Creation/Dev/Releases/Client/2
From Graal Bible
Release date
January 2001 for Windows
2
no 2/3/4 player mode anymore; we want to concentrate on the online mode; this will also help in reducing the ressources needed by the game and in removing some bugs; with the 2/3/4 player we also removed the support for save games (F2/F3), and you can't select your character in the starting window, servers will provide character selection levels
new tutorial levels
in the controls window you can change the keys and buttons, just click on it (right mouse button deletes it)
bush rupees and pot hearts are server-side
you can do 'warpto <accountname>' (if you are a GP)
on the minimap / playerlist you see red bubbles for admin messages, green bubbles for guild messages and blue bubbles for mass messages
in the editor you can do flood filling by pasting a tile / an object onto the level and pressing the right mouse button (shift+right mouse button: only fill full objects); if you haven't selected something then the right mouse button with fill the area with the background tile
there are new deep water tiles where you can't swim
new script commands: These commands are good for making a day/night thing and showing lights (see the included light2.png which can be used as corona (setcoloreffect)) They doesn't cause lag, but you can only see it when you have a 3D card (like Riva TNT). * seteffect red,green,blue,alpha; (default 0,0,0,0) This if for day/night, by increasing alpha to 0.5 or so you can make the game darker; changing the values for red/green/blue will cause some nice effects too * setcoloreffect red,green,blue,alpha; (default 1,1,1,1) If you change one of these values to something <1 then the npc image will be drawn using alpha blending; By changing red/green/blue you can change the color of the image (so you can use light2.png for red lights, green lights etc. without needing another image); By changing alpha you can decrease the brightness of the npc image * setzoomeffect zoomfactor; (default 1) Zooms the npc in or out. The npc will stay centered at the same position and have the same blocking radius, so this is only for effects * drawaslight; draws the npc above the daynight effects area (between drawoverplayers and the stats) * changeimgcolors index,red,green,blue,alpha; (default 1,1,1,1) changes the alpha transparency / color for the image (see setcoloreffect for more); * changeimgzoom index,zoomfactor; (default 1) changes the zoom factor for the image; color and zoom effect are not transferred to other players so changeimgcolors and changeimgzoom only work locally
new Graal animation system using *.gani files
* With setani and setcharani (script commands) you can change
the animation of the player or the npc, instead of only
using the default animations that are changed by accessing
the variable 'sprite'; that variable still exists but will
be mapped to def.gani which contains all of the old
animation steps (0..40); its also possible to still read
'sprite', the game will then try to convert the current
animation to the old sprite number system, e.g. when the player
has the animation walk.gani then reading the 'sprite'
variable will result in values between 1 and 8 depending
on the current animation step; new animations will always
be mapped to 0, but you can get the current animation by
using the #m message code (if (strequals(#m,walk)) ...)
* There is an editor for gani files named 'GraalShop.exe',
you can set the file association in the windows explorer
to make it easier to open gani files; but you can also
edit gani files with text editor
* Syntax:
setani <aniname>,param1,param2,...;
setcharani <aniname>,param1,param2,...;
Example: setani walk,; sets the walking animation
defined in walk.gani. A gani contains informations
about sprites and where to put them in which frame.
The gani format:
1. Starts with some control commands:
* SPRITE 0 SPRITES 0 0 24 12 shadow
=> sprite_index image_file x y w h description
this defines a sprite
* sprite index: is import for the animation part of
gani file which will be described later;
each sprite must have an unique sprite index
* image file: can be
* BODY HEAD HORSE SHIELD SPRITES PICS
(those images will taken from the current player),
* PARAM1, PARAM2, ... (are set with setani/setcharani),
* myimage.png (direct filename)
* x,y,width,height: describe which part of the image
should be drawn
* description: only for the gani editor
* DEFAULTPARAMxxx newsword.png - tells the gani editor
which image should be used for PARAMxxx (it can also
be a number when you want to use the parameter to
give a sprite number to animations)
* COLOREFFECT 20 1 1 0 0.99
=> sprite_index red green blue alpha
sets the alpha transparency / colors for the sprite
* ZOOMEFFECT 20 5
=> sprite_index zoom
sets the zoom factor for the sprite
* LOOP - loops the animation
* CONTINUOUS - doesn't restart the animation when you
call setani/setcharani again
* SINGLEDIRECTION - all four directions use the same
animation steps
2. It follows the animation in
ANI
...
