coderusa

Knocking out a bunch of stuff for the GUI. The left side panel is now dynamic and can display different menus (stats, inventory, equipment) by clicking one of the respective tool bar buttons at the top of the GUI. Can flip thru the menus almost like tabs, and can show/hide the needed controls on the fly or automatically, as needed. 80% of the existing button controls are programmed and functioning. Inventory use in free roam mode is functioning for curative items. Working on the same for the battle mode. Equipment handling is complete. You can view and change your equipment. Can view player stats and abilities (As well as displaying ability info in text display by clicking the "Info" button. Chests now have items in them, can be opened (with spacebar) and the item found is displayed in the text display and added to your inventory. You can talk to NPCs with the action button (currently spacebar) still working on this, but it does function. About The Demo: I'm working diligently to get a demo together. There are some changes and new stuff I need to add to the turn-based battle mode, and considering maybe throwing in a active battle mode as well for the demo (not sure yet, active battle mode is uncoded territory at this time). There is also a bunch of sprites and images that I need to draw, expanding the map and developing the in game world graphics and flow. Once I get to a good stopping point in the code, I plan to focus on cranking out new sprites/animations for the demo.

PROGRESS UPDATE 10/17/2023 Noticed I've got my first two youtube subscribers, if its anyone on here, thank you! Been buried deep in the code of this project lately, getting stuff done. Been working on expanding on the free-roam mode. Also been working on the GUI. I've made the empty space (some of have seen) on the left side of the GUI in a multi-purpose panel, that shows/hides controls depending on the button pressed in the tool bar. Also been building up the items/equipment features and adding some new graphics and and icons. More to come! Quick screen recording in the spoiler.

Quick Update: Code stuff mostly, haven't done much new in animation department yet. Been working on the file system structure of the program getting everything where it needs to be in the directories and getting the directories created and lightly preparing some of the finished stuff for FileInstall(), compiling etc. Putting together some more functions/snippets from working pad/scrap files into the main program code files. Also restructuring and cleaning the existing free-roam code to fix a couple bugs in that system as well as preparing for coding some new stuff. Have gotten a good chunk of the little things out of the way. More to come!

Thank you. I feel that doing this will really help enable customization and modification. Currently the images and graphics and such are not stored in a ROM file only data values, I haven't figured out how to put everything together in a single package for a ROM, thinking about something like WinZip for this, or making an automation script that will install the files properly into the game directory when loading up a new ROM. Graphics/images are currently dropped into a image library folder and accessed/loaded as needed and specified by Filename organization code that allows for swift image handling and swapping. The ROM data specifies everything needing to run the loaded game. The ROM data values, are currently stored in a Ini file, which works really really well for data values, as I can use IniRead() to pull the needed static data values from the ini file on the fly (without needing to assign variable/arary), while other dynamic data values are assigned to variables or arrays. In the distant future I plan to use Data Maps for the stuff that gets assigned to variables/arrays, but right now switching autoit stuff around so that I can use the data maps causes major script breakage, as Im currently using Autoit 3.3.8.1, and SciTE Lite which neither of these can use the Data Maps without changing to full SciTE or current AutoIt version), was quite a frustrating process so I've put that on the back burner for now... Later on down the road I plan to publish explanations of everything and how the system works, just need to get more of it done first lol.

Update! Refined and put together the entire battle animation code and have it running a lot smoother now. The battle system also works fully from start to finish, as far as turn cycling and damage/HP calculation. Still have some glitches in animation that need to be smoothed out (later). Also tweaked the free-roam mode a little, made walking speed faster and played with more boundaries (overlapping and can't walk over objects). I definitely need to make better walking/running animations, and may also increase the distance-per-step when walking in free-roam. Next, I'm just going to spend some time tying up some loose ends, and getting some other things functioning before diving into more uncoded territory. There is a good deal more stuff to be done for free-roam mode, as well as battle mode (And future alternative modes of battle), also need to start getting used to Reaper and its Cockos Synthesizer to start making some sounds/tunes for this. (We'll see how that goes haha!) Also put together a (much better) preview video (in spoiler below). I used ShareX (recommended by @TheDcoder) for screen recording this time, and finally figured out the Kdenlive editor so no more CoolCut water marks! I'll bounce back and forth between ShareX and OBS for future video stuff. (Game and non-game related!). I posted video link short cuts in the original post of this thread as well as below. (And again, YouTube quality sucks)

