Frustration with stamps

Okay, I have about had it with this stamp function. It's not working like suggested in some threads I have read, and I've tried to do just about everything else except for change the format of the file being used as a 'stamp', but I don't believe that really is the problem. Is there a certain way to work stamps or what? What EXACTLY am I supposed to do?
Thanks.

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-The ZeroWarrior

Quote

Originally posted by zerowarrior150:
**Okay, I have about had it with this stamp function. It's not working like suggested in some threads I have read, and I've tried to do just about everything else except for change the format of the file being used as a 'stamp', but I don't believe that really is the problem. Is there a certain way to work stamps or what? What EXACTLY am I supposed to do?
Thanks.

**

What happens exactly when you have it place a stamp.

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Thanks,
GrahamVH
graham@warcraftcentral.com
Coldstone Developer (url="http://"http://www.warcraftcentral.net/legends/main.html")http://www.warcraftc...gends/main.html(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by GrahamVH:
**What happens exactly when you have it place a stamp.

**

Nothing! That's exactly the problem!!!

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-The ZeroWarrior

Quote

Originally posted by zerowarrior150:
**Nothing! That's exactly the problem!!!
**

Stamps are placed at pixel co-ordinates and not tile co-ordinates. Are you sure that the stamps are not being placed somewhere you are not looking? With 32 pixels per tile, a stamp at tile 37, 104 should be placed at 1132, 3296. Since the top left corner determines the placement you have to subtract one tile dimention from each co-ordinate to get the placement right.

Also, in the stamp editor, make sure you actually enter the stamp with the "+" sign before you click on "OK." This is unfortunately an error I've made too many times myself.

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My Doctor said I was having too much wine, women, and song - so I gave up singing because 2 out of 3 is not so bad.
The (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/")Kingdom of Garendall(/url) sectional map is easily printed from gif format pages.
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl/damsels.sit?path=pog/addons&file;=damselsV1.1.sit")Damsels in Distress(/url) - A plugin for PoG.

Quote

Originally posted by Rubber Ducky:
**Stamps are placed at pixel co-ordinates and not tile co-ordinates. Are you sure that the stamps are not being placed somewhere you are not looking? With 32 pixels per tile, a stamp at tile 37, 104 should be placed at 1132, 3296. Since the top left corner determines the placement you have to subtract one tile dimention from each co-ordinate to get the placement right.

Also, in the stamp editor, make sure you actually enter the stamp with the "+" sign before you click on "OK." This is unfortunately an error I've made too many times myself.

**

I don't believe that is the problem, but I am going home now and I 'm going to test this, but I don't believe that is the situation. How exactly are stamps supposed to be used, and how are they really used, maybe I have to start my question from there?

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-The ZeroWarrior

Quote

Originally posted by zerowarrior150:
How exactly are stamps supposed to be used, and how are they really used, maybe I have to start my question from there?

Stamps place a picture (tree, house, fence, well, etc.) or animation (smoke, waterflow, etc.) on a map. Everything that is not ground tile is either a stamp, an item, or an NPC. The layer on which the stamps are placed determines whether the hero can walk over them or behind them.

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My Doctor said I was having too much wine, women, and song - so I gave up singing because 2 out of 3 is not so bad.
The (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/")Kingdom of Garendall(/url) sectional map is easily printed from gif format pages.
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl/damsels.sit?path=pog/addons&file;=damselsV1.1.sit")Damsels in Distress(/url) - A plugin for PoG.

Quote

Originally posted by Rubber Ducky:
**Stamps place a picture (tree, house, fence, well, etc.) or animation (smoke, waterflow, etc.) on a map. Everything that is not ground tile is either a stamp, an item, or an NPC. The layer on which the stamps are placed determines whether the hero can walk over them or behind them.

**

Yes, so I was correct as I thought. Now I started to try what you had suggested, and I had remembered what I was trying to find out: I am trying to use the actualX, actualY function for the stamp, but it is not working. I had also noticed where there isn't any action that you can just say play animation, and that is excactly what I am looking for with regards to the player contact and death portions for an NPC. Any other insight would be helpful.

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-The ZeroWarrior

For a stamp to be placed at actualX, actualY or playerX, playerY I think you have to create two new globals. Let's call them stampX, stampY.

Player contact event:
Change global - stampX = playerX multiplied by 31.
Change global - stampY = playerY multiplied by 31.
Stamp control - place stamp at stampX, stampY.

NPC death event:
Change global - stampX = actualX multiplied by 31.
Change global - stampY = actualY multiplied by 31.
Stamp control - place stamp at stampX, stampY.

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My Doctor said I was having too much wine, women, and song - so I gave up singing because 2 out of 3 is not so bad.
The (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/")Kingdom of Garendall(/url) sectional map is easily printed from gif format pages.
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl/damsels.sit?path=pog/addons&file;=damselsV1.1.sit")Damsels in Distress(/url) - A plugin for PoG.

Quote

Originally posted by Rubber Ducky:
**For a stamp to be placed at actualX, actualY or playerX, playerY I think you have to create two new globals. Let's call them stampX, stampY.