ANIEND
The animation normally contains 4 x animation_step_count lines
of sprite defintions. Each line contains of a list of
sprite positions:
sprite_index dx dy, sprite_index dx dy, ...
* sprite index: the defined sprite with the specified sprite
index should be drawn (can also be PARAM1, PARAM2 etc.)
* dx: horizontal difference to the player-x coordinate
* dy: vertical difference to the player-y coordinate
After each frame (which means 4 lines in normal animations
and 1 line in a SINGLEDIRECTION animation) you can add following
commands:
WAIT <waittime> - repeats the last frame <waittime> times
PLAYSOUND <soundfile> dx dy - plays a wav file from position
(playerx+dx,playery+dy) (that defines the posititon where it
sounds loudest); this actually works like the npc command 'play'
so you can theoretically play midis or avis but that is not
recommended
* See the existing gani files for examples, e.g. idle.gani for
a very simple animation (it only contains one step)
* The gani format has a lot of advantages:
* it means less network traffic (because you can replace tons of
showimg with one call to setani/setcharani)
* you can do a lot more than with showimg
* it's easier to make complex animations with it
* in the online mode the player animations look less
laggy because the animation continues even if the
connection is slow
* you can hear what other people do like they were playing
on your computer because sound effects are included in
the gani file
* you can change the default player animations like dead.gani
files are now automatically downloaded again from the server when they have been updated on the server
wavs are downloaded from the server too
when weapon names start with - then you can't see them in the weapons list (might be good for system npcs)
new npc script variables playerhurtdx and playerhurtdy when the player is hurt (otherwise they are 0)
new npc script commands 'setgender' and 'setchargender' (paramters: male / female)
new npc script command setmusicvolume left,right; both values can be between 0 and 1
signs are dynamic now, you can use message codes like #n in the signs, unknown characters are drawn using a windows font; there is a new message code #K(action) which tell you the key names for the keys (0-up, 1-left, 2-down etc.)
head,sword,shield and body images are saved in the right folder (levels/heads, levels/swords etc.) instead of levels/webgifs
before you can drop items with S+A it checks if there is no wall in front of you
the npc script command 'stopsound filename;' works now
there is no error message anymore when you open a file by double-clicking on a .graal file in the windows explorer (file association)
the script command 'continue' works correctly in while-loops now
jumping into links shouldn't stuck you
invisible npcs are non-blocking
DirectSound and DirectDraw are dynamically loaded, when there is a problem with DirectDraw then the game gives you an error message and closes correctly
fixed a bug that happened when you do if (playerenters) setlevel <currentlevel>;
playerlist section 'Staff' instead of 'GPs', there you can also see LATs and FAQs now
2.01
levels are preloaded when you walk on the map
when looking on the map then a special animation is set so that other players can see that you are reading the map
showimg should work better, artefacts should be removed
when you pause the game then things are still animated, bombs explode
when you change the chat text of the player with the script command setplayerprop #c,text; then it doesn't disappear immediatelly, it will be shown for 3 seconds
in scripts you can do if (playerdies) ... to do stuff when the player dies (timeouts doesn't work when you are dead)
when the player is hurt then you can detect that in scripts by doing if (playerhurt) ... you can read the variable playerhurtpower to get the amount of power that the player lost
a bug with testnpc is removed
new script commands: * hitobjects power,x,y; hurts players/npcs/computer opponents that are on the specified position; this works exactly like the sword so this should be used for weapons, instead of the hitplayer command which gives the attacker to much advance; we will probably need to wait with using it till all people have v2.01, and v2.00 is disabled * openurl2 url,width,height; opens an url in a window but in a different way: it uses the same thing that is used for the server MOTD and PM history, so it should open faster, and you can set the size of the window; remove the leading http:// from the url
2.02
Version v2.02 brings new things for customizing the player (e.g. hats), making signs with images, and doing string parsing in npc scripts. Of course there are also bug fixes.
