What happened to 'Data'?... =S
BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Beginners Area/What happened to 'Data'?... =S
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| Hi guys, I'm new to the BlitzMax scene. I was using an old copy of BlitzBasic from a magazine, and recently bought BlitzMax =D. I am busy making an asteroids style game and I really need a substitute for the 'data' command ( i think thats what it was called? ). It's so I can make pre-written levels. How I would have done it in BB is create a data file like so: .level1 Data 2 Data 1, 50, 50 Data 4, 45, 35 where '.level1' is the level, data 2 is how many objects there are in the list, 1 is the type of asteroid, 50 is the starting x position on the screen, etc.. Then in a function called say newlevel() i would have restored and read the values and ran a for loop for the amount of objects... I hope you're still with me.. =P My question is how can I emulate this in Blitzmax? The only way I can think of is to read the values from a text file, but I'm unsure of how to do that? Or there may be a function in BMax that I'm not aware of? Your help is much appreciated! Cheers, Sam |
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| DefData and the like you mean? :) |
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| Look at 'Defdata' |
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| http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=41179 |
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| Thank you very much! Just what I needed. EDIT: fixed my problem, check out the code below and tell me if its the right way to do it? |
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| Ok, so after some fiddling I got this to work (it draws '2' little squares at the specified 'x' and 'y' coords ) --- Graphics 800, 600, 0; Type block Field x, y; Global list:TList; Function createblock( x, y ) If Not list list = CreateList(); b:block = New block list.addlast( b ); b.x = x; b.y = y; End Function End Type RestoreData level1 ReadData num; For x = 1 To num ReadData xpos; ReadData ypos; block.createblock( xpos, ypos ); Next While Not KeyHit(key_escape) Cls If block.list For b:block = EachIn block.list DrawRect( b.x,b.y,10,10 ); Next End If Flip Wend #level1 DefData 2 DefData 50, 50 DefData 300, 400 |
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| Ok, now I'm trying to implement this into my code and I've hit a snag... Is there a way I can restore data by what level you're on? for e.g ------------------- level = 2 RestoreData lvl + level #lvl1 DefData blah DefData blah #lvl2 DefData blah DefData blah ------------------- ...or something to that effect? |
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| No, restore are hardcoded links. What you have to do is write different functions or a function which you give a string that is then selected and the appropritate restore is called. In any way: I would not store it within the app unless its really about no data ... in any other case external files are much better and far simpler to handle dynamically. |
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| Cant you bung all the data into an array, instead? |
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| I've never been good with arrays big10p... Thanks Dreamora. How the heck do I do it externally? This is the last piece of the puzzle I need to figure out to get my game completed! |
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| why don't you use rand to generate the locations? it will prevent it from becoming the same old game all of the time, you will only need to use it at the beggining of each level, and it will save you from writting a lot of unnecessary code/data. Defdata can be usefull I just don't think it is that effective in a case like this. Just my 2 cents. |
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Make a text file perhaps with this format...4 1 50 20 3 60 70 2 90 80 2 10 30 2 1 10 50 4 60 80 The first number tells you the number of asteriods on the level. Then in the list you have the type of asteriod, and its x y. It's not very readable but it doesn't have to be. In your game open create a level counter and asteriod counter variable. Now open the file. The first number you encounter is the number of asteriods for the first level. So set the level counter to 1 (or 0?) and the asteriod counter to that number. The very next number you read store as the asteriod type, the next number its x and the next number its y. Then reduce the asteriod counter by 1. Loop through this until the the asteriod counter reaches 0. You've now saved the data for the first level. Increment the level counter by 1 and set the asteriod counter to the new value. Keep going through the file until you read the end of file EOF. |
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| @Jesse Thats how I had it, but sometimes it would spawn a small rock in level one and sometime a huge rock... and sometimes they'd spawn right on top of you/next to you, i didnt like that! I can see what you mean tho. Thanks Czar. I'm going to have a good look at what you suggested. At the moment I've set it up to read the values from a separate file called level_data.bmx and use a function in my game called read_level() to store the positions at the start of the level. It works well and I'm not too fussed for this game, I just want to finally finish one! I will need to figure out how to use external files for my next games tho... Thanks All! |
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| He sacrificed himself to save Picard in Nemesis. |
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| Alternatively you could use a special charector at the end of each list of asteriods (or just use the newline) so that you could add or remove asteriods without needing to update the count number. |
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this is what I did on mine to prevent asteroids from spawning just anywhere:'width = worldwidth 'height = worldheight Global LeftMax# = width/4 Global RightMin# = LeftMax*3 Global TopMax# = height/4 Global BottomMin# = TopMax*3 Function getx#() Local px# Repeat px=Rand(0,width) Until px < LeftMax Or px > RightMin Return px End Function Function gety#() Local py# Repeat py = Rand(0,Height) Until py<TopMax Or py >BottomMin Return py EndFunction I am shure different size rocks can also be managed in a similar way. |
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| sswift: dont go there... it DIDNT happen |
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