I've been at it with TGF and now MMF2 and I've always wanted to somehow allow users to create their own modifiable grahpics or 'skin sets', if you will, so as to allow for maximum customization. You know, to add a level of depth to the gameplay.
I've been programming for MMF2 for a while, now, so there aren't many ideas that are new to me. I've created a full-length game, an open development engine with a level creator, etc., but still the only way I've found to use external graphics in-game is using the "Picture" BG object.
If there's an extension or a very complex method to get this to work, I don't really care. I'm willing to sit down for a week or so just to get this to work for my newest project. There are only two things I'd like to make sure of with this process.
1. It can support transparency.
2. The hot and action spots remain in their proper places on the original active object.
Please, if anyone has any pointers, help me out here.
Just to clear things up, I want to make animations import from external files when they're played, or refer to them. So that when you're done creating the game, the user can modify them to whatever they please or download a character mod set of animations.
And the last time I imported animations and changed them afterward in the .bmp they didn't take effect in the game.
Ee gad! I think I found my solution: the AlphaChannel Object!
It allows you to load BMP, JPEG, and GIF files externally, as well as PNGs with variable transparency. And you can attach any movement type to the object.
Now I know what I have to do. The only thing left to answer is.... how do I get it to load externally? When I bring up the dialog to load alpha/image from external PNG, all I get is the ordinary "enter value for your expression here," type dealy. Should I use the file object in conjunction with this? Either way, I'm going to test it out and tell you guys what I come up with.
Get it to get the value from a text box (edit object). Appdrive$ + appdir$ + (whatever the user inputs or whatever you have planned).
Actually, it would be better if theres some folder in which there are all the pics for a sprite. You can make sure that everyone names the walking frames properly, etc. e.g, Walk_001, Walk_002 and so on. The same should be the case with other animations.
That way, all you ahve to do is when a certain button is pressed, a certain picture is loaded but from a user defined directory.
E.g,
Right is pressed --> load pic, appdrive$ + appdir$ + (USER DEFINED FOLDER) + Walk_right_001.gif
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