Restrictions for free servers: Because we want players to upgrade the accounts, we have put some limits on free servers. This includes light effects (seteffect, setcoloreffect etc.) and complex ganis. 'complex' means ganis (animations) that are not default animations and do more than just display an image. Things like skip.gani are allowed, fishing.gani not. Using the hat thing is not allowed.
support for hats and similar things: When opening the gani editor (Graal Shop) you will see new edit fields for 'Def. attr1', 'Def. attr2' etc. These work similar to the PARAM1, PARAM2 etc. thing, but they behave different in Graal: while the values for PARAMx is taken from the parameters that you use in your setani and setcharani script calls (setani shoot,wbow1.gif; is setting PARAM1 to wbow1.gif), the ATTR1, ATTR2 etc. is read from the players account. You can change it with setplayerprop #P1,...; /setcharprop #P1,...; You can currently use 5 gani attributes. Since it is saved in the players account, it doesn't need to be sent to the other players each time the animation is set which is causing lag when used in a movement animations
Here an example for setting the hat of the player: setplayerprop #P1,hat0.png;
the guilds listed in the staff section of the playerlist can now be changed by serverowners
the HTML window now has a panel with navigation buttons for back/forward/stop/refresh/home you see that window when the server message of the day is displayed or when a script calls the openurl or openurl2 functions
when the options window is open then the game is not freezed anymore (was used to cheat/block players)
NPC scripting
you can display images in signs using the message code #i: a sign with the text
Touch this to enter: #i(door.gif)
will display the door.gif at the end of the line. It doesn't check if the image is larger than one line, so you might need to add spaces in the following lines so that the image doesn't overlap the text. You can also only display a part of the image:
The nicest head ever - #i(head19.gif,0,64,32,32)
This displays the part of head19.gif starting at position (0,64) with a widht and height of 32 (ninji face looking at you)
string parsing functions There is a bunch of new functions and message codes to support string parsing: * strlen(str) - length of the string * startswith(part,str) - tests if 'str' is starting with 'part' * indexof(part,str) - gives the position of 'part' in 'str' (-1: doesn't appear in 'str', 0: str starts with it) * #e(startindex,length,str) - extracts a substring out of str; when length is -1 then it takes everything after startindex till the end of str * #T(str) - removes the spaces at the beginning and at the end * tokenize str; - divides the specified string into tokens, e.g. tokenize I am happy!; will produce 3 tokens (I, am, happy!); text inside " " is taken as one token, so tokenize hello "Mr. Bear"; will produce 2 tokens (hello,Mr. Bear) * tokenscount - gives you the count of tokens produced with tokenize * #t(index) - gives you a token * tokenize2 delimiter,str; - while tokenize always uses spaces and commas, you can add more delimiters here, e.g. tokenize2 o, Yoshi is cool; will give you (Y,shi,is,c,l)
when doing setstring flagname,; then the deletion of the string variable is sent to the server
setting/unsetting/changing a flag that starts with 'local.' is not sent to the server
when using setplayerprop #5 to set a horse or when having a horse from last login to the server, then the bushes count is set correctly
you can now set string variables that contain commas, when you do setstring myflag,1,2,3; then you will add a flag 'myflag=1,2,3' instead of getting a syntax error
commands that we forgot to mention: * disabledefmovement: turns off the normal player movement and behaviour; this is good for making new player races or things like skis; if you only want to temporary disable it then use the freezeplayer command * enabledefmovement: enables it again
the script debugger (F6) gives you a list of the script functions of the selected npc; you see it under the drop down list for npcs; when selecting a function then the script panel will scroll down to it this is good for easier navigation through a script
keydown(index) is always false when the player is paused
new flags issparringzone and nopkzone
Graal Shop (Gani editor)
correct detection for if the gani has been modified
correct behaviour of the 'loop' and 'continuous' flags: the animation is stopped when at the end and not looped, and a continuous animation is started when not running and clicking on 'Play'
edit fields for the new gani player attributes
('Def. attr1', 'Def. attr2' etc.)