Player contact event:
Change global - stampX = playerX multiplied by 31.
Change global - stampY = playerY multiplied by 31.
Stamp control - place stamp at stampX, stampY.

NPC death event:
Change global - stampX = actualX multiplied by 31.
Change global - stampY = actualY multiplied by 31.
Stamp control - place stamp at stampX, stampY.

**

Oh! Globals need to be used? Well, this has solved half of my problem, but the other half remains:
I am working on matching up the death animation with where the enemy NPC is, and I sort of trying to launch a sprite in that position, more importantly, a 'death animation, because fading away is basic. I'm going further than that, if Coldstone permits. Also, can the player contact be set up to show a hurt animation, or is that not possible with this function? I hae made some headway, rigged a mickeymouse-like multiple character test, after weeks and weeks of testing, manipulating, etc. it worked ( Just to let others know how 'ambetious' I am, just for two characters, with different stats, different exp, different portraits, and with one exp, and its about 45 globals). Thanks to myshkyn, I think I have made my health bar, and I have been making some progress otherwise. But I still have a lot to go. Stamps are one of them. Another is to get rid of the stall in the spell cast. Any help suggestions, comments, let me hear them.

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-The ZeroWarrior

Okay, this isn't working, how would you change the stamp so that its exactly on top of the old pic of the NPC? Is there a way? I thought I had it, but it's not working.

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-The ZeroWarrior

What's happening that shouldn't at this point, or what should be happening that isn't? It would seem to me that Rubber Ducky's proposed method would work just fine (though I would multiply by 32 rather than 31...) - what's the problem?

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'You can either be on the stage, just a performer, just going through the lines...or you can be outside it, and know how the script works, where the scenery hangs, and where the trapdoors are. Isn't that better?'
-- T. Pratchett

Quote

Originally posted by Glenn:
**What's happening that shouldn't at this point, or what should be happening that isn't? It would seem to me that Rubber Ducky's proposed method would work just fine (though I would multiply by 32 rather than 31...) - what's the problem?

**

Here is the problem as best as I can explain:
You have a spider, lets say. I' ll represent this as this:

0

Now when I do RD's method, it works but does this:

(NPC)
0 0 (Stamp)
Well, that might not have helped, but basically there is no way to perfectly place the stamp on top of the NPC animation, but next to it, if you know what I mean. Another thing: can you make a eight way 'death animation' from this? So when you are facing north, the creature dies north, and when facing east, the creature dies east? I hope so, since that is a main function of my game. Thanks for the input so far though. And yes, I thought RD's method he proposed was just what the doctor ordered, but there is no way right know I see that you can perfectly align the stamp to fake a death animation, but is there? Is there something I'm not seeing?

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-The ZeroWarrior

Placing a stamp is mathematics. Take a guess at the difference between the NPC and the stamp in terms of pixels. (Usually each movement tile is 32 x 32 pixels.) Now go back and adjust the math formula which determines the final stampX, stampY co-ordinates and try again. Or . . .

Since the visual representation of the stamp is affected by the amount of white space around the actual image, and a stamp is placed according to the top left pixel including all white space, you can also adjust the placement by trimming or increasing the margins of the stamp picture. This may take a few tries to get it right, but it sounds like you are almost there. If you can see both the NPC and the stamp, you just have to get them closer together.

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My Doctor said I was having too much wine, women, and song - so I gave up singing because 2 out of 3 is not so bad.
The (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/")Kingdom of Garendall(/url) sectional map is easily printed from gif format pages.
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl/damsels.sit?path=pog/addons&file;=damselsV1.1.sit")Damsels in Distress(/url) - A plugin for PoG.

I was also hoping for a death animation for an NPC. I was thinking that if I place in a conditional that when the aggressive NPC reached a certain low stamina range (if I can't place it as a death event), that I would replace (&&Actual;) the NPC with the dying NPC (in the 8 directions and as passive). And have at the end of the dying animation a "kill me" so the NPC fades away. Actually, when the NPC fades away, I plan to place an item. Unfortunately, I haven't tried this yet.

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-- Debra
Danillitphil Productions
(url="http://"http://www.danillitphil.com/graphics/index.html")www.danillitphil.com(/url)

One of the problems with placing a stamp over an NPC, especially if it needs to be "just right," is that NPC position is not fixed within the movement tile. An NPC animation typically has 8 directions and several frames per direction. Depending which frame the NPC is on at the time it can vary its pixel position by up to 31 pixels in any direction. So placing a stamp exactly on an NPC can be frustrating.

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Quote

Originally posted by Stark Bledfast:
**Placing a stamp exactly on an NPC can be frustrating.

**

Hence the name of this topic 🙂 . But on a more serious note, I have gotten to to be (at least I think it was) one pixel by one pixel off, but it's got to be a tiny more than that, because it is a little more away than I believe one pixel should be. Also, how can this problem be 'minimized' (not Solved), would less directions and less frames do the trick? Right now I've been experimenting with the spider that is eight directions, with I think about 6 frames of animation, but the final outcome will most likely be four directional, four frames. Why can't I launch a spell upon death or have the NPC use an item? I've tried this and no luck.

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-The ZeroWarrior