[Ohrrpgce] Feature: Secondary, stationary overlay

[Bob the Hamster]

On Tue, May 17, 2005 at 01:08:36AM +1200, TeeEmCee wrote:
> *jolts list (hopefully) back into discussion*
> 
> Here's the idea:
> 
> An extra layer (on a per map basis) above overhead tiles but below
> textboxes, strings, etc could be used by designers to display icons
> and useful info such as current weapon, or bars for status
> indications. I think this would be a pretty cool feature, and prevent
> alot of pain caused by trying to do this with npc's. People could even
> put black bars at top and bottom for a wide screen effect :D
>
> After the regular overlay is drawn, a second overlay could easily be
> added with another drawmap call in displayall with transparency. The
> second overlay could be stationary by using fixed map coordinates, or
> even using special 16x10 scroll and pass arrays (The memory could come
> out of limiting the size of any maps with this feature to 31840
> instead of 32000).

Although I agree that would be cool, I would be concerned that it would 
result in pretty serious slowdown, especially in DosBox, where 
screen-drawing is the speed bottleneck.

> I think not using special arrays would be preferred, because it adds
> bloat, but otherwise people have to set aside an area of the map for
> the overlay, where tiles with O set are drawn, but this definitly
> makes manipulation with plotscripting easier.

Keeping data in separate arrays is only a few bytes more bloaty than 
hacking the data into one existing array-- and the simpler code would 
make up for those few bytes.

> Now, what would be really cool would be the ability to specify some
> npc's to be drawn over this layer (mouse cursors, prehaps?)
> 
> Related, I'm wondering why, throughout the code, instead of simply
> using the commands setpassblock and readpassblock (which are in the
> assembly code, and just need to be added to allmodex.bi), instead
> scroll() is swapped with pass() and the commands for reading/writing
> maptiles are used.
> 
> TMC

do setpassblock and readpassblock get used at all? *checks* Oh, yes. I 
see that they are not used. I am not sure if I had a reason for doing 
that or not. Using them would be worth it if it results in simpler code 
overall.

---
Bob the Hamster