General bug fixes
objects are drawn in correct y-order when near level borders
the map viewing animations are set correctly (only when you stand still or sit)
when you play on a server with npcserver and you switch to another server then you will be able to see npcs
the texts 'Map' and 'Others:' that you see when viewing the map can be changed in the languages/languageXXX.txt now too
when pressing R to view the sparring ratings of players then the rating is not displayed over npcs
2.021
the speed cheat protection shouldn't close the program when there was no cheating
when opening the history of someone you will not see the web navigation bar
better hacking protection
the server knows the language of the client, that way there can be translation of signs and what npcs say (on servers with npcserver)
2.03
New script command: triggeraction targetx,targety,action,params; This is one of the commands that give you like 50% more scripting power than before. It is like a combination of hitobjects and callnpc, but better. With 'triggeraction' you invoke an event to the object on positon (targetx,targety). If the object is an npc, then the npc script is called with the flag 'action<action>' set, when the object is a player then the weapon scripts of the that player are called with the 'action<action>' flag set. 'params' can be one or more parameters, divided by commas; the called script can read the paramters by accessing the message code #p(paramindex). Because this is hard to explain with words, here some little examples:
* trigger player weapons You can easily do a weapon which freezes the other player:
if (playertouchsme) toweapons Freezing-Weapon;
if (weaponfired) {
triggeraction playerx+1.5+vecx(playerdir)*2,
playery+2+vecy(playerdir)*2,freeze,;
}
if (actionfreeze) {
freezeplayer 3;
setplayerprop #c,FREEZED;
}
Both players must have this weapon for making it working. Then use it on the other player, and he will be freezed, because a 'freeze' action is sent to him and his weapon script, called with flag 'actionfreeze', will freeze him. You can also move the if (actionfreeze) ... into an system npc so the weapon can be used on all players. Other nice things you could do with triggering actions on players: a stealing weapon which lets the other player loose gralats (if (actionsteal) lay2 greenrupee,... ); complex attacking weapons that use your own hitpoint system instead of the default hearts thing
* trigger npcs
Until now npcs can only react to 'playertouchsme' and
'washit', other things are very hard to do (e.g. the
mining on Graal2001 was made by checking periodically
what animation the player has and before which stone the
player stands). You could do callnpc, but this works only
client-side and you needed to pass parameters with
flags.
Using 'triggeraction' you can make those things much easier.
The mining axe could have the script
if (weaponfired) {
setani jaxe,hammergold0.png;
triggeraction playerx+1.5+vecx(playerdir)*2,
playery+2+vecy(playerdir)*2,mining,#v(axepower);
}
If you now use the weapon on a stone, the stone npc could
check this so:
if (actionmining) {
axepower = strtofloat(#p(0));
this.power -= axepower;
if (this.power<=0) {
setstring uncraftedgold,#v(strtofloat(#s(uncraftedgold))+1);
hide;
}
}
With this thing you can also easily do switches which are
activated with the hammer, or torch lamps which are turned on
by using a torch on it.
* actionpushed, actionpulled The game automatically triggers the actions 'pushed' and 'pulled' on an npc, #p(0) is the direction of where to move; so you can do different things when the player tries to push/pull the npc, e.g. slower pulling, or opening a door.
New script command: move dx,dy,time,options;
dx - delta x
dy - delta y
time - time in seconds
options - cachingmode (0,1 or 2) + blockcheck (4 or 0) +
informmewhendone (8 or 0) + applydirection (16 or 0)
This moves the npc without needing you to update the
position of the npc 'manually' by changing x and y.
To move an npc 10 tiles to the right, then 10 tiles to
the left and again, just do following:
if (created) {
while (true) {
move 10,0,4,0;
sleep 4;
move -10,0,4,0;
sleep 4;
}
}
This moves the npc 10 tiles to the right, then waits 4
seconds, then moves it 10 tiles to the left, then waits
4 seconds, and repeats this endlessly.
The good thing is that this also works with server-side
npcs and makes them look like they are moved on client-side.