Progress Update Animation aspects of battle mode are more or less in place, shaky but improving. Working on smoothing out some kinks and adding more animation stuff. Have a few bugs to work out that are causing some of the animations to be a little jumpy on screen. (You can see in the video when opponent goes to defend an attack using a force field ability). Will be tackling that next. I've also got to add in the rest of the mathematics for HP and MP calculation, and to reflect that result in the health bars. I think after that, as far as code goes for this "arcade" battle mode, the base process for that will be done. (Still need to draw a bunch of stuff too). Once I have this done, I'm going to work on finishing the GUI and getting the rest of the interface to a more operable state. Also added a shortcut to the screen recording at the top of the original post in this thread. PS @TheDcoder ShareX is cool, but I still like OBS better I'll play around with ShareX some for the next screen recordings.

Oh yea, I downloaded it but never installed it, I'll install it here in a bit and play around with it and let you know. Yesterday I had already spent too much time mucking around with editor programs that it slipped under the radar, as my desire just to get something put together was slowly turning to frustration with how many confusing editing programs are out there lol

I uploaded the video manually through the youtube website. I only used coolcut for editing this because it was the simplest video editor i could find. I've also got kdenlive but its very confusing and i havent learned it well enough yet, and wanted to post up some screen recordings. lol (using OBS studio for screen recording) PS For this interested, CoolCut is a decent program. If you buy the full version it won't leave a water mark, and it does screen recording and video editing, but I've not used the screen recorder, OBS studio has the best screen recorder I've used so far.

Preview Video Available! Nothing too fantastic yet, the game is no where near finished, but I threw together a quick video of some screen recordings. I'll post the 3 links of the video, take your pick. The patreon or directly from my website are the better video quality options. (Patreon video is public/free no subscription required) Some of the graphics are definitely a bit choppy, but I know what to do to fix that. I've currently got this split up into multiple sections for easier working, but when i combine everything together its smooth Only getting better from here! Video links in the spoiler!

Spent the weekend making animations and putting more of the battle system code together. It's coming along. Making the animations is quite time consuming (even with Aseprite). I've got another screen shot but the forum thing says the file is too big I'll have to downsize the file and try again later. Decided to make a note of the source size. As of 9/19/2023 over 5500 lines of code across the entire project Here's some compiled animations

Progress update, I have a good chunk of the battle system code knocked out. Moved some GUI controls around also. Need to draw and finish some more animations for performing selected actions. I have the battle panel working as far as action selections go, and it will switch the applicable options between attack and defense. Currently, the program waits for player input before proceeding (With attack and defense turns). For this battle mode, which I'm calling the "arcade mode" will be turn based battle, but on your defense turn, I plan to add a timer so if you goof around too long on your defense turn to decide to defend, attempt a dodge or take attack, the opponent will attack anyways, catching you off guard. I also have a rough mock up of the damage and stats calculation.

A little progress today, have the battle system engaging properly, this particular mode chooses who gets first strike randomly. Other modes will use stats or other values to determine first strike. Setting up the "battle panel" which will appear and disappearon the left as needed, as well as switch between the attack turn controls and the defense turn controls. Also idle battle animation code is done and loops properly without losing GUI response. I think I'm also going to move the text display over to the right so that it fits nicely under the GDI canvas, and moving the stuff on the right over to the opposite side. Also thinking I may do away with the user and friend list boxes and instead use a treeview.

I don't chat much on IRC, anymore just idle. I'll chat with a few people, most of the time that I am active I'm chatting in the espernet minecraft channel with a few of the other regulars there. Out of all the networks I idle or visit, the espernet minecraft channel is one of the most active I've seen lately. Aah, you get that with the younger generations, even my own! You know, I've call it Autoit and refer to it like that in speech, but several tech/programming people I've conversated with in person say it like Auto-IT and I guess when I'm typing the muscle memory to the shift key is just there lol

