you were trying to do.

[Willhart]

You should really work on better and more complete tutorials then. Navigating a wiki is hell.

[Hoeloe]

You should really work on better and more complete tutorials then. Navigating a wiki is hell.

That's a good idea, I may do that when I get a bit of time.

The Wiki is a bit painful, but still easier to navigate than a single text file with a huge list of information.

[ohmato]

Even if autocode somewhat restricts what you can do, I think it's better if you just want to do something quick and dirty rather than have to learn the ins and outs of Lua just for one task. I switched to Lua when I figured I wanted to add more complex stuff.

[Hoeloe]

Even if autocode somewhat restricts what you can do, I think it's better if you just want to do something quick and dirty rather than have to learn the ins and outs of Lua just for one task. I switched to Lua when I figured I wanted to add more complex stuff.

I think you need to know about the same level for either. If you're doing something simple, it's a copy and paste job for either, the only problem is, as Willhart has pointed out, there's nothing to copy and paste from with Lua. I'm working on rectifying that now.

[Sorel]

Well I can see from where youre coming at, but think about this scenario:

You're an IT teacher and you just got a new group of pupils who want to learn programming in general. You got plenty of different languages to choose from, but the 2 best ones are:

A language that is pretty easy to handle, but offers less functions and whatnot.

and

A language that is not as easy for beginners, but has a lot more capability.

What would you choose?

What my teacher did was to choose the beginner language, which is just inconvenient at best (you need to do so many pointless things, like doing a semicolon after every line except for functions, or using curly parantheses for every method, function and If-else structure. It's frustrating as hell sometimes when you forget to do one.) And that would be kinda like our case here: Looking at LunaDLL tutorials, it's actually quite easy to do when you understand what to do exactly, while in Lua, everything requires a bit more thinking instead of copy-pasta everywhere and can take a few more lines of code, but has a lot more capability.

It really depends on what you're used to, in my case it was Lua, but for some it's LunaDLL.

[Hoeloe]

A language that is pretty easy to handle, but offers less functions and whatnot.

But that's exactly what I'm trying to get people's heads around! LunaDLL is NOT EASY TO HANDLE. It's painful, awkward, poorly designed, and just not helpful to the user! Sure, if you want to copy and paste something, it works just fine, but so does Lua.

I'm trying to get people to understand that both Autocode and Lua are programming languages, in the same sense, but Autocode is programming in a way that was never designed for humans.

[Willhart]

Even if autocode somewhat restricts what you can do, I think it's better if you just want to do something quick and dirty rather than have to learn the ins and outs of Lua just for one task. I switched to Lua when I figured I wanted to add more complex stuff.

I think you need to know about the same level for either. If you're doing something simple, it's a copy and paste job for either, the only problem is, as Willhart has pointed out, there's nothing to copy and paste from with Lua. I'm working on rectifying that now.

Giving a quick solution is way better than a good one, now that there is only a week to work on a level soon. You have to play with the ideas when they are fresh. I may have spent two days on getting the music fading and some CinematX to work with lua, and it did not really do good for the work flow.

thinking of doing something other than what I already have with music. anyone know some place with nice ambient music that is also free maybe?

Here are links to some websites that offer free music.
http://videogamecaster.com/royalty-free ... and-sounds