There are also nice options to makes things very simple:
* cachingmode:
* 0: previous movements will be finished immediatelly
* 1: movements will be cached, the previous movements
will only be finished when the cache is too large
(distance to go >5);
this caching can be used on server-side npcs to
make the movement look like non-laggy even when
there are little delays sometimes
* 2: the movement will just be appended to the movement
list; you can add up to 100 movements
* blockcheck: add 4 to the options when you want the
npc to stop when there is a wall blocking the npc
* informmewhendone: if you add 8 to the options then the
script will be called with a 'movementfinished' flag
when the the npc has stopped walking; catch this event
with
if (movementfinished) {...}
if you want to do something when the npc has stopped
(e.g. walking in a different direction)
* applydirection: add 16 to the options if you want the
game to automatically set the direction of the npc
depending on the movement direction (can be good
when using movement caching)
on remotecontrol and npccontrol you can use new chat functions, commands start with /, you can get a list of available functions with /help
when you play on a game server with npcserver and an npc leaves the current level, then it is displayed in the new level instead of being hidden
script functions vecx(dir) and vecy(dir) which are a replacement for the 'dirgo' variables used in many scripts; e.g. for direction 2 (down) the functions vecx and vecy give you 0 and 1; normal npc movements can so simply made by x += vecx(dir); y += vecy(dir);
script functions onmapx(levelname) and onmapy(levelname) to get the position of a level on the currently set map
the game uses in-game code to compress/decompress again instead of using zlib.dll because it has been abused
if you press the shift key while clicking on Start or Turorial in the starting window, then the game will start in fullscreen mode
new script flags 'playerreading' to check if the player is reading a sign, and 'lighteffectsenabled' for checking if the player can see the light effects and day/night
fixed bugs when using numbers for #P1
fixed bug with reading animated interlaced gifs
2.04
This version contains major improvements in the game engine.
Sound
PARAM1 enabled for the PLAYSOUND command in gani files, also message codes can be used with the script command play;
You can make an animation that plays differnet sounds/tones, so this makes it possible to create instruments
Animations
replacegani aniname,newani; Lets the player use a different animation for walking, swimming etc. You can do things like replacegani walk,mywalk; if you want the player use mywalk.gani as walking animation (instead of writing your own walking script); This takes only effect till the player logs off, so you must put it in a system npc or so; its not lagging; The default animations are: idle,walk,walkslow,kick,sword,ridesword, spin,push,grab,pull,lift,carrystill, hiddenstill,carry,hidden,shoot,ridestill, ridefire,rideeat,ride,sit,sleep,hurt, ridehurt,dead,maps1,maps2,maps3,swim, lava,carried To reset the default animation just do replacegani walk,walk; etc.
Using replacegani you can do things like holding a torch while running (*olympic games*). It's only allowed/enabled for upgraded servers.
Tiles
addtiledef tilesimage,levelstart,type; uses the file 'tilesimage' in replacement of 'pics1.png' in all levels that start with 'levelstart'; type: 0-old graal, 1-new order(description later)
addtiledef2 tilesimage,levelstart,x,y; this is similar to addtiledef, but only replaces a part of the tiles image; its like putting an image on top of the tiles image (normally pics1.png), this is good for replacing the default chair or lamp or so; this supports animated images, but keep in mind that all tile replacements must be hold in memory and be animated, so better only use it in the levels you need it; These two commands are very powerful and are only enabled for upgraded servers.
removetiledefs levelstart; removes tile definitions for levels that start with 'levelstart'
support for object sets, saved in the tileobjects folder and selectable in the editor
NPC layers
setshape type,pixelwidth,pixelheight Sets the shape for an npc. It already existed on the npcserver, but is usefull for client-side stuff to. type is the the shape type, the only one supported is 1 (=rectangle); it makes the npc behave like a fixed rectangle, no matter how big the image is or if its already loaded; to set it back to default do setshape 0,0,0;
setshape2 width,height,{tiletypes,...}
Lets the npc behave like a level, which means you can set
what size it has (in tiles) and how the tiles behave;
e.g. do setshape2 2,2,{3,3,3,3}; to make an npc that behaves
like a chair. Following tile types are supported:
0 nonblocking
2 hurting underground
3 chair
4 bed upper side
5 bed lower side
6 swamp
7 lava swamp
8 near water
9 near lava
11 water
12 lava
20 throw-through (fences)
21 jumping stone
22 blocking tile
attachplayertoobj objecttype,id; Attaches the player to an object, currently only npcs are supported (objecttype=0); the id must be the id of the npc you want to attach the player at when the player is attached, you can do if (playerattached) to check if he is attached; new player attributes playerattachid and playerattachtype; new variables levelorgx,levelorgy for getting the origin of the level/npc where the player is in