Very true, though a lot of servers I used to frequent have disappeared. Bigger ones are still around. Nice to see younger generations involved with an old programming language. I'm not too old, born in '86. I'm not too impressed with "current" Freenode. I used them long ago for a while but left (probably about the same time as a lot of other people, I remember there being a bunch of drama on Freenode making me decide to leave.) Since I've restarted the project with AutoIT I've been there in Freenode #AutoIT. Upon joining that network, I was immediately harassed and banned by staff because my user name resembled an administrators name as well as someone else who apparently "attacks" their server. After confirming with them my IP address did not match any of their abuser records, they let me back in, but the staff there hasn't been the most pleasant. They also seem to get flooded a lot, which has me thinking I may leave that network again. I also idle on Libera and added #AutoIT to my channel list there staffer JonathanD and I used to chat on a different server and he invited me to Libera, tho as most IRC relations, we rarely chat lol. A Few more people in Libera #AutoIT. I've never heard of OFTC, I'll have to check them out. EsperNet hosts the official volunteer tech and help channel for Minecraft, they also (used to?) run a game server for Minecraft, IIRC one of the first game servers for the game. Not entirely sure if they still have a game server or not. I've heard (but not seen documentation) of a falling out with EsperNet and the Minecraft team.

Thank you, I'm hoping that people will like it. Interest gained, is a valuable thing. The description may be a little vague but as I get closer to a demo I'll put up more descriptive info, I want to leave a little bit of the experience, 'untouched' so to say. Nice! It is rare to find fellow IRC user's these days, but yet you go to some biggernetworks and there's chats with 500 people in them lol. I started using IRC in the OG TalkCity days, back in 1998-2000s when the Star Wars chat's were huge, for the upcoming release of The Phantom Menace at the time. I idle in the Freenode AutoIT channel, it's not registered anymore, has one user (or bot named "LinkMaster") who idles in there, I just need to catch it when the bot times out randomly so I can /hop the channel and try to re-register it to hold it for people here to use. (IDK if that will work but ChanServ says channel isn't registered) My main IRC jam is EsperNet, Been chatting there 15-20ish years, I was there before their Minecraft fame, but they doubled in size when they got involved in Minecraft. I also float around some other servers. Feel free to drop me a PM if you want to know a full list of servers I frequent. I've also got a (currently dead and empty) chat on Esper, project IRC chat details can be found on my main webpage right up at the top of the webpage. (I don't want to be too spammy!) Edit: I also made the original version of this project years ago with mIRC script, I might still have it somewhere, but it wasn't that great. Extremely simple design, text based, very little graphics but it more-or-less worked.

I see that now, it's called Akami now. I have quite a few IRC buddies who are recommending to use Linode/Akami, as they all use it and have had no issues and only sing praise about the product, but everyone's experiences will be different. I've got to wait on more funding before I leap into a nice hosting plan so I have time for plenty of consideration and research, but in my list of considerations is Uberspace, Tux Family and Linode. I'm leaning more towards Tux Family as they appear to be very FOSS friendly. Thank you, I've not displayed much of the artwork to the public as of yet, and I'm glad to see that people are liking it. This art style seems to be working, I personally I am satisfied with the results, as I've little experience with drawing graphics with a mouse on a color grid. Initially I was using a combination of MS Paint, Paint 3D and GIMP to draw and compile images and animations. I will say this, the Paint 3D on windows 10 is phenomenal. I wish this was a thing about 25 years ago when I would play on with the MS Paint on my uncle's Windows 95 PC. I absolutely love Paint 3D's capabilities, especially considering its a piece of stock windows software. The old process takes too long. It would take several hours to complete just one sprite drawing using this method. I recently purchased a program called Aseprite. Oh man, what a program! It's not only sped up the drawing process, but allows me to do 80% of the work in one application. I still use MS Paint and Paint 3D effects for designing textures and such, if you look at the screen shots the grass and sand textures were made with the oil brush in Paint 3D, which, surprisingly, IMO made a very good looking grass and sand texture, but this combined with the versatility of AutoIT script makes me wish I had originally chosen this language for the project! You are absolutely correct. In my time searching through this forum, I've found that UEZ is almost a celebrity around here, and in fact I learned how to use GDI+ and designed the graphics code for my program based off of a GDI+ example script I found from UEZ as well as some help from Andreik. I'll have to dig around to find the link again and share it in this thread! There will definitely be a Thank you and shout-out section somewhere in this project that will include several user's names from this forum as well as a thank you to the whole community itself.