This command is good for all kinds of layers or moving objects, together with the setshape2 command you can do levels-in-levels things. It can be used for bridges, ships, baloons, platforms in quests. Don't forget to detach the player when he should go back to the normal level. The position of the player is not saved when he is on such an npc. This command is only allowed/enabled for upgraded servers
detachplayer Puts the player back into the normal level
Showimg/show text
showimg colors,layer, and zoom is sent to other players (even when the layer is 4, then only values between 0 and 440 allowed)
showing text with showimg you can do showimg 1,@Hello!,x,y; do show text; setting font and style is possible by doing showimg index,@font@style@text,x,y; (style: characters from 'bicus', b-bold, i-italic, c-centered,u-underline, s-strikeout); for change the view of the text use the commands changeimgzoom,changeimgcolors
showimg works now server-side, layer 4 works too
weaponscount variable, #w(index) gives you the weapon names, #W(index) the weapon images; you can assign values to selectedweapon to change the selected weapon of the players; use enable/disableselectweapons if you want to disable the weapon select screen (Q)
Other features/bug fixes
check for correct tiles when lifting/eating/slaying bushes
faster search for files (lookup in the filename list)
bombs and arrows go to near levels
chat text is always displayed at least 3 seconds
message codes possible in #K() (for inserting special characters into text)
the script command stopsound doesn't crash the game when sound is turned off
2.05
This time there are mainly bug fixes.
removed the problem with memory error 2.2 (an error window that sometimes popups)
the graal window now shows the name of the server in the title bar
there is a new button in the script editor window that lets you format a text, it makes the script looking similar to the debugger screen, but is also formatting comments lines; it's not perfect but can help a little bit for understanding scripts written by other people
setshape2 supports array variables for the tilestype array instead of only static arrays
when npcs do showimg (especially on the npcserver) then showimgs will not be deleted when you leave the level, so you still see it when reentering the level where the npcs stands
playing of sounds (playlooped) is stopped when switching a server
bombs don't destroy half bushes
new file format (exists since beginning of 2000 but was only available for newworld team): The new level format is text based. If you want to edit it outside of Graal, use a text editor which doesn't wrap lines. You automatically produce a file in the new format when you save to a file with ending .nw Those files are bigger than .graal files, but because it is text-based it is easier to edit parts of it (e.g. ncp script) without opening the game, or to write tools that do changes to the levels, like adding npcs to levels. The graal servers support that file format too, the data sent to the player is the same size like when using .graal files, so it will not make the game laggier
Format: It begins with the signature GLEVNW01. It can contain following data types:
* board lines:
BOARD x y width layerindex <tilesdata>
This is one line of the background layer. 'tilesdata' has a length if w*2 characters; each tile is a 12bit-index into the tile list (pics1.png) and is encoded in two base64 characters (upper 6 bit first) base64: String = 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/' so AA is tile 0, AB is tile 1, AC is tile 2, // is tile 4095 (=0xFFF)
* level links:
LINK <destination-level> x y width height newx newy
The link attributes are the same like in the link options window in Graal. destination-level, newx and newy must not contain spaces.
* signs:
SIGN x y text ... SIGNEND
Signs may be empty, but SIGNEND must always be there.
* npcs:
NPC imagefilename x y script ... NPCEND
If the npc doesn't have a filename (invisible npc), then write '-' for imagefilename. x and y may be floating point values. The npc script may be empty, but NPCEND must always be there
* baddies:
BADDY x y type attackverse hurtverse winverse BADDYEND
'type' is the baddy name (graysoldier ... dragon ) or index (0...9). You don't need to write all 3 verses, it's also possible to only write attackverse+hurtverse or only attackverse, but BADDYEND must always be there.
* chests:
CHEST x y item signindex
item is the item name (greenrupee ... spinattack) or item index (0...24)
2.052
the script variable playerscount is fixed (was not working for npc weapons)
when you create a new level then the current background tile is used for the background (instead of a black tile)
when switching to other servers then the correct server name is displaying in the window title
openurl2 works more than one time
hidden npcs can use the command showimg
when the map is changed (script command setmap) then the new map is immediatelly applied
the little yellow hint window that shows the names of players on the minimap is hidden when you switch to other applications