Managed to figure out how to get the SSL working thru the *.000webhostapp.com so now there is at least one link that is SSL. Looking at Linode for hosting, also looking at Uberspace.de. Also here's a couple sprites that I've converted to GIF. The animation I may not use in the actual program, just something I drew while practicing this art style I've managed to develop. Being able to use GDI+ in the script is very helpful.

I could use Let's Encrypt with my 000webhost just not for free. They've engineered the free hosting in a manner to where you are completely locked out of all SSL controls as well as SSH and root access (blocking SSH programs and CertBot utilities), and deny third party SSL requests (As they did with the SSL I purchased with my domain). The only thing they give you is a built-in web file manager and they allow FTP access, though my FTP client will not stay connected longer than a minute before the connection times out with a time out error. I've adjusted the time out settings, keep alive settings, web control panel settings and used the "repair" feature in the web control panel with no changes. If it manages to stay connected, if I try to access console commands it boots the connection. So far, everything I was able to do before on 000webhost has changed. They give you a spot for free but if you want to do anything with it, they make you upgrade. Not to mention their "discord help page" is a dead link and clicking on any of the "live chat" or support features leads you to the please upgrade page. I will definitely be moving to a different host in the not too distant future. You have found one of my concerns in this project, interest. I have been thinking on it and I think going open source would definitely be the best route. I will definitely go the GPL route or modification. I am wary of being too restrictive because I know that modification and customization is the fore-front of this project, and thinking about it, having it closed-source would definitely not be wise. I also do want to try the "content creator" kind of thing, but this alone will not be the only article of content available, and I don't want to be the cliche creator "Hey guys please subscribe and buy my merch" I want my stuff to be entertaining, useful and enjoyable without too much pressure on the users to subscribe or donate, if you're cool with the people you don't have to ask for their support. They'll do it because they made their own decision based off what I've presented to them.

Thank you for this info, I'm currently using 000webhost which used to be really good about 15 years ago IIRC, I used to the use them for everything, but now setting up this website my current experience with them has been less than stellar. They used to have free SSL and SSH access, now all I can do is FTP (not even SFTP). Anything I need thru them I'll have to purchase an upgrade thru them (Even for help support!), but my current experience has me wanting to shift somewhere else. I purchased a domain for 1 year and a SSL for year 1 but 000webhost now does not support third party SSLs, and their own SSL is about 5x the cost of the SSL I had originally purchased, just got a refund on original SSL and will have to find another. I do plan to upgrade to paid hosting (not necessarily thru 000webhost, but they used to have some good products.) I will check out your suggestions and consider a move. Also, while I'm sticking with my purchase of the domain name, the domain registrar, NameCheap, is terrible. Just setting up the DNS records to point to the right place was an aggravating process that took an entire day of being led in circles by their help system. It was due to their poor help documentation that sends you in circles with no real solutions. Reviews are full of people complaining about that, hind sight is a powerful tool when you read reviews AFTER you purchase haha. I'm still debating on the open source aspect, honestly. I do want to protect my intellectual property as its slowly starting to become an investment now (software and web purchases.) Perhaps some suggestions will arise. I've been thinking about having all demo's open source and any finished versions the source code would be available to supporters (if i ever get any lol!) I'm open to ideas about open source, but I also want to protect my project from those who would want to rip it apart. The code iteself works, and so far has been relatively stable and haven't passed 14% CPU, but the code will definitely need to be refined and smoothed out. I'll go thru the code before I release anything to the public, but any suggestions on what other people do with their projects would be greatly appreciated. I attached a screen shot I took of the work I'm doing last night, setting up a basic battle system. This particular battle "mode" will be turned based (like the old Nintendo RPGs) but I also want to add in a free-form type battle system where there's no real turn base you just go in and start swinging using strategy combined with abilities lol After the battle system is finsihed and stable, I need to spruce up the GUI and finish the chat basics then I'll be able to start putting together a demo. (No idea how long any of this will take, in my own mind when I restarted this project I figured I would have a demo out by now!) What you see here is just me developing the battle mechanics and setting up animations, like the "ready bounce" you see in a lot RPG battles. I'll have to compile some of the sprites into GIF animations and share them. Turn rotations and the "battle panel" there will house your abilities, will use a dynamic GUI button to hide/show respective buttons, but also will be adding a command line aspect for the "legacy" users, so you could click action buttons in the panel or execute the commands thru a command line,

10-15-2024 In Development The creative hiatus had ended and development in motion, see recent posts for updates. From 4-15-2024: I've severely pumped the brakes and come to a creative hiatus on the project and have returned to the drawing board on many aspects of RPGenerator, including, foremost, the graphics as well as the over all code used. The autoit concept demo that's currently available here is being discontinued due to many reasons that have led to this decision, based on various difficulties or my own dissatisfaction/frustrations with aspects of the project and where it stands. What's in the plans? Right now I'm developing a scriptable and modular IRC core software with Python, with this core software I plan to make the RPGenerator hub IRC bot (as mentioned previously, this part is still happening, but instead will be developed purely in python.) Autoit comes in with client programs for windows users which will be a user side chat client that features some completely redesigned graphics and is built to connect and interact with game hubs being hosted by the python bot. As far as the autoit side of this project is concerned, it has been scrapped and slated for a complete start over with autoit. Official production continuation of RPGenerator is planned to begin October 2024 I'm also migrating stuff and remodeling my 'brand' thru GitHub and Patreon, which will include software, other digital products/media, and maybe one day merch. Who knows. Do not worry, RPGenerator will be back and better than ever! Mode60 Official Website (m0de-60.github.io) Version 0.01 Concept (STILL AVAILABLE) DOWNLOAD: RPGenerator/windows-concept-game at main · m0de-60/RPGenerator (github.com)

You're absolutely right. Right and wrong are perspectives and not everyone's perspectives will be the same. When you come forward with "controversial" information that is against a forum's common belief, it is usually not greeted well. It doesn't matter what the forum is about, the mentality is the same: purists set in their ways. Nothing wrong with that, just makes people hard-headed and over confident of their own methods. Most of the stuff I find myself looking for on this forum is oooold and forgotten (like the AutoIT IRC channel), if I was in a library I would need a feather duster for the AutoIT section! 🤣 Someone comes along, years later, with innovative ideas or methods for discussion and everyone's hair gets ruffled. I'd have to say I should've been more expectant, it is a forum community after all 😁 (Gotta love it!)

I'm starting to think you do not understand what I'm trying to say. So by what the help file says, any variable set inside a function, without using Local/Global, will be destroyed when the function ends, as I stated before. I can't help it if you can't read a snippet and get a basic understanding of what it does just by the functions and description available (the other users understood it, you seem to be the only one who doesn't understand). I'm not having any issues here using this method, and the point was to share with other users that people shouldn't be so "hesitant" or "scared" to use something in a an experimental way., just because a 10 year old forum thread says its a bad idea with almost no documentation on why, isn't good enough for me. I've given multiple examples and shown multiple uses for Assign() and Eval(), more than what I found searching for on this topic. 🤭

But again, to the point, regardless of how its used, I fail to see the useless complexity in using Assign() and Eval(), and even then there is little difference in coding effort between those functions and using arrays. The greatest part of AutoIT is UDFs. You can expand upon anything you want and create your own system, isnt that the point of programming? Or is it to follow a set guide and form so people don't thumb their noses at your work? If it works, it works. You tell me.

Variables are automatically destroyed after the script finishes with them, unless they are called on the global scope, correct? So any memory used is released once the variable is finished being used, correct? (According to help file). The variable name isn't what's important it's the way in which I found to use them. There's more than one way to skin a cat and everyone like's their own brand. What I see is a unwritten "form" that has to be adhered to otherwise you're an idiot, even if someone -thought- of a different way, its not the beaten path so better not.... I see that a lot in all aspects of programming (and other things too). Learn the way then find your own way!

Total CPU usage hasn't passed 14% on my machine. To achieve what this script already does with just arrays the code was longer and it would not execute properly in a loop and had to be spread out in a bunch of if statements. Arrays are great, but for what I need in small portion of code, it works perfect. The benefit here is 1) Not having to deal with array subscript range errors and 2) No repeating statements. I suppose it would be more understandable if I post the entire source, but not doing that until its